If you were to ask wine merchants just what they think of the looming New York state budget proposal allowing grocery stores to sell wine, the response drifts toward vinegar. Food markets find the bouquet financially uplifting with a hint of convenience.
“It pains me,” says Alfredo Cruz, president of The Wine and Spirits Emporium of Bronxville Ltd. “As a retailer for 27 years and in the industry for 35 years, it pains me to see what would happen if this proposal would go through.”
He said for years just to operate his establishment, “I”™ve had to play by the state Liquor Authority”™s rules. We”™ve paid all our licensing fees. We”™ve paid our taxes. And somehow, I don”™t get where they get the gall that every bodega, every Texaco stand is going to abide by all these rules.”
Emmanuel Dupuy D”™Angeac, owner of New Rochelle, Greenwich and Old Greenwich, Conn.-based AOC Fine Wines boutiques, which specialize in artisanal and organic wines, left France to follow what he says flows in his blood: wine.
Next month he launches an intermediate wine certification series in partnership with the International Wine Center.
The International Wine Center trains 25,000 students nationally and grants a “master of wine” diploma, which Dupuy D”™Angeac lauds for its testimony to the tradition and deep-rooted appreciation for wine and its crafters.
Of the proposed budget item, he said, “It”™s very scary.”
“We”™re in a country where the one-stop shopping is a pretty big thing, so it”™s going to kill a lot of mom-and-pop stores,” Dupuy D”™Angeac said. “This proposal ”¦ you”™re going to redistribute the way wine is sold, but you”™re not going to sell more bottles. The superstores, the big boxes, are going to take care of the brand and it”™s going to be a matter of price and discounts.”
For natural foods retailer Whole Foods Market, the proposed budget item was welcome news.
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“It”™s an opportunity to not only to show wine to pair with food, but to stay true to our core values by demonstrating our commitment to local products and growers,” said Whole Foods spokesman for the Northeast region Michael Sinatra. “When we first opened (Wines at Whole Foods Market at a Manhattan store) we had 54 varieties of wine ”¦ to increase that and bring that to other stores, it”™s very exciting.”
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At Morton Williams, a New York metropolitan area grocer in business since 1946, Vice President Avi Kaner said, “It is long overdue in New York.”
“Wine is generally consumed with food, so naturally it should be available for sale at supermarkets, as it is in most states,” Kaner said.
Cruz would argue that wine is essentially an “agricultural product” and that the competition by larger retailers “will bastardize the product.”
There is an art to the industry, he says, and a sales clerk without extensive knowledge of the specialty product could doom it.
“The least capitalistic country today is America, where you need a license to do anything,” Dupuy D”™Angeac said. “Those licenses are granted by an administration that doesn”™t really understand the market anymore, but who is in the business of raising taxes.”
The executive budget for New York”™s fiscal year, which begins April 1, forecasts some $92 million to be generated by allowing grocery stores to sell wine.
The collective budget proposal seeks to alleviate the $7.4 billion budget deficit for this year.
Gov. David A. Paterson last week upped the $92 million figure to $162 million in a 21-day amendment proposal; a franchise fee would, if approved, generate a total of $300 million over the next two years.
