Ep. 534 Paul Quaglini | Get US Market Ready with Italian Wine People

Thanks for tuning into my new show. Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. I'm Steve Ray, author of the book how to get US Market Ready. And in my previous podcast, I shared some of the lessons I've learned from thirty years in the wine and spirits business helping brands enter and grow in the US market. This series will be dedicated to the personalities who have been working in the Italian wine sector in the US, their experiences, challenges, and personal stories. I'll uncover the roads that they walked shedding light on current trends, business strategies, and their unique brands. So thanks for listening in, and let's get to the interview. Hi. This is Steve Ray, and welcome to this week's episode of the Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people podcast. Today, I'm pleased to have as a guest Paul Quaglinie, who is the, head Italian buyer at ABC Fine Wine and spirits, a chain of about, I think, a hundred and twenty three stores in Florida. And Paul and I first met on a trip to Vin Italy. So, Paul, why don't you give us a little background on you and your experience in the industry? And, we'll dive into the interview. Thanks. Thanks for the introduction, Steve. Yeah. I've been with ABC for twenty six years now. Long time. I was with the Ritz Carlton Hotel company for ten years before that. I have a number of degrees, Cortimest, or sommelier two w s e t three. The one I'm most proud of is my Vineet Lee International Academy that I passed in two thousand seventeen. Funny story. How we actually met Steve was that year was two thousand sixteen, I believe. I was not planning on going to Vin Italy, and I was in Miami at a a Bin Italy trade show tasting seminar. I really went to see Ian Daugata talk about Greeniolino and Tia Marasso. And, after the tasting was over, I went up and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. And Stevie Kim was standing next to him, and I honestly didn't know who Stevie was at the time. And the subject of in Italy came up, and I explained that, my company is sending me to Probuying this year, not in Italy. And and Stevie looked at me and her hair stood up, and I I thought, move. Didn't make a very good first impression on her. And about a minute later, she came back and asked for my business card and said, I'll see you at VIN Italy. And sure enough a day later, I had an invite in my inbox. So that's how we actually came to meet at VIN Italy. I didn't know that. That's great to hear. Yeah. We won't talk much more about Stevie. When she commands, we all do. That's kind of the rule. Yeah. I I guess the lesson is if you if you piss off Stevie, good things will come. Yeah. That's a great line. Let's move on to ABC and tell us a little bit about the company and its position in the Florida market. Well, we're a family owned company been around since nineteen thirty six. We have a hundred and twenty five, hundred and twenty six stores right now from the Panhandle all the way down to Miami and on both coasts. So we have a a good saturation, in the company. Back in the mid nineteen nineties, when I first joined the company, ABC decided wanted to be a leader in the retail wine industry, not just in Florida, but in the US. And, they really put up a lot of focus at that time on becoming a fine wine retailer. At ABC, we have a a very diverse demographic population in the state. It changes from county to county, and we try to cater our stores to that demographic base that's that's in stores. I mean, we we cater to the brand new wine drinker who might be in a college town in Gainesville or Tallahassee. We have a lot of retirees in the state. So we try to offer a broad range of product to satisfy all of our customers. One of the things I've noticed in visiting some of the stores is a pretty high level of, staff knowledge presumably than staff training on your guys' end and help with choice, which you don't get in supermarkets or other places that don't have the dedication to wine. Yeah. We put a a great emphasis on education in our stores. We fee feel that's key to our success. In in my role, I wear a lot of different hats in the company. I oversee a group of stores and, make sure they follow programming and merchandising. I assist in resetting and opening new stores probably my most important role is as an educator, as I said, we invest heavily in in the education of our team members. And then probably the part of my my role that I enjoy the most is as the Italian wine buyer. Back in, as I said, in the nineteen nineties, we had one wine buyer. Brad Lewis, he did a terrific job of of bringing ABC into the world of fine wine. But when he retired, we decided to sort of divvy up the world into different categories, and I was fortunate enough to get Italy. Maybe it was my last name. Why they gave me Italy? No, I I've always had a passion for Italian wine in all things Italian. So I'm part of a a team of eight sales managers. We call ourselves, and we get together once a month. Still even even through COVID, it's the one meeting we've been allowed to do. We're still socially distant in the room, but it's impossible to do our job without all being together. And literally with there's loads of experience in that room. We we spend one day a month, basically, tasting through samples and betting opportunities for for our our company, for the set. So, in terms of percentage, what percentage of your total inventory does Italian wine represent, do you think? Right now, it's about twelve or thirteen percent of total sales. Which strikes me as very high. I had done an analysis of, the market in the US, and that's one of the highest Italian two portfolio ratios that I've seen. It is quite high. Of course, my colleagues, we're a great team together, but we're also somewhat competitive. So they always because Italian by far, other than domestic US and and Washington state and Oregon lines, Italy is by far the the country where we sell the most line. But my colleagues like to always tell me, oh, we're not for Perseco and Pino Grigio, your category would be just like ours. And I, you know, I tell