Tag Archives: Paul Hobbs

Total Wine and the Amazon of Liquor

Amber LeBeau in General, Shopping for Wine

Published on January 23, 2019

Followers of the SpitBucket Facebook page know that I’ve been closely watching the Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association vs. Blair Supreme Court case. It just wrapped up oral arguments on January 16th.

Photo by Miosotis Jade. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY-SA-4.0

It’s been my hope that the Supreme Court would issue a broad ruling that would expand on 2005’s Granholm v. Heald, opening up online sales of wine across state lines. Few things frustrate me more than trying to locate a wine that none of my local shops carry. If I could buy freely online from out of state retailers, that wouldn’t be an issue.

This was a large reason why I also donated and signed onto Wine Freedom’s Friend of the Court Brief for Byrd.

As oral arguments were finishing, it wasn’t long before analysis from in court observers trickled out. While it seems likely that the Court is going to strike down Tennessee’s residency requirement for retailers (which is at the heart of the case), legal experts like Sean O’Leary, the Irish Liquor Lawyer, predicts that the ruling is going be narrow and not tackle the broader issue of consumer freedom.

And that likely will be because of one of my former employers–Total Wine & More.

The Amazon of Liquor?

I have no particular knowledge about Total Wine & More’s involvement in Tennessee or the Supreme Court case apart from what has been publically reported. When I worked there, I was only a sales floor associate, wine class educator and new store trainer. Essentially just a worker bee, if you will.

But even with my very limited insight, there was one Supreme Court exchange that O’Leary related to Forbes contributor Liza B. Zimmerman that jumped out to me.

O’Leary also thinks that the scope of the case has also remained narrow as the attorney for Total Wine—a large enough chain that interstate shipping is not key to their profit model—refused the invitation to go towards a discussion of direct-to-consumer sales. He adds that “Justice Gorusch challenged him and said ‘But isn’t the next business model just to try and operate as the Amazon of liquor? ‘ ”

In response, O’Leary says that “Total Wine’s attorney indicated that his client wanted to operate as a bricks-and mortar [store] and wants to be subject to Tennessee’s laws.” The long-term goal for the chain would be to “not to be discriminated against.” — Liza B. Zimmerman, Forbes.com 1/20/2019

Sidestepping or Something Else?

This “Amazon of Liquor” exchange has been featured in multiple reports on the case. It is often coupled with surprise at Total Wine’s demuring from aggressively fighting for online consumer channels. The initial response seems to be that Total Wine was sidestepping the issue.

The New York Times even noted Justice Elena Kagan’s skepticism to the answer of Total Wine’s attorney that those broader issues could be debated another day.

“Well,” she said, “we’re leaving a lot of things for another day, but they all seem to be demanded by the principles that you’re asking us to adopt.” Elena Kagan, as reported by Adam Liptak of The New York Times, 1/26/2019

While I’m disheartened at the likelihood of a narrow ruling, Total Wine’s stance doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. That’s because the mythos of Total Wine having eyes on being the “Amazon of Liquor” is way off course.

In fact, their entire business model is actually seriously threatened by a broad ruling opening up online sales.

Face-To-Face Contact

Many wine lovers don’t know about David & Karen Dunphy’s 16 x 20 Wines. They only make a few hundred cases and have limited distribution.
Total Wine trains their associates to listen for clues so they can add-on bottles from small producers like this.
So if they hear that a customer enjoys Paul Hobbs’ winemaking, they may suggest the Dunphy’s wine.

Again, these are just the observations of a former worker bee. But from my past experience, the strength of Total’s business model doesn’t translate well to online sales. Total Wine only succeeds if people physically walk into their stores and interact with their associates.

Total Wine’s model is built around three pillars–low prices, large selection and customer service. They utilize the first two pillars to get people into the store. Then they rely on their staffing to deliver on that third pillar of service.

Associates are trained from day one to work on building relationships with customers, listening to their likes and dislikes. They are instructed to use that feedback to “build the basket”. This is essentially recommending new wines that the customer may not have had yet and to keep adding bottles.

If someone comes in looking for a particular wine, the goal is that they don’t leave with just that one wine. Hopefully, they will have at least 2-3 more bottles of something new to try as well.

Often these extra bottles will be small producers and limited releases that Total Wine seeks out to bolster their selection. It’s the associate job to listen to the customer and make strong recommendations of wines they’ll like. The hope (and key to Total’s success) is that the customer returns looking for these new wines.

But That’s Hard to Do With Online Sales

Total Wine’s best leverage of their large selection is by having customers fall in love with wines that they can’t find easily elsewhere. That’s not likely going to happen without face-to-face contact and relationship building by their staff.

