Weygandt Wines in DC

Steven_Lawrence · September 11, 2011, 5:56am

Tim,
Best of luck with the re-launch of the store. A large proportion of my favorite producers are represented by Peter (particularly Truchot, Lambrays, Charvin, and now Serafin), and I’ve always enjoyed chatting with him during his trips to St. Louis. Although I’m lucky to be able to find wines from most of these producers at my local retailer who introduced me to them years ago, I’ll definitely have to check out your shop next time I’m in DC.
Cheers,
Steve

Loi_Nguyen · September 11, 2011, 12:54pm

Tim,
Best of luck! I am in Virginia and excited to experience the re-launch of your store.

Loi

Howard_Cooper · September 11, 2011, 3:38pm

Tim,

I wish you the best of luck, although I am sorry to see Todd leave.

Jay_Winton · September 11, 2011, 4:11pm

Tim, thanks for the reply!

dennis.coronado · September 11, 2011, 8:46pm

Neal.Mollen · September 11, 2011, 9:45pm

We ate at Palena last night and I stuck my head into the store while waiting to be seated. A great location, a nice physical plant and a welcoming atmosphere. If the product mix is right, there is no reason it should not succeed. Tim, you should try to work a deal with Palena for a reduced corkage. $25 is steep, especially for value wines.

Bob_Davis · September 11, 2011, 9:56pm

The have a web site.

Steve_Gautier · September 11, 2011, 10:12pm

Faryan_Amir-Ghassemi · September 12, 2011, 12:43am

Awesome stuff Tim and Matt!

rich_g_r_a_h_a_m · September 12, 2011, 1:16am

tim orourke:

Jay Winton:

still haven’t visited this retailer. Does anyone know where Todd Ross has relocated? I bought a fair amount of wine from him at Mills over the years-a very nice guy, IMO.

Todd’s a great guy with a terrific palate and a wealth of knowledge. He will be missed–I thought I’d be working for and learning from him for many more years, but sometimes things don’t work out like you think they will. I owe him much for taking an old has-been chef in and teaching me a ton about the business. Todd had an offer on the table from a retailer about 30 mins from his home on the Eastern Shore but as of a couple of days ago, I don’t think that’s been shored up yet. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know.

To be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking for this position at this point in my life, but again, things happen, opportunities present themselves and decisions have to be made. After speaking with Peter at length, we drew up a new approach to his flagship store and my reluctance turned to excitement and now we’re underway. Matt Latuchie touched on some general ideas about our “re-launch” but I’ll add to what he said.

Tim,

I live nearby. I’m sorry to see Todd go, he wasa great guy and palate. That said, i did think even with the interesting selection, that the store missed the market sometimes in understanding how competitive the market was. Notwithstanding what other people say, there are AMAZING values in the market, even among high end consumers. I’m buying cheap stuff that slaughters my high end cellar agers these days. Good luck, im sure i’ll meet you sometime soon.

First off, we’re going to get really aggressive with pricing. So as not to piss off any of his distributors and/or heavy buying retailers, we can’t set the prices as the lowest on wine-searcher, but we’ll be right there, a smidge above the lowest guys.

Secondly, I think more people may know of Peter’s big guns and collectable selections, but as Ian Dorin remarked, Peter has “a lot of tremendous values in his portfolio”. We’re going to focus a lot more on these in the shop. I think one of the issues we had upon our initial opening and the subsequent 2 years, was that we were not effectively reading the current market. Yes, equal parts ignorance and arrogance, I think the initial plan was that we would be driven by the more moderate and higher priced items as opposed to moving a ton of lower priced, high value wines with the cherries creating additional buzz and maybe adding to our bottom line. The latter is what I think is more applicable to our country’s current economic condition. This is, in my opinion, where there was a great divide between Todd and Peter, and what ultimately began the downfall of their business relationship. To be frank, it was sad to see and experience on a day to day basis and I only wish we would have reacted and adjusted before it was too late for those two.

Thirdly, as Matt reported, we’re going to start carrying a limited selection of beer and spirits. I don’t know other markets very well, but I know around DC, craft beers and locally produced spirits are of great interest. This will be a gradual process as our experience does not really lie with these products, but eventually we’ll get up to speed. And after many a 10:30 am artisan spirit tasting (Tooch enjoyed(?) one of these), we’ll get to where we need to be.

Also, Peter will continue to have some of his best and brightest winemakers in the shop. In the 2 years we’ve been open, Thiery Brouin (Domaine des Lambrays), Lucas Pichler (FX Pichler), Cecile Tremblay, Pierre-Marie Chermette (Domaine du Vissoux), Sara Perez (Mas Martinet), Uwe Schiefer and Maurice Barthelme (Albert Mann) have all poured wines in the shop. It’s a tough thing to coordinate, but we plan on hosting many more in the upcoming years.

