Behind the Counter – Page 2

Wooden Boxes – Maybe They’re Not So Bad

Originally published on August 19, 2011.

One of my most popular posts ever was a rant on wooden wine boxes. I had a theory that while most people start out thinking these boxes are the coolest things going, the longer you work in retail, the more you grow to loath them.

I arrived at the ‘Utter Contempt’ phase years ago, so these days my enjoyment of wooden boxes is limited to putting them out on the sidewalk and doing a staff poll on how long they’ll stick around. It’s not long – usually under five minutes. Once, we had two boxes sit on the sidewalk for an entire 20 minutes – but that was because monsoon-type wine started to pour the minute we put them outside. The second the rain stoped, the boxes, waterlogged and all, disappeared.

So yes, I am not a big fan of wooden wine boxes….until yesterday. Some of the love came back when I spotted this urban box garden in front of a nearby restaurant. It’s cool enough – and simple enough – that I may go back to keeping the boxes for myself.

Frankly Wines box scavengers, be warned – the glory days may be over!

The View from the Weeds

Originally published on December 17, 2010.

These are weeds.

And I am totally in them.

If you haven’t heard the phrase before, it’s diner/bar lingo for “really really busy.” Presumably because as you peer out from behind the bar, at the heaps of customers standing in front of you, that you can’t keep up with, it looks something like peering out of field of weeds. Or something like that.

In any case, it’s the last two weeks of the year and I’m firmly in the weeds. But that’s a good thing. If it’s December in a wine store, you want weeds. Lots and lots of weeds.Photo Credit:

Courtney Emery’s Flickr stream under license from Creative Commons.

Thanksgiving Day Suggestion #1: For Those Who Really Trust Us

Originally published November 13, 2010.

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Cue up the old lady crying into the wind. Other oldish-timers will look at the price below and start to scream as well. Lopez de Heredia Rosado was never meant to be a cult wine. At a long ago breakfast-tasting (yes, breakfast tasting,) Maria José López de Heredia told those of us there that this wine was something made just for the local people. It was something they liked to drink that was never really meant to be sold outside the town. If my numbers hold, I think the number of cases was something like 200. But it was sold out of town, and a handful of account fell in love with it, including mine. We would buy it five cases at a time. On deal pricing. Yes, long ago thre was a FIVE CASE PRICE on Lopez de Heredia Rosado. These days, you’re lucky if you can get FIVE BOTTLES!!!! Because if you do the math, even if every bottle of those 200 cases were sent to the USA (which they were not), it doesn’t take long before all those bottles are sold – with or without a five case deal. And this was a very long-aged wine…. so as I noted below, one year we were selling the 1997, the next year, the 1998. Then the 2000. And in 2010, this was probably around the time of that breakfast tasting with Maria José, when she quietly dropped the new that there would be no more rosado for many years, because they needed to let what they had age as the previous vintages had. (I think they “many” was seven, but I would need to check my notes.) So there was a very long period of no rosado to be had. When it eventually returned to the market, it had acquired the status of myth among a new crop of buyers It had also acquired a very new price – it now lists at most shops for over $100 per bottle. I don’t begrudge that price – this is truly a small production wine that requires a very long period of aging – and I think/hope that the winery is seeing as much of this price increase as the distributors and the retailers. There are many wines out there that cost as much or more and offer much less in terms of rarity and the time-value-of-money. But I do feel a bit of resigned nostalgia. Nostalgia for the ability to buy as much as I wanted whenever I wanted. And of course, for the price. But it was more than that – that general accessibility allowed the handful of buyers that fell in love with the wine to run with it for a bit, to make a market in it, to introduce it to would-be fans in our own communities. That was simply put, so very much fun. At the higher price – and given that each shop or account gets something like three bottles… you already have to be in the know if you ever want to drink it. And that’s a bit of a bummer. And with that… the old lady crying into the wind is heading off to get her coffee.