the French guy, I said, well, if it weren't for Champagne and Bordeaux, You would be, with who can I take on hungry? We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the key factors that you use when you're evaluating wise, but the one that seems to get the most attention, at least initially, when I'm having conversations with anybody is you got scores. What what is the role of scores in the way you evaluate products? And do you prioritize, or is there a hierarchy of the scores that matter? To you? Well, as a wine professional wine lover, scores are always, you know, we love them and hate them. We love them when they're good, and when they aren't so good, we're always like, She's how did they only score that line eighty eight points. But I think in general, the American consumer likes to see scores. It it's a comfort factor. You know, the wine spectator really kind of set the bar years ago with creating their hundred point grading system. And, so, yes, it is a factor that we look at when we're evaluating a line. On our shelf tags, they're little three by three white shelf tag, and we try to put as much information on there without being too busy. Of course, we have the name of the wine, a brief description or tasting notes, a sweetness level. Of course, the price and then the rating if if one exists from one of the big publications here in the US. Interesting that you talked about the sweetness level. Now I don't recall seeing that, although I was there. Well, it's a while ago now it was over a year. But that's pretty unique. Tell me about that. Yeah. It's, you know, again, Americans in general, they always claim they like dry, but they certainly do, like, some sweetness in their wines. And of course, sweetness is very subjective, but we just feel it gives them some sort of a guide for for what type of line they're bringing home. So have you created a a tool or something? One of the ones that I'm familiar with is the international riesling foundations sweetness scale, which looks like the one you see sometimes on coffee or tea brands. You know, it's kind of like a a slider scale. Yes. We classify one from one being the driest to eight being like a saw turn or chocolate bearing ounce, Lessa. And is the majority of of dry wines and quotations will be in that one, two, or three range. But then as you go into sweeter styles of wines, you'll see the fives and the sixes. So do you score them based on residual sugar levels, data that you get from them, or what you guys taste? Both. We look at residual sugar, and literally on those days we taste, if we decide to approve a wine, we talk about sweetness level, what what's gonna look like on the on the shelf, and then where we're gonna put those lines. We we spend a lot of time and effort trying to put the right lines in the right stores. Oh, stores. So you're not talking about shelf position or sections. Right. Right. We do have a a sweet wine section in many of our stores, but typically, like, if it were, oh, an Italian wine, a Lambrusco, we carry a couple of different quality Lambbrusco's, and one of them happens to be on the sweeter side, and then we have a drier one as well. So if somebody's picking up a little Vecia Modena, for example, which is quite dry on the sweetness scale, I I would say. They they wanna know that we might give that lineup a two or a three as a sweetness level. It's just another tool for our guests to feel comfortable with. I think that's great. I think consumers don't talk about sweetness and they certainly don't recognize the residual sugar, RS number. But I clearly see a lot of California and Oregon and Washington wines, especially the ones that are very popular and growing and widely available are much higher on the sweetness scale than I like That was about as tactful as I could put it. Okay. Moving on to, the other question I wanted to ask is what are the other factors that you consider when you're presented with, potential new wine? Oh, gosh. We we look at everything. We look at packaging. Packaging is extremely important, at a retail level. The label has to well, it helps if it if it stands out. Although, you don't wanna get too cute. I know we just, last month evaluated a wine, an Italian wine where somebody had thought it would be a good idea to put little pieces of stem of the vine glued to the bottle, and it may have looked cute, but that would be a disaster on our shelves. I mean, they would break off all the time. And so packaging is extremely important. Back label is important. We look at that. But let me stop you right there because that's a pet thing of mine. I think back labels are very important that consumers hold a bottle up. They're looking for information. If they don't find it there, they'll turn it around. Now I've seen a lot of research market research out there saying that consumers don't read the back label, but by my, anecdotal, you know, just watching people in the store, and I feel very strongly that back label has to do two things. One, tell the consumer what the wine tastes like. Ideally, in words that they understand. So sauteed gooseberries or fried walnut skins don't help me. Okay. And then the second thing is, will it go with what I'm having for dinner tonight because the vast majority of wine who purchased in the US is consumed, you know, within twenty four hours. So I I tell people that that's the kind of information you need on the back label. What do you look for from back label? Yeah. I agree with both of your points. People guess our guests wanna see a food pairing is always great. A great variety is also, I think, very important. Most Americans learn to drink wine by grape variety. They like Sabiam blanc, or they, like, having a great variety, if it's not allowed on the front label, at least there on the back label is is important. There's a a lot to fit on that little four inch square on the back of a a wine bottle, but it's to me, it's important, valuable real estate on that bottle of wine. We were talking about, some of the criterion. I'm sure one of the ones that's important to you is what the the the export price is and how that margin structure that you guys use in getting