While I don’t have any concrete data, I strongly suspect that people who go to a website for a particular wine likely only buy that one wine. Anecdotally, this was often how the online orders received at the stores I worked at played out. As an associate, these “in-store pick up” and later Instacart delivery orders were sources of endless frustration since our ability to build relationships with these customers was near non-existent.

Without building relationships, learning customer’s tastes and being able to “build the basket”, Total Wine’s strength as a major retail player is significantly reduced.

In fact (and, again, I have no special insight here), I would wager that the management of Total Wine actually dreads the idea of an “Amazon of Liquor”. Because such an entity would be their fiercest competitor and neutralize most of their strengths.

Low Prices

Since I can’t buy freely online, right now I use WineSearcher.com to get a general idea of how competitive the pricing is of the retailers in my market.

Take out your phone and look for a particular wine on WineSearcher.com. Not only can you easily find the average retail price but you can shop around to find the retailer with the lowest price. That’s not always going to be the same retailer or even one that is local.

If you open up the floodgate for more online sales, retailers will be competing with more than just their local market in pricing. While that’s great for consumers, that’s not great for retailers like Total Wine who aim to have the lowest price in their market.

Large Selection

The typical Total Wine store leverages their large retail footprint to carry thousands upon thousands of wines. This is often far more than their local competitors. But that’s only a pittance of the amount of wine that could be available if consumers could shop freely online.

There are only so many skus that a physical retail store can carry. Total Wine might be the “big dog” now in markets. But online sales tosses that calling card out the window.

More like the Argonauts of Liquor

With online sales potentially neutralizing the strength of low prices and large selection, retailers like Total Wine would have to up their game to get people to shop in stores with more in-store education classes and tasting events.

Far from desiring to be the Amazon of Liquor, the Supreme Court testimony of Total Wine shows that they are more like Jason and the Argonauts trying to carefully navigate away from Themiscyra.

Right now things are going really good for Total Wine. Over the last 20 years, they’ve seen explosive growth with nearly 200 stores in 22 states.

Their business model of low prices and large selections makes their brick-and-mortar stores destinations for consumers. The relationship building and customer service of their staff keep those consumers coming back. But that all begins with customers physically shopping in stores.

This is the irony in Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association vs. Blair.

Total Wine clearly wants to win the case, keeping their Knoxville location and opening up more stores. However, winning with a broad ruling could be worse for them than losing.

Many local retailers and governments try to keep Total Wine out by clinging to protectionist and discriminatory laws. They think these laws hurt Total Wine and will slow their growth. Yet it is the antithesis of these laws–allowing more consumer freedom–that would deliver the hardest blow to Total Wine.

In many ways, protectionist laws actually end up protecting Total Wine.

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Cannonball Run and Review

Amber LeBeau in Wine reviews

Published on December 6, 2018

The 1981 Burt Reynolds film Cannonball Run is a classic campy action film. But it’s also one of those films that can get a little cringe-worthy watching it in a modern light.

CannonBall Run posted. Uploaded to Wikipedia under Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11146898

Based around a fabled cross-country race, the film has an all-star cast that includes Reynolds, Farrah Fawcett, Dom DeLuise, Roger Moore, Dean Martin, Jackie Chan, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Fonda, Mel Tillis and Terry Bradshaw as well as a heap of “good ole boy” bawdiness.

Fawcett’s character gets kidnapped to be a fake patient in Reynolds’ souped up ambulance. She’s drugged by a creepy doctor (played by Jack Elam) when it’s convenient for Reynolds to use her unconscious body to avoid speeding tickets.

When she comes to, she sleepily smiles and asks if any of the men laid a finger on her while she was out. The joke was that the only thing they did was give her “a little prick” (of a needle, har, har). But, of course, everything is okay because she eventually falls for her captor. Never mind that he didn’t care to even want to learn her name at the beginning and just called her “Beauty”.

Then there was the Vixen Team played by Marcie Thatcher and Jill Rivers who responded to every obstacle in their path by unzipping their racing suits to show more cleavage.

Yet as problematic as Cannonball Run is by today’s standards, it’s hard to judge it too harshly. It was certainly a different time 37 years ago and Cannonball Run was never meant to be taken as a serious film. It was always just a silly, popcorn muncher.

Why am I waxing philosophically about an old Burt Reynolds film?

You could blame a late night Netflix binge. But really why we’re here is because of my recent experience with the Cannonball Eleven wines from Share a Splash Wine Co.

While the Cannonball brand was built on value oriented supermarket wines in the $10-15 range (the popcorn munchers of the wine world), the Cannonball Eleven series is marketed as a more elevated and terroir driven offering.

It’s more Academy Award nominated Boogie Nights Burt Reynolds than Cannonball Run Reynolds–with certainly less “Captain Chaos”.

Intrigued by Cannonball’s all-star cast of Dennis Hill (formerly of Seghesio, Alexander Valley Vineyards, Martin Ray and founding winemaker of Blackstone) and Ondine Chattan (formerly of Ridge, Cline and Geyser Peak), I decided to give these new wines a try.

