wine: not scary

let’s take a chance

fast forward - there’s now a career, a new coast to learn, one where every single person aspiring to work in the wine trade will kill for information, for the taste of the next great wine. what caught my attention was that many of our peers cared more about pushing their taste on unsuspecting guests rather than empowering each guest’s preferences, stewarding their experiences.

flip the script

blessed with incredible mentors who paid forward the teachings of their own advisors, the normal curve of increased knowledge and experience was spiked, straight to the sky. it would have been easy to gloat, to only speak about the incredible wines poured night in and night out; luckily, my tribe swelled instead with like-minded folk who wanted to debunk the myth that fine wine is only for the extremely wealthy. this new era, the next generation of supremely gifted winemakers started to take hold across the globe, and rarely did they outprice their wines. perhaps counterintuitively, better wine became less expensive, even at the cost of better-known wines entering a different price tier.
what this all provided us with was ammunition at the table - there could confidently be a $25 bottle of riesling on a 3-michelin star wine list; we could confidently say in any restaurant that, with careful attention paid by the sommelier, each and every wine on the list was not only drinkable but was awesome.

the algorithm

much as jesse eisenberg’s zuck focused on a crudely drawn algorithm sketched onto a dorm window, so did we tighten our lens on creating a new math when it came to transacting with our guests. luckily, in new york city, it is a natural desire for most to experiment with cuisine; not so, usually with wine - it seemed to make many freeze up when handed a list - “just the pairing, i guess?” or, “do you have a glass of chardonnay?” was still safe. our counter to this was to be the person to greet the guests first, rather than a captain, and ask if they had any cravings, anything they would like to try. within seconds, a touch of openness and understanding displayed by us brought in turn a glimmer of hope, a tiny window to a greater conversation where they felt safe. our selections were less in number, but more thoughtfully purchased; each bottle had a story, a personality, something to help connect the guest to their purchase. we set out to not purchase a damned thing until we met the producers, learned their entire story and then tasted the wines with our staff - keep paying it forward. that generated excitement among the staff, and each latched on to a different wine or producer, and before long we saw that excitement genuinely and organically spread by the staff to their guests. et voila, a humming, churning, happy wine machine.

the new frontier

perhaps you’ve heard of this covid thing. it changed the way everyone has had to operate, and restaurants took a massive hit…we think they are on their way back up, thankfully. what didn’t suffer was wine - seriously, how could it, when everyone was stuck inside, wine shops were deemed essential, and it became netflix, wine ‘n’ quarantine [chill]. we saw more people learn about wine than ever before, through online courses, magazines, documentaries, and just plain old buying and drinking. even as the world [slowly] reopens, those drinkers aren’t stopping, and neither are we. thankfully, we can now shake your hand in person, not just trip over each others’ voices on zoom calls. the pandemic has brought something positive, however, in that we can feel closer than ever before without being physically present; we can feel comfortable providing services remotely that for so long we would have demanded to do in person.

we have tried for our entire careers to do things the right way, and that means building from the ground up - our knowledge, our skills, your trust. we started in the cellar, sweeping up the dust bunnies and breaking down boxes long before we were allowed to pop ‘59 latour. opened a million $10 bottles before your $1k bottles. now, we want to start a conversation before promising you the world. if you’ll let us in, though, we promise we can make each other better through collaboration. after that, keep us in your pocket, we’re never far.