I write this post every year. Well, to be completely frank (ha ha), I just cut and paste this post every year. Which I’ll do again, with a few notes about how this vintage differs from the last. So go ahead and read below…or be truly trusting and just click right through the Frankly Wines store. Lopez de Heredia Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva 2000 (Rioja, Spain)

This post is a re-run. But I thought it was pretty perfect when I wrote it last year (and the year before that). And I still think it’s pretty perfect. The wine in question is the Lopez de Heredia Rosado. Two years ago the 1997 was in stock. Last year it was the 1998. And this year, it’s the 2000, which I find to have more of the mineral notes of the 1997 than the rounder, more tropical fruit of the 1998. But even at its fruitiest, this is not a fruity wine, which is unexpected for a rose. Unexpected enough that we stuck a warning label on the wine. But if you trust my pairing recommendations – and you’re up for a little adventure – a little Lopez Rosado could be just the thing to perk up your Thanksgiving spread.

Here’s the scoop:

Imagine Thanksgiving dinner (the food, not your crazy uncle or your tispy cousin-three-times-removed.) The cranberry sauce, the turkey, the yams, the turkey, the stuffing, the turkey. It’s a wine-pairing nightmare. But this is the wine that can handle it all. Delicate enough to handle the turkey (which let’s face it, is pretty bland), a little fruit to deal with the cranberries and exotic enough to stand up to the stuffing, yams, and even pumpkin pie. It’s perfect.

But it’s not exactly your typical rosé – it has some of the tangy-ness you’ll find in a good fino sherry, only a hint of fruit, and lovely exotic spices like cardamom and ginger. So if you’re intrigued and looking for a little adventure, track down a bottle and include it in your turkey day wine spread. You should be able to find it for under $30 which may be a lot for a typical rosé, but not this rosé.

Price: $23.99

A Wine Store Owner REALLY Looks at 40

Originally published on October 7, 2010.

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This turned out to be a very good party. We wound up having it at the apartment, and as the night went on, we wound up on the roof. We needed ore wine so I told a couple friends they could go bring up anything they wanted from the wine fridge. “Anything?” they asked. I did a quick mental inventory and said sure, anything. Of course they came back with the one bottle I had forgotten about: Krug Clos du Mesnil. Yeah, no. Not that one. So they went back down and resurfaced with the bottle I had expected them to come up with: Krug 1996. And it was good. I’m now 50 and still haven’t opened that bottle of Clos du Mesnil. Soon. Soon. Certainly before I hit 60!

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about helping a customer select a birthday gift for a friend turning 40. At that point, the store had been open for less than 6 months, I was less than two months away from popping out my third kiddo, and the big 4-0 seemed a very, very long way away.

And now it’s less than two weeks away. (I actually had to check the calendar to confirm that small detail.)

But while I may not be diligently counting down the days to the milestone day, I have been diligently collecting the wines. I’ve scrounged up several bottles of things from 1970, my birth year. I have the good fortune of being born in a decent year for old wines, so I’m not related to the Port bin for birth year wines.

On tap from 1970:

Lopez de Heredia Tondonia and Bosconia
Carema Produttori
Cappellano
Chateau d’Yquem

I’ve also picked up some other milestone wines over the years – 1989s for high school graduation, 1993 for college. I love old wines, not just because I love the taste, but because I love pausing to remember what was happening in my life – or the world in general – when the grapes were being picked.

It’s time in a bottle in the most literal sense.

A TALE OF TWO TRANSITIONAL REDS

Originally published on September 26, 2010.

Yes, this is a direct cut and paste from the Frankly Wines newsletter that was just sent out earlier today. But hey, I’ll recall rules from my old corporate days – when I actually had money to manage a media buy. This cut and paste job is not laziness…this is FREQUENCY! And it’s good – and necessary – and cuts through the clutter. So if you’re really paying attention to Frankly Wines missives, just ignore this. If not, read on.

