Author: Christy

I Love a Good Fiscal Year End

Originally published on September 5,2009.

There’s a video making the rounds among wine folk on Facebook called Wine Sales 101. It features little animated wine salespeople talking in freaky robotic voices about shoving overpriced, not-so-fabulous wines into the retail accounts on which they call. Sadly, it’s not a work of fiction. This conversation takes place frequently among real life salespeople in real life voices….generally at the end of every month. And certainly at their suppliers’ fiscal year ends.

As a tiny store, I don’t get a lot of these requests to bring in crap wine at inflated prices. I’d like to think it’s because my suppliers know I won’t do it, so they don’t even ask. But the real reason is I’m just not big enough to move the needle on their year end numbers.

So rather then dread the requests to “stock this schlock” that the big retailers get to contend with, I can look forward to the good things that come with fiscal year ends….like the urge to do a little spring cleaning (or winter, summer, or fall cleaning, depending on when the accounting year ends.)

This is when many importers and distributors take the opportunity to get rid of their bin ends – the random 2 cases of this, 5 cases of that taking up space in their warehouses. Sure, many of these random cases may be over-aged whites that should just be sold as fancy vinegar. But just as often, they could be very good wines in such small quantities that they fly under everyone’s radar. At least until the end of the fiscal year when most operations managers just want them to go away. Close out lists appear and eagle-eyed store owners (I prefer “eagle-eyed” to “cheap”) can pour over them, pick out the goodies, and offer the gems to their customers at great prices for as long as they last.

This is where the ever repeated adage to find a retailer you trust comes in.

Because sometimes these “get them while they last” deals are truly great deals (toot-my-own-horn-alert) – such as at Frankly Wines.

And sometimes they’re the sort of deals you can only get from freaky robotic-voiced sales people practicing Wine Sales 101. And while they may be funny to watch, you really don’t want to be drinking their wine!

Another 3-Pack: Jura Obscura

A NOTE FROM TEH FUTURE: Ok, ok, ok. The Jura isn’t actually an Alpine region. It’s pre-Alpine. Back in the day I was a little over-eager with my yodel references. The dear and brilliant Wink Lorch set me straight!

Originally published on September 1, 2009.

OK, full disclosure…this 3-Pack is really a 2-Pack. But we like consistency in titles, so live with it.

Onto the wine…continuing with the theme of Weird but Good, we’re heading to a obscure region where obscure grapes are used to make wines in obscure styles.

The Jura is a region in the far east of France – so far east that it’s practically Switzerland. We’re heading into Alpine territory here, and these are wines that make us want to yodel!

You’ve probably never heard of the Jura’s most famous wine, vin jaune, which lasts forever and has some of the same funky, tangy nutty notes as a good sherry. You’ve probably never heard of some of its most important grapes (Savagnin, Poulsard, Trousseau.) And you’ve probably never had wines that taste quite like the wines in this 2-Pack. But there’s a good chance you’ll like them.

We’re featuring a red and a white from Domaine Andre et Mireille Tissot, both made from grapes grown in the Arbois region of the Jura. Many producers in this region farm biodynamically and produce wines as naturally as possible, adding nothing except possibly a very small amount of sulfur. The Tissot husband and wife team is no exception. If you’re curious about natural wines this is a great region – and producer – to check out.

Tissot Arbois Selection 2004 (Chardonnay/Savagnin): Yes, that’s Savagnin, not Sauvignon. And you may think you know Chardonnay, but we can practically guarantee you don’t know this Chardonnay. Made in the traditional Jura style, the wine is slightly oxidized, but in a good way. You’ll get bruised apples, nutty notes, a slight sherry tang and a spine of racy acidity that keeps the wine going for days. It actually improves if you leave it open for a couple days. Yes, days. It’s a great match with stinky cheeses, chicken dishes, and pork chops.

Tissot Arbois Vielles Vignes 2006 (Poulsard): There’s some Pinot Noir grown in the Jura, but the wine geek favorite would be the rarely-seen-elsewhere Poulsard. This grape makes for a wine that’s light in color, medium in body, but big in flavor: bright, fresh, slightly tart cherries, exotic spice, a hint of autumn underbrush, and a fresh minerality, like fresh chalky soil. Bright acidity and surprisingly sneaky tannins give the wine some structure. Best with a very slight chill, it’s a wine that can pair with a surprising variety of foods, but duck with cherry glaze or lamb rubbed in fresh herbs might be just about perfect.

PRICING: $35.99 (regular price $39.98). Click to buy your little piece of obscurity.

One Classic White Bordeaux, Found: R de Rieussec

Originally published on August 29, 2009.

I found it!

