Special for WBW #38: integrating community into our store…introducing “Wine Blogger Sampler-Packs”. First up? Portuguese table wines selected by Catavino!
Becoming a part of the wine blogging community has been one of the best parts about domaine547. We didn’t realize what a welcoming group wine bloggers would be, and we hadn’t even been that involved with wine blogs before we started writing ourselves in early spring of this year.
The origins of our blog involve an idea for a wine club with an educational focus — it was initially meant as a place for our club members to come and learn about wine, a place where they could have a dialogue. Quickly, however, the wine club became a small component of a more standard retail operation, and the blog was re-envisioned as a portal to our store.
Now, the blog really has taken on a life of its own, and the store has remained separate, by and large. The blog is chock full of community, with people posting really fantastic comments, with other bloggers contributing guest pieces and interviews, and with user-contributed video tasting notes, of which we hope to post more soon. The store? Ummmmm, not so much!
Plainly, bringing community into our store is is something we’ve struggled with. We want so much for the store to be more than just another place to buy wine, or wine related gadgets. We do think we’re doing a pretty good job at these basic retail functions, considering it’s our first year in business; but if we just wanted to be a plain old retail store then, well, we’d probably have gone the click and mortar route, since there are disadvantages to being purely web-based. Sure, we have less overhead being online only, but we also go through less volume of product than if people were able to come in our space, see product, and walk out the door carrying home goodies.
And while we want the domaine547 store to be an extension of our blog and involve community, we want that “community” aspect to be different than what others are already providing. There are already many places to go post tasting notes, reviews, and rate wines — places like CellarTracker or Cork’d that are doing this in ways more technologically advanced than we can — and we don’t really want to reinvent the wheel. So, we thought and thought and thought and thought, and remained stumped as to how to integrate community into the retail portion of our endeavor.
Until one day, not so long ago, it hit us. This was after many months of talking more and more to other bloggers, and reading, on a daily basis, regionally-specific and subject-specific blogs: blogs like Good Wine Under $20 for value wines, Brooklynguy Loves Wine for French wines (we were hooked on the Beaujolais challenge), LENNDEVOURS for New York wines, Catie for the wines of Walla Walla, and Catavino for Iberian wines. Finally, after several months of integrating these folks into our daily routine, it occurred to us, why should we limit our interactions to email, comments, Facebook and Twittering? If we’re learning so much from these other folks, why not provide a way in our store to showcase the expertise afforded to us by these bloggers?
When we started domaine547, it was to further our own wine education. While we trust our palates, we also value the fact that there are people out there who know more than we do about any number of subjects. In these cases, why not invite wine bloggers with specific areas of focus and expertise to curate selections of wines in our store, for sale to their readers and ours, so we can all broaden our knowledge? And there you have it — a long-winded pre-amble to our new “Wine Blogger Sampler-Pack” Program, which we’re launching to coincide with Wine Blogging Wednesday #38.
The first pack will feature three wines selected by Ryan and Gabriella Opaz of Catavino, and will hopefully represent the first of many “Catavino-Packs” to come. In the future, we’ll also be featuring other blogger-packs, including a Brooklynguy-Pack, a GWU$20-Pack, a Good Grape-Pack, and a Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman-pack. We see this as just the beginning (we do admit, though, that we’re having a horrible time finding Long Island and New York wines available through our LA distributors, so the LENNDEVOURS-pack is sadly up in the air).
We’d like to give big props to Ryan and Gabriella who are helping us launch this program with a selection of three tremendous wines. They are providing extensive notes to go along with the Vinho Verde, Trincadera and Touriga Nacional wines in their pack, along with an authentic Portuguese Pork recipe that will pair especially well with the two red wines.
Who knows, maybe some of these wines will even be written about by other bloggers for WBW #38; and seeing as Portuguese outside of Douro reds have been hard for some to track down, maybe you’ll want to branch out and try a few hand-picked selections straight from Iberian wine experts themselves. So, it’s not exactly a revolutionary, revelatory Web 2.0 solution. But maybe that’s the thing. Community isn’t all clicks and YouTubes and technology. Sometimes its just about sharing ideas.
