I'LL DRINK TO THAT Bringing Wine Country to Downtown Brentwood
	SEPTEMBER 2004

by Paul Laza
Photos by Brad Shifflett

A few years ago my partner, Steve, and I spent three days with our wives locked in a suite at the Jackson Rancheria Casino putting together the business plan, name, and the motto for our Brentwood Wine Store. Those were exciting days for all of us. We never visited the casino the entire weekend, since we found the business-planning going on in those rooms to be more exciting than any game of blackjack could possibly be.
We actually did take a few breaks to visit the nearby foothill wineries. A number of the labels we tasted that weekend are on the racks in our store today.

A Buck's Worth of Encouragement
We sold our first bottle of wine Nov. 11, 2001, but we had actually received our first dollar into the business several months before that. Things had not been going too well for us at that point. We were facing a lot of challenges — including such things as required permits and licenses, no idea of a suitable downtown location, all against the backdrop of a battle we were fighting against a moratorium on downtown liquor sales.

We are people of faith and we began to wonder if Somebody might be trying to send us a message through all the problems we were facing that we shouldn't continue with our plans. A friend of ours, sensing our discouragement, handed me a dollar bill. "What does it say on the back of every dollar bill?" she asked, "In Whom do we trust?"

That dollar gave all of us the courage to continue pressing forward with our plans. It reminded us that we all believed that a vision had been given to us. We always felt we were led to this passion and simply needed to press on.

We came to think of our business in terms of the wine industry itself. A farmer who wants to sell wine has to plant a vineyard, wait for the vines to become mature, wait for the harvest, press the grapes, bottle the wine, and age the vintage.

So the progression from the idea of the vineyard to the first bottle of wine turns out to be a process requiring a couple of years, or more until the payoff. We came to realize that the patience required of a farmer who plants a vineyard is comparable to the faith demanded of us as we started our business.

Wine in our Genes as a Basis for Friendship
Steve and I both have the wine business in our blood. His parents owned a pub in England and my grandmother owned a Denver bar. I myself became interested in wine as a child being raised in the Livermore Valley. I have early memories of touring area wineries with my parents and their friends.

Although I was a child I couldn't help but notice how much fun people had in those environments. I was always impressed with how relaxed everybody at a winery seemed to be. Also, even as a boy I became interested in the wine making art. On those winery tours the guides would describe the winemaking process for the adults. I didn't understand all the details, but I was all ears. Whatever they were saying, it sounded tantalizing to me!

My wife, Lois, was raised in the same type of background as I. Her mom was a gourmet chef and her dad a wine connoisseur. Both our families served wine at the dinner table in the European manner, and we were reared on the taste of diluted wine.

Lois also connected with the wine industry, as tutor for several years, to a son of the family that owns Livermore Valley's Concannon Vineyard. Lois and I met in the seventh grade and became childhood sweethearts.

We met Steve and Jane at Wellington Cellars in Sonoma County, at a barrel tasting affair. A barrel tasting is the exciting event when the public gets the first sample of the early wine.

Steve and I have always believed that our meeting each other that day was providential. Lois and I should have been gone, but our departure had been delayed. As we were preparing to leave, Steve and Jane came walking through the door. It was really strange because Lois' antenna suddenly went up. "Are you from Brentwood?" she asked. Nobody knows why she asked that. She was supposed to ask, I think.

We really believe this meeting was supposed to take place. We were destined to meet each other at that time and place. The four of us became friends almost on the spot.

As we spoke together we discovered a lot of connections. For example, Steve and I learned that we both work in San Jose. The two of us began commuting together, often spending three hours a day in each other's company.

Birth of a Happy Idea
Steve and I were working for competing high-tech corporations, which meant that we had to find topics beside work to talk about. We spoke about raising kids and about all the time we were missing at home because of our commute.

Eventually we agreed that it was time to go into business for ourselves. We knew we had the education, training, and experience to start our own high-tech operation, but we didn't want to do that. We wanted to have fun, so we decided to open a downtown wine establishment.

None of us had ever started a business before, but we believed there was nothing we couldn't do. Among the four of us we thought we were ready for anything. We wanted a challenge. What we actually got was more than we bargained for.

Steve and I wrote a business plan in the car during our daily commutes. We finally decided to get away and seriously focus on planning the business itself. That was the decision that led to the three-day getaway I spoke of at the beginning of the article.

Finding the suitable downtown location was something of a miracle. The downtown vacancy rate was an effective zero. For commercial properties, the average elapsed time from opening to lease signing was less than 72 hours.

After all our efforts and worry, the solution ended up almost dropping into our laps. Daphne Swisher's father, Roberto Arteaga, owns the middle of the block where our store now is. Daphne is a neighbor of ours and was the manager for her dad's property. She became aware that the place was opening up and, since she knew that we were searching for a location, she asked us if we wanted to look at the property.

When Daphne called us we immediately came downtown, walked through the place, made an on-the-spot decision, which we sealed with a handshake. In less than two hours we had gone from a state of aimless searching to having our own place.

Rolling up our Sleeves
We considered the whole experience of getting a location to be a somewhat supernatural event even, though it was a miracle of a rather dilapidated type. When we took the store over, it was a real fixer-upper, with paint peeling from the exterior wood siding.

