Garnet Wines has been sold?

Anyone hear about this? I just heard that the buyer owns a store on Staten Island. Not sure how that works, since you can hold only one retail license in NY.

For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a very good story on the Upper East Side in Manhattan that, unfortunately, hasn’t kept up with the internet age.

I was wondering if this was the case as they sent out an email this morning saying “20% off wine forever”. Great store, have been a long time customer. Always love chatting with JR.

Just called the store. It was sold yesterday. Today is the first day under new ownership.

Oh that is too bad. I used to buy a good deal from them in the 80s and 90s. One of the best wine shops in NY at the time. (Of course I have no idea if the previous owners were the same as when I used to frequent the shop).

It’s been in the works for months. I heard the new owner is not very focused on fine wine. The wife is the owner of record on the Staten Island store. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

What SI store?

It still is, at least through yesterday. Great selections, and very good prices. Case in point: Chambers Street was plugging the 2011 Brovia normale Barolo for $55. Garnet’s price was $45. And then there was the inventory sale in the last week.

Lots of good Burgundies, Loires, Rhones, Californians and Bordeaux stuff, too. It will be sad if they take it down-market.

Guido, the owner, was in his 80s and plainly didn’t grasp the role of the internet. Their website had little connection to what was on the shelves. It showed only a small portion of the inventory.

Garnet is where David Lillie, the co-owner of Chambers Street Wine, first made his bones, and I suspect he contributed quite a bit to their quality in the 80’s and 90’s.

And Jamie Wolfe!

Wow! One wonders what will happen to this gem of a store.

End of an era!

ended many years go. just papered now.

2001 roumier bonnes mares on the shelf for $85. the best, jerry, the best!

I thought that to sidestep NY’s wine law that you can only own a single store, various family members owned the “Gs”, Gotham, Garnet, another one that slips my mind.

Were they all sold?

Good question.

My understanding is that a different relative is the owner of record for Gotham and it’s not being sold. I heard that JR is working there at least through the holidays if anyone wanted to head over there and catch up with him.

What? That’s a NY state law?

So, JR and Peter Nolis have left Garnet?

I got my start in the wine biz there in '96, when David was still there. At that time the store was one of the best in the city and I met a lot of folks here that shopped there. At that time, it probably had the best Loire section in the country, had an excellent Bordeaux and and Burgundy section and one of the best Champagne sections in the city. Their German, Alsatian and Italian selections were also top notch and they also had a strong California department. They also usually had the best prices in the city.

That all started to change with the growing popularity of the Internet, which they were slow to adapt to and still don’t use effectively. Guido always viewed the place as a cash and carry type of store and that’s how he wanted to stay. David Lilie leaving to start Chambers Street also hurt as the Loire section lost a lot of life, as did the Rhone and eventually the store got out of the Bordeaux futures business, which used to be a big part of their business and then their Burgundy and Champagne selections weren’t what they used to be. Over the years, a lot more competition sprang up and they just didn’t really keep up. I’d say their glory days were 2001 and earlier.

Btw, Mark, their third store you’re thinking of is Grand, in Astoria.

Brad,

JR is now gone with the new owner in place. My roommate worked there for the better part of the last 2.5yrs. He told me they let a bunch of longtime cashiers and shipping/back room guys go yesterday. Not sure about wine/floor staff, but I’m sure there will be some turnover/attrition, especially if buying responsibilities change under the new owner.

–update-- Peter Nolis was let go 2+ years ago. I will not repeat what my roommate had to say about him.

Yup. There are no chains in NY.

It’s not just the distributors who have clout in Albany; it’s mom-and-pop bottle shop owners.

Other weird quirks in NY state: Until the late 80s or 90s, you couldn’t use a credit card in a wine/liquor store. And wine/liquor stores can’t sell beer; only food stores can.

I got my start in the wine biz there in '96, when David was still there. At that time the store was one of the best in the city and I met a lot of folks here that shopped there. At that time, it probably had the best Loire section in the country, had an excellent Bordeaux and and Burgundy section and one of the best Champagne sections in the city. Their German, Alsatian and Italian selections were also top notch and they also had a strong California department. They also usually had the best prices in the city.

I have tons of memories of walking all over NYC in my college days shopping for wine-I was too poor to take a cab and never figured out the subways or bus routes-and one of my go-to shops was Garnet. I am talking about '79 through '84 or so. Garnet was fun for the huge selection compared to the old school shops like Sherry-Lehman and had the lowest prices. That said, it was easy to see that an awful lot of wine had been exposed to heat somewhere along the way-it was common to see leakage oozing out from capsules. I was mostly hunting for Bordeaux and Calif Cab in those days and the ones I bought were largely heat damaged. Didn’t matter if it was domestic or foreign and I assumed most of the damage was being done en route from the distributors local warehouses to Garnet. It could be 90+ degrees out and I would see wine being loaded up outside from non-refrigerated box trucks.