Dr Vino's wine blog

You’ve probably read about it. Or seen it. If not been there. Crush Wine Co: New York’s hottest new address for wine.

The most stunning feature is no doubt the display, an undulating 73-foot wall of backlit wines, all lying on their side. The Rieslings catch your eye as you walk in the door and it’s hard not to shuffle down the wall, head cocked to the left, taking in all the great wines, organized by varietal, as they often are on restaurant menus.

But the shop has two other eye-catching features: a sleek tasting room shaped like a large barrel on one side and a temperature controlled storage area with glass walls called “the cube.”

In the tasting room, tasting happens. While many wine shops have free tastings on Saturdays or pop open a bottle or two after 5 PM, the staff at Crush stand ready to pour at any hour (I recently stopped by at noon on a random Wednesday and was offered a taste). The tasting glasses are stylish Ravenscroft crystal vessels that you can squeeze two fingers into and not warm up the wine. On special events, such as a recent book signing or the debut of a new Mumm champagne, the stylish furniture and tables are removed from the tasting room and Riedel glasses brought in.

In the cube, a selection of hard-to-find wines runs deep, in the case of Opus One when I was there the other day, about five feet deep of six-bottle cases. With their big points and high prices, it’s nice to know this room exists but the value vino runs along the serpentine main wall.

I thought that all this cool and chic would come at a price, but there is a solid selection of wines under $15 (they claim 150) and an excellent selection between $15 and $25 (bargains for NYC). I searched the web and found their prices to be very competitive for wine shops in New York City.

Thanks to the store’s relationship with the Myriad Restaurant Group, the shop is able to score some hard to find wines. A staff member told me that Luddite Vineyards of Sonoma sold half its microproduction Pinot Noir rose to the shop and the other half to the French Laundry. Now that’s good company–but what do you expect when Drew Nieporent is a co-owner and he owns Montrachet, Tribeca Grill, and Nobu among other restaurants.

Wunderkind Lyle Fass is the wine director and rumor has it that he could be assuming more of the restaurant duties since Daniel Johnnes went to Daniel after twenty years at Montrachet as sommelier.

The shop is not an on-premises facility although if you live in the area, you might be tempted to treat it the same as a restaurant. The shop has a clever “delivery menu” with wines arranged by different types of take-out food. One call for the food, the other for the wines. Let your fingers do the walking.

www.crushwineco.com 153 E. 57th (bet 3rd and Lex) 212-980-WINE

UPDATE: See my map of New York wine shops.

Technorati tags: food & drink | wine shops | New York City

Hip and trendy wine shops that “feel the love” are sprouting all over New York City. Or so the NYT’s Eric Asimov writes in his column yesterday. Actually he worded it like this:

It is no exaggeration to say that New York has entered a golden age for wine shopping. Never before have there been so many different kinds of wine to choose from, and in so many different parts of the city. It’s a blossoming that trails similar explosions in the restaurant and food retail businesses in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. [NYT]

But it strikes me as more of a nationwide (global?) phenomenon rather than just a local story. I have a list of wine shops that catches some of the names. What are some new hip and trendy wines shops in your part of the world?

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!

Thomas Keller’s luxury restaurant at the Time Warner Center, Per Se, will impose a mandatory gratuity of 20% on all checks. Jon at amuse-bouche was on this story early, then the NYTimes, and now the story has gotten national exposure with CNN and USA Today picking up on it.

Although I am coming to the discussion late, I asked Mark Ashley, our Senior Tipping Correspondent, if American waitstaff really respond to the power of the tip:

My feelings on this are mixed. (Putting social scientist hat on.) I don’t think that mandatory tips — or even the size of the set tip percentage — have a direct correlation to service quality. Other variables are important, including the perceived status of the restaurant, the quality of the food ,the price paid, the service tradition of the region, the behavior of the customer, and others, I’m sure. I would also expect difference service levels at different types of restaurants. At top fine dining locations, in Europe or in the US, I would expect top service, whether or not tips are included. And generally, this has been the case. After all, if the service stunk, they’d be out of business. The market would take care of that… But at “family style” places, the service imperative would be weaker, so the voluntary tip might help in improving service. So by this token, a Per Se or its ilk could do a fixed service charge and the service shouldn’t perceptively change. In a Bennigan’s-esque place, or a downscale family restaurant in Europe, it might.

(Taking social scientist hat off, putting consumer hat on.) As a diner, I like choice. I like options on the menu, I like the option of giving a 17% tip or a 20% tip or whatever. Having a 20% tip be mandated for me offends me a little. It especially offends me when the justification for the change is the desire to pay the kitchen staff more. They want to take money out of the pockets of waitstaff and put it into the kitchen staff, by imposing mandatory tips? Why not just pay the kitchen staff better to begin with ? Thomas Keller must be doing fairly well, why not sacrifice some of his net margins for higher wages?

In this instance, since an overt reason for doing this is to reduce waitstaff pay, we MIGHT actually see a reduction in service… This is ham-fisted work by Keller.

I asked Pat to send us a couple of days from her calendar so here are two days in her life as proprietor of Big Nose, Full Body.