to a shelf price. Do you see that getting harder to work with? And are you looking at private labels as a way to augment or supplement the overall margin in the store? Sure. We try to have a a solid mix of both national brands and private labels and smaller run family wineries that seems to work best for us. I think gives you more credibility as a retailer. We, in our group, we we actually, we say that we source and certify lines, and and that's exactly what we do. Being a family run company, we family owned company. We like to, we like to search for family owned wineries. And if they're in Italy, that's actually quite easy to do. And then we bring those samples back to our committee, our one team, and we go through the certified process. If it that meets all the criteria, it actually gets one thing I didn't mention on our our little shelf labels is it it can often have a source and certified little symbol which means that we actually went, found the line, and then certified it. And in answer to your question, typically, when we do that, the margin is better than when we just buy national brands from the big distributors. Interesting. I I I really like the certification thing. I mean, it it it gives some personalization to it. I think one of the things that Total Wine does a really good job with their winery select program is the local store manager and staff comments are what's used as descriptors, not necessarily, Robert Parker, wide spectator. They use those too. Yeah. We do that as well. We Every store has a a head sales consultant. Oftentimes, in our bigger stores, we'll have two or three, even four sales consultants, and they write their own personalized notes and that's all about building a customer base for that particular store. So when a when you're working with a new brand and maybe you can divide them into two categories, talk about Italian producers. One might be just the farmer. He's producing enough that they can export, but at at at art, he's a he's a farmer. And then larger, whether they're co ops or more conglomerates or more corporate, if you will, producers. What kind of expectations of support do you expect from them in terms of, you know, literature, shelf talkers, copy for the website, and e commerce, and all that kind of stuff. What do you expect as a package of tools? Yeah. This is a great question. When we bring a wine into our stores, we put a lot of effort into it. Again, it it goes through this whole vetting process to begin with. If if we, for example, if we were looking for a Greeniolino, which we're not. But if we were, I would go and solicit four, five, six different Greenalinos, taste them myself, and then bring the two or three best examples before the committee. So we We do a lot of work beforehand. What we expect from a winery or co op is an investment in their time and continued support. We work with a lot of importers, a lot of different importers, And sometimes as an Italian winemaker, it I think it's eye opening for them to come into our stores for the first time because they see, oh my god, I'm competing with three thousand different vine labels from all over the world. So it's it's important that you that they constantly try to keep focus on their wines. Again, we're gonna do our part to make it success we have wine emotion dispensing machines in our stores that will will sample a new line on. But, constantly keeping focus on your brand is very important. One of the importers we work with, Alberillo imports We've had a relationship with them for twenty years. And every year, a group of their of winemakers that come in through Alberlo to us, do they'll spend an entire week here in Florida, and they will do in store tastings across the state. They'll pick four or five different locations. They'll be in Miami one night. They'll be in Tampa the next night, Orlando, Jacksonville, and during the day, they teach classes to our staff. So a lot of these producers, we've had relationships now for nearly twenty years, and they come back every year. They've built, customer loyalty in their lines. The these wineries oftentimes, and and this doesn't happen right away, but oftentimes they'll sponsor sales contests. So we'll pick a time period of maybe two or three months, and whichever stores sell the most of their particular wines will sponsor trips. So many, many of our of our sales consultants have been overseas, have been to Italy in particular to visit these wineries. And that kind of investment, it's expensive. For the winery. I'll I'll be the first to say, but it it builds not just guest customer loyalty, but it builds loyalty of the of our team members in the stores, and they they want to sell these wines. Because they want a chance to go back to Italy. Yeah. Does it doesn't everybody. Have you been watching that Stanley Tuchi series, where he's, going to five six different regions? He just did bologna last night. It was fabulous. Yeah. And it's they don't mention wine at all, but clearly wine and food, as you and I know, are paired together. You can't separate the two in Italy. Yeah. That's that's the thing I love about Italian wine the most, is it's not just the wine. It's the the history, the culture, the food, Italian, the stories, and that's what sells wine. There are a lot of places to buy wine in Florida. We all know that the grocery chains some more wine than anybody. But if you can walk into one of our stores and have somebody hand you an artisanally made small boutique winery and have the the sales consultant say, I was there two months ago. I was there last month. It's a fabulous place. They have a bed and breakfast. You should go and visit yourself. It it's, it it's a whole different kind of buying experience in my opinion. Yeah. So that kind of raises a related question, which does come up a lot with Italy is the influence and importance of native or ad hoc from this varietals problem or, I mean, is that an opportunity or an obstacle? You talked about Greeniolino, for example. Yeah. I I would say that before COVID, it was absolutely nothing but an opportunity. This whole past year has presented its challenges. Hand selling is has been more