Dr Vino's wine blog

Is being a wine importer all fun and no work? Why is the name of a wine’s importer on a label a good indicator of the bottle’s quality? Dr. Vino chats with Ben Hammerschlag of Epicurean Wines about the daily grind (crush?) and becoming a success.

It’s 9:30 PM and his phone rings. Never mind that Ben Hammerschlag has been with distributors and retailers all day or that he and I are dining at Naha, a contemporary chef-owned restaurant in Chicago’s River North. The local distributor on the phone wants to pin down Hammerschlag for the next day’s schedule.

Hammerschlag is likely to find himself very much in demand these days. He has exploded on to the wine scene with his portfolio of big, muscular wines from Australia. Since incorporating only four years ago, he has built his business to impressive levels of sales and quality. Indeed, it has been a hot summer.

In July a New York Times panel rated two of his wines—Mitolo McLaren Vale and Woop Woop—as the best in a Shiraz tasting. And in the August issue of his influential newsletter, Robert Parker bestowed 94 and 98+ point ratings on many of Hammerschlag’s wines, particularly the excellent 2002 vintage.

All this and Hammerschlag is only 31 years old.

Does Parker’s preference for “hedonistic fruit bombs” steer Hammerschlag in that direction of winemaking? Not really. “Parker and I have similar palates,” he says. “If I were doing sweet wines then I would be out of luck. But fortunately he loves Aussie wines (and Rhones).”

With 90% of production concentrated among the 6 biggest producers, consumers could easily be forgiven for thinking that Australia is simply a land of easy-drinking and uninspiring value wines. But there are over 1,000 smaller producers and the entire line of 150 wine labels that Hammerschlag imports comes from these boutique producers. And they are priced accordingly, selling between $20 and $60 retail, mostly through small wine shops. But they have also had good success breaking into the coveted but difficult domain for Australian wines: American restaurants.

Although one of the Epicurean wines, the 2001 Barton Vale Shiraz, appears on the Naha wine list, we skip it since he certainly knows that one. Instead we opt for a 2000 Mt. Difficulty Pinot Noir from neighboring New Zealand’s Central Otago region, reputedly the southernmost vineyard in the world. The Pinot Noir is a good compromise for his scallop starter and wood-grilled quail main course.

Like a celebrity, a top importer is a good local draw. Local distributors like the importer to talk to the retailers. Retailers like the importer to do a tasting for the customers. Restaurants like the importer to talk to the staff. So when the importer comes to town, his-and he is almost always a man-phone is likely to ring.

With only three staff, including a national sales manager, Hammerschlag works constantly. From his base in Seattle, he tracks his wine shipments across the Pacific, monitors the exchange rate with the Australian dollar, and calls producers and distributors. His weekends aren’t for relaxing. They are for doing bureaucratic paperwork. “If it’s not revenue generating, then it doesn’t make it to the top of my list of things to do,” he says.

Getting around the state and local regulations on selling wine constitutes his “biggest headache.” The uneven repeal of Prohibition has resulted in a situation where the American states act more like sovereign states. Thus it is quite an achievement that the Epicurean wines now are available in 31 states. These relationships require constant attention during the business week.

Even the aspect that traveling to Australia to work with producers is draining. Hammerschlag is so focused on his business that he has never even been to Sydney—no winemakers live there. Instead, he flies direct to Melbourne and spends his time in between there and Adelaide, the heart of Australia’s wine growing region. Renting a house for four days on the beach at Margaret River once was noticeable simply because it stood out so much from his usual itinerary.

Hammerschlag make the trip across 12 time zones three times a year for a total of six weeks. Two of the trips are only 10 days long and are particularly draining: just as he starts to overcome the jet lag, it is time to return. But more draining are perhaps the activities. After working with producers by day, tasting and blending wines, a dinner follows—with wine—and then more talk of business. New contacts are often made at dinner, which require further following-up during the day.

These on-the-ground networks prove essential for finding new wineries to work with. “If they are interested in me, I’m probably not interested in them,” he says. Quality is the m.o. here and he has an exacting palate.

Hammerschlag credits his success with his six years as a wine buyer for a high-end grocery store in Seattle. Although he was “paid the same as the baggers” the experience there was invaluable. Not only did he order a lot of wine, he got to work with consumers. He observed what they liked both in terms of taste and the packaging. This helps him steer the Australian producers to blend wines for the US market as well as have eye-catching labels and packaging. This experience gives him an edge over other importers who often are far removed from the end consumer.

Woop Woop is one such example. With an expensive portfolio of wines, Hammerschlag sought a good value wine to offer distributors and restaurateurs a full range of wines at all price points. Woop Woop, which retails for around $11 in the US, is a fruit-forward Shiraz with a striking sunset photo on the label (and a trendy screwcap on top of the white wine version). The box for a case of Woop Woop-and there are 22,000 of those a year-is covered with uses of this local expression, which in local parlance means “the middle of nowhere.”

Hammerschlag thinks that retail price points matter and wants those not to change-even at the cost of his own profits. In a move that is unusual for an importer, currency fluctuations have eaten into his profits. Although revenues have doubled over the past two years, the decline in the greenback versus the Australian dollar has kept net profits relatively flat. Importers normally pass on currency fluctuations to the distributor, the retailer and ultimately the consumer.

Many challenges lie ahead. He plows all his profits back into the business as it expands. Since profits are not necessarily what motivate him what is it that keeps him going? “I want to be the best.” His is a name wine consumers should seek out since he is not resting on his laurels—or riding off into the Woop Woop!