TUESDAY
7:00am Clock radio tuned to NPR…
7-7:30 Check email and answer messages
7:30-8:15 Walk dog
8:15-10:00 Breakfast, read NY Times
10:00-11:00 Pay wine invoices, other bills
11:00 Walk dog
11:15 Walk to garage and drive to BNFB in Brooklyn
12:00 Open the store
12:00 – 1:30 assist customers, receive two wine deliveries, log wines into inventory
1:30 Larry arrives (assistant manager)
2:00 – 2:30 Distributor wine tasting… representative visits store with 7 wines from Italy.
2:30-3:00 Lunch at counter in store
3:00 – 4:30 assist customers, receive 2 more wine deliveries
4:30-5 Distributor wine tasting…rep with 5 wines
5:00-9:00 Assist customers, reorganize shelves.
9:00-9:30… Close register and store
9:30-10:15…drive home to Manhattan
10:15… walk dog
10:30… have dinner in front of TV
11:00 go to bed

communting here from Manhattan

WEDNESDAY
7:00am – clock radio tuned to NPR
7-7:30 Check email and answer messages
7:30-8:30 Walk dog; have breakfast at coffee shop with sidewalk tables.
8:30- 9:00 Pay wine invoices
9-11:00 Work on wine article
11:00-11:30 Walk dog
11:30-1:30…Attend wine tasting at restaurant in Tribeca. Wines from Germany and Austria. Have cheese and bread for lunch.
1:30-2:00… drive to store where Adam has opened and received 2 wine deliveries
2:00-3:30 .. assist customers, receive 3 wine deliveries and enter wines into inventory
3:30-4…Distributor tasting in store…rep brings 5 wines.
4:00-9:00 – assist customers
9-9:30 Close register and store
9:30-10:15…drive home
10:15-11… walk dog. Stop for mexican food and margarita at sidewalk cafe.
11:00 go to bed and read wine magazine

When I walked into Big Nose Fully Body on a warm summer day last week there were three new wines on the counter: a Greek white, a French rosé, and a Lebanese red. That about sums up the diversity at this charming neighborhood shop.

If I were a movie reviewer, I’d give the shop two thumbs up, way up. Or if I were Robert Parker, I’d give it a 95. By any rating system this shop scores high. I would love to have this shop right around the corner from my house.

The shop doesn’t have an enormous selection but it does have a great selection. And with almost as many different wines as there are days in the year, and conveniently located near the F line subway station, locals should consider this their own cave. Moreover, the wines are not only ready to drink but they are priced to drink. Only a few champagnes seemed to crack the $25 mark (but there were even some sparklers for under $10).

Pat does not buy her wines from an importer such as Greg nor does she buy them directly from a producer such as Susana. Instead, she buys them from about 25 distributors who act as intermediaries between the producers and the retailers. Although she works with a couple of big distributors such as Lauber, she works mostly with smaller distributors who have niche specializations or smaller, more focused “books” as their portfolios are known in the trade.

For example, she recently had a wine from California at a restaurant and inquired about who was the distributor, hoping to get it for her shop. She learned that it was distributed by Angels Share in Brooklyn and since that’s the location of her shop, she thought it would be a snap. But in the end the distributor didn’t have a listed phone number so she put it on the back burner. A few days later, she got a call from one of the two principals at Angels Share asking if he could be of assistance.

In the end, the California wine was too expensive for her shop, but Angels Share also had some Spanish wines that she liked (including the Castillo de Fuendalejon, the bottle in the bag, which I purchased at the shop and review as my wine of the week this week).

Wine distributors in New York state offer discounts for larger orders, Pat explained to me. They quite often offer a price for one case, but then discount that by about five percent if she takes three cases. Five, ten and 25 case orders all get steeper discounts but those are rare for Pat’s small shop. The shop’s temperature controlled basement stores some wine inventory that Larry, the assistant manager, keeps assiduously arranged.

But even though it is a small shop trading on a convenient location and knowledgeable staff, the prices are still good. Pat says that sometimes she wants to stock a wine that is too expensive, she will offer at a lower price than the normal markup. And she sometimes scrounges the distributors’ lists to find any interesting wines they may be trying to move and offers those at reduced prices as well.

The distributors come and pour their wines for her to sample at the shop. If she wanted, she says that she could have as many as three a day visiting her, each pouring five or six wines. While this might be reason enough alone for some entrepreneurs to purchase a wine shop, Pat says she tries to keep them at bay until she has a gap to fill. “I taste every wine that is in the shop,” Pat said.

Since she is also a wine writer, she writes up her impressions of a wine and hangs a tag in front of each bottle. Parker scores? Not in this shop. “Scores won’t tell the customer whether the wine will go with chicken salad for lunch,” she said.

The shop’s window display (and street scene in reflection!)

Oddly enough, given her background at IBM in e-commerce, Pat never really thought about selling wine through the web. “There’s just not enough space for shipping boxes,” she explained. “Occasionally our email newsletters get forwarded and we get requests, which we try to honor, but it is logistically difficult.”

