Dr Vino's wine blog

“I realize it’s subjective, but there need to be some guidelines that say, in order for a restaurant to get three stars–and I’m not talking about anyone in particular–you need to have a wine list.” –Paul Kahan (Blackbird, Avec) in a chef’s roundtable in November’s Chicago magazine. Hmm, nobody in particular? How about Micahel Carlson at Schwa, which is BYOB?!

“Anybody who wouldn’t have a wine program is leaving so much money on the friggin’ table, you’re crazy! That’s where all the money is.” –Charlie Trotter, same roundtable. How long until Michael Carlson gets a lease on a bigger location and gets a wine program?

“Beer, wine and liquor-based concoctions often have profit margins more than double those of food — making them just the ticket for a restaurant’s sagging bottom line. And the timing is right: Americans’ alcohol consumption, after dropping for nearly two decades, is on the rise again — due in large measure to recent effective marketing campaigns by wine and spirits makers.” -Wall Street Journal, 10/12/06

tags: wine | chicago | byob | wine | charlie trotter

Foster’s, the Australian brewing co that swallowed Southcorp wine for A$3.2 billion last year, announced quarterly results. Beer bolstered sagging wine and management can’t think of anything better to do with their cash than buy back A$200 mln worth of its own shares. Now there are rumors that the “world’s top two” are eyeing Foster’s–the big two brewers that is, InBev and SABMiller. Hmm, what would happen to the wine assets? More turbulence could be expected. [Sydney Morning Herald]

Also down under, but riding the wave better than their neighbor, New Zealand wine exports rose to record levels in June. We recently learned about Australian researchers using worms, this week kiwi researchers are studying how to keep that “cat’s pee” smell in their sauvignon blanc. [NZ Herald]

As Labor Day approaches, many California wineries may have trouble finding labor for harvest. [SLO]

With new tax deductions for conservation easements, will vineyard owners swear that it will be forever condo-free? One already said yes. [WBM, SPD]

Michael Mondavi finds he can’t use his own name for his new wine venture. [ModBee] A sign of the times: this is becoming so frequent that Eponymous is already taken.

Want a snack? How about a foie gras Pop-Tart? No, it’s not available at your local supermarket aisle–it’s only available at the bar at the Four Seasons in NYC. “The process was to come up with a finger-friendly way to eat foie gras,” chef Brooke Vosika told Time Out New York. Foie gras baked in piecrust and served with port wine jelly $28. Sauternes extra.

tags: wine | wine news | foie gras

Does Vijay Mallya like champagne? Apparently so since he offered $750 million for Taittinger, the sixth biggest house in Champagne. However, like his fellow Indian businessman Laksmhi Mittal who has also been recently outbid while trying to buy a French (steel) company, Mallya, who heads United Breweries of Bangalore, withdrew his bid. Credit Agricole, a French bank working with some members of the Taittinger family, sealed the deal by offering $850 million. The Economist reports that reaction in Champagne was not hostile to Mallya since locals saw India as an excellent market for growth and actually were more afraid that the house ending up in the hands of Bernard Arnault of LVMH. In the end, Starwood, the seller, benefits the most from the higher selling price. (background)

The Economist’s summer “Intelligent Life” issue is out now with an article on “bubbles and bling” tracking who, over time, has been able to afford the most expensive cuvees from Champagne. Check out my pink picks.

If you’re looking for bargain bubbly, I recently was amazed to see 1999 Moet on sale at Garnet Liquor in Manhattan for $33–less than the nonvintage right next to it! But then I found it online at PJ’s for $29.97. Wow. I’m going to party like it’s 1999. (click here for store info)

Greenpeace says that radioactive waste from a nearby power plant is a “threat” to the Champagne region. Um, cheers!?!? [Decanter]

Christian Delpeuch announced that he won’t serve an extra third year as head of the Bordeaux wine trade council. He arrived two years ago in the rotating presidency with a reform agenda and has been frustrated in his efforts to implement it. [Sudouest]

Finally, are you wondering how best to deploy your cash into Bordeaux 2005 futures? A wine enthusiast in Amsterdam has compiled a lot of info on Bordeaux into a single, neat and tidy web page. Functionality includes the ability to sort by various categories, including price, critic, and even winemaker. BordOverview.com

tags: wine | wine news | France | Champagne

While the Supreme Court set in motion a liberalization of state-level wine laws last year with its decision on direct wine shipments, the leading e-commerce site for wine was quickly–and ironically–running out of money according to boardroom dealings exposed in a San Francisco courthouse.

A story in last week’s Times Small Business column detailed the travails of wine.com. The domain name itself set a record in 1999 for wine domains fetching $2.9 million. Now it may be one of the firm’s most valuable assets.

