Small Retail: Unusual places, unusual wines
By DAN RICHMAN
P-I REPORTER
July 5, 2008
You may never have heard of Garagiste, a Seattle company claiming to be the state's second-largest seller of wine, after Costco.Odds are, too, that if you read a single e-mail from this unusual retailer, you'd be a customer.
Founder Jon Rimmerman, 41, sends up to three e-mails a day to 10,000 people worldwide who have requested them.Traveling half the year with his life and work partner and a young daughter, the native Chicagoan seeks out unusual wines in unusual places.
Sometimes sitting in the middle of a vineyard, he types out enticingly descriptive e-mails on his BlackBerry.The wines he describes can be ordered with a click, charged to a credit card on file, and delivered anywhere in the U.S. or picked up from a nondescript refrigerated warehouse in Sodo.
That's it. No advertising, no marketing, no PR. Not even a storefront or a Web site offering product.
The only similarity between Rimmerman's family-owned business and a conventional wine store is shelving holding odd lots for sale in the warehouse.
But the business works. Garagiste -- pronounced "gah-rah-ZHEEST" but often just called "The Garage" -- sells an estimated average of 50,000 bottles a month. That means annual dollar sales in eight figures and steady profits supporting a staff of 12. The company is experiencing annual double-digit sales growth, Rimmerman said.
Wines are competitively priced, said one customer. A week's offering includes some wines at $8-$10 a bottle, some at $15-$20, and some at $20 and above. Anyone can sign up to receive e-mail offers, with no obligation to buy, at garagistewine.com.
Rimmerman's huge enthusiasm for wine -- plus his gift for describing its qualities and the culture, geology and geography of the places it's produced -- propel the business, enticing even nonwine drinkers.
For more information:
GARAGISTE
garagistewine.com