About five percent of sales are rosé wines in the summer and white wines climb to parity with reds. Before I trundled off to the coffee shop next door, Pat suggested a few summer picks:

* Routas, rosé, 2004, province, $9.
* Castello de Bossi, 2001, $16 (closeout)
* Pierre Boniface, white, vin de Savoie (of course!), $12
* Notios, Pelopennisis, 2004 (white) – just in, as yet unpriced.

Big Nose, Full Body is celebrating its fifth year serving the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Patricia Savoie started a new chapter in her life by purchasing the shop two years ago after a life-changing event: she lost her job.

Pat, a veteran of several large corporations including McKinsey, Nabisco, Cablevision and most recently IBM, specialized in strategy and marketing in her corporate life and contributed to IBM’s shift toward consulting and away from hardware. Ultimately, after several restructurings of the e-commerce consulting group, Pat was let go on September 10, 2001. She didn’t think her life could get any worse.

The trauma that New York and America felt that September left Pat doing some soul searching. She decided, as many Americans did after that fall, to pursue her passion. In this case wine had brought her much joy throughout her life. She and her former husband had joined several wine tasting groups in the 1970s and had even co-authored a book together, The Wine Tasting Course (1978).

A friend asked her to collaborate on an article for Wine Enthusiast and Pat started to think more about wine and writing. She then wrote two stories for Wine Business Monthly. But as her severance started to reach its end, she started to think more about cash flow as well as wine. Glancing through the New York Times business opportunities listings, she saw a wine shop for sale in Brooklyn. She thought, why not?

Two months later the shop was hers. The witty name and the décor of vivid blue walls and pressed tin ceiling are thanks to the original owners, a thirty-something Canadian couple who returned to Canada when they sold the shop.

But Pat has changed almost all the wines stocked in the shop, filling the store with the wines she likes, mostly from off the beaten path. The store will not have every wine from a given region, but it will have a few wines from almost any region, including Pinotage from South Africa, wines from Turkey and Slovenia, and a 100% Xarelo white from Spain.

“We have breadth not depth,” Pat told me on the phone recently. She currently has between 300-350 different wines, which makes for a lot of wine per square inch given that the shop is a mere 400 square feet (37 square meters). And with 80 wines under $10, free tastings on Saturdays, and occasional $5 bottles, it is a good place for readers of DrVino.com.

This selection and the service that Pat and her knowledgeable staff provide have led to a glowing write-up in the New York Sun, the Village Voice called the shop “the best neighborhood wine shop” in November 2004, and Saveur declared it their “favorite wine shop name bar none” in January 2005. “Now people in Manhattan may say ‘oh I’ve heard of that shop,'” Pat proudly proclaims.

Pat particularly likes two aspects of owning the shop: the customers and the opportunity to taste. The neighborhood feel means “we almost always have a baby stroller in the shop.” When a customer comes back to the shop and says “the wine was perfect,” she could not be more pleased. And being a good New York shop, they also deliver—free in the immediate neighborhood and for a fee elsewhere.

Being a shop owner means that wine distributors come and parade their wines in front of her on a regular basis. As a member of the trade, she also attends the numerous trade tastings in New York, always trying new wines. “My wine knowledge has increased a lot in the past two years,” she says.

But with the shop open until 9PM on weeknights and during the day on Saturday, Pat finds it difficult to keep up her wine writing—not to mention her social life.

I look forward to talking with Pat in the coming year about consumer preferences, labels, the role of critics and shelf-talkers, and wines off the beaten path among other subjects. I also look forward to watching her in action at a trade tasting. Should be fun stuff. Check back regularly.

www.bignosefullbody.com

June 29, 2005

What does it take to be a wine producer? Or an importer? Or a retailer? Discover the inside scoop through “a year in the life of” three accomplished wine industry professionals. In this space, we will track one year of making and selling wine in three different parts of the world and watch how they do their business and overcome challenges.

From Argentina, Susana Balbo brings 25 years of winemaking experience to her wines in Mendoza. She and her husband, Pedro Marchevsky, the vineyard manager, started their winery in 1999. The practice sustainable agriculture and export 90 percent of their wines to 17 countries. The winery is currently running near its capacity so how the manage their production, and the increasing number of tourists the wines attract, are key challenges for the coming year.

Susana Balbo, Making wine in Mendoza 6/29/05

In America, Gergory Smolik started his own wine importing company in Chicago in January 2004. He imports wines from four regions of Italy all from family-run wineries that produce only limited amounts of wine each year. Smolik believes in rustic authenticity. Prior to starting his own business, Greg was the Italian wine buyer for six years at Sam’s Wines in Chicago. In the coming year, he expects to grow his list of producing wineries and expand the availabillity of his wines in the US.

Gregory Smolik, Importing artisanal wines from Italy 6/29/05

Big Nose, Full Body is a wine shop in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, NY. The shop is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year; Patricia Savoie, the current owner, purchased the shop two years ago. Since then it has won various accolades as well as a loyal following in the neighborhood. The small, smart shop stocks around 350 wines from around the world mainly in the $8 – $15 price range. With wines from off the beaten path places such as Turkey and California Charbono, Pat says “we have good breadth, not depth” to describe her store’s offering.

Patricia Savoie, Selling the wines of the world, 6/29/05