Wine.com rolled several companies together in the bursting of the tech bubble to sell wine via the internet to consumers. By 2004, the company was looking for funds and raised $20 million, most of it from Baker Capital, a hedge fund in New York City according to the story.

A year later, the company was in a “distressed situation” according to former CEO George Garrick. John Malone’s Liberty Media allegedly offered to buy the company for $67.5 million and bring it into their stable alongside QVC, Encore, Starz, and Provide Commerce’s sales of flowers, fruit and steaks on the web. Garrick and the wine.com board contend they accepted the deal while Baker Capital invoked their veto of any potential merger. Garrick and other investors are now suing Baker Capital for blocking the deal and subsequently offering financing that diluted existing investors by 60-70 percent.

Just how much money Baker Capital decanted into wine.com in 2005 is unclear since wine.com is a privately held company. Nor is it clear whether they have righted the ship that caused $20 million to disappear between 2004 and 2005. Maybe they are on an even keel now. But if they do have to liquidate, just don’t use Provide to send them flowers.

tags: wine | wine.com | e-commerce | venture capital

That was the subject line of a recent email from Greg. I feared for the worst.

I called him on his cell phone and caught him in his distributor’s warehouse. The implosion related to a side business that he had been trying to set up to import larger volume wines from Italy that was going to be his cash cow. He was despondent.

“Forget a cash cow—I don’t even have a cash lamb at this point. It’s crazy.”

Such are the travails of trying to sell the indigenous grape varieties of Italy. Greg has high standards and only works with producers who are making wines that he describes as authentic or rustic. His portfolio consisted of just four producers but he has just had to let one go after finding some bottle to bottle variation and price increases. And the wine maker that I met at a lunch in August, Walter Fabbri, has left Basilium W to pursue his own wines. Greg supplies the winery’s popular Pipoli and I Portali wines to 200 retail and restaurant accounts so he hopes the winemaker maintains the high standards that he knew under Fabbri.

Greg’s wines include the Aglianico grape from Basilicata, Falanghina from Campania, and organic wines from Lombardy. A portfolio like this, while appealing to connoisseurs or wine geeks, can be tough to sell to a mainstream audience.

“My wines are too much of a hand sell. The market is not ready for that. Let’s talk about Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio at Olive Garden—they’re not drinking Aglianico. I hate to sell my soul but if I don’t sell something, I’m going down. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about becoming an organic farmer or going back to playing my trumpet,” he says.

“Everybody at school would have Nike; I wanted Addidas. I have never wanted what everybody else had…I just want to change people’s ideas about having to have Pinot Grigio at restaurants. Pinot Grigio 50 years ago was nothing. Tony Terlato [the American importer who built the Santa Margherita brand] was a marketing genius, like Madonna. I’m not shooting to be a multimillionaire, but I would like to get something screamingly successful.”

He may have to get some more mainstream varietals to make the business work. “Finding bulk wines is never a problem in Italy. Find the best possible bulk wines that can sell is more of a challenge. If I don’t do it, I wouldn’t be in business much longer.”

He thinks he has found a good candidate in a Montepulciano that can be available to retailers and restaurants for $6 a bottle, an attractive price point for restaurants to pour as a house wine or a wine by the glass. Montepulciano, with a long history and greater consumer awareness in the US, would be an easier sell. But it is entering a more competitive part of the market.

“There are so many wines out there. It really makes you despise the business aspect of it. I just love wine.”

Beyond the grave

Greg just got an unusual endorsement about the quality of his wines.

Greg recently got a call from Sam’s Wine saying that a customer wanted 18 bottles of Pipoli aglianico bianco and they were scrambling to fill it. Greg asked why one person wanted so many bottles of the wine and the reply came that a recently widowed woman was pouring the wine at her husband’s memorial service-at his request. In his will, the woman’s husband had specified that he wanted certain olive oils, cheeses and Pipoli bianco to be served. Greg asked if the couple had ever been to the winery and the answer was no. Greg was also out of stock on the wine and had to have some flown in from an out-of-state warehouse, such was his honor at the request.

As our call wrapped up, Greg is hoping for some more orders from the land of the living and returned to his work in the warehouse preparing samples for a trip to Las Vegas. His career may seem like a gamble to him at this point, but his passion, knowledge, contacts, experience and language ability all contribute to helping his odds.

* * *

To find Greg’s wines try Sam’s Wine and Spirits, which ships to many states or try wine-searcher to find them in IL, WI, or NV.