Even worse, the building came with no water, a 50-year old electric system, and the floor carpeting looked even more awful than the mental picture a person would get from reading the words describing it — "orange shag carpeting."

When we finished with it, that carpeting looked better in the dumpster than it had when it was on the floor. I'm sorry we didn't save a piece of the stuff. We could have framed it and hung it on the wall. It was pretty unbelievable!

Beginning in May 2001, the four of us spent nearly every free moment preparing the place for our November opening. We learned how to hang wallpaper, lay floors, and install plumbing. Steve became an expert with a jack-hammer.

I have to say that my partner, Steve, became the hero of us all by working on the project fulltime. Without Steve's commitment and dedication, we never could have made this happen.

Thinking about those days reminds me of the old story of the barnyard animals who wanted to provide breakfast for the farmer. "I'll give him my eggs," the chicken said to the pig. "You give him your bacon."

Of course the pig was not as enthusiastic about the plan as the chicken. "You are going to make a donation," the pig said. "I'm going to make a sacrifice."

That's the way it was for us in getting the building ready for business. We all made donations, but Steve really sacrificed himself.

Wine to the People!
We provide a sweet deal for area residents, with a list of happy activities. For five bucks people can taste new wines, get a lesson on how to taste wines, find a wine they like, and meet a friend — an old friend or a brand new one.

Some of our customers who met each other in our store are now married to each other. These have never been arranged dates, the people just met each other. Our slogan is "Bring a neighbor; meet a neighbor" Obviously, some of the relationships turn out to be much more than neighborly.

We regularly have winemakers come in and pour for us. Mondavi and representatives from other recognized name brands come down and pour. We've conducted a special event every Friday and Saturday night since we opened. We introduce our guests to many varietals, including such things as Chardonnays, Cabernets, and "Big Reds" (e.g., Opus 1 or Duck Horn).

Adding to the Friday and Saturday pleasure of our customers, we provide an assortment of appetizers and desserts, including sushi, cheese, and fruit platters. In addition, customers can order off the menu from Grazi.

People love this service! Really hungry customers can even order dinner. We'll take their order and phone it in for them ourselves.

We have no corkage agreements with Minhs, Grozzi, Sweeney's, and Bunkers. We're going to be doing some more collaborative advertising with them.

Our attitude is that if you can't bring people to the wineries, we'll bring the wineries to the people. People can do tastings or open up a bottle and share it together.

Our store has an under-21 area, complete with a box of toys and crayons. We serve "kid-wine" in this area — sparkling apple cider, actually.

After fewer than three years we've outgrown our space so this summer we're expanding. We've added space in back to increase storage, expanded our wine bar seating, and built a new patio for outdoor enjoyment on balmy summer evenings.

We're working hard to transition to new services without changing the experience for any of our current customers. We want to make the experience more comprehensive with no change in the quality of the experience. We intend to continue to provide an atmosphere comparable to an evening at home with friends. The only difference is the cash register sitting on the end of the bar. (And you don't have to wash the glasses and plates afterwards.)

The People Who Make it Happen
The people working with us in the store are just as wonderful as the customers they serve. Jane Cropper does our books and handles ordering of supplies. What she especially prefers, however, is to sip wine and have pleasant conversations with customers.

My wife, Lois, takes care of all the accessories, including such things as wine-pullers, glasses, t-shirts, chocolates, magazines, books, and picnic bags. In addition, she is a gifted graphics designer who does all our graphics.

All four of us do the wine selection. Steve and I do most of the merchandizing.

We have two other staff working behind the counter. Jerry Mercado is an amazing individual. He's lived here in Brentwood forever, it seems. Jerry knows everybody. He's 100% loyal, 100% honest — and nearly 100% tardy to every event in his life.

Page is the store's company "mom." She takes care of everything. Page cleans the floor and reminds us of everything we would otherwise forget. She especially takes care of Jerry, making sure he shows up on time, to the extent she can do so.

Page began her relationship with us as a customer who fell in love with the store so much so that she begged us for a job. She is still one of our best customers. We suspect that Page's relationship with us has a net negative effect on her personal bottom line. She probably spends more on wine than we pay her in salary.

Ruth just came on board, she's a customer and wine club member.

Jane, Steve, and Ruth all happen to be British. They bring a British flare to the store — with a somewhat more Monty Python rather than a BBC effect.

Through all of our activities we try to bring people to share our appreciation for the wine experience. We're bringing some of the great moments at a fine winery to the people of our East County.

Napa Valley is one of the magical places in the world. The wine itself is just a piece of the experience, though an important piece. The parts of the wine industry all come together to form a wonderful sub-culture.

If this was simply about selling wine we could have opened a Beverages and More (Less, actually). Stores like that are simply product-specific supermarkets. Ninety percent of their stock is sold in Albertsons. By contrast, five percent of what we sell is sold in grocery stores. One local vintner, for example, makes only 50 cases a year and we buy his entire stock. If you want to try Delta Diablo wine, come on by. We've got the only retail bottles of this label available on earth.

Visit the wine country as often as you can get away — two or three weekends a year, probably. On the times you can't get away, come to The Wine Store. We'll bring the Wine Country to you.