Full Disclosure: These wines were sent to me as samples.

The Background

Cannonball Wine Company was founded in 2006 in Healdsburg, Sonoma by Yoav Gilat and Dennis Hill.

Focusing on under $20 wines blended from a variety of California regions, the company eventually grew to include a portfolio of brands like Angels & Cowboys Wines, High Dive (a collaboration with Napa Valley winemakers Scott Palazzo of Palazzo Wines and Peter Heitz of Turnbull Wine Cellars) and the Marlborough winery Astrolabe.

In 2017, Cannonball Wine Company relaunched itself as Share a Splash Wine Co.

The Wines

2017 Cannonball Eleven Sauvignon blanc Dry Creek Valley ($24.99)

I’m not a big fan of grassy and green New Zealand Sauvignon blancs so this tropical but elegant Cannonball Eleven Sauvignon blanc hit a lot of pleasure notes.

A 100% Sauvignon blanc, the wine was primarily fermented in stainless steel with a small portion fermented in (presumably neutral) French oak barrels. Around 14,000 bottles were made.

Medium-plus intensity nose. Very tropical with lots of citrus starfruit and melon notes. What’s interesting is that you can get both the zest and pulp aromatics from the fruit. No sign of oak on the nose.

On the palate, the medium-plus acidity makes the tropical fruit tastes very fresh and juicy. Still no oak flavors but the medium body weight of the fruit is balanced by a creamy texture that isn’t that dissimilar to a white Bordeaux. The moderate finish keeps with the fresh tropical flavors but tilts more towards the zestier aspects of the fruit.

2017 Cannonball Eleven Chardonnay Sonoma Coast ($34.99)

I gave these wines nearly a month from when I received them to settle down from travel shock.
I suspect the awkwardness of this Chard is due to its youth,

A 100% Chardonnay, this wine was fermented in a combination of stainless steel and French oak barrels (20% new and 15% second fill). After fermentation, 40% of the wine was aged 8 months in neutral French oak barrels sur lie. Around 15,000 bottles were produced.

Medium-minus intensity nose. Tree fruits like apple with some pastry tart elements. A little vanilla and baking spice from the oak. Rather muted even as the wine warms in the glass.

On the palate, the apple notes carry through and also spice d’Anjou pear with them. There is still some of the pastry baking elements but the presence of oak is much more toned down. Medium-plus acidity gives balance to the medium-plus body fruit. There’s texture to the mouthfeel but it isn’t very malo driven. Unfortunately everything just quickly fades on the mid-palate ending on a practically non-existent finish.

2016 Cannonball Eleven Merlot Sonoma County ($34.99)

A blend of 94% Merlot with 6% Petite Sirah sourced from the Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys. The wine received a cold soak prior to fermentation in stainless steel before being aged in French oak barrels for 6 to 20 months. I suspect that probably the Petite Sirah was aged closer to the 6 month mark while most of the Merlot lots in the blend were aged longer.

Medium-plus intensity nose. Lots of oak with noticeable vanilla as well as chocolate latte aromatics. It’s a very toasty latte like the burnt coffee base of Starbucks. Underneath the oak and chocolate is some dark fruit but it’s hard to make out at this point.

On the palate, the chocolate definitely carries through and so does the dark fruit which become more defined as cherries. But also here is where a distinct streak of pyrazines, particularly jalapeno, emerges. Medium acidity adds a soft lushness to the medium-plus tannins. It’s just enough to hold up the full-bodied fruit. The moderate finish unfortunately lingers on the chocolate-covered jalapenos.

The Verdict

The Dry Creek Sauvignon blanc is by far the strongest of the three Cannonball Eleven wines I tried. It’s clearly California with the warm climate fruit but it has an elegant structure and mouthfeel that you don’t often find in California Sauvignon blancs. It’s versatile as an easy drinking sipper but has the depth to be a solid food pairing wine.

Compared to its peers, I would put the Cannonball Eleven above the similarly priced Emmolo and Duckhorn and not that far off from the $30-35 Cakebread Sauvignon blanc.

I suspect that the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is in an awkward phase. It tastes a bit disjointed with some of the baby-fat of oak on the nose and the fruit quickly fading on the palate.
It seems to have decent structure and probably will improve with at least 6 months more bottle age. With its acidity and balance I can see this improving even for another 2 to 3 years.

But right now it reminds me more of the $13-16 Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve than it does other Sonoma Coast Chardonnays like Amici and Paul Hobbs’ Crossbarn which can often be had in the $23-26 range. With a price in the realm of Ramey, Failia and Patz & Hall’s Sonoma Coast bottlings, it’s hard to say the Cannonball Eleven Chardonnay is justifying that at the moment.