Several months ago, I was bemoaning my store’s lack of a classic white Bordeaux. But a couple months ago, one walked into my shop that met all my criteria: a higher percentage of Semillon, some barrel ageing to add a bit of spice and creaminess, and little bit of bottle ageing. And it sits on the shelf at $29.99, the high end of my range, but well worth it.

The new addition? R de Rieussec Bordeaux Blanc 2004.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Chateau Rieussec is one of the top Sauternes, arguably second only to Chateau d’Yquem in sweet botrysized fabulousness. But this version, the “R” is not a Sauternes. Yes, the grapes come from the same plots of land as those that go into bottles labeled Sauternes. They may even come from the same vine – or even the same bunch. But the grapes that go into the “R” bottles haven’t been affected by botrytis, so the final result is dry rather than sweet. And Sauternes, according to French appellation laws, must be sweet. So “R de Rieussec” is labeled under the more generic Bordeaux Blanc appellation.

The only problem – the distributor will be moving into the next vintage in the near future. So unless the next vintage comes with bottle ageing already intact, I’ll be searching again.

What Wine Store Owners Do When They’re Not Selling Wine

Originally published on August 28, 2009.

When wine store owners are not selling wine (or buying wine, or talking about wine) they, or maybe just I, come up with clever ideas to put on the chalkboard signs in front of their stores.

I was feeling particularly clever today. It’s the first dreary, rainy day we’ve had in, oh, a week and this just jumped into my mind.

I fully expect to see the tourists taking pictures.

That Customer #2

Originally published on August 22, 2009.

This is the second installment in our recurring That Customer feature. Now just to reiterate (in case you don’t feel like clicking through to the original post) – “these” customers are annoying not because of anything that has to do with wine. They would probably be annoying to anyone who works behind a counter for a living. They quite possibly could just be annoying, period.

So…onto the complaining part

That Customer #2:

When we close for the night we follow this basic protocol before starting to count out for the night:

  1. Bring in the chalkboard sign
  2. Roll down the light/heat blocking curtains
  3. Dim the lights to just-barely-glowing level
  4. Lock the door
  5. Perform final closing chores

As you might guess, numbers 2 and 3 make the store a little dark. More than a little dark. More like nightclub- or trendy-bar dark. Can’t-see-the-labels dark

Now, imagine you walk into a wine store that’s this dark.

Would you think, “Gosh, this must be some new trend in wine retailing. Makes it a little touch difficult to see the prices, but hey, it’s kind of cool.”

No, you would probably think, “Oops, they’re about to close! Better hurry up.” You might even ask if we’re about to close. And we would say, “Yes, but come on in and pick something out.” We wouldn’t say “quickly” but it would sort of be implied. And you would come on in and pick something out…quickly. Because you would have noticed that we’re about to close.

Unless you’re That Customer.

In which case, you would walk into a near-dark store and just wander around slowly picking up bottles (in the dark), trying to read the labels (in the dark), ignoring our request to let us know if you need help (as we stand in the dark.)

That Customer somehow doesn’t notice that the shades are pulled, the lights are off and we’re counting the cash register out by the light of the bathroom because….we’re about to close! That Customer probably wouldn’t notice if we snuck up behind them, put a kraft paper wine bag over his head, and whisked them down the cellar stairs. Well, they would probably notice the whisking part, but nothing before that.

OK, ok…maybe we should lock the door and just not let anyone in. But sometimes a customer sneaks by just as we’re about to put our key in the lock – or appears outside just after. And it would be cruel and unusual punishment to deny someone wine when they’re so close they can practically touch it. So since most people can pick out a bottle 10 minutes it takes us to finish the other closing-up chores, we let them in. But too many times waiting for that customer to wander around in the dark….we might have to change our policy.

So please, don’t be That Customer – you could ruin it for everyone.

A Soave and a Valpolicella Walk into a Bar…

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Sadly, there is no more Dominico Selections. I miss those wines. And I miss placing orders with Terry.

Originally published on August 20, 2009.

It’s supposed to be Weird but Good Month at Frankly Wines, but I’ve been so obsessed with getting my tasting notes catalogued that I haven’t had a chance to set up a formal tasting schedule. So every Wednesday evening, we come up with something at the last minute that fits that theme. Over the last several weeks, we’ve opened wines made from obscure grapes such as Frappato, Monduese, Gelber Muskateller and Pineau d’Aunis. They taste nothing like the usual suspects (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir) which are the reference point for the vast majority of wine drinkers. On shelf talkers, I call them “Wines You Never Knew You Needed,” (which probably leads to more sales than “Weird but Good” but it’s not quite as catchy.

