Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host, Kristin. We've got a full house today. We've got Greg Verst. How you doing, Kristin? How's life as the Director of Communications? I don't do small talk. Moving on, we've got Roger Adamson. Hi, how are you? Good, how's the beer buzz this week? It's looking good, looking like a robust one. Oh, nice. So I'll read the first 15 words and move on. Pat Brophy, how are you today? Hey, good, how are you? How's life and whatever the heck you do for us? I have no idea. Wandering around, being aloof, generally a good time. Pretending to face a bottle every now and then. Somebody's got it. Exactly, cool. And we have a special guest, Barbara Hermann. Hey, Barbara. Hello, how are you? I'm very well. Thanks for coming in today. So have you done a podcast before? Never. Okay, this is your first one? Yes, it is. I'm surprised. You've done commercials, you've done magazines, newspapers. Yeah, but that's a little bit different. This is a little too very new fashion. Okay. Well, if you swear, we can edit it out. Don't worry. It's not a lie. Or we can leave it in. Which we tend to do most of the time. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role here at Binny's Beverage Depot? Okay, well, my official title is wine director for Binny's. I'm really pretty much responsible for certain departments, all California wines, at least stuff that doesn't come in jugs or boxes, and all the French wines now. And one time I did have everything, and that was when we were a much smaller company. Was it painful to let go of the jugs and boxes a little bit when you had to? Actually, I was very, I never had jugs and boxes. I've always coveted that department. I think that would be very interesting to do. So that was always someone else. That actually was part of the liquor department. Yeah, it was a Billy thing forever. Oh, it's true. I forgot about that. That's why I only drink jug and box wine, because I'm part of the liquor department. So when did you start with Binny's? Middle of January, 1981. And what made you decide to work here? I was looking for a new job. I was real happy with what I was doing. And I walked past the Armatage Chalet, and they were called Chalet One and Cheese Shops, and they had a help wanted sign. And so I applied. And I was hired as an assistant manager, which meant I could work 60 hours a week. And the first Sunday I had off was January 1st, the next year. Oh, wow. But I loved it. I mean, there was maybe a 3,000-square-foot store, and it was almost all wine. There was hardly any beer back then, and just a little bit of spirits. And we also sold fresh cheeses and pates and that. And you could really, the customers in that neighborhood were great, and you could really sell interesting wine. So, and you did a lot of work with the cheese, no, in the early days? Well, not too much, but we all had to go through like a little training, Cheese 101. There was a lady who was the cheese, who ran the cheese training at that time, and... I wish we had Cheese 101 right now. Yeah, no kidding. I'm from Wisconsin, so... The best 101. Oh, I know. Right after you're born. And I'll tell you, if I ever see a piece of cheese that's like, that isn't properly wrapped in plastic, that drives me crazy. And then, when did you become a wine buyer? Well, that happened a little bit later, so that was in about 1985. It was a lot smaller back then. The man who actually hired me and was kind of in charge of the wines and the chalets left. And I think some other people had also just kind of left in our company, and I don't think they had anybody else to ask to become buyer. So that's so- Barb likes wine. Do you want to be the buyer? But promotion by default? Sometimes you just got to be at the right place at the right time. So I will say I was at the right place at the right time. Cool. That's awesome. So were you a little bit nervous to start? I mean, you didn't have any previous– well, you know, you bought for the store and whatnot, so you understood the channels. But were you kind of like over your head a little? You know, it was quite a bit different back then. The big stores did a lot more spirits, a little bit maybe somehow it is like now. But Harold Binstein still did a lot of the buying and stuff. But he was– and I think he got very impatient with me at times early on, but I think we got together pretty well as the years went by. You started as a customer. I learned a lot from him and maybe he learned a little bit about wine from me too, so it worked out. Okay, cool. But he was a great negotiator, I will say that. So in the early buying days, I mean, what was some of your main aims in the set? And how was it different than today? Because how many stores were there in 85 when you became a buyer? Well, that's a good question. I think there were nine stores, but that included the Chalet Wine and Cheese shops. There were four, then later five of them. And then there were five or so gold standards. Okay. And a few of them really didn't have hardly any wine department, and they really didn't need very much. And then a couple of them, like the one at 3000 North Clark