When fall weather hits, even the staunchest “crisp white wine” person may start to crave something red in the glass. But, like Goldilocks, you want something not too big, not too light…but just right. These two wines, both from stand-out vignerons, are just right.

CATHERINE ET PIERRE BRETON TRINCH! 2009 1.5 Liter (Bourgueil, Loire, France):
A double bottle of red wine happiness. The Bretons are tip top producers in the Bourgueil sub-region of the Loire Valley. This region is where Cabernet Franc stands on its own, unblended with its usual partner, Cabernet Sauvignon. While the Bretons make some complex, age-worthy versions from single vineyards, their Trinch! is meant to be drunk young, fresh, and in quantity. It’s an ideal introduction to Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, with red berry fruits and the underlying aromatic earthiness that sets the grape apart from Cabernet Sauvignon – but not so much as to scare off a Cab Franc beginner. And the name? Trinch! It’s the sound that glasses make when clinked together. Which should be done frequently.

Price: $42.99 (equivalent to $21.50/bottle)

MARCEL LAPIERRE RAISINS GAULOIS VIN DE FRANCE IX (Beaujolais, France): Beaujolais has a bad reputation. Much of it tastes like bubblegum and bananans. While this might sound like an excellent new lollipop flavor, it’s not what most people want in their wine. But this is not one of those Beaujolais. This from Marcel Lapierre, one of the masters of Beaujolais that tastes like real wine. We carry his Morgon from time to time and at under $25, it’s one of the great bargains in the wine world, capable of graceful aging, if you can keep your hands off it when it’s young. This one, which translates to “French Raisins,” is meant to be drunk now, like this afternoon.

Price: $11.99

From the Frankly Wines Shelf Talker Files

Originally published on September 18, 2010.

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Wine puns, they never get old.

OK, they’re not really shelf talkers (those actually attach to the shelf.) They’re more like neckers, which slide on the neck of the bottle. Except my neckers are actually price tags with just enough room to scribble a tiny little tasting note.

Or a warning.
Or a pairing suggestion.
Or sometimes just a piece of near total nonsense.

The latter would be the case for the tag we’re putting on the Les Clos De Tue-Boeuf “La Butte” Gamay 2009 tomorrow. Now this is very tasty wine. It’s made by Theirry Puzelat, generally considered to the man among the too-cool-for-school natural wine kids. Maybe because I get a little annoyed by the whole too-cool-for-school thing (perhaps because I haven’t been in school for a very, very long time), I haven’t spent much time with the Puzelat wines. And these are wines that you really do need to spend time with – to try them at a trade tasting really doesn’t do them justice. They’re not stand-and-spit types of wines. They need a little thought.

But a little while back, I was at Ten Bells, bastion of vin natural, and decided to order a bottle of La Butte. And it was so crazy good that I spent most of the night ignoring my husband and friends while trying to keep the bottle very close to my glass. It was just bright and good and fruity and slightly funky and everything that is best about natural wines.

So I went and ordered a bunch for the store. Because that’s what you do when you own a store and spend the evening with a wine that you really, really enjoy. Especially when you can sell if for less the $15.

But…I was talking about shelf talkers.

So here’s the shelf talker soon appearing on this wine….because potty humor never goes out of style:

La Butte…kicks ass.
La Butte…is the shit.
La Butte……we’ll stop now.

Much, MUCH more useful (and entertaining?) than a corporate shelf talker with a numerical rating!

Guys You Need to Know if You Want to Open a Wine Store: A Delivery Guy

Originally published on September 1, 2010.

Delivery service is the bane of any small wine store. You want to offer the service to your customers because 1) they like it. 2) everybody else does so it’s necessary to be competitive and 3) you can sell more cases if customers don’t have to worry about how to get them home.

Bigger stores can have a stock/delivery guy on staff. But I’m not big enough to warrant that expense. Not yet at least. But my business has grown to the point that it’s inefficient to have my wine sales staff running around lower Manhattan with a hand truck. Not that that doesn’t still happen. But at some point, most wine stores eventually need another option. And that option is usually an outside delivery service.