But this week, we did something a little differently. Rather than going for the obscure grapes, we choose two wines that are weird BECAUSE they’re good. Soave and Valpolicella are two much maligned regions in Italy’s Veneto region. Traditionally considered cheap, but not necessarily cheerful, they could be the butt of many a wine joke. But these days, there are increasingly good wines coming out of this area and we have two of them, both under $20

We’ve tooted the horn of the Vaona Valoplicella Classico before which is a fresh, floral, traditional version from a very traditional family producer.

And we’ve just recently brought back the I Stefanini “Monte de Toni” Soave after a springtime flirtation with its juicy little brother (or sister?) Il Selese. The Monte de Toni is a bit more sophisticated, with hints of the nuttiness you might find in a good Chardonnay, stone fruits and an underlying acidity that keeps it fresh. It received great Wine Spectator ratings (especially given it’s $16 price tag) and was immediately snatched up by a certain big retailer in New Jersey, but our friend Terry at importer Dominico Selections, saved a bit for us. Thanks Terry! And yes, Terry, we know, it’s time to place an order.

How to Tame Your Wine Tasting Notes

Originally published on August 19, 2009.

One of the obvious pleasures of owning a wine shop is that you get to taste a lot of wines. One of the great drawbacks is that you have to find a way to keep track of all the wines you taste.

I would love to be one of those people who can taste a wine once and fix it in their mind forever more. Actually, I do have a good palate memory – I can taste a wine and remember the general sensations. But as a wine buyer, I also need to recall the producer, vintage, distributor, frontline cost, deal structure, order minimum, and split case fees associated with every wine I taste. Or at least every wine I might possibly want to buy for the store. Which given that I have very good sales reps, is a good deal of the wines I taste. So I need a system.

Some people just type their notes directly into an electronic device of choice – an iPhone, a Blackberry, a computer. But this doesn’t work for me. As quickly as I can type (and I can type very quickly) there’s a disconnect between my palate and my keyboard. The tasting notes just don’t flow as well when there’s a power cord involved. (And there’s always the danger of dribbling on the key board.)

Some people may rely on the spec sheets provided by the sales reps. These are useful if I want to check how a producer or region is spelled without squinting at a wine-stained label. But they don’t take the place of my own notes. And most damanging to this potential system, at least in my view: it would require 3-ring binders to keep track of everything. I hate 3-ring binders and 3-ring hole punches and those little sitcky reinforcement circles.

So I’ve turned to taking notes in a series of ruled Cahier Moleskine notebooks. Yes, these little books are now seen in the hands of hipsters everywhere, but hipster coolness factor aside, they work. They’re light, they can be thrown in any size bag or purse, and they have a handy pocket in the back. This pocket is important because occassionally I can’t find my current notebook and have to scribble tasting notes on Post-its or little scraps of paper. These stray notes can then be piled on the counter and later, tucked into that handy back pocket.

The only problem with this system….I’m now on my 12th book. And while flipping through 12 notebooks filled with tasting memories may seem like a wonderful way to spend an afternoon (oh, I remember that lovely Frappato, all roses and violets and fresh spring berries), it’s not terribly productive when you’re desperately trying to find the distributor for a specific wine you had back in May, or was it April? (Actually, it was January.)

So I am now in the process of cataloging my tasting notes on my computer so I can use the brute force of a spreadsheet program to sort through 12 books of tasting notes. It would be mind-numbing, except that it is quite nice to reflect on all the wine I’ve tasted over the last year and a half. Yes, it would be quicker if I could just do this the first time through, but like I said, it just doesn’t work that way for me.

And anyhow, those Moleskine notebooks are really, really cute,

The Semi-Loud Gurgle – or Why I’ll Still Be Able to Buy More Rioja Than I Should

Originally published on August 16, 2009.

So I was last seen in this space ranting, or maybe it was whining, about the giant sucking sound set off by Eric Asimov’s Wednesday New York Times column about old-school Rioja. I was probably being a little overly dramatic.

To start, a mention in the New York Times will certainly raise consumer interest and increase sales, but it won’t cause a nationwide feeding frenzy, as when a wine is crowned, say, the Wine Spectator’s “Wine of the Year.” And while old-school Rioja is easily one of the best values in fine, age-worthy wine, it’s still not inexpensive – and in this economy, even the big stores are watching their inventory levels and working capital expenses.

Another mitigating factor of the giant sucking sound – there just isn’t a huge amount of old-school Rioja sitting around in the distributor’s warehouses. These wineries tends to release a specific vintage when they feel it’s just entering the first phase of “ready-to-drinkness.” And from what I can gather, they only release a portion, with a fair amount of their stock held back in their cellar for release at a later date. This later date generally takes the form of a DI offering, during which retail and restaurant wine buyers get to mull over lists of old vintages and decide how much of each to buy.

