Uncorked (18 page)

“Do you have any Beaujolais nouveau?” I overheard a young woman ask while I sat in the enoteca reviewing bills.

Because I knew Ryan considered Beaujolais nouveau over-hyped, my ears perked up.

“No, I’m sorry,” he responded. “We don’t really do nouveau.” “It’s more of a mass-production thing,” he added.

“Well, I was looking for something … you know … nice, but,” she stammered, “like not too expensive.”

“Try these Beaujolais crus,” he suggested, ushering her over to wines that cost almost twice as much and were considerably drier.

“Balanced tannins,” he explained, “excellent structure.”

I heard her take a breath.

“Elegant, refined,” he continued.

Another pause.

“Great expression of Gamay.”

“Good with pizza?” she ventured.

“Perfect,” Ryan assured her as I heard the bottle clink onto the marble counter.

I assume the woman bought the wine because I heard the cash register open, but I’m less sure about whether she liked the fancy Beaujolais as much as Ryan did.

The worst thing about Ryan—other than his tendency to squirrel away dog-eared paper stacks—was that he didn’t (and still doesn’t) know how to stop working. Like Neal Rosenthal, Ryan is a runner, and they share a similar marathon mentality. Both men push through the pain. So far, I haven’t been able to convince Ryan that you can stop and rest every once in a while.

After four years, John, our genial wine collector cum counterman, was also still with us and remained unruffled even as the rest of the world became more unhinged.

As the recession deepened, one of our customers, a twentysomething dancer who lived around the corner with her Wall Street trader boyfriend, went from a weekly drop-by for a Pinot
Grigio to calling just before closing to beg John to drop off a bottle of white wine on his way home. Eventually, she took to phoning John every morning to ask if he could bring bottles by 10 a.m. One day, she came to the door wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a little white powder under her nose. He declined her invitation to “join the party.” A few months later, the sparkling woman he nicknamed Poule Blanche (after her favorite wine) disappeared along with her boyfriend.

With the economic downturn moving into its second year, John and Ryan’s equanimity was rare in the wine business. Desperation was in full swing.

“Hi, Ryan, this is [insert name here] from [same], and I have a special deal on [stuff we can’t seem to sell]. It’s 90 points Parker and just flying out of here, and I was wondering if …”

“This isn’t Ryan.”

“I’d like you to meet [take your pick], the world’s greatest winemaker. Can we stop by?”

“Hey, Ryan. Scott here. Just wondering if I could taste you on some [poorly made wine I can’t seem to get rid of].”

“Didn’t I just see you last week?” I would overhear Ryan saying.

Ring.

“Is Ryan there?”

Ring-ring.

“Is Ryan there?”

One afternoon Ryan popped out to grab a cup of coffee, and I took six messages. Even Joe with the ThinkPad was calling with “big news on price breaks.”

Just when the reps thought it was all over, a bump appeared at the bottom of our bottle: people started drinking again. In the
depths of the recession, customers began treating themselves to an affordable luxury, something guaranteed to bring pleasure at $10 a pop: a bottle of wine to have with dinner.

Ryan was also getting his sea legs. Instead of telling customers what they should like, he started asking them what they were having for dinner. “Thai food? Oh, try this Riesling. Hint of sweet that’ll offset the spice.” “Pasta with pesto?” “Have just the thing: Pigato from Liguria. Crisp, refreshing.” “I just love this producer,” he would gush, and then slay them with some anecdote about the winemaker and his mom.

Customers soon came clutching recipes:

“Lemon risotto?” “Moscato Giallo.”

“Smoked trout?” “Grüner Veltliner.”

“Grilled duck breasts?” “Bourgeuil.”

Ryan was dazzling. He was like one of those winning game show contestants who never gets stumped. Our customers were delighted.

At the same time, he became even more inventive with pairings. On one table he clustered wines that were good with “Grilled Peaches, Wiener Schnitzel, Linguini & Clams” and on another “Cioppino, Chicken Pot Pie, Bresaola & Melon.”

Ryan also learned to pick his battles. I knew he had hit his stride when a balding captain of industry-type blew in asking for a “$100 Cali Cab” and Ryan didn’t flinch as he handed over a 2005 Paul Hobbs, a well-known California Cabernet Sauvignon. Gone were the days when he would spend a half hour trying to persuade a customer to spend half as much on an equally good wine he’d never heard of.

Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to do some belt-tightening. I cut down on hedonistic wine dinners. I limited myself to the
Wednesday tastings with sales reps. If I hadn’t quite conquered the bills, I started to reign in my lifestyle.

For exercise, I began riding my old track bike again (I had been a bicycle racer in my youth). A bike enthusiast had even snapped a picture of me riding in Manhattan on my freshly painted turquoise fixie and posted “Awesome bike!” on his blog. Too bad someone added below: “Yeah, can you believe that’s ex-pro [not true] Marco Pasanella? Dude looks like he should be driving a Volvo!” Little did he know. At least it was a start.

We were also determined to do what we could to boost neighborhood spirits as well as our own. Given that both Ryan and John had strong musical backgrounds (Ryan toured for seven years, and John played with the Steve Miller Band), I conscripted them into forming a store band. The Lees, as in the dead yeast at the bottom of the barrel that nevertheless sometimes can be used to richen wines like Muscadet, were born. Ryan was on keyboards and lead vocals, with John on guitar and yours truly on the tambourine. We were a motley crew. Our neighborhood jam sessions were populated by a ragtag band of players. There was an ancient drummer who always seemed to be half a beat behind, a would-be hippie couple who just wanted to sing songs of protest, and a few intrepid fans who were happy to sip wine in the back of the store. We never got that big recording contract, nor did we jam together more than a handful of times, but the Lees made our neighbors smile.

It was our turn to beam when the detectives returned. “I am an acquired taste,” cracked one of them. Luckily, this time, they were famous actors instead of Agent Watts. In 2009, the television show
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
decided to shoot a scene in the store. “We want classy,” the location scout explained. “Your
place has it up the wazoo.” Instead of ferreting out retailers going heavy on the tidbits, the TV cops, played by Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe, sought information about the suspect, a wine collector turned murderer. Okay, it wasn’t exactly upbeat, but who was quibbling? It was national television, and they had agreed to allow one of our employees to be an extra. She was thrilled.

Becky still elbows me awake every time she stumbles upon the episode on late night TV.

We were still far from out of the woods, but I was more concerned with a threat that might cast a darker shadow over our business than the economic downturn: Governor Paterson was considering the sale of wine in grocery stores. In New York State, licensed liquor stores can sell wine and hard alcohol and supermarkets can sell only beer. Large grocery chains such as Whole Foods and Wegmans had been lobbying the governor to change the laws, and the governor was keen on getting his hands on the anticipated tax revenue increase.

I sent an editorial to the
New York Times
. Having written for the paper of record, I was fairly sure that I would never hear from them. Just because you’ve covered faucets for the “Home” section, that does not ensure that you will be taken seriously as an op-ed contributor. But I tried.

Common wisdom was that allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores would kill the little guys, like me. It would certainly make it more difficult for a small wineshop like mine but could be devastating for stores in rural areas. That’s not why I wrote to the
Times
, though. I believe in open competition, even intimidating competition. It just has to be fair. I saw the proposed changes as a huge opportunity to serve our customers better while redressing outdated, irrational, and inequitable laws.

New York’s Alcoholic Beverage Control code, which has governed the sale of wine, beer, and liquor since Prohibition was repealed in 1933, sometimes seems like a charmingly genteel relic of a bygone era, when buying wine for Sunday supper was regarded as the Devil’s work. We still can’t open before noon on Sundays.

Under the current law, our store can sell only wine and wine-related accessories, which include such timely and irresistible items as “audio cassette tapes, designed to help educate consumers in their knowledge and appreciation of wine.”

If the big grocers were going to sell Côtes du Rhône, why, I reasoned, couldn’t I sell baguettes and brie? Or artisan beer? Or reusable shopping bags (one Rochester store was recently fined $10,000 for doing that).

Why limit me to one store? How about letting me operate multiple locations just like the big-box retailers?

And while I was hardly going to stake my business on the Sunday brunch crowd, why couldn’t I be open the same hours as a supermarket?

To my surprise, I got an e-mail from a
Times
editor letting me know that they would run the piece.

I was then besieged by lobbyists working on behalf of grocery chains. As a shop owner who did not dismiss the suggested changes out of hand, I was everyone’s choice for the proposed law’s poster boy. They were missing the point. I wasn’t dying to see wine in supermarkets; I just saw an opportunity to address irrational aspects of a seventy-seven-year-old law with roots still firmly planted in Prohibition.

