Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
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is temperature controlled; most wines are lying on their sides, and the low light is intended to avoid the situation where wines in clear glass bottles end up suffer- ing a matchstick, sulfur aroma from being lightstruck. Balancing Price Though wine represents 70% of the store’s inventory, Bottle Barn offers a huge amount of beer, including national domestic brands, imports and a wide range of craft beers. earson says one of his draws is price. And this is an area that requires a great deal of thought and creates for Ben and his team a sort of delicate balanc- ing act. “We like to work on a 16.5% margin,” he said, “which means that I’m always negotiating what I can sell something for without upsetting the wholesalers and the wineries around here.” P Though he is located in California and can legally buy wine from wineries, about 70% of his stock is from wholesalers with whom he works closely. He doesn’t have the many-thousands-of-cases buying power of a major retail grocery chain, so must pick and choose carefully. Some of the most popular wine brands, which can often be seen in large chains, might be no-shows here. Instead Bottle Barn has the “specials” that sit in the front of the store, just after you enter and pass the checkout counter. This is due to Pearson’s proximity to hundreds of wineries and his personal con- tact with as many winemakers. This per- sonal relationship with winemakers lets him hear of odd lots of sensational wines that are too small to be sold through tradi- some drinks made with exotic spirits, “they come in here looking for these items, and we have them,” said Schneider. He added that Bottle Barn does “way more business with craft beers than ever before. The category is on fire, and we have a dedicated beer buyer, Zack Shelton, who is always searching for those hard-to-get craft brews.” Among the top sellers in this area, he said, are beers from brew master Vinny Cilurzo at Russian River Brewing, just a couple of miles south in downtown Santa Rosa. RRB is one of the top brewers in the country, notably for Belgian abbey sales, and Schneider said he carries five of RRB’s Belgian ales along with esoteric beers such as Pliny the Elder — which is in such demand he said the store allocates purchases. Bottle Barn may look like a warehouse, but the place tional channels. Result: Bottle Barn ends up with a few hundred cases of items that it discounts so deeply that they sell out in weeks or days. These might include some local wines made in amounts too small to appeal to a major supermarket. They could also represent items made from grape varieties that don’t have instant eye appeal, such as a Lagrein, a Silvaner, or a Primitivo. Unlike Trader Joe’s, which sells a lot of the wine it buys in huge amounts under its own brand, Bottle Barn prefers to use smaller lots of wine that represent sensa- tional value, even if the wine runs out of stock quickly. And the wines usually carry the label of the producer. Pearson’s philosophy is simple: if it sells out, there will be another wine right behind it that is just as good – or even better. 26 • Beverage Dynamics • www.beveragedynamics.com • July/August 2011