A Sense of Community

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Josie, a long time customer and regular attendee of our Saturday and Thursday wine tastings, came up to me yesterday and told me something that touched me greatly.

"I want you to know how much I love you and your staff.  Over the years you've taught me so much about wine and I feel at home here."

Josie shops at other wine stores and goes to tastings at different venues, as she should if she wants to explore wines we don't carry, for example.  But she always returns to us because we are respectful of her and because she knows we work hard to offer experiences that interest her. 

Josie's daughter Adrien, now a young woman working for a beverage chain store, spent much of her adolescence accompanying her mother to our store, curious about our bottles from faraway places.  Once she turned 21 she attended many of our tastings and wine classes, often bringing friends to help them with their wine education.  Josie told me that her daughter would swirl a wine at home and say, "I wonder what Uncle Randy thinks about this wine."

Wow.

I'm continually awed and sincerely humbled by the impact our store has on our people.  Like the time my high school history teacher's widow held her husband's memorial service in our store.  Or when the couple who regularly attended our Saturday tastings called one Saturday afternoon from their wedding reception in Lake Arrowhead to let us know they were thinking about us.  Or the hundreds of shoppers who regularly thank us for changing the way they think about and drink wine.

Like neighborhood taverns have done since the establishment of our Republic, there is a sense of community that is fostered at The Wine Country, a feeling of sharing and belonging to a culture that celebrates the wine grower and his work.  That's very different than praising a wine for it's rating.  You can call it common decency or simple respect.  I think it is rooted in fairness for all, and this is carried through the people who work here, in the place Josie referred to as coming home.

I've been interviewed by journalists who ask who my best (or wealthiest) customers are.  I honestly don't know, even if financial advisors say I should.  My sense of fairness requires I am respectful of everyone, no matter what their station in life, no matter how sophisticated they are about wine.  It also demands I examine a vintner's wine every vintage, because he has sacrificed so much to bring it to us.  It demands that we treat our wine reps with respect, and even the truck drivers who deliver our products to the store.  We need them all. 

But if there is a group to be respected who is the most important among equals, it is the stream of people who cross our hearth each day.  They are the lifeblood of our business, and without them none of us--not the people who work in The Wine Country, not our reps, their drivers, their vintners, their growers--would be able to do the work we love. 

  

And there's one more thing.  Our concern for our customers doesn't end when they walk out our door.  We want all of you to enjoy our products to their fullest and come back for more. 

That, in a nutshell, is our business plan.