Breaking news: on August 9th Patricia Savoie sold Big Nose, Full Body to Aaron Hans. Pat has decided to pursue wine writing full time. We will catch up with her later to hear from her directly. Meanwhile, I went to Park Slope to meet Aaron, new proprietor of the shop…

Aaron Hans is so bursting with ideas and energy that is small wonder that his close-cropped blond hair stands straight up. But this thirty-something new owner of Big Nose Full Body has plans to tweak the shop, not give it a wholesale makeover. The clever name, the exciting range of wines, the handsome interior space, and the free tastings on Saturdays will all stay the same. But there will be minor changes including staying open seven days a week and even adding some apparel items.

Perhaps the biggest change for Aaron personally is his commute. As a sales representative for Frederick Wildman’s wine distribution he had taken as many as 10 subway trains a day to visit his accounts, both restaurants and shops. BNFB was one of his accounts and when he learned that Pat was thinking about selling he made her an offer. The five block commute for this long-time resident of Park Slope was undoubtedly a factor in his thinking.

“I’ve always wanted to own something,” he told me yesterday in the shop. An early stint in restaurants followed by a stint at a wine bar confirmed to him that he didn’t want to include food in his business. The shop seemed a good fit from that perspective too.

“You’re not going to get rich but you get to do something you really, really enjoy. I’m not stuck in a cubicle all day,” he said.

The store stocks wines from Wildman and Aaron is familiar with those. He hasn’t tasted through all the wines in the shop yet but any new wines that he adds, he will taste. He added a wine from Ridge to the store already, one that he knows and likes. The store currently gets wine from 22 distributors and he doesn’t plan on adding any more. “That’s a lot already,” he says.

I wondered, how do you value a wine shop? Aaron explained that when he purchased the shop from Pat in early August, he paid one price for the business, one price for the inventory, and the rest was thrown in as “good will.” That included odds and ends in the shop such as the racking and the computer-and even the staff. Larry, the assistant manager who was within earshot, joked that that was a lot of good will. “The staff are all great and we have no plans for changes,” said Aaron smiling.

With the busy season kicking in, he will however be buying a new computer to speed up the bookkeeping the current sluggish computer and to help with checkout. Last Saturday evening, there was a line the entire length of the shop.

In order to cope with this busy last few months of the year, Aaron has added opening hours on Sunday. Originally it was 12-6 but he said the last two hours were very busy and he felt badly turning people away. So now the Sunday hours are 12-9. Aaron says that he could easily work 80 hours a week but has limited himself to five days a week in the shop. He has to spend some time with his wife and kids after all.

Kids are clearly on Aaron’s brain. He interrupts our talk at one point to help a woman with a stroller into the shop. Given the demographics of the neighborhood, Aaron will be working with a designer to introduce Big Nose Full Body t-shirts—and baby apparel such as onesies and toddler tees.

“Who knows maybe you’ll come back next year and we’ll be making all our money in t-shirts?” he said. It’s an exciting time for him with lots of opportunities. And yes, he has agreed to continue to participate in The Real Wine World. That’s good for us!

When I arrived at Convito Italiano on Chicago’s North Shore last week for a late lunch, the sun was pouring in on Greg Smolik and Walter Fabbri, winemaker at Basilium. Given Greg’s preference for “authentic” wines that reflect their growing environment, it’s no surprise that Walter, who was only on his second trip to the US, is stocky and jocular and speaks only fragmented English. He’s no Michel Rolland being chauffeured in a black Mercedes while consulting by cell phone to over 100 wineries around the globe. He is instead a product of his terroir as much as his wines.

Walter had flown in for Italian Night at Sam’s Wine and Spirits and Greg had been running him ragged ever since he touched down. The Italian Night was packed on Tuesday night, they had appointments around Chicago on Wednesday, Thursday they went to Madison, WI to visit some accounts, returning back to Chicago late on Thursday night. It’s small wonder we had a late lunch on Friday.

Greg and I had scheduled this lunch, our first face-to-face meeting, so that I could meet Walter as well as Lynda Jo Shlaes, wine director at Convito. Although it was a business meeting, the tone was clearly convivial as Greg declared Lynda Jo “like a sister” before she sat down to independently say that he’s “like a brother.”

Lynda Jo described Greg as having star-like qualities. “He’s the only importer or distributor who comes here to pour his wines and there’s a crowd.” She regularly has free wine tastings late on Friday afternoons and says that crowds mysteriously know when it’s Greg’s day and start appearing. I wondered if they had Greg-dar, similar to radar. “I ended up putting a small sign in the window but before that I’m not sure how they knew,” she confesses. “Maybe it was the meat.”

Greg, who loves pairing food with wine, admitted to bringing grilled meats for customers to try—after first tasting the wine alone. “I love it when people are amazed by what food pairing can do,” he admits.

