Wine & Spirits - February 2021 - 7

outdoor dining, the Sunday Tastings have gone virtual, with short
info sheets about the wine, to be
tasted at home. " There is no one
pivot, " she says, " it's constant pivoting. There's no one thing, we
have to do all of it. " She finds her
guests still want the interaction
and interplay of curated choices,
and the Wine Club remains their
connection to the Esters world.
" Our guests are still coming to
pick up their Wine Club shipments. It helps them feel like they
are a part of keeping us alive-and
they are. "
Weil Coker's customers have
been coming back for a twist on
the classics-Domaine Denizot
Sancerre and Hermanos Peciña
Rioja. And there's always a strong
call for domestic wines, she says;
Angela Osborne's Land of Saints
Pinot Noir from San Luis Obispo
is a favorite: " People love it. "
For Nathaniel Muñoz of Eve

Director at Auburn. " We knew
going into this, that COVID was
our reality. We built Fellow Traveler from a retail structure. The
whole model itself is take-out
food and wine. When, and if, this
cools out, we'll keep this to-go
model going. "
Arline has stayed focused
on uncertainty. " Every day I'm
changing my job description. "
But one thing doesn't change.
" I'm in wine sales, " he says. " I'm
here to sell wine. " Asked about
the sales element and customers'
COVID-era preferences, Arline
notes, " We have to shift things.
The old restaurant model just
won't work when we come out of
this on the other side. We'll have
to be aggressive on our pricing. "
He is still working on bridging
the gap between retail and onpremise pricing, but it isn't easy.
Restaurant pricing is traditionally
twice retail in order to factor in

" I do the same tableside service I used to do
in restaurants, now I do it at the door. You can still
build relationships, even at six feet. "
-- Nathaniel Muñoz of Eve Bottle Shop in Echo Park

Bottle Shop in Echo Park, " The
reality is-every day could be
the last, there's just no space for
edited candor. " Bar Avalon, the
restaurant/wine bar he opened
alongside Eve Bottle Shop, closed
right before their one year anniversary. Eve, however, continues
to be a local neighborhood spot.
Scott Sampler's Scotty Boy skincontact wines have been a hit at
Eve, as has Michel Guignier Beaujolais and Michael Roth's Lo-Fi
Malbec out of Santa Barbara.
" People still want an experience,
contact, guidance, and service, "
Muñoz says. " I do the same tableside service I used to do in restaurants, now I do it at the door. You
can still build relationships, even
at six feet. "
Rick Arline opened his West
Hollywood space, Fellow Traveler, during the pandemic. He
built the model for a socially distanced world and it is a totally different gig than his time as Wine

the higher associated costs, such
as labor and high rents. The limited number of seats determines
the opportunities to sell, whereas
retail is a volume game. " I want
to be as egalitarian as possible. I
want people to drink more wine, I
want them to drink better wine. I
want wine to be less of a commodity and more of a grocery. We can
give people something to entice
them, but we have to be creative. "
Creativity, for Arline, means
offering out the fun unavailable
stuff, like Piu Piu, the riesling
pet'nat from Fio Kettern and
DD Niepoort- " It's very weird,
but people love it. " And he's in
good-natured competition with
Muñoz for some of the small lot
California wines: " Nathaniel and
I often find ourselves gunning for
the same wines, " he says. Though
Arline scored a few bottles of the
Scotty Boy Orange wines, " This
time, Nathaniel outgunned me
and got more. " ●

James
Symington,
1934 to 2020
A remembrance by
Joshua Greene

n the rare and memorable
occasions that the 1970
Graham's Vintage Porto
appears in front of me, I think of
James Symington. His grandfather, Andrew James Symington,
had worked for W&J Graham's
before starting his own family
company, one that would eventually become the largest vineyard holder in the Douro, Symington Family Estates. In 1970,
ten years after James joined the
family firm, the Symingtons purchased Graham's.
Later, in 1991, James happened to have the 1970 Graham's
with him when I met him in the
Douro. James took us to the top
of the Quinta do Vesuvio, where
the vineyard team was pounding stone posts into the ground
in preparation for planting vines.
It was brutally hot and all of us
were covered in schist dust from
our long hike up the hill. " I've
often thought we should be in
the Johnson's Baby Powder business as a side line, " James said as
we walked back down to the oncegrand manor house by the river.
" With all this dust, we could make
a fortune. "
My sense of James had been
British formal, as I'd only met
with him in the US-usually at
posh restaurants in San Francisco,
where he came often in the 1980s
on business. Here in the Douro,
James was completely at home. He
showed us around the ornate 19thcentury quinta buildings, long in
need of restoration. There were
17 bedrooms (and 2 bathrooms),
but not a place to cook a meal or,
really, to eat, though he'd set up
a picnic inside, out of the sun. He
took a seat at the head of a long
table and proceeded to lob bacalhau balls for the rest of us to catch
in our mouths. Some of us were
better at the game than others.
After lunch (more bacalhau),

he passed a bottle of the 1970 Graham's. At 20 years of age, it was
still young, the tannins still noticeable, the wine almost garrulous in
its energy. I asked him who made
it and he laughed, " I did. "
As it turned out, before James
got involved in the commercial
side of the business, he had been
blending the family's Port wines
in the 1960s, and he was responsible for this beautiful 1970 Graham's. The wine showed up again
at a special tasting of Port Vintages of the Century-a marathon in Oporto at the end of the
millennium with more than 200
Vintage Ports from every decade
of the century available to taste
over the course of the day.
The 1970s were a highlight of
that day, and the Graham's was a
highlight of the 1970s. My notes
from that tasting: " Best Graham's
I've ever tasted. Tobacco, cherry
skin, wild and powerful. Real Central Douro character. " And without my notes, I have a clear taste
memory of James's first Graham's
Vintage, one of the most lasting
of any Port I have tasted. It's not a
flavor memory, but more a series
of colors and hues of light that
layer into an impression of the
wine, with James's laugh providing the audio track, " Ha, I did! "
James is survived by his two
daughters, Clare and Miranda,
and six grandchildren. And by
his 1970 Graham's. ●

WINE & SPIRITS

FEBRUARY 2021

Wine & Spirits - February 2021

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