By GREGORY ZELLER //
Nobody would confuse The Shoppes at East Wind with a modern mall, any more than they’d mistake the mothership East Wind destination banquet castle for a country inn.
Instead, The Shoppes provide a classed-up mirror of the standard shopping center: clothes, jewelry, house-warmers, specialty foods and more recognizable products by largely unknown makers – mostly up-and-coming innovators, all lining leisurely, park-like paths, nary an Aéropostale or GameStop in sight.
All right, there’s a Starbucks (this is 21st Century America). But The Shoppes, with its old-timey carousel and handsome cobblestones and airy open spaces, otherwise embraces what most workaday malls don’t (or can’t): artistry, individualism, entrepreneurism.
As modern retail goes – especially on an Island heavy with leave-the-engine-idling strips anchored by identical nail salons and cookie-cutter pizzerias – that’s a score.
A shopping experience like that requires an exemplary wine store; no sense having one of Long Island’s top cheese shops right there, if you can’t find a perfectly aged port to match that stinky blue stilton.
At least, that’s what Wines By Nature owner George Eldi was thinking. Or, more specifically, what Patty Kaczmarczyk – owner of The Cheese & Spice Market, one of The Shoppes’ cornerstone emporiums – was thinking when she put the idea in Eldi’s head.
Eldi knew wine. And he was no stranger to entrepreneurism. As a younger man, he’d co-owned Table 48 restaurant in Glen Cove, and while that ultimately proved to be a stinging economics lesson – “We learned the hard way that you need a lot of working capital,” he says – it also set Eldi on the path.
George Eldi: Pour man.
When he left the restaurant business in 2000, he’d already begun his oneo-education, matching wines and foods, performing the early calculations of what would become his unique wine-valuation formula. His front-of-house experiences at Table 48 – and his rapidly developing palate – convinced him to try selling wine.
It was an easy transition – “Everything is an easy transition out of the restaurant business” – and by 2016, when his friend Kaczmarczyk whispered in his ear that Wading River could use a good wine shop, Eldi was a well-known regional rep, brokering small-production wines and spirits from the world’s top estates to Suffolk County’s best bars and restaurants.
With a world-class cheese market next door, Eldi says, the idea made sense.
“Cheese and wine go together,” he notes. “We’re independent, but we’re the perfect companion stores because we share the same customers – the person who likes good cheese is the person who likes a little wine.”
Wines By Nature opened on July 1, 2017, intent on matching the standards set by The Cheese & Spice Market and other innovative tenants of The Shoppes – this would not, could not, be your typical attached-to-the-supermarket liquor store.
Eldi proved up to the challenge. The store boasts an amazing collection of wines from around the world; Long Island wines are well-represented, but Italian reds occupy the most racks, with a vast selection of grapes and vintages from other famous winemaking regions – and from little-known regions, too – gracing the shelves.
There are a few bottles of whiskey also (the Bird Dog Blackberry Whiskey is a pleasant surprise) and some artisan vodkas – but don’t come stumbling in looking for a pedestrian pint of Dewars.
Top shelf: Eldi employs a strict checklist to ensure quality and discover rare bargains.
“You won’t find Dewars or Jack Daniels or Tito’s,” Eldi says, throwing a thumb toward the door. “There’s two (liquor) stores a mile from here. There’s Costco over there.”
To run with the standard liquor-store crowd, he adds, he’d have to become the standard liquor store. The volumes of name-brand booze he’d have to buy to charge prices where “customers wouldn’t think I’m an asshole” are cost-prohibitive – completely out of step with the bouquet of what is, essentially, “a hospitality store,” according to its owner.
“This is not a transaction – it’s not ‘here’s your bottle, give me your money,’” Eldi says. “The difference is the passion that comes through.
“That’s where the value lies.”
Eldi’s passion is in finding great wines at manageable prices. To do it, he applies a personal checklist – a proprietary formula, of sorts, built to calculate the best bottles and best bargains from the worldwide oenosphere.
“I’ve sold $800 bottles of wine and I’ve sold $1,300 bottles of whiskey, but that’s not my store,” he says. “My store is under $20 whites, under $30 reds, and outstanding value.
“You come in and want something for $20, I give you something for $17 and it overdelivers,” Eldi adds. “Taste, value, and it has to overdeliver.”
And what does “overdeliver” mean in a bottle of wine?
It’s who you know: David Kohl, inside man.
David Kohl, a regional rep for global vino distributor Château & Estate, sits near the register, pouring two fingers of a Mâcon-la-Roche-Vineuse he’s brought for Eldi to sample. Eldi gives him a look.
“David pours me a glass of wine,” he says. “I taste it and say, ‘nine bucks?’ He says, ‘No, eight bucks.’ I say, ‘Really? You outperformed my pallet by a dollar. You overdelivered.’”
The entrepreneur works exclusively with direct distributors like Kohl – fewer middlemen, fewer markups – and prefers these “face-to-face tastings” to digital transactions.
“We need the back story,” Eldi says. “The family behind this. We need to rely upon [the rep’s] knowledge, his diversity, his book – he’s hand-selecting these things, so he has the story.”
Most importantly, the innovator listens closely to his customers. Eldi may be the expert oenophile with all the right connections, but only his customers know what they like.
“We’re always ready to expand and contract (inventory) based on our customers’ requests,” he says, swirling the Mâcon around a wide-rimmed glass. “When you go to your favorite restaurant, you always want to see the greatest hits, but you also want to see the specials list.
“Same thing with wine,” Eldi adds. “We have our standards, but we’re always looking for value and listening to what our customers respond to. No wine in here is safe from the competition.”
The revolving inventory adds to Wine By Nature’s unique flavor. And while the “brand-loyal” are occasionally disappointed by the carefully curated selection, the wine connoisseur – or the gourmand who carefully pairs oysters with champagne, lobsters with burgundy and a rare shell steak with a hearty Napa cab – will always find the right bottle, with value.
“Some customers are brand-loyal, and we knew that going in,” Eldi says. “But those who trust us … are here forever.
“A liquor store is a line cook,” he adds. “We’re a chef.”
Gregory Zeller is the vice president and editor of Innovate Long Island.
