Esquin Wine Merchants*

You don't have to look too hard to find a wine store in Seattle. We're a wine-loving city and, thank goodness, there are a lot of wine lovers growing grapes or opening stores to feed our need. But long before Washington became a state with an exploding winery population, Esquin Wine Merchants brought wines from around the U.S. and the world to our tables.

In 1969, Rand Sealey opened his small shop on First Avenue. Known as a true "wine guy," he shared his knowledge at the store and started a newsletter. In 1996, he received a call from Chuck LeFevre who had been a customer for eight years and was looking for a business to grow. "I told him if he ever wanted to sell, I wanted to buy," remembers Chuck. He purchased the store just one month later in January 1997.

Chuck had been in sales in Northern California in the mid-70s. When he was offered a sales rep position in Alaska, he jumped at the chance. "My goal was to stay three years and come back with enough money to buy a house," he says. "I came back 10 years later with a wife and three kids." At one time, he worked for Alaska Command Company where all the stores could be reached only by plane. "There was no jumping in the car and going to one of the stores," recalls Chuck. "We moved from Alaska to Seattle for a number of reasons, and it's home now. We've been here 20 years."

In 1985, Chuck and three partners invested in NutraSource in Seattle, taking it from a $4 million to a $45 million dollar  company and increasing the number of employees from 15 to 150. And here the stories converge. It was located in the same neighborhood as Esquin, where he eventually became a customer. After ten years with NutraSource, Chuck was looking for a business he could call his own—no partners, fewer employees. That's when he called Rand.

For a year, Esquin stayed in the space on First Avenue. "It had brick walls and floors, so it just looked like a wine place. It was great. But it had no storage and I wanted to increase our selection," says Chuck. We were thinking about moving and then the decision was made for us when the Mariners stadium was going to be built."

In the fall of 1998, they moved to their current location on Fourth Avenue and have accomplished much of the growth Chuck had in mind. Inventory has expanded by eight times and Esquin now has the largest selection of products in the Northwest with 4,000 items. All major wine regions of the world are covered with wines from Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Chile and South Africa to name a few. "The quality of wine in Washington has drastically improved in the last 5-6 years," says Chuck. "We carry a large amount of domestic wine, mostly from California, Oregon and Washington. There's a lot of interest in Washington wines now. We carry a lot of small wineries that others don't carry. Winemakers know this and often approach us first to carry their wines."

The Esquin staff is extremely knowledgeable on all products. Each member also tends to have a specific interest, so if a customer has a particular area they want to delve into, they can get in-depth information. For instance, Steve Springston is the former buyer from DeLaurenti's where he worked for 11 years. If you want to know Italian wines, Steve's the guy to ask.

Chuck's daughter Alisha Gosline has also joined Esquin. With a media buying background in the advertising business at DDB, she has become the store manager and works on the enhanced marketing of the company. Expansion of the mailing list has been very successful. It is now the most widely read wine publication in the Northwest, reaching 19,000 people monthly. The email list reaches approximately 5,600. Both lists are free and no personal information is given away. "We don't inundate people with information," says Chuck (below). "We know that if too much is sent out, people stop reading."

Monthly specials dominate the newsletter and people know these are really good deals. "We have from 100 to 130 wines on sale each month," explains Chuck. "These are deep discounts. Each month for three days, we search through the wines proposed to us by winemakers or reps. We taste about 50-75 wines each day. Our criteria is that the wine has to be an exceptional value for the customer. Most are new wines to the store.  We lower our margin to ensure a really good deal. And, as we say, ‘We taste the bad wine so you don't have to.'"

Esquin also offers wine storage lockers that hold from 9 to 110 cases and even a few larger sizes. It's an expensive proposition to build good wine storage at home and fairly inexpensive to rent a locker at Esquin. They've created a space that enhances a wine's aging, with precise monitoring of temperature, light, humidity and vibration. Each customer has his or her own locker key for security.

"I live in a newer-style home without space for wine storage," says Chuck. "So I was using the crawl space under the house for several years. And I found out exactly why you shouldn't do that. The wood boxes slipped off the Visqueen and got wet. Termites ate the boxes and labels. The wine was still good, but I never knew what wine I was opening," he laughs. "So I put more Visqueen down, but then nearby construction drove rodents into the crawl space. They ate the boxes and the lead capsules. By this time, