We are at the beginning of our sixth month in business and somehow we appear to be on the cusp of success. I thought we had a decent December, but we almost hit December sales in January and then in February we beat December. No small feat considering December should have had a holiday bump and of course February is the shortest month and typically fairly slow. All I can say is that I am really pleased.
The store has been humming along without any major hitches now for the last couple of months. I am still fine tuning our computerized inventory and we have crept up to more than a thousand different wines in the store. I have been able to pick up some terrific buys, such as Champagne Charlie for $99.99 and Ch Lascombe Margaux 2005 for $94.99. This seems to be a great year to have entered the retail wine business, since so many wineries are discounting there top end wines. I really feel like I ma still in Kentucky with all of the discounting that is going on.
We had our first Customer Appreciation tasting last week and it was a rousing success, with nearly thirty people in attendance and almost three cases of interesting wines from my home cellar opened for tasting. The highlight for me was a 1970 Bordeaux, which I had gotten from winebid several years ago. This wine was incredibly smooth and anything but over the hill. It may be hard to beat next year.
Next week is the Cincinnati Wine Festival and we will have a chance to try some interesting wines at the trade event on Friday afternoon. We will get a rare Friday off as well, since we will not have a tasting, to allow our customers to check out the Festival. We are looking forward to some fun tastings in the coming months. Check out our web site for further info. www.watertowerfinewines.com.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Grower Champagne Tasting
Last Sunday we hosted our first Champagne Brunch featuring Grower champagnes. We ended up with a merry group of 18. We poured 8 Champagnes and a Cremante as the welcome wine. Jan outdid herself with the buffet, with more than eight items to choose from all but the meat items being vegetarian. The winner was the Pierre Peters Cuvee de Reserve Brut, which sold out. Also showing well were the Marc Hebrart Cuvee de Reserve Brut, Rene Geoffroy Cuvee Empreinte Brut and the Gaston Chiquet Tradition Brut. It was a full day witht the last couple still there after 5:00. We will be host our second Champagne/Sparkler Brunch in may and it will feature Prosecco's. Watch our web site www.watertowerfinewines.com for the date.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Snow Day
Sitting in the store contemplating the snow that fell last night and this morning. We Had a good tasting last night, in spite of the snow. The main event was sparklers and rose' and all things considered they were well received. We had several bonus wine including 05 Stemmler Carneros Pinot $26.99, Don Ramos Campo de Borja $6.99, Louis Bernard 03 Lirac $10.99 and a special treat Quinta da Romaneira Vintage Port 2004, which had been over $50 and is now $26.99. It was a small, but mighty group that braved the weather. It is funny how you view the weather differently whether you are the owner of an retail establishment or and employee. Whereas as an employee. bad weather only means you might have a boring shift, as a store owner it means the loss of income. The way I look at it though is that there is nothing that I can do about the weather, so just go with it. Just as we are having bad weather now there will certainly come a time when we have unexpected good weather and will make up for the slow times.
This month we are kicking off two new regular tastings, first up is our quarterly Champagne Brunch every other quarter will be a grower champagne tasting, the others will spotlight other styles of bubbly and be more affordable for every day consumption. The other reoccurring tasting we are kicking off this month is our monthly Tuesday Premium Tasting. These tastings will allow us to focus on more esoteric wines and varietals. They will be held on Tuesday nights at 7:00. This month's will be Premium Italians and be held on the 23rd. Next month we will be featuring Beringer Luxury wines including the Private Reserve Cabernet.
We are looking forward to the coming of spring opening up the deck for use. We anticipate that will boost our business substantially. Look for more news and updates in future blog entries. Thanks for you interest and attention.
This month we are kicking off two new regular tastings, first up is our quarterly Champagne Brunch every other quarter will be a grower champagne tasting, the others will spotlight other styles of bubbly and be more affordable for every day consumption. The other reoccurring tasting we are kicking off this month is our monthly Tuesday Premium Tasting. These tastings will allow us to focus on more esoteric wines and varietals. They will be held on Tuesday nights at 7:00. This month's will be Premium Italians and be held on the 23rd. Next month we will be featuring Beringer Luxury wines including the Private Reserve Cabernet.
We are looking forward to the coming of spring opening up the deck for use. We anticipate that will boost our business substantially. Look for more news and updates in future blog entries. Thanks for you interest and attention.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
I am back again
Just a heads up to anyone who is still following me at this blog, I will soon be entering new updates about our store and wines I have come across. For those of you who may not know my wife and I opened a wine store called Water Tower Fine Wines in Mt Washington last Septmeber 22nd. We have bee trilled with the response our store has been given. We have open tastings every Friday night from 5:30 to 8:30. More information on the store can be found at our website www.watertowerfinewines.com. We hope to see some of you at the store and I will share more information on the store over the next weeks and months.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Water Tower Fine Wines is Coming Soon
Tuesday September 22nd will usher in a new era in my life with the opening of our wine store in Mt Washington at 6136 Campus lane. I intend for this to be a different kind of wine store. My mantra is "It helps to know what it tastes like, if you want to buy it."
As such my goal will be to sample as much wine as possible to my customers, so there knowledge and appreciation of wine can be stretched. We will carry over 500 different wines including more than 50 sparkling wines. Our Friday wine tastings will start on October 2nd at 5:30 with the first 15 people being treated to a sample of whatever sparkling wine I open that night. The tasting will be a brown bag comparison of similar wines from different regions for $15. There will be a premium pour available for a separate charge. Food, made by my talented wife will be provided to complement the wines. This is very exciting for us and we hope that our enthusiasm is shared by our customers. Come see us and share joys of learning about wine and food.
David
As such my goal will be to sample as much wine as possible to my customers, so there knowledge and appreciation of wine can be stretched. We will carry over 500 different wines including more than 50 sparkling wines. Our Friday wine tastings will start on October 2nd at 5:30 with the first 15 people being treated to a sample of whatever sparkling wine I open that night. The tasting will be a brown bag comparison of similar wines from different regions for $15. There will be a premium pour available for a separate charge. Food, made by my talented wife will be provided to complement the wines. This is very exciting for us and we hope that our enthusiasm is shared by our customers. Come see us and share joys of learning about wine and food.
David
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Belated Twitter Taste (not so) Live
I know the Frederick Wildman Twitter Taste Live took place on Saturday night, but several things caused me not to be able to join. The primary issue was the temperature in Cincinnati, it was raw and in the low seventies, certainly far from ideal weather to sample such a fine selection of summer wines. So we tried them twice over the last two evenings and will finish them off tonight. That said, they were exceptional wines! I am not sure how many people read this blog, but I know that some other bloggers have gotten flack for not acknowledging freebies. I got these wine for free as samples.
The Sauv Blanc ,which is clearly marketed to the US market, called Attitude (2008) is a crisp clean wine from Pascal Jolivet. This wine was not grassy in the least, but rather had a refined tart pink grapefruit flavor that I find very refreshing. The wine has "racy acidity", which makes it very food friendly. My wife particularly liked it with asparagus. This wine was a hit with all of those who we sampled it with.
The next wine was a Chablis (2007) from Christian Moreau. This wine exhibited the lighter side of Chardonnay. It was simple and straight forward, with clean vanilla and honey notes. This was a very refreshing wine with hints of melon. For this often overlooked French stepchild of Chardonnay, often overlooked in the over oaked work of the American wine industry, this was very good.
From Burgundy we took a detour to Alsace and the Hugel 2007 Riesling. Hugel has always been one of my favorite Alsatian producers with just enough of the gravely flintiness of the region to make it refreshing, while not overpowering the wine. This wine had wonderful green apple notes complemented by melon and peach. I found just a hint of nuttiness on the finish. Again this was another wonderful wine!
Next we travel back to Burgundy for Olivier Leflaive's "Les Setilles" 2007, this was wonderful expression of chardonnay, with just the right amount of oak to give it creamy vanilla notes. It also exhibits the tropical fruits which are most associated with the grape in its unoaked form. This is a clean wine with fresh tart notes that I find to a great expression of the grape. There are hints of citrus, mango and guava. This is truly a summer wine, while many of the over oaked American expressions of the grape are better suited for steak and cold weather.
My favorite of the tasting was the next wine from the Rhone. The Parallel 45 Rose'from Paul Jaboulet. I must admit my wife and I have been on a serious Rose' kick this summer. That said it was still a really good wine. This wine had body and creaminess sometimes missing in Rose'. It had light refreshing notes of strawberry and is very thirst quenching. A great summer sipper.
Finally came the Gamay from Potel-Aviron 2008. Just as with the Rose' I must admit that I am not a big fan of Beaujolais. I was pleasantly surprised with this wine, it was good. While still not one of my favorite, I must say that this is a good red wine for the summer and even though I am not a fan of chilling red wines, I could see this wine with a slight chill on it. This is a good wine for anyone who likes wines on the fruitier side. Though heavy on the fruit this is still a clean and smooth tasting wine. I still cannot say that I really like Beaujolais wines, but I do have more respect for them after trying this example.
In closing I want to thank Frederick Wildman for providing these wines free for us to sample and review. They were all very nice. More importantly for most consumers they were affordable. The Rose' is $12, the Beaujplais is $13, the Sauv Blanc is $18 (though a little high for a sauv blanc, not so for a good Sancerre), the Hugel is $20 and worth it, and the two Chardonnays are $23. I think these are all affordable and worth the money. Obviously there are a lot of good summer time wines out here for those without a clue, these could be good starting points in each of their categories. I also want to say in closing that we will likely carry several of these wines in our new store when we open this fall, so Wildman will benefit from there sampling in more than one way. Thanks again.
The Sauv Blanc ,which is clearly marketed to the US market, called Attitude (2008) is a crisp clean wine from Pascal Jolivet. This wine was not grassy in the least, but rather had a refined tart pink grapefruit flavor that I find very refreshing. The wine has "racy acidity", which makes it very food friendly. My wife particularly liked it with asparagus. This wine was a hit with all of those who we sampled it with.
The next wine was a Chablis (2007) from Christian Moreau. This wine exhibited the lighter side of Chardonnay. It was simple and straight forward, with clean vanilla and honey notes. This was a very refreshing wine with hints of melon. For this often overlooked French stepchild of Chardonnay, often overlooked in the over oaked work of the American wine industry, this was very good.
From Burgundy we took a detour to Alsace and the Hugel 2007 Riesling. Hugel has always been one of my favorite Alsatian producers with just enough of the gravely flintiness of the region to make it refreshing, while not overpowering the wine. This wine had wonderful green apple notes complemented by melon and peach. I found just a hint of nuttiness on the finish. Again this was another wonderful wine!
Next we travel back to Burgundy for Olivier Leflaive's "Les Setilles" 2007, this was wonderful expression of chardonnay, with just the right amount of oak to give it creamy vanilla notes. It also exhibits the tropical fruits which are most associated with the grape in its unoaked form. This is a clean wine with fresh tart notes that I find to a great expression of the grape. There are hints of citrus, mango and guava. This is truly a summer wine, while many of the over oaked American expressions of the grape are better suited for steak and cold weather.
My favorite of the tasting was the next wine from the Rhone. The Parallel 45 Rose'from Paul Jaboulet. I must admit my wife and I have been on a serious Rose' kick this summer. That said it was still a really good wine. This wine had body and creaminess sometimes missing in Rose'. It had light refreshing notes of strawberry and is very thirst quenching. A great summer sipper.
Finally came the Gamay from Potel-Aviron 2008. Just as with the Rose' I must admit that I am not a big fan of Beaujolais. I was pleasantly surprised with this wine, it was good. While still not one of my favorite, I must say that this is a good red wine for the summer and even though I am not a fan of chilling red wines, I could see this wine with a slight chill on it. This is a good wine for anyone who likes wines on the fruitier side. Though heavy on the fruit this is still a clean and smooth tasting wine. I still cannot say that I really like Beaujolais wines, but I do have more respect for them after trying this example.
In closing I want to thank Frederick Wildman for providing these wines free for us to sample and review. They were all very nice. More importantly for most consumers they were affordable. The Rose' is $12, the Beaujplais is $13, the Sauv Blanc is $18 (though a little high for a sauv blanc, not so for a good Sancerre), the Hugel is $20 and worth it, and the two Chardonnays are $23. I think these are all affordable and worth the money. Obviously there are a lot of good summer time wines out here for those without a clue, these could be good starting points in each of their categories. I also want to say in closing that we will likely carry several of these wines in our new store when we open this fall, so Wildman will benefit from there sampling in more than one way. Thanks again.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Our new venture.
My wife and I have been busy the past week. We finally closed on a building, in the near in Cincinnati suburb of Mt Washington, where we will open Water Tower Fine Wines this fall. We have been talking about doing this for many years and now that we have actually embarked on the journey, it is very exciting. We have many ideas for what we want in our store, but I believe that customer input can be very useful and as such I am happy to take suggestions. If there are things that you feel must be included in a good wine store and tasting room let me know. If there are things that you dislike and would not want in the ideal store, also let us know. Obviously it is our store, but we will take to heart all ideas and incorporate as many as we can. Thanks to all that will join us in this exciting journey.
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