Check out the “Catavino-Pack” at our store, where we’re starting the process of integrating community. It’s valued at $55, but to honor WBW #38, we’re offering it for $50. Also, any wine bloggers who use the code “blogger” during check-out will also receive a nifty WMF wine accessory. Why? Just ’cause we think you deserve it.
You’ve heard Gary V. say it, and finally we think it’s finally beginning to apply to the store portion of domaine547, so we think we’ll take the liberty of quoting him: “You, with a little bit of [us], we’re changing the wine world”. Yeah baby!
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get your wine on
2008 “Bebame” Red, El Dorado County, California
Cabernet Franc (65%) and Gamay (35%) from - gasp - California! And only 13% ABV, pretty modest by California standards. If I tasted this blind I would probably have said it’s from the Loire Valley. It has pretty much nothing in common with the full bodied iterations of Cab Franc coming out of Napa. Juicy, light, delicious quaffing wine.$18 a bottle
2006 Telegramme Chateauneuf-du-Pape Rouge
Really balanced and smooth, this is a bargain of a Chateauneuf. Yeah, the 07s are lauded but what would I prefer to drink? This! It’s the second label of Vieux Telegraphe, from the same property but from younger vines. And it’s a deal at $33 a bottle.2006 or bust!
NV Barcino Cava: LA Times Wine of the Week!
Delicious and just in time for New Year’s Eve…this is the LA Times Wine of the Week, and we have plenty in stock. Order online, pick-up in-store!$14 a bottle!
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freshly pressed
The Business of Saying No:
No, I am not a natural wine merchant.
And no, I am also not not a natural wine merchant.
So what exactly is my store, Domaine LA? This is a tricky question that I try to answer here.
________
A couple of months back, I participated in the first annual Los Angeles Natural Wine Week, spearheaded by Lou Amdur of Lou Wine Bar. At that time, I took some heat from a few folks around the Internet who felt I might have been merely capitalizing on a trend and didn’t see me as a true natural wine merchant.
The thing is, I’ve never claimed to be a natural wine merchant. When I started my business online a few years ago, I stated plainly that I wanted to sell wines I loved. I was an enthusiast with a fairly receptive, wide-ranging palate, and I considered learning about wine a journey I would be going on alongside my customers. While I’ve since expanded my business to include a brick and mortar space, my self-conception and mission statement haven’t really changed. But my palate has.
To be absolutely blunt about it, I used to love wines that I simply can’t stomach anymore. There are blog posts archived on my website that in retrospect make me cringe, paragraphs singing the praises of some of the most blatantly manipulated wines in the world. I once criticized a wine bar for not having any Southern Hemisphere selections; it’s now my favorite spot in Los Angeles. And today I carry barely a dozen Southern Hemisphere SKUs myself.
By and large, my palate-shift is reflected in what I bring into the store. Chris Ringland and Mollydooker have been replaced by Eric Texier and Thierry Puzelat; the California fruit- and alcohol-bombs, for the most part, have given way to wines from La Clarine Farm, Donkey and Goat and LIOCO.
As a result of my largely obscure inventory, almost every day I’m faced with customers asking for items that I don’t stock. On a regular basis, I hear:
“Do you have Rombauer Chardonnay?”
No, I answer.
“Do you have Caymus?”
Afraid not, I reply.
“What about Blackstone Merlot?”
So sorry, but no.
“Where’s the Veuve Clicquot? This is a gift. I need the recipient to know it’s nice!”
Sigh.
Saying no to people sets up a potentially risky relationship that may start and end with that one exchange—many customers want what they want and aren’t open to alternative suggestions. In other cases, however, that simple “no” can be the beginning of something beautiful, a dialogue that winds up with a customer who came in looking for the Prisoner instead going home with something like Morgan Twain-Peterson’s Bedrock Heirloom Red, a wine which, while perhaps not 100% natural, is a more honest “made in the vineyard” (yes, I know this is also a cliché) version of what the Prisoner purports to be.
Of course, sometimes that customer really just wants the Prisoner. Which leads me to my major confession here: despite more than a bit of ambivalence, I continue to sell the Prisoner, along with other wines that are by no means natural, wines that are quite frankly manufactured. The Prisoner sits on the shelf right next to the Bedrock Heirloom Red, and for the time being, it will stay there. At least twice a week people come in asking specifically for this wine, and, for several reasons, it’s a request I’m not—yet—willing to deny.