I have several lined up. Just in case.

There’s Hi Powered Delivery, which is good and reliable, but mainly for case deliveries beyond the neighborhood with decent advance notice and a big delivery window. And I really like saying I need to make a call to a Higher Power to check on a drop off between 2pm and 6pm.

Then there’s the nearby downtown service which is best for local deliveries or “renting” a guy with a hand truck for a few hours. But their guys are highly variable – there’s the unfailingly polite, tie-bedecked dude who somehow manages to avoid cracking a sweat on the hottest day of the year. But there’s also the fellow who could give a Tasmanian devil a run for his money in terms of sheer crazy and high speed rotations per minute.

But my favorite service, and the one I’ve started to turn to the most regularly, is Urban Mobility Project, run by the ever cheerful Shelly Mossey. He lives in the neighborhood which is cool because I like to go local whenever possible. He’s reliable and knows downtown, even the street numbers (not just the names) of all the new buildings on North End Avenue. (I bet you didn’t even know there was a North End Avenue in Manhattan.) And even better….he does his deliveries on a recumbent bike. He’s like the ant of delivery services, able to pull more than 10 times his weight in wine bottles – I think he can manage up to five cases in his trailer. I would explain further, but in this case, just check out the picture below.

Buying on Faith

Originally published on August 26, 2010.

I have tasted about 98% of the wines stocked on the Frankly Wines shelves. When a customer brings a bottle to the counter and asks if I’ve tried it, I’m always surprised when they’re surprised when I quote this statistic. But I forget that I operate in a very specific realm of the already rarified New York City retail scene. Most of the store owners I know taste everything on their shelves – and since the shelves aren’t all that big, it’s easier to do than if you owed a warehouse-sized space in the suburbs.

But there is that other 2%. Wine that I wasn’t able to try before buying. Wine that simply has to be bought on faith. Most of the time, I’ll get to sample a specific wine, either with a sales rep at the shop, at a trade tasting, maybe even purchased from another store because I’m too lazy to call in a request and set up an appointment. Most wines, even many really wonderful ones, just aren’t so highly in demand that you can’t take your time getting to know them.

But some wines are like NY real estate – at least NY real estate back in the good old days of, oh, 2008? You have to claim them before the boat has even left the dock on the other side of whichever ocean they’re coming from. Generally, I have some experience with the specific producer (vigneron, winery, whatever specific term applies). I’ve had past vintages, or a different blend or vineyard site – and trust the producer enough to not turn out some complete crap this time around.

But sometimes, I really am making a leap of faith. Like Tuesday night. I went to check out Eric Asimov’s “The Pour” column in the New York Times and it was on Bordeaux. Small, independent Bordeaux producers.

Now I love Bordeaux – mainly old-ish Bordeaux from good-but-not-glamorous houses that I can pick up at auction. It’s not in fashion, but I love it anyway. But Bordeaux from more recent vintages is a trickier proposition. Many of the producers that were turning out elegant, classic claret in the 1990s have evolved into a more modern style over the most recent decade. And style aside, they’ve also gotten very, very expensive.

But these smaller producers have been on my list of “wines to get to know.” I just haven’t had a chance to get to know them yet. So on Tuesday night, when I see the New York Times piece, I know there’s going to be a giant sucking sound and by Wednesday evening, there will be no more of these Bordeaux to be had until the next vintage rolls around.

Time for a leap of faith. I forward the piece to my sales rep at one of the featured importers. This is a guy who has never poured me a bad wine. Who has never misled me on how little of something is actually available. Who watches out for those last little bits of cases of things he knows I can work with. So the conversation basically goes like this:

I ask for a recommendation.
He makes it.

The Domaine de Jaugaret 2004 and 2005 arrives on Monday.

Photo Credit: laurenatclemson. Creative Commons terms of use.

Frankly Wines Frequently Asked Questions

Originally published on June 19, 2010.

