Wine & Spirits - February 2021 - 6

Fined
&
Filtered
86 the
Pivot
In search of the new
pandemic business model
by JA R E D HO O PE R

estaurants and wine bars
are closing at a record
rate during sweeping
and often confusing COVID-19
restrictions. Wine professionals
are scrambling to find creative
ways to stay employed and keep
the lights on. We spoke with a few
Los Angeles sommeliers about
their " pivot, " the changes to the
industry at large and the buying
habits of their guests.
" The concept of the pivot just
doesn't work, " says Matthew
Kaner, of Bar Covell in Los Feliz.
" You can't just transform to take
out. The only 'pivot' is to get out
of restaurants entirely. We've
been losing 6-12 thousand dollars a month since March, and we
have no rent abatement. The situation is dire. " Kaner has opened
for outdoor service when allowed,
and now runs a pop up bottle
shop at the Hollywood Boulevard location from 2 to 8 pm
Wednesday through Sunday. The
logistics of running a retail store
out of a former wine bar, however, are daunting: He's working
without the traditionally large
breadth of a retail shop's inventory. " If someone comes in wanting Champagne, I have only one
choice, I can't afford an inventory
of multiple options. People don't
6

WINE & SPIRITS

always know what they want;
hopefully, they want what I have
to sell. " And, to find out, they
have to first buy the wine and take
it home: The days of Kaner pouring a few choices at the bar for
you to sample are gone for now.
" We all miss the past, " Kaner says.
He has found some " emergency
lights illuminating the way, " however, in small lot, hand-sell wines
not typically found in larger retail
stores. Kaner has repeat customers coming back for Meinklang
Graupert Pinot Gris, a skin-contact wine from Austria's Burgenland, as well as more classic examples of Sancerre, in the 2019 from
Jean-Jacques Auchère.
Kathryn Weil Coker, owner
of Esters Wine Shop and Bar in
Santa Monica, says she's been
fortunate to have been a mixed
model from the beginning. While
the Wine Bar has been touch-andgo through varying outdoor-dining capacities and stay-at-home
measures, the retail shop and
wine club has grown substantially.
Many of the wine-bar customers who have enjoyed Kathryn's
curated selections have shifted to
purchasing retail from her shop.
" We have a large patio, which we
have maximized as much as we
could during the periods of outdoor dining. The staff caught on
quickly to all of our safety protocols and the constantly changing
mandates. Of course, now, we're
back to full lockdown again, and
the hard part is not having work
for our kitchen and inside staff. "
Weil Coker has translated her
Sunday Tastings across the many
stages of COVID-19 precautions.
When outdoor dining was allowed,
the original flights, poured at the
bar, became pre-poured tasting
portions in small vials, with a QR
code linking to a short video. Now,
with a full ban on both indoor and

FROM TOP: NATHANIEL
MUÑOZ, EVE BOTTLE SHOP;
MATTHEW KANER, BAR
COVELL; ESTERS WINE
BAR, SANTA MONICA

Wine & Spirits - February 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - February 2021