I’ve written before about how these offers are like Christmas for wine buyers. For me, this is especially true for the Rioja DI offers from the traditional, old-school Rioja. These are wines that seem to age endlessly, gaining a leathery, tea-leafy complexity as the primary notes fade into a haunting whiff of exotic spices and ghostly fruits. I could go on, but you might start to laugh. These are wines best drunk slowly and quietly, because you can sound a little silly if try to describe them.

So my DI wish list can get a little crazy, with most of the bottles falling under the heading of “one for me, one for the store.” But the actual purchase order is trimmed to a more fiscally responsible level. And then the wines arrive…and I squirrel them away and drag my feet on pricing them, setting them up in the system, and putting them out on the Internet. Because I really don’t want any one to buy them. I want to keep them….all.

Such is my love of old, old-school Rioja.

But the New York Times piece, great sucking sound aside, inspired me to share the love and let my semi-secret stash be known. So every bottle of Lopez de Heredia, La Rioja Alta, and Bodegas Riojanas in the shop is priced up and ready to go.

Well, almost every bottle. Fiscal responsibility only goes so far.

The Giant Sucking Sound – or What Happened to All the Old School Rioja?

Originally published on August 12, 2009.

Did you hear it? Over wine distributor warehouses on Staten Island and Long Island and near the ports of New Jersey? What was it? A giant vacuum cleaner? A massive sieve? A colander from the great beyond?

No, it was the sound of many bottles of Rioja being sucked out of distributor warehouses and into retailers across New York. Specifically, Riojas from a number of old-school producers mentioned in a very good article by Eric Asimov of the New York Times.

Here’s what happens:

An article gets published in a major paper or wine publication. Specific producers are mentioned. Customers read the article and want the wines. Retailers know there will be customers asking for those wines, which means relatively quick and easy sales. So they call their distributors and order lots of whatever wine was mentioned. This creates a giant sucking sound as those cases of wine move from distributor warehouses onto shelves across the city.

OK, so this process really doesn’t make a sucking sound. It’s more like the clicking of cell phones and computer keyboards as orders are placed, followed by the drone of delivery trucks. But you get the picture.

Now I don’t generally chase the wines that appear in these articles. The Frankly Wines selection is so tightly edited, that there’s just not space for whatever wine happened to be mentioned in publication X the day before. It’s also a good bet that I’ll already have a wine from the region in question – something that I think offers similar or even better value. After all, it’s my job to find those wines and if I’m only reading about them in the paper, well, I’m not doing a very good job.

But sometimes, I already have one of the wines being mentioned. And this can be a bad thing. Sure, it’s nice to get the quick and easy sales that come when a wine is suddenly sought out by lots of customers. But that bad thing is the giant sucking sound. The sudden demand can pull all of the wine out of the system within a day or two. I either have to buy more – and I can never buy as much as the big guys that make a living at this game. Or I have to come to terms with a favorite wine’s impending unavailability and find a replacement. And that sucks. Literally. Or figuratively.

Or in this case, both.

Mysteries of the Wine Shop World

Originally published on August 10, 2009.

There’s a certain science to retail. There’s a book called Why We Buy by the fabulously named Paco Underhill that goes into much of this science. Things like the “butt brush factor”. Or where to place shopping baskets. Or that most people turn right when they enter a store. A lot of it doesn’t apply to a shop like mine, which is so tiny that if you turn right, and you’ll hit a wall. But it’s still a great read.

But I don’t think it addresses one of the great mysteries of my wine shop…possibly any wine shop. The mystery is below, but first, a bit of minutia on how my shop is stocked.

The bottles are lined up on the shelves, standing up, one behind the other, like in the picture below. Yes, I can hear the wine geeks shuddering – “But isn’t bad for bottles to stand upright?” In the middle- to long-term, yes, but these bottles sell quickly. They’re not upright long enough for the corks to dry out…and half of them are screw caps anyway. And those that don’t move so quickly, we only keep one on the shelf and every week replace it with one that’s been on its side. So stop shuddering…I take very good care of my wine!

Now, on to the mystery…

A wine can sell like hotcakes, literally fly off the shelves. But when there’s one bottle left, with no mates behind it, it suddenly just sits there. And sits. And sits. And sits. It sits there until one of three things happen:

  1. I buy more and restock
  2. I fill up the space behind it with neighboring bottles
  3. I move it to the “going… going… gone” section at the front of the store. Sometimes bottles on this shelf get a $1 price reduction, along with the all-important big, red slash.

Now it’s no great surprise why a single bottle on the bargain shelf moves. People like bargains. And they really like big, red slashes.

But what I don’t understand is why a single bottle in the general shelf population won’t sell. Or perhaps oddly, why it does sell if you just put non-matching bottles behind it. Why are customers so wary of a little empty space?