in Highland Park, obviously had pretty big wine departments. I mean, first of all, the selections, I mean, what we bought there was completely different. I mean, nowadays, you walk into a store in California, could be a third or close to half of the wine set. We had probably more German wines than we had in Italy. Italy was a relatively small selection. We had maybe 20 Spanish wines back then. That was probably more than what we actually had. How many of them came wrapped in little wire cages? Probably half of them. Or else, the Italian wines, like the Gattinara, that bottle was sprayed with dust. The other thing is that, we're talking about the 80s, but back in the 70s, there's just a handful of mineries really even in Napa. But the nice thing was you could work with a wine for a long time versus nowadays where you could be looking at new products like 24 hours a day, day in and day out. Right, so there just aren't, there weren't that many new products that come to your desk like there are today. Oh, gosh, no. Not even close? Yeah. What were the best wines of the 80s that really sold the most? One of the things that was a real surprise for me, it was very, very interesting because this was during the early days of Robert Parker too. An issue in the early 80s, he wrote about a South American wine called St. Morian Cabernet. And this is when he used to have a pretty big section, almost in every issue about values from around the world. And he said, this best value Cabernet you can find, go out and load up your trunk with it. And we probably sold a couple hundred cases within two weeks, three weeks, which was, I mean, it was just a phenomenal number of cases. And to me, it was like, when I really, first time you could really see how powerful this critic was. So this is when you first had to pay attention to a critic, to a wine journalist, to see what they recommended. Did you ever try to get in front of it? I mean, there were other magazines out there. I mean, The Spectator was in its early days, and there was a connoisseur's guide to California wines, and there were other writers out there, a guy named Finnegan and others and stuff. So you're always trying to get reviews and things, but this was, I mean, the reaction to his review was really phenomenal. Cool. Now it's part for the course. I mean, you know, so many different writers and journalists and publications to pay attention to. Yeah, what influencer is going to say what about what product, and the media that we have flooded with requests for and stuff like that? Yeah, right, yep. What was the interest in domestic versus import? When did domestic really start to take off? Well, when I started about the same time, or a little bit before KJ came out, you know, so KJ, you know, VR Chardonnay. So I would say it was kind of slow-ish in the early part of the 80s, I would say, but by the late 80s, that was a big change, I think, for California. And in the early 80s, there was some questionable wine making styles coming out of California too. There was probably a lot of other factors, but yeah, you went and started, like I'd say, in late 80s, it's real popularity, particularly also at the high end. That was, like, when you got to 1990, that was like the big changeover for Napa Cabernet. I kinda wanna switch gears and talk about your role as a buyer for a large retail chain, like a buying one-on-one. People wanna know how the products come in and how they go out, you know? Yeah, demystify the role of producer to shelf here. What's your purpose in the middle? That's a very good question, and sometimes it's gonna seem a lot more primitive than you think it is. I mean, but I think the most important thing is that you have to be aware, you know, it's a whole bunch of things. You have to know what's selling and what's kind of turning over and what categories are doing very well, and where there's kind of growth in the categories. And then a lot of our job, I mean, I think a lot of it is because of the kind of stores we have and the kind of customers we have. We really want to have really fine selections of, I mean, some of the top examples of different wine categories that there are out there. And sometimes these categories don't turn very well, but these are categories of wines that have like great reputation and are important to have for those fewer number of customers that are connoisseurs of those things. Buying ranges from having to deal with suppliers that are selling me big commodity items. And often, probably my job is to try and either like buy them, maybe negotiate a little bit better, or try to stall off until that supplier needs some cases and try to get a little bit of an extra, you know, deal going on that. And then the other time, you know, we're also just dealing with, you know, suppliers that have really fine portfolios. You're, sorry, you're distracting me with your weird grin. Well, she's talking about arguing down suppliers and trying to play poker until you can get a better cost. Do you think of yourself as a consumer advocate? Yes. Yes, I do. Expand? I mean, I think my job is give them, I mean, wines for the right price. I don't think