“Greg can easily sell 10 cases of wine in one afternoon.” Lynda Jo said. Convito is not only a contemporary Italian restaurant that has been around for 25 years but also a shop selling Italian wines and gourmet foods to go.

For our lunch, Greg had brought two samples from Walter’s winery. Both the wines, called Pipoli 2003 and the I Portali 2003, are made entirely from the Aglianico grape. Aglianico has only recently come into its own starring role (admittedly off-Broadway for the moment) but once was used to illegally bulk up the wines of Brunello, Chianti and even the Rhone, Greg said. These wines come from the Basilicata in the arch of the boot that is Italy’s silhouette on the map.

Greg also wanted us to try the Pipoli Chiaro, a white wine from the red Aglianico grape, with the lunch. So Lynda Jo brought out a bottle from her stock and chilled it in an ice bucket filled with water, ice and salt (a trade secret). The Pipoli Chiaro 2004 (about $8 retail, Find this wine) looks clear in the glass but has the heft of a red wine. I had just seen the wine director of another store the previous day and she said that she was featuring the Pipoli Chiaro in her fall newsletter as an excellent white. I agreed. It’s a white wine that has a red wine personality, perfect for the transitional weather. Greg, always thinking about food pairings, suggested meat (pork), fish (bacala), and pasta with red sauce.

As our food arrived, panini for Greg and me, a salad for Lynda Jo, and grilled chicken for Walter, we moved on to the reds, starting with the Pipoli Rosso (about $9 retail, Find this wine). The most humble of Walter’s wines, it is still hand-harvested from 30 year old vines and is an excellent value at about $10 retail. It is medium bodied and is ready to drink. Greg recommends pork, lamb or pasta for the conventional or lentils or local hot peppers for a taste of rusticity.

We then moved on to the I Portali, which exhibited more heft and for about $12 retail (Find this wine), seemed the better value red to me. The volcanic soil of the Vulture growing region in Basilicata give this wine some mineral notes but the dark fruits and soft tannins give it a lot of depth and complexity. It’s aged for 10 months in large oak barrels and 4 months in small barrels.

Walter’s top wine, the Valle del Trono (about $20 retail, Find this wine), was not available for our lunch, but I’ve tasted it before and think that it tastes like a wine worth twice the price. Walter’s 2001 vintage made only 30,000 bottles of the wine, which used best grapes from the oldest vineyards. Harvested late on November 20, the grapes received 20 days of drying in the sun (akin to an Amarone), 60 days of fermentation, and 30 months of oak aging. This wine accounts for about a quarter of Basilium’s wines.

These wines are the ones that give Walter the most pleasure but Walter uses the rest of his large vineyards to pay the bills through the production mass market wines. He grows Pinot Grigio and Greco de Tufo to sell anonymously to large buyers in the UK.

Greg has great confidence in Walter’s winemaking capabilities. And after tasting through three of his wines, it’s easy to understand why.

We left Convito to head in our respective directions, which for Greg and Walter meant heading down the road to Evanston for their next appointment and then for Walter that evening, to O’Hare, and then home.

I asked Greg to send us a couple of days from his calendar so here are two days in his life as an importer of Italian wines.

7 AM – Turn on computer, go through e-mails, make breakfast.
8:30 Calls may start from Italy with questions concerning current orders if any.
10:30-11:00 – Organize the day’s events if in town
11:30 -12:00 – Go to Bensenville, IL warehouse to pick up samples and look at inventories.
At this point if my colleague Debbie is in we can go over label approvals, stock, new distributors etc.

12:45 Another quick call from Italy
1:30 – 2:00 Quick lunch
3:00 First appt
4:30 Second appt (same wines usually)
5:30 Third and last appt – depending on if I am driving or walking the city and if I’m in the suburbs makes a difference.
7:00 Dinner meeting with colleagues or doing a tasting.
9:30 Back home on computer check e-mails
10:30 – 11:00 I will leave the computer but I usually get up at some point during the night because I forgot to e-mail or check something.

WHEN IN ITALY:
6am Wake get a quick bite and start driving to first appt:
8am Arrive at first appt sample wines talk logistics.
9:30am Drive to next appt
11am Arrive at 2nd appt taste wines have lunch at 12:30 1pm with owner or winemaker.
2:30 Start to next appt, phone all next days appointments to confirm.
6pm Arrive at appt sit down sample wines may or may not have dinner with winery.
9pm Find a hotel if one is not already reserved.
10-10:30 Go over the day’s events organize all paperwork, etc then organize the next day’s events.

Go back to The Real Wine World home page to view other segments. Send in your questions or see Greg’s previous installment or see his next installment with Basilium winemaker Walter Fabbri.