Dr Vino's wine blog

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

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

With an unlimited budget, finding great wine is easy: proceed to auctions for the old vintages and leading shops and the wineries directly for the current releases. Yes, there are some details such as struggling to get on the latest cult winery mailing list but the general point remains the same: if price is no object, there are a lot of choices in the wine world.

What’s really hard is trying to find good, exciting wine that doesn’t break the bank. So if the household budget has limits on wine, or even if you are trying to find an expensive favorite for the lowest price, several strategies can maximize the wine dollar.

Where to shop

When bigger is better. Large format retailers drive hard bargains with producers and distributors and mostly pass those cost savings on to the consumer. However, in order to keep costs down, the range wines offered may be neither large nor exciting. If Kendall Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay is what you’re after, then Costco is the place for you.

Small is beautiful. While small wine shops are lots of fun, it can be difficult to find bargains. Usually owned by a proprietor who works on the premises, small shops can have a specialty (often a particular country). They are conveniently located either around the corner in a city or next to a supermarket in the country mall. Talk with the staff, particularly the owner, and find out where the shop’s strengths lie. And take advantage of any discounts or freebies listed below, such as free tastings on Fridays or Saturdays.

Mid-sized may be the sweet spot. The mid-sized chain has enough clout with distributors to move the goods and deliver low prices yet may not have forsaken its small shop roots. San Francisco’s The Wine Club and Chicago’s Binny’s and Wine Discount Center are some good examples of low prices and great selections.

Clicks and mortar: The internet has proven a great place to shop for books, DVDs and the latest electronics, but the full potential of the internet has not yet been realized for wine consumers. The recent Supreme Court decision will hopefully radically reshape this landscape very soon. Amazon’s recent partnership with Wine.com could be a sign of things to come in this dynamic space.

How to shop

Taste on someone else’s tab. With so many thousands of wines produced every year, consumers can be easily overwhelmed. And retailers know that. So many of them pour their wines for free! Check you local store for free tastings, often held in evenings during the week and during the day on Saturday. Tasting through all the wines at any given tasting (and yes, spitting is allowed!) will give you a better understanding of the different wine styles available, which over time, will help sharpen your own knowledge and preferences.

Take advantage of seasonal sales. Wine retailing is a business and businesses care about inventory. Certain times of the year demand is slow or new products arrive to push the old ones out the door and consumers should prey on these opportunities. Spring and fall are common times for sales so stock up. One consumer told me recently that he buys about 10 cases of wine a year for his house and buys four or five cases at the spring and fall sales. Walking out of the shop pushing a cart full of multiple cases may seem like a lot, but not only is it economically prudent, it also provides a heady feeling having all that wine (but be sure to store it properly).

Buy in bulk. Large discount retailers claim to offer shoppers “the best prices every day” and therefore don’t rely on sales. Most other shops, however, has some sort of loyalty program or incentive to have you buy more. The most common discount is after bringing a mixed case (12 bottles) to the register, the whole purchase receives a discount of 10, 15, or 20%. This is also a handy index to markups at a shop: the higher the case discount, the more you know the average per bottle price is ripping you off.

Become a regular. Wine shops can offer a “friend’s price” to regular patrons through various loyalty schemes. I recently went to a shop that offered 10% off a single bottle and 20% off cases to members of their club. The only way to become a member of the club, however, was to buy 50 different bottles of wine. This works if it is the shop near you; if you are just visiting the relatives out of town, it may be better to bring wine from home. Loyalty also has the perk of having the staff either reserve certain hard-to-find wines for you or to make accurate and personal recommendations for you.

Check for specials. Bottles that don’t sell can wind up as “bin ends.” Sometimes these are bottles that have had a hard time selling. However, use caution with these wines—a “how can you go wrong for $5.99?” attitude can end up costing you $5.99 if you just end up pouring it down the drain! Check the label for a lack of wine stains and push the cork to check for looseness, both of which may indicate the wine had been improperly stored. Discounts can also be thematic for a week or a month (for example, I recently saw “Pinot Envy” at Union Square Wines in New York in honor of the movie Sideways which discounted Pinots by all 10-25%).

Search the web. I recently bought a camera for cheap through Yahoo Shopping by plugging in the model number and then doing “sort by price.” Wine on the web is not quite at this level of pure price competition yet several search tools do bring it somewhat closer. Wine Searcher and WineZap offer buyers who are looking for specific wines the opportunity to type in a producer and a vintage, which generates multiple vendors. While many local shops may be able to ship across state lines thus avoiding sales tax, it is essential to check the shipping rates as this alone can eat up any cost or tax savings.

Let someone else carry it home for you. Many shops, particularly urban shops, have free delivery to customers in range. While it is not exactly a cost savings to get someone else carry your wine for you, it can be convenient not to have to schlep the 40 pound case any more than you have to.

Happy value hunting. Cheers!

Even though the American wine market is expanding rapidly, the writhing of capitalism still means that some wine shops go out of business.

Such is the case in my neighborhood. Which store you might wonder has replaced the independent wine shop? The Vitamin Discount Center.

What has replaced wine shops near you?