we should be overcharging anybody, and if we can get them a better price, that keeps us in business too. I think that's very important. What are some of the trends that you've seen come and go? Any surprises? Well, I think, I mean, I've seen a lot of those trends. So I saw South America early on, then Australia. Italy really hasn't been a trend. Italy's just kept growing and growing and growing and growing. I mean, Austria was kind of a trend early on with Gruner. I think that's, it's got its own place now, but it's not, you know, a massive. And then, I mean, there's categories that were huge, like, you know, 34 years ago, like Germans, you know, which have now, again, have dropped a lot, but they have their place. Or Alsace was a huge, was big at one time. When was that, like the 90s? Yeah, more like the 80s, too. Yeah, yeah. I wish I was around for that heyday. What are your thoughts on the Rosé trend currently? And is this something that you were an advocate for early on? Or are you just kind of along for the ride, so to speak? Well, kind of both. I mean, so there was, I think only still around, a wonderful importer named Bobby Ketcher. And I mean, there's others that I'm sure are also a little bit responsible, but Bobby has been in business since the very early 80s, too, and brought in, starting probably in the mid 80s, late 80s, a selection of dry Rosés from primarily properties in the costier du Nîmes that he represented and other properties in France. So we were selling a pretty good selection of dry Rosés, French Rosés back probably starting in early 1990 and that. So it's not a brand new trend. I mean, and then that had a built up gradually for sure for over a number of years. We've had a lot of customers that were, there were certainly weren't buying Rosé like people buy Rosé now, but they'd come in, they'd buy their case or two cases of dry Rosé back in 1995 for the summer. I mean, but yeah, the explosion in the past couple of years has been phenomenal. I think it's good. I mean, anytime you can somebody, you get people that maybe don't necessarily spend $15 on a bottle of wine and do it and drink it real fast and come back for another one is pretty good. Right, for sure. Yeah. Do you have any pet peeves? I have to think about that. Like which ones? Yeah. Let's see. I don't see too many critter wines anymore. That was as this true, the first of these things are usually okay, and then they get pretty bad. So critter wines, now nobody could have a critter wine. What the hell is a critter wine? Could you explain to some of our 22-year-old listeners what a critter wine is? That's something that has like a cute animal. I hope I don't sound like a mean person, but cause wines. I mean, the first wines that came out, something was going to be donated were fine. They were novel. And a lot of them, actually, there was involvement with a winemaker, the owner or something like that. But then all of a sudden, that just got expanded. And then lifestyle wines, for sure. I think if you have to have a label as an excuse to try to get a woman to buy a bottle of wine, I think it's in very poor taste. Yes, I do too. I'm kind of surprised with the renewed interest in regionality with spirits, beer. California seems to still dominate by and large. Do you see any other states kind of maybe becoming a little more popular in the future? Well, I mean, obviously, Oregon and Washington have big, big followings. And, you know, Oregon, I think, has really been successful because, you know, they concentrate on Peter Noir, you know, cool climate, great varieties. And it's kind of a unique climate, you know, because of that, where they're at. And Washington, obviously, is very, very strong with the Reds. The next area we're doing best with is, like, upstate New York with the Finger Lakes. Again, I think an area that's kind of unique and produces a style of wine that's pretty unique in the United States, is cool climate Germanic Rieslings. And they've got a good, they've got a following. I wasn't even aware we carried much Finger Lakes wine. Well, we carry about a dozen, maybe more than, I don't think those wineries are very, are large. What's pretty much available to us here in the Midwest, Chicago, is their entry-level Rieslings and stuff. But even, but those are good. What are some of your favorite parts of being a buyer for Binny's? What are your favorite parts of the job? Well, I love to taste wine. Not all 100% of the time, but when it's good, I really like to try it. I love, I just, I'm fascinated by the aromas and the flavors and things like that. How many wines do you think you have to taste in a given week? Maybe not as many as you think, but maybe now like maybe 40, 50. That's still probably 35 to 45 more than most people. I'd say. Yeah. I mean, there's a few weeks where it might be a few hundred, but that would be very, very, very. When you're traveling or going to tastings or whatnot. Yeah. What are some of your least favorite parts? Do you ever have a day you wake up in the morning and go, today? Well, there are sometimes, let's see, I have to think about how to say this. The job involves a lot and a