The more these lobbyists yearned to “work with me,” the farther
off the mark they got. One alternative proposal involved the creation of a medallion system like the one used for regulating New York City taxicabs. Under this plan, each current store was to be issued a medallion, which could then be sold (of course, with a transfer tax). The governor was thrilled. Not only would the state gain more revenue from the increased wine sales in grocery stores, its coffers would benefit from the fees related to the medallions.

In contrast, I saw this as a cynical attempt to pay off the small retailer who was ready to capitulate. With deep pockets and a little intimidation, the grocery chains and other large players could then buy up as many medallions as they wanted. For individual storeowners like me, the net effect would be to make expansion even more expensive. In addition to getting a lease, building out a space, and filling it with inventory, under the proposed legislation I would have to come up with an estimated $250,000 more to buy a medallion.

Fortunately, the flawed bill did not pass, thanks in part to the major distributors, such as Southern. Their motive is hardly altruistic. Rather than protecting small shop owners, the distributors are trying to maintain their profits. To them, wine in low-margin grocery stores is likely to reduce their markups while still excluding more lucrative hard liquor. With the record budget deficit, the proposed changes nonetheless remain a threat.

No matter what happened, I knew that I had to look at other ways to grow our business.

As I was standing in the checkout line at a big-box store with a shopping cart full of janitorial supplies (ah, yes, the glamorous world of wine), it hit me: Costco. Why don’t we try making our
own wine? Bottling our own wine certainly seemed like more fun than obsessing over economic data and outdated laws. It would be a good way to reconnect us to that journey from grape to table. Maybe we could even make a little Costco-like money.

I thought of Roland, the mild-mannered winemaker I had met several years ago at that memorable Morellino lunch at which eight Maremma winemakers had plied us with their best bottles.

“
Wie gehts?
” I asked Roland in my seriously broken German. “
Sehr gut
,” he humored me, and then thankfully slipped into an easy-gaited Italian. “Sure,” he said, “we’d be open to doing something special for you.” I booked tickets to Pisa for Ryan, Becky, and myself, and we were soon standing in Roland’s cellars, sampling various vintages and blends. Now this was “work” we could throw ourselves into!

We wanted a food-friendly, organic Tuscan red made from native varietals. Everyone would say it was delicious, and it would cost no more than $10 per bottle. The farm already was using organic practices and was sensitive to our price limit. The only significant challenge was that the predominant native varietal, Sangiovese, can be tannic when young. Yet these grapes were hardly mouth-puckering. Roland believes it is due to the Maremman microclimate, which combines abundant sunshine with cool ocean breezes to ripen the fruit slowly. In one trip, we worked out the perfect wine. “Done!” I thought. I couldn’t believe it would be so easy. Why, I wondered, don’t more retailers sell their own wine?

Because it is a whopping pain to do so, I quickly discovered. The Alcoholic Beverage Control laws all but forbid the practice. According to these laws, an importer must sell to a distributor,
who then sells to us. We came upon a loophole: although a retailer cannot also be a distributor, a distributor can be an importer, in effect eliminating one of the three tiers of the New York liquor system. We were able to take advantage of this shortcut through a distributor friend, Bradley Alan. Bradley was only too happy to help, for which I owe him a debt of gratitude to this day. I pay for everything and take care of all logistics. In return, he takes a commission.

What I did not expect was any trouble with the label, especially given my experience with the pulp fiction illustrations that I remembered from my tastings with Armando. If “Naked on Roller Skates” passes muster, how hard should it be to get approval for a label inspired by eighteenth-century Luccan bookplates?

In an effort to protect consumers, the US government requires all imported products to go through a certificate of label approval (COLA) process. The intent is to standardize the dizzying array of information on wine labels. Ironically, the required information (alcohol content, origin, and the all-important government warning) typically is crammed on the rear tag. The front label, the one that most of us scrutinize, is primarily decorative. For us, the stumbling block was the organic part of the certification. In addition to proof that the grapes were organically grown, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau requires proof that the vineyard uses “accepted USDA/NOP practices” (referring to the National Organic Program) in making the wine. With our private label, they accepted the Italian and European certification of an organic crop but not that of organic production. We could talk to them until we were blue in the face about Roland’s reuse of gray water (wastewater from laundry, dishwashing, and
bathing), propagation of ladybugs to control flies, and husbandry of Chianina cattle (native to Tuscany and prized for their tender meat) for grazing and fertilizing, but they were not going to budge without a “recognition” agreement between the United States and Italy regarding standard organic processing. We had the spirit but not the paperwork and so were forced to write “made with organic grapes.”