Even though I no longer drink the Prisoner, there was a time–not too long ago–when I did so happily. When I first started getting interested in wine, it was a bottle that captured my imagination and helped launch me on the journey I remain committed to today. So maybe I keep the Prisoner around out of a sense of nostalgia. Or maybe I keep it around to remind me how far I’ve come. Maybe I keep it around hoping that for those who ask for it, it will simply be their starting place just as it was mine.
Or, more cynically, maybe I keep it around because people buy it. Maybe it’s a crutch to lean on when I’m too tired to hand-sell the less familiar items on my shelves. Seeing something recognizable is comforting to consumers, and that comfort somehow lends me credibility; credibility is a precedent to trust. Trust is what enables me to recommend something different to a customer who normally drinks the Prisoner.
In this sense, the Prisoner is of great value to me, not just as an easy sell, but even more so as a gateway to all the other wines I have available. I don’t know that I’d be able to move as much of the Bedrock, an unknown wine with a tiny case production, without the Prisoner right next to it.
______
Saying no is extremely hard. Right now, I’m willing to do so 90% of the time, maybe even 95%. Call me a coward or a fake if you want. But I know where I started out, and it’s been a logical evolution. And while I’m headed in a particular direction, guided by my palate, it’s safe to assume I won’t ever be a 100% “natural wine merchant.”
I like to think there’s room for somebody like me—somebody with confidence in her tastes, who also takes into account modes of production in buying decisions; someone who has a particular point of view, yet retains an inclusive attitude. I am strong in my opinions, and enthusiastic in my passions. I never judge my customers, and hope that they’ll be as open-minded and respectful of my offerings as I am of their preferences.
So far, it seems to be working out. In recent months, I’ve brought in only one case of the Prisoner (less than a thousandth of a percent of its total production) for every three cases of the Bedrock (1.3% of its total production).
So, what am I?
I’m not a natural wine merchant. And I’m not not a natural wine merchant.
I’m a work in progress. And I’m okay with that.
The Business of Saying No
Los Angeles Natural Wine Week: Taste California Terroir on 5/15/2010 at Heath Ceramics
Meet the Reps: Amy Atwood
wine jargon
Frizzante
From Wikipedia: Frizzante is an Italian wine term term for semi-sparkling wine (as opposed to Spumante, which is generally used for fully sparkling wines). Frizzante wines generally owe their bubbles to a partial secondary fermentation in tank. You might notice a light fizz or tingly sensation on the tongue with a Frizzante wine, compared to the more carbonated sensation that more fully sparkling wines yield.
Scorekage
Okay, so we made up this word yesterday after a great restaurant experience. We brought a bottle of wine with us, expecting to pay a corkage fee. But the restaurant either forgot to charge us the $15, or decided to be nice to us. We scored! Hence, “scorekage” has entered our lexicon. This can also refer to BYO friendly restaurants that don’t charge for corkage under any circumstances.
grapewise
DomaineLA Store Contact Info
If you’re looking for our brick and mortar shop, here’s where it can be found:
(323) 932-0280
Hours are 11AM to 8PM, Monday through Saturday and noon to 5PM on Sundays.
Read more…Fabulous & Frugal!
Our friends launched a new site and domaine547 is a featured wine columnist in their premiere edition! Go check out Fabulous & Frugal for some fantastic lifestyle tips for living the good life during what, for most of us, is an economically challenging time. There’s much more than wine there, and we’re thrilled to be a small part of the start of what will surely be a successful venture. Congrats to Brandi & Steph for their achievement!
DomaineLA Store Contact Info
Fabulous & Frugal!
domaine547 In the Blogosphere! Imbibe Magazine Unfiltered
October 10th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Very cool idea!
October 10th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I agree. When you told me this was your plan, I thought, hey, this is pretty genius. Now I’m off to buy a Catavino pack…
October 11th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Congratulations to the new Wine Blogger Sampler-Pack!
June 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
[…] we wanted to take the time to thank all of the blogger partners who have participated in the bloggerpack program. We’re going to be sending a thanks that goes beyond just lip service, but to begin […]