lot of paperwork. A lot of people probably think being a buyer is wonderful because boy, you can taste these wines and make this decision, but you have to get that wine into the stores. And so it involves a lot of little tedious things, you know, and you have to keep doing it over and over and over and over and over again, and you always have to check on everybody else's mistakes and stuff like that. So actually, I like that a lot, but sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. Okay, just the tedious works of it. Sometimes. A lot of minutiae. A lot of minutiae, yeah. I think most people would get a little bit overwhelmed by that at times. But you get to travel a lot. Yeah, I get to travel. When did you first start traveling to Bordeaux for On Premier? Was that right away? No, no. Not until about 1995. You ever look back to 1995, Barbara, thinking about that campaign and what you bought and kind of what you know now, and notice a big difference in how you are and how you approached that sort of a program? I mean, I started buying on Premier actually back in the 80s. I mean, there's a lot and a lot, a lot of differences. I mean, back then, we bought for a company called Chateau and Estates primarily. That was a division of the Seagram's company. They took very big positions on a pretty small number of chateaus and offered them to the trade. You didn't have to jump on a purchase on that day and then get the pricing out to your customers instantly. It was a much slower process. So they'd come up with the list. You had time, you could look and say, okay, here's the 20 wines we're going to buy, and this is what you'd bring in. That was most of your futures buying back then. Then over years, it changed where more and more and more wines, chateaus came out on premiere. C&E didn't quite keep up with that number. They pretty much stayed with the smaller selection that they were used to working with for a number of years. But other companies came on in. So you had to be a little more nimble and think a lot more broader. Now I think it's gone a little back down again. Part of that has to do with like what pricing is. First growth pricing has gone way up. Second growth pricing has gone way up. The super second wannabes have gone way up. So a lot of properties that we're buying, and we were doing a lot more selling with maybe in the 90s now and buying less because of the pricing, but you're buying new wines. But we're buying a lot more Bordeaux. I mean, we're buying a lot of much larger selection than we did. Which is great. The Bordeaux set, I think, here is better than anywhere I've ever seen, really. So if I say, those were the good old days, what time frame do you think of when I say that? Pre-2000. Okay. Then how long do you think we'll have to wait before we think of 2018 as the good old days? That's a good question. Of course, it depends on the good old days for whom. I think for customers, a lot of it might have been, could be, you know, the good old days may never have changed because there's a lot of good prices still out there. I mean, some lines have gone through the roof, but there's always something new coming on and there's a lot of good values out there. And the selection just keeps getting enormous, more and more enormous. But I think in terms of buying, it was really a lot of fun in the 90s and that. I feel like the good old days are right now just because a couple of things, the way that science and technology have caught up to create a lot of clean, correct, well-made wines at good price. Globalization has allowed us to then be able to enjoy wines from all over the world. A lot easier than it was in the 80s and 90s. So we have way more selection. So I'm kind of like, you guys, now's the time. You know, I understand First Growth Bordeaux is $600 on release, but we have all these other $30 wines that we didn't have 25 years ago that are killer. Happy days right now. If you ever think, you know, if you have to taste one more California Cabernet, you are just gonna lose it. How many do you taste out of every 50 bottles? You know, how many? It's a lot, yeah. And I wish they would put a little more structure back in some of these wines, and maybe a little bit less oak, or soft chocolatey oak would be great. Give me a little more guts. I agree, yeah, for sure. Barbara, when you're not drinking wine, what are you drinking? La Croix water. She's a millennial. Boring. You know what? I hardly ever drink anything but wine. I didn't see that coming, really. I thought there'd be something. But you like champagne, though, which I like about you. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I like, I like, I like Armagnac, I like Cognac. I like a little bit of bourbon, but I just find that I almost never, ever drink them. I saw you drink a beer once. I've had a few beers. I've seen her drink a beer. Yeah. But, but I, you know, it's funny when it comes to beer, I'm like, I mean, we all, like us on the wine side, you know, we, you know, we always have those customers that, you know, drink one wine brand, you know, forever and ever and ever. And I'm the person that drinks one beer brand all the time. Coors Light. Dale's Pale Ale. Dale's Pale Ale. Oh, wow. It's nice. Roger, are you here? Yeah, yeah. Like you expected her to say hams or something. Yeah. Would you ever want to become a master of wine? Well, not now. And I'm not sure. I don't know if I ever, I could, you know, go back and become, you know, a 30 year old. I don't know if I would do it. Okay. Yeah. It's tough. Take a few years. But I don't know. I just kind of feel like you're the kind of person that could just show up to the exam and be like, hey, just pass and walk away, you know, like. No, there's too much. That's the problem. There's too much to learn. Well, you know that. I mean, all of a sudden, your trick question is discuss the differences in the climates of Bulgaria, wine regions, or something like that. And I mean, it'd be like, what? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it'd be tough. Well, if you want to try, let me know. You've been to Croatia. What are some of the more obscure wine regions you visited? Besides Croatia? No, I guess, interestingly enough, I finally went to Madeira and Tokai, which I went to a few years ago. So those actually were probably the most unusual areas I've been to. But I haven't ever been to Russia or Georgia or something. I think those would be fascinating to go see. I think Georgia is high on my list of places to visit. How was flying into the island of Madeira? Madeira? Isn't that a tough place to land? Well, it's a small airport and it's basically on stilts. Most of it. So it's out on the ocean. So the landing is... It's not for me. But it was kind of cool looking at it as you're going, you know, I mean, because it's just this big rock, basically, stuck out there in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden, you're getting closer to it. Barbara, when you're sick of talking to certain coworkers named Bill, what do you do for fun? I like opera a lot. I like classical music. And I'm kind of a jock. So I used to run a lot. Now I bike. I love to ski. I work out. I know you can't see it on the podcast, but she's like the buffest woman I've ever met. No, you are kind of a jock. You ski every year, right? Yeah, a couple of weeks a year. Okay. Yeah. Where did you go this year? Colorado. I got to join in on one of those. Can we wear ugly sweaters and drink hot cocoa by the fire together? That's not the kind of skiing she does. I'll wait for you by the fire. Or she's taking the moguls with an extreme helmet on. We should have a Binny's outing and go, and they have like Taste of Veil or something in this, you know. Yeah, there you go. Ski with the winemakers. That sounds perfect for me. As long as I can carry a bottle of wine as I'm going down the hill, you know. If you had a piece of advice for a new wine professional dipping their toe into the industry now, what would you say? And also, if you had a piece of advice for a wine customer, what advice would you give them? My advice for a budding wine customer is kind of old-fashioned. Number one, go read a wine book. Read a book? Read a book, a**hole. That's awesome. And then I think number two, then honestly go to stores of good wine selections and just ask, start talking to the people that work there. And you probably get a lot of different opinions and information, but you get information and opinions about a big variety of wines. That's a good way to think to start tasting. And the other thing too is if you can, and this might lead into that is if you can meet other people that are into tasting wines and drinking wines and maybe, and you kind of develop a friendship with that, that would really help. Get together and taste, right? Yeah, get together and taste. Yeah, what helps you kind of diversify your exposure? If everybody brings something different, not only in wine, but opinions and know-how knowledge. It's a really great way. I like it. Yeah, I mean, in terms of people in the industry, it's different. I think retail, I mean, retail was great for me for a whole bunch of reasons. I mean, first of all, I mean, the most important thing was I got to work in something I really liked to do. So what could be better than that for most of your life? I think retail wine can be a very cool thing to do. On the other hand, you have to put up with being in retail, which means a lot of hours on your floor, the floor, et cetera. But I don't think there's really an easy way to get into this position, or there's ways to do it, but you might get a little bit pigeonholed. So maybe you just have to try something and see if that works, whether it's working with a distributor or going up through the restaurant side. It's great to do something you love. What else could you hope for? I wouldn't know. Well, Barbara, thanks for enlightening us in the glamorous life of a wine buyer for Binny's Beverage Depot. Well, thank you for inviting me. It's good to get some insight into your day to day and how it all works. I think our listeners are really going to enjoy it. So gentlemen, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate my time with you today. As always folks, I'm Kristin. I'm Greg. Roger. Pat. Barbara. Keep tasting.