Oh but that Merlot…

Yeah, not my thing.

The only Cannonball Eleven wine that wouldn’t personally buy is the Merlot. The combination of overt oak, chocolate and pyrazines just isn’t my style. The best way I can describe this wine is as a bowl of chocolate covered cherries and jalapenos.

Maybe we did have some “Captain Chaos” after all.

I can possibly see this wine working for folks who aren’t as sensitive to pyrazines. If you can look past the green notes, it does have jammy, chocolately fruit with a lush mouthfeel. However, you can find wines in that style (particularly California red blends) for far less than $35.

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60 Second Wine Review — àMaurice Viognier

Amber LeBeau in 60 Second Reviews, Washington wine, Wine reviews

Published on March 13, 2018

A few quick thoughts on the 2016 àMaurice Viognier.

The Geekery

àMaurice was founded in 2004 by Tom and Kathleen Shafer with the winery named after Tom’s father. Paul Gregutt notes in Washington Wines that the first couple vintages were made by Rich Funk of Saviah Cellars while the Shafer’s daughter, Anna, studied winemaking down in Argentina with Paul Hobbs’ Viña Cobos.

The estate vineyard was first planted in 2006 in Mill Creek Valley in the foothills of the Blue Mountains–not far from Leonetti’s Mill Creek Upland Vineyard. Planted to Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Syrah, it was the first registered sustainable vineyard in Washington. Additionally, àMaurice were charter members of Vinea–an alliance of Walla Walla vineyards and wineries committed to sustainable practices.

In addition to their estate fruit, àMaurice also sources from Gamache, Connor Lee and Weinbau Vineyards in the Wahluke Slope; Boushey and Den Hoed Vineyards in Yakima Valley as well as Sagemoor, Bacchus and Dionysus Vineyards in the Columbia Valley.

The 2016 àMaurice Viognier is sourced primarily from Gamache and Den Hoed Vineyards. The wine was aged in 5% new oak.

The Wine

High intensity nose with lots of tree fruits–peaches and apricot–and white floral notes. There is also a spiciness in the background that I can’t quite pick out.

Photo by Mgmoscatello. Released on Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY-SA-3.0

Lovely ginger spice adds lots of character to this wine.

On the palate those ripe tree fruits carry through and add lots of weight and depth to the wine. But there is also a lot of elegance with medium-plus acidity adding freshness and lift. There is some citrus zest that comes out on the palate with the spice getting more defined as fresh ginger. The floral notes return for the long silky finish.

The Verdict

At around $28-35, this is clearly one of the best white wines made in Washington. What is more remarkable is that this is essentially Anna Shafer’s entry-level Viognier with àMaurice also offering an estate bottling as well as a Viognier/Marsanne blend from Boushey Vineyards.

Well worth looking for.

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60 Second Wine Review — 2012 Mark Herold Brown Label

Amber LeBeau in 60 Second Reviews, Napa Valley, Wine reviews

Published on February 23, 2018

A few quick thoughts on the 2012 Mark Herold Brown Label Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Geekery

Mark Herold got his start in the wine industry as a research enologist for Joseph Phelps before founding Merus in 1998 in his garage with his then wife, Erika Gottl. Jim Gordon notes in Opus Vino, that over the next 10 years Herold turned his small 1500 case production of Merus into one of the most acclaimed wines in Napa. In 2007, Merus was sold to Foley Wine Group with Herold leaving the following year as Camille Benitah and Paul Hobbs took over winemaking.

After leaving Merus, Herold continued consulting at estates like Buccella, Celani Family, Kamen, Kobalt, Harris, Hestan and Maze. As part of a divorce settlement and non-compete, he agreed not to make any Cabernet Sauvignon under his own label until 2010.

According to Barnivore, Mark Herold Wines are vegan-friendly. The 2012 Brown Label is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon with around 575 cases made.

The Wine

Medium-plus intensity nose. Lots of sweet oak spices and vanilla. Rich dark fruit–currants, blackberries. There is also a smokey, roasted coffee element to the nose as well.

On the palate, the wine is very big and full-bodied with medium-plus acidity and medium-plus tannins. The dark fruits carry through but the oak still dominants with the vanilla adding a lushness that rounds out the tannic edge. I wished the coffee note carried through with the smokey element instead being more toasted wood on the palate instead of roasted coffee. Moderate length finished.

Rich dark fruits like black currant and oak are abundant in this Cab.

The Verdict

The 2012 Mark Herold Brown Label falls in line with your classic big, bold Napa Cabs that have noticeable oak. Though while it does have rich dark fruit and vanilla lusciousness, it is a bit better balanced than most of its peers with the tannins keeping it from being sweet and the acidity bringing freshness.

At around $95-110, it is very much in line with wines from estates like Cakebread, Silver Oak, Frank Family and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.