Grape growth

A homegrown company that has profited from Americans”™ growing passion for wines and wine-collecting will relocate to larger quarters in Mount Kisco next year.
Wine Enthusiast Companies Inc., a catalog-sales, magazine-publishing, events-hosting and business-to-business wine accessories enterprise with approximately $100 million in sales annually, will consolidate its operations in the county at the former Grand Union distribution center at 333 N. Bedford Road in Mount Kisco. The company”™s office headquarters, showroom, warehouse and distribution operations will occupy about one-fifth, or 115,000 square feet, of the 575,000-square-foot building, said Adam Strum, founding chairman of Wine Enthusiast Cos. and editor and publisher of Wine Enthusiast magazine.
Company officials have estimated equipment purchases and construction costs for the relocation at $1.7 million. The Westchester County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) at its June meeting approved a lease arrangement with Wine Enthusiast Cos. that will exempt the company from an estimated $73,013 in sales taxes.
Wine Enthusiast for eight years has had its offices, wine-accessories showroom and some of its distribution operations in the Fairview Corporate Park in Elmsford. After eight years there, “We just outgrew the current space we”™re in,” Strum said.
The company also maintains corporate offices near the world”™s major grape-growing regions and vineyards in Rome; Bordeaux, France; and San Francisco. It also has an office in Tampa, Fla.
In Mount Kisco, “We plan to have a spectacular showroom,” Strum said.
There visitors can tour virtual wine cellars and meet with wine storage consultants and, occasionally, visiting celebrities in the world of oenophiles. The showroom will display the company”™s array of wine accessories, from corkscrews to glassware and decanters to wine racks to refrigerated wine cabinets and custom cellars. “It”™ll all be there in living color and people can access it,” Strum said.
“We plan on doing some exciting things in Mount Kisco,” Strum said, with wine tastings and possibly wine schools to further educate consumers and budding aficionados. “It”™s going to be one of most unique centers. We”™re the only place like this in the country.”
Strum said the company is still negotiating terms of a lease with the former Grand Union building”™s owner, Diamond Properties of Valhalla. “It”™s pretty imminent,” he said. The lease would start next February, although construction of the company”™s space is not required to be completed until August 2008, when the company”™s current Elmsford lease expires. Strum said distribution operations likely will be moved in February and the office move will be next summer.

“The draw was the people at Diamond were wonderful,” Strum said. The building owner, which has embarked on a capital improvements project to redevelop the 38-acre site for multiple tenants, is building the space to suit the company”™s needs, which include a corporate dining room with executive chef, full kitchen and digital production studio for the company”™s streaming videos.
In their IDA project application, Wine Enthusiast officers said the relocation is projected to add 26 permanent employees and about $1.54 million to the company payroll. The company currently has 131 permanent employees and a $7.86 million payroll.
Strum said the company employs up to 200 workers in Westchester County according to seasonal needs. In Mount Kisco, “We”™re also going to be hiring ”“ a lot. We”™re looking for talent in all areas ”“ sales, marketing, circulation, journal editors.” Jobs currently posted on the company”™s Web site,  HYPERLINK “http://www.wineenthusiast.com” www.wineenthusiast.com, include Web designer and programmer, senior tasting coordinator and wine cellar specialist.   
Strum said Wine Enthusiast officials had received several offers to relocate outside the county and had considered a move to New Jersey. “There were many others,” he said. “We”™re a high-profile, triple-A company.”
“Westchester is an expensive place to operate, so we appreciate a little help from the county,” he said. The company”™s decision to remain here “is not because Westchester is the friendliest to business or the least-expensive place to do business. As an area to distribute, it”™s not a very cost-effective place. Warehousing is far, far less in other places in the country.”
“But it (Westchester) also has the benefit of having some of the brightest in talent. And my wife and I live here. That in the end was a big reason for staying.”
Adam Strum was working as a wine salesman and his wife, Sybil, as a television commercial producer when in 1980 they launched their direct-mail business in wine accessories. “My wife and I started in an extra bedroom in our three-bedroom house in Chappaqua,” Strum recalled. “Then we went to our attic” as their catalog business slowly grew. “Then we went to our basement.”
After about six years of tending their homegrown business, “We got the nerve to move out of our house” into leased commercial space in Pleasantville. Two years later, the Strums launched Wine Enthusiast magazine, which features wine reviews and consumer information and is now the largest periodical of its kind internationally. As the company grew, it moved successively to Thornwood, Hawthorne, Elmsford and now Mount Kisco.
At the start, “Wine wasn”™t in fashion in those days,” Strum said. “It wasn”™t really mainstream. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, finding anyone who was interested in wine. Now, America is a wine-drinking nation.”
Sybil Strum serves as CEO at Wine Enthusiast Cos. The founders”™ oldest daughter, Erika, recently joined the company as marketing manager.
Wine Enthusiast”™s original direct-mail business ”“ it has published more than 300 million catalogs ”“ has expanded into online catalog sales. “We”™re a Web catalog company,” Strum said. “We mail 10 million to 15 million catalogs in a year. We”™re not really a retail business.”
“This showroom in Mount Kisco hopefully will generate more retail traffic,” he said.   
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