difficult, but in general, I absolutely think it's an opportunity to to turn people on to these indigenous, exciting great varieties that people may have never tried before. And and some are actually building some traction with us. I mean, five six years ago, I don't think we carried any Falangina. And now we have a couple of different Falanginas that, people have embraced. Our our guests have really embraced, and they're solid performers for us now. So is it, obviously, Falangina is relatively easy to pronounce compared to some Greek names like Agurethigo and so on. But still in all, there are a challenge for people. Comments on that? They can be a challenge. Again, we do a lot of in store tasting. In our stores, we have the wind emotion machines, as I said. And if you have a a knowledgeable experience sales consultant in the store, and they can offer a a taste of the wine and say, this is Aliamico. And, you know, get that in the the guest's mind. Then that guest likes to go home and taste with their friends and say, oh, yeah. This is this is an avianical. Haven't you ever tried this before? It's fantastic wine. Yeah. It's that that knowledge. The the way I phrase it is the way to market wines is to get people to tell your story in their words to their friends. And certainly social media has made that a lot easier and more powerful. But that brings us to our next, subject, which is e commerce, become really important with COVID and so forth. Where is ABC relative to e commerce? Well, e commerce was becoming a thing even before COVID. We were gearing up with Focus by online pickup in stores was was becoming popular. And then with COVID, it it absolutely just exploded with all the the online delivery companies. We've just recently actually teamed up with FedEx, ourself, and we're now offering free delivery on orders over fifty dollars in the state of Florida. So think we're the first and and only major retailer who's using FedEx. And, yeah, that business is just gonna continue to grow. I don't see it slowing down even after COVID's gone people. You know, Amazon has spoiled all of us. We want everything delivered to the door. I just think there are some things that call me old fashioned, but I like walking into a wine shop and speaking to my local wine consultant, and maybe tasting something from the the the wine dispensing machine and having a conversation. And and, I know I'm old fashioned. A lot of people just like to press a couple keys on the on their phone and, have the wine delivered. But we're we're well aware that it's, it's important. So a follow-up question on that. One of the things I advocate to my clients is they need to put together a depository, if you will, of assets. So it'll be high resolution photos of the bottle, high resolution of the photo curved on the bottle, flat, you know, some pretty pictures of the vineyard, critics' notes, maybe winemakers' notes, food and wine pairing type things. Because all that is the kind of content people are looking for online. And there you have infinite space to cover that. You know, obviously, it's not just a four square inch shelf talk. Yes. Absolutely. Website is something that in that list of factors on what we're deciding. If a company has or a binary has a good website, which everyone should in two thousand twenty one. Must. Maybe that's Must. They must have a good website. Very important. Because we all know walk into any of our stores and half of the the shoppers, half of our guests are shopping with their phone. And they're looking up on their phone, whether they're using a Vadino app or whatever it is, many of them are looking for research. It's so easy today. So a good website is very important. Well, let me push on that. So talk about Vivino and, wine searcher, for example, they're they have the label recognition technology. Those are certainly tools that I use. And what I was talking about optimizing your content online is by providing that content and having it reside in Vivino and wine searcher as retailers are looking for content to scrape to put into there. They're not gonna go to the website per se. Maybe if you did, you went to the trade portion of the website for the trade assets to be able to download without having to ask high res images. Do you agree with that? Absolutely. Yes. We'll put them on on our own website. So we demand the high resolution photo, absolutely. Kind of running out of time here. The, as I I told you, I'd like to end the con conversations here with a big takeaway. Is there something that of of what we discussed that either suppliers or people in the trade can do or use or put to use or incorporate in their work right away from some of the things that we talked about? Well, I I think that, again, that the word investment comes back to my mind that Getting your your wine into ABC is is an investment. It's a it's a partnership. That's what we're looking for. And I would jump in and say this. Getting it in is just the beginning. Getting it out. Is the objective? Absolutely. Absolutely. You can sell us a couple of pallets of wine. And if you don't do anything else besides that, we're still gonna do our part. We're gonna promote that wine. We're gonna do what we can to make it sell. But if you want a long term relationship, you need to invest in us. We want continued support. You know, we want education. We want stories to tell our guests so that when they walk out of an ABC store with a source and certified brand, they're thinking, wow. I got a really great follow-up line. And a couple of comments that they can use when they're sharing it with their friends to say, let me tell you about this one. Absolutely. A big thanks to Paul Quaglinie, the Italian wine buyer at ABC, Fine wines and spirits. Major chain in Florida, sharing his time with us and also some of the insights on how the business works in the United States. So this is Steve Ray from Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. Thank you you for listening, and we look forward to, having you join us again next week. Paul, thank you. Thanks, Steve. This is Steve Ray, saying thanks again for listening on behalf of the Italian wine podcast.