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Most of this still holds true up in Copake-land. Except for the delivery bit. That’s a whole different story up there!

Certain questions come up over and over. Questions that actually have to do with wine (vs. questions about corks, parking, and how to get to the World Trade Center site.) So we put together little cards that answer those FAQs. Below, you’ll find the official answer and the behind the scenes answers (available on this blog only.)

Question: Do you deliver?

The Official Answer: Why yes, we do! And if you’re below Canal Street, it’s free and there’s no minimum order. Otherwise, there’s a minimum or a delivery fee.

The Behind the Scenes Answer: Yes, we’ll deliver one bottle. And yes, we’ll even deliver it across the highway. But we’re not set up like a restaurant, with bike-loads of delivery people on call, so it might take a while. This will be true whether you want one $10 bottle or a case of high end Champagne*. So yes, we’ll get it to you. And we’ll let you know when we can realistically get it to you. But that answer won’t always be “in 10 minutes.” And sometimes, like when you call 5 minutes before close and want one bottle delivered 10 blocks up and 5 blocks over, that answer may actually be no. (Well, the answer would really be “we can get it to you tomorrow,” but that’s probably still not the answer you’re hoping for.)

*To be completely honest, if you order a case of Champagne and we’re working solo, we’ll probably buck up and call in a delivery service. For single bottles, this probably isn’t a mathematically feasible option.

Question: Do you offer case discounts?

The Official Answer: Why yes, we do! 10% off mixed or full cases.

The Behind the Scenes Answer: Yes, I’m perfectly aware that such-and-such a store offers a 20%, or even a 25% discount on cases. But I’m also very well-versed in New York wine store math and if someone is regularly offering a case discount that deep….well….it’s more than a little possible their regular mark-up is a tad too high.

Question: Do you have Champagne?

The Official Answer: Why yes, we do!

The Behind the Scenes Answer: It always amazes me that customers ask this – that they don’t automatically assume that a wine store will have anything sparkling on the shelves. This is a problem for Champagne in particular and sparkling wine in general – that so many customers think of it as something so far removed from wine (and “wine occasions” to get all marketing-speak on you) that they don’t even expect a wine store to carry it.

Question: Can you keep track of my purchases?

The Official Answer: We try to, but we’re admittedly not very good at it.

The Behind the Scenes Answer: We’d really like to be better at this but simply put, it is a pain in the ass using an off-the-rack Microsoft Point of Sale system. First we need to get you in the system. And it’s tough to do this without raising the fear of spam in most people. Then once you’re in there, we have to remember to ask you if you’re in the system. And then even though you just told us you think you are, we have to remember to add you to the transaction. And if we don’t, we have to manually add what you just bought in the “notes” field because there’s no way to add you to a transaction after the fact. And if you order on-line or call in an order, that’s a totally different system and we have to track it manually anyway. And that system can securely store your credit card info. But only if you reorder within 3 months. Which is a pain, but it keeps your credit card info secure in a way that storing it forever on an index card can’t. So that’s a good thing, really.

Anyhow, we’ll get better at it. And eventually, we’ll cough up the really big, huge bucks for some sort of fully integrated system. Until then, if you want us to track your purchases, just let us know and we’ll do the best we can.

Sometimes You Can Find a Needle in a Hay Stack!

Originally published on June 13, 2010.

So I’ve been going on about various versions of That Customer #4, the one who comes in looking for the vinous equivalent of a needle in a haystack. While coming in with a picture makes it much easier to track down a given wine, it doesn’t make it any more likely that this wine will be on the shelf. But today, That Customer was very very lucky.

The conversation started as usual, “I’m looking for a specific wine.”

But…he had a picture (and it was a very clear picture.)

And…..I actually had the wine! The very wine in the very clear picture!

It was Robert Sinskey’s Abraxas, a very cool white field blend from California. Abraxas is an Egyptian Gnostic god and the letters in his name represent the seven classical planets. Apparently today, the planets were all well aligned.

Category: Behind the Counter