Don's Gillette's Weekly Wine Blog
Weekly musings from our store's resident wine guru
Don has over thirty years experience in the wine industry. For the last eighteen years his attention has been focused on the growing local industry. Don has a large following of customers who search out his opinions (never in short supply!) on new releases and on what's currently most distinctive on our shelves. Others seek his insights on wineries and trends that are still under the radar. Check back here each week for Don's latest thoughts on various wine-related topics. Read Don's full bio...
Email Don directly with your wine-related questions.
Getting Clubbed?
My email account receives wine club advertisements several times per week, and I am willing to bet that my customers see even more. I am not sure about the public, but after 30+ years in the business, I know know at a glance how poor the average quality of the bottles being offered is.
A lot of wine retailers see clubs as "cash cows". Their packages usually include only those "established" labels which can be purchased at very big discounts, often because that bottling was unsell-able at its original price. These "name" labels will be shipped with a liberal salting of dba bottlings. Typically, "doing business as" wines are bulk-produced, then stamped with labels designed to make them look like new or undiscovered small producers.
These, mostly internet-based, operations usually ship via the least expensive service, regardless of weather. Their business plan assumes (probably correctly) that the number of new customers attracted by the lower price will more than pay for the damaged merchandise claims from unhappy clients. They also know that most of the heat/cold related disappointments will be discovered at a much later date and that the customer will not necessarily realize that improper shipping was a contributing cause.
A Pleasurable Way to Go Clubbing
Napa Valley Winery Exchange maintains multiple wine clubs and although we are certainly not the only store-front operation to do so, our approach brings club members better and more interesting wines, which have been properly handled. A side effect is that managing our clubs can be almost as much fun for us as receiving the wine is for our club members.
We see our clubs as a way to reinforce our image as a small winery specialist, and as the best way to stay in regular contact with some of our oldest and best customers. We use the club boxes to introduce new producers, emerging appellations, newly imported grape varieties and the new projects of our favorite winemakers.
Most of our club selections are wines only available to us in minimal quantities, so we are seldom lucky enough to get volume discounts on their purchase. We also use delivery options appropriate to weather conditions, so most of our packages are air-freighted. This raises the cost of doing business, but the rewards to the customer (assuming we know how to judge wine - and we do) are obvious. Customer feedback assures us that the programs are fun for our members.
Our monthly 2 bottle clubs; the Monthly Marvels and its upscale companion the Monthly Marvels Deluxe, are our most long-established. Over the years the store policy has been to periodically alternate their management between different members of our staff. We do so to keep the choices diverse and the point of view fresh. They are currently my responsibility.
I also make the choices for the quarterly High Rollers Cabernet Club and the quarterly Pinot Noir Club. What makes the process fun for me is the opportunity to more widely showcase wines I could normally only share with a few people over the phone or at the store counter.
A Process that is a Pleasure
The challenge of finding diversity and quality within a fixed price range has made the two bottle clubs especially interesting for me and locating recipes appropriate for blends or varietals that my customers may never have encountered is fun as well. The MM and MMD clubs have proven to be the ideal venues for the introduction of Dolcettos, Vermentinos, Grenache Blancs, Refoscos, Albarinos and the various Rhone grape blends.
It is widely assumed (probably correctly so) that great new Cabernets will be much better values before they become well known. Cabernets that do ultimately become famous, yet remain limited in production, usually dramatically escalate in scarcity and price. At some point their cost becomes too dear, and most of us have to look for better value elsewhere.
My goal when assembling the quarterly High Rollers Cabernet Club box is to find six brilliant Cabernets that can be price-balanced to ship affordably. The hoped-for mix is: two new discoveries of outstanding quality at modest price; two wines of serious reputation and scarcity which have moved out of the reach or budget of most customers; and two wines which represent the most exciting recent releases, with an emphasis on wines that are likely to disappear from shelves before they are even reviewed.
Assembling the Pinot Noir Club box presents a different set of challenges and often involves some long-term planning. As fine Pinots are by nature small-production, our choices are more limited by questions of scarcity than price. Our staff has avid Pinot fans and we all try to get an early view of exciting new projects, often following them from barrel to bottle. Of course we keep a similar watch on our favorite established producers, although over the years many that were debuted in our store have become quite famous and are now extremely hard to comer by, even for us.
The hoped for Pinot mix includes: the introduction of two exciting new producers (it's always easy to find these); two particularly special bottlings that we have been tracking (often requesting a "Pinot box allocation" when the wine was in barrel); some famous but now ultra-scarce bottlings. This last group often represents a "thank you", to our store from a winery who recalls our early help and has set some wine aside to reward us. Examples have included Brewer-Clifton, Chasseur, Dutton-Goldfield, Kosta Brown, and Sea Smoke.
If we do our job, the wines are distinctive, their flavor delicious, and everyone gets pleasure, even us!