|
Wine buy the glass
Two distinctive companies join forces to share downtown location
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
How about a glass of wine? Visit a new store on upper King Street and you can get some glass and some wine.
A Charleston art glass designer has teamed up with two English wine academics to offer two very different businesses under one roof. Charleston Architectural Glass Studio, a designer of mirrors, stained glass, windows and other decorative glass objects, and The Trusted Palate, a wine retailer and tasting bar, are snugly ensconced amid exposed brick walls in a turn-of-the-century storefront at 563 King St.
“They had the need for a well-decorated space and we have basically the same clients,” said Justin Walling, who recently moved his Charleston Architectural Glass Studio from Spring Street to King Street.
English partners Stephen Bates and Ian Johnson are helping Walling pay his rent and bring in foot traffic with their wine tastings and eclectic wine retail operation, he said.
“I have had a number of people come in to buy wine and buy a mirror off the wall,” Walling said.
In return, the Englishmen get a showroom decked in handcrafted mirrors and paintings done by Walling’s artist friends. The paintings, too, are for sale.
“They get a great space and they didn’t have to renovate the place,” said Walling, who has invested $30,000 in renovating the building’s ground floor.
As a startup business, the move into Walling’s swank studio saved Bates and Johnson the cash they would have needed to furnish an independent retail store.
“It’s a perfect tasting environment and a perfect place to learn about wine,” Johnson said.
A leather sofa next to the wine bar beckons wine tasters to relax beneath a massive mirror created in Walling’s studio at the rear of the 4,700-square-foot building.
“Everyone hails us with coming up with a great idea,” Walling said. “People come in and say, ‘What is this place? There’s wine on one side and a gallery on the other side and a studio in the back, and people drinking wine and talking about wine and tasting wine, and people in the back making beautiful leaded-glass windows and stained glass. It’s an interesting place to be.’”
Do drop in
John Ohrberger, a College of Charleston student who used to work in a Massachusetts wine shop, wandered in on a recent afternoon and struck up some wine talk with Bates.
“I noticed the store probably two weeks ago and have been wanting to come in here and check it out,” Ohrberger said. “I think it’s really interesting. It’s mixing an art gallery, almost, with a wine shop.”
The concept seems to work well enough for the city’s regular art walks, when downtown art galleries stay open late with wine-and-cheese offerings to entice prospective fine art buyers.
On April 19, 563 King St. will be among the upper King Street businesses holding an open house during Design Walk, an event to help celebrate the completion of street improvements in the area referred to as the design district.
“We wanted the location, and location is very important when you have a retail establishment,” Bates said.
It is not only their similar clients but also their artist-based industries that have made the dual storefront work for the two businesses, he said.
“People that can afford fine wine can afford fine art work, but I think why Justin embraced our business was that, as an artist himself, he identified with us,” Bates said. “We are trying to promote the small-production, high quality-to-price ratio of wines from distinctive, artisanal producers. We want to represent the small production growers, the small, handcrafted wine producers where the people that grow the grapes actually make the wine.”
An English partnership
Bates and Johnson met in Charleston last summer when both had recently ended their contracts with separate wine distributors and were looking to reposition themselves in the wine industry. While job-hunting in Charleston, Bates kept hearing Johnson’s name dropped by restaurateurs and sommeliers in the area.
“I pursued Ian like a sales professional,” Bates said. “I pursued him because I knew he was in the Master of Wine program and he was an (British) expatriate, like me.”
Johnson is among about 57 candidates in the United States for the Master of Wine certification from the Institute of Master of Wine in London, one of the most prestigious wine education programs in the world. He is the only Master of Wine candidate from South Carolina.
Bates holds an advanced certificate from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, a British wine certification system that is also taught in the United States.
When the pair met for the first time for coffee in Mount Pleasant, ideas for the retail/tasting shop came quickly. Both felt Charleston needed an outlet for genuine and eclectic wines not offered in bulk, and both wanted to establish customer service and rapport between the retailer and the consumer.
“I think that the consumer wants to be informed and wants new experiences in wine,” Bates said. “In Charleston, there’s no one leading the way to take the consumer to the next level. The consumers’ purchasing decisions are being driven by the marketing dollars of the large corporations. We want the customer to drive the market.”
‘Anti-wine snobbery’
The Trusted Palate also aims to make wine education and purchasing fun while doing away with the notion that wine purchasing can be intimidating.
“We’re your local anti-wine snobbery store,” Johnson said.
The Trusted Palate currently stocks about 150 labels and hopes to grow to 400. There are plans for educational wine programs as well as tasting events, fundraisers and courses, which Bates plans to teach in the Wine and Spirit Education Trust program.
Every evening the store is open for tastings of a selection of unusual wines, and Bates and Johnson also do consultations for wine collectors and can evaluate the value of their collections. In addition, the pair is partnering with one of Walling’s friends, Dan Perrin of Perrin and Sawin Woodworking, to design wine bars and wine cellars for residences.
The English partners are thinking about some casual food offerings in the future that would pair with the wines, and their business plan includes expansion to a second location, possibly in Mount Pleasant.
If and when that happens, there will be mirrors among the wine bottles.
“We feel The Trusted Palate and Charleston Architectural Glass are inextricably linked,” Bates said. “It’s part of our persona.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version