Golden Vines

We at Golden Vines wear many hats to keep our company running and growing and now in our 9th year that hasn’t changed.  Since January 2020 we’ve endured a global pandemic, an insane political landscape, tariffs, riots, storming of our nation’s capital….please say stop. Besides all that Ben moved back to France with his family and now gives us a more direct access to our producers and blisters his fingers working around the clock doing whatever admin work is needed at any hour.

We also hired Michele Marino to run our Westchester sales department.  Michele is also the owner of an outstanding artisanal [sound familar?] food import business called Sotto il Sole. Michele could not be defeated by the pandemic and immediately rolled up his sleeves just like the two partners and has shown the same resiliency that the company has.

Our CT wine savant Mark Ancona, continues to build up our Connecticut business and we are fortunate that we had Mark there to service all those NYC transplants that moved out and into CT.  Mark has added explosive sales growth to GV and we are absolutely delighted to have him as our friend and colleague.  Mark is a wine biz lifer and you can’t walk into a store without someone knowing Mark!  Mark owned his own import company before joining us and we love his palette, hence we now import many of the producers that Mark found before ‘natural’ was hip!

Next time, we do more intros…

Mark at work!

Cheers!

It took us some time to find the correct words to write until we realized that you can never find the perfect things to say when there is so much pain and divisiveness in the country.  We leave it as we stand united against racism and vow to do what we can to be better and do better as individuals and as a company.

Well it finally happened after much discussion we finally ventured into California to find amazing small production, delicious and honest wines from Peterson Winery.  Fred Peterson has been making wine in Dry Creek for many years and his Peterson Winery was ‘experimenting’ with varietals like Carignane, Grenache, Sangiovese, Vermentino and more for decades so with our love of Old World wines it seemed to be a natural fit.  ‘Unfined and Unfiltered’ is the motto of the  Peterson Winery and each bottling expresses the uniqueness of each vineyard location.

A visit weeks back sealed the deal for a new found love and appreciation of these soon to be domestic wine stars.

So sorry but updating the website has been on our minds YET has fallen through the cracks.   The short answer is business has been great and we are too busy finding great wines and selling it to wonderful establishments.  2018 was another banner year and it started in Spring where we set a new sales high in April topping the usually busiest month of December 2017.  This continued throughout the year with rarely a slow period to take stock of the business as a whole.

We officially moved into our office in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in January and though it has not always been smooth sailing and the office does not look as we anticipate it will in time we are happy that we have a place to call home when we are in the city.  Another perk is we are close to Beerkarma when we want to change things up and have a craft beer.

We both traveled this year, Anthony in April to Vinitaly and Ben to France in July/August to visit our producers and to find new ones too.

We continue to build our sales team and are always on the lookout for new sales talent – if you know of anyone with experience give us a shout at info@golden-vines.com

In September we did another Fall Portfolio Tasting showing off our new things, and old faves alike.  We teamed up with our friends at Vinotas Seelections and Chrystalline Imports and met many new people and old friends.

Our Connecticut business also continues to flourish with our buddy Mark Ancona formerly of Fountainhead Imports doing an amazing job selling and promoting our wines and cause.  It has been a very fortuitous relationship for all of us.

We finished the year with a flurry of tastings and events ’til the end setting sales records consecutively in October, November and December.

I know I am leaving out much like awards our producers won or visits that people made to the US…. but I just need to get something posted – again!!!!

We look forward to move good things to come in 2019 and we will start with our first foray into California by bringing in Fred Peterson’s eponymous wines Peterson Winery in Mendocino.  VERY exciting for all of us.

Last week we hosted our second Portfolio Tasting for 2017 at Racine’s restaurant in Tribeca along with two other small importers and it was a huge success.  We were fortunate to have our newest winemaker Tim Malone of Timothy Malone Wines in town pouring his Oregon wines: Riesling, and Pinot Noir from Willamette and Dundee Hills. The event also gave us a wonderful opportunity to show new wines that will arrive this Fall from Rheinhessen, Germany: Heyl zu Herrnsheim.  This will be our first frolic into Germany and Oregon and we are very excited to see the market reaction.  Heyl produces some outstanding white wines and we will import some rieslings and a pinot blanc ‘Weisser Burgunder’.  Recently we also added wines from Alsace, Martin Schaetzel who produces small production Grand Cru wines that have been an immediate hit for us and showed great for the tasting.

We had a nice turnout with many wine professionals offering good feedback and praise for our new vintages from France and Italy and also a fresh evaluation on some GV standouts.

Things are looking great and we are very excited for the coming Fall season.  We had a record breaking summer of wines sales with the addition of very strong sales in New Jersey added to the steady increase in New York, sales were over 50% higher than a year ago in every month from May – August.  Connecticut continues to being a strong growth market for us and we hope the new year has us expanding outside the tri state market.

As always, thank you for your support, we are truly grateful for every customer and client we have and look forward to adding more this Fall.

Cheers!

Though this post is later than intended Anthony’s visit to Valle d’Aosta after Vinitaly was outstanding on every level.  Visiting this alpine region was a first and seeing this area nicknamed ‘extreme winemaking’ really brought it all to life.  Danilo Charrere the owner and winemaker of Le Clocher was a wonderful host and his new vintages did not disappoint.  The standouts soon to be imported were clearly his Petite Arvine, Gamay and Fumin – can’t wait to bring them into the US.  Truthfully the landscape was really the star since you are surrounded by the Alps [this region borders Switzerland and France on Italy's northwest] and the beautiful sunlight and cool mountain air create wines that are a combination of finesse and complexity.  Add in that the wines are made in a natural and organic ‘old school hands off’ manner and you have wines that will expand your wine drinking horizons for all time.