Finally, we’ll start offering Weygandt Wines Exclusives. Whether they are wines that he has imported in such small numbers (25 or so cases) that it doesn’t make sense to offer them across the country to all of his distributors or special cuvees that he has not previously brought into the country from his current winemakers, we’ll sell these only at the store (online as well). Keep in mind, this does not include extremely limited wines such as Vatan, Tremblay, Pichler, etc. Those will still be available (if you can get to them in time), through all of your favorite retailers. This is more for $15-$35 wines most of us have not seen before in the states.

So there you have our current business model in a nutshell. Of course, this is a fluid plan and much will probably change. But in the meantime, I’m lucky to have guys like Matt, Tom DeLorme and other friends/wine enthusiasts/drinking buddies, helping me try to make this work. And of course, working with Peter’s wines is a good starting point. So stop by sometime or drop a line. Mention Wine Berserkers and I’ll happily offer a friendly discount. We’ll always have something open to taste at our bar and Matt is working on our first (monthly, hopefully) Wine Berserkers tasting at Weygandt Wines.

Ian Fitzsimmons:

Tim and Todd have both been pretty hospitable when I’ve been by, and the business has a good product line. It’s not unusual for folks to move around in their career path as they gain experience, in any event. Peter Weygandt himself is quite personable, by the way, if you catch him in.

I stopped by yesterday, and as Matt says, they are about to stock back up. If you are on their email newsletter list, you’ll have received an update to that effect.

Ian, good to see you the other day. Re: the Cuvee Traditionnelle Vieilles Vignes, the truth, as per usual, lies somewhere in the middle–35-85 year old vines. The Coeur de Vendanges–85 year old vines.

Barry_P · September 12, 2011, 12:59pm

Tim:

Wondering where my allocation of 07 Clos St. Jean Deus and Sanctus went? Oh, I know, it got dumped at Garagiste. After purchasing numerous other wines from your store in an effort (as requested by Peter) to “balance” my order, Peter dumped the wine I was (and I’m sure others were) promised. I know he lost the account, but he could have sold his customers the wine.

Same thing happened to my order of Dugat-Py 05 Chambertin. It was offered to me and I accepted…and then the price suddenly changed to 5X the original price. Nice work.

Is this the way you all normally do business?

PS…For what it is worth, Todd Ross was great. It is the decision making at the importer level that has me scratching my head.

tim_orourke · September 12, 2011, 4:26pm

Hi Barry,

Re: Clos St.-Jean '07s, I talked to Peter before he left for France last week and I think I may be able to fill your order. If you would seriously like to have this resolved, please give me a call at the shop 202-362-9463. Is it possible you were not given accurate information? I’m not sure as I was never in the “dealings” with you, Todd and/or Peter. But I would like to help and that is not the way that I would like to do business. Unfortunately, I think your situation may have been a result of friction b/n Peter and Todd rather than what it should have been–an honest deal between retailer and customer. As for the '05 Dugat-Py Chambertins, I really have no idea about these. I believe those were released when Todd was still at Mill’s in Annapolis so it might not be entirely fair to put that on this store. I understand you think that Peter is at fault for this, but perhaps you can give me a shot at trying to change your mind?

tim_orourke · September 12, 2011, 4:42pm

Thanks very much Steven. Please introduce yourself next time you’re in town. While I sadly will not be able to pop any Truchot, I’m sure we can share a glass when you make it into the shop!

Loi, same goes for you. Let me know when you can make it in. 250 cases inbound this Wednesday!

Thank you Howard. You know where to find me…

My pleasure. I hope it cleared some things up!

Weygandt Wines
3519 Connecticut Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20008
A stone’s throw from the Cleveland Park Metro - East Exit. Right next to Palena in Sam’s Park & Shop.

Agreed. We have had an on-again, off-again relationship with Palena, but I will see what I can do. I get along quite well with Kelli and Frank, so I see hope for something working out. In the meantime, if you want to stop by and grab a bottle of wine to take to Palena, just let me know and I’ll give you 25% off any non-sale priced bottle. That can at least ease the pressure a bit.

Agreed. That’s why we’re taking a bit of a different approach. Although I don’t mind drinking high end cellar agers occassionally…

Kiss-ass!

Barry_P · September 12, 2011, 4:51pm

Hi Tim. Thanks for the thoughtful and friendly response. Unfortunately, the lack of my order being filled probably was a result of the friction you speak of. Happy to give it another shot, though. And the Dugat-Py Chamb was an order placed while at WW, but I’ll give you a call to explain.

Thanks again for the response.

tim_orourke · September 12, 2011, 4:55pm

My mistake–something else for me to look into. Looking forward to hearing from you and more importantly getting you the wine that you want!

Aaron_Nix-Gomez · September 12, 2011, 6:03pm

Best of luck to you guys. Matt, glad to see you are ITB!

Aaron

scott_c · September 12, 2011, 7:20pm

+1

Matt_Latuchie · September 15, 2011, 6:40pm

For anyone interested: https://wineimport.discoursehosting.net/t/weygandt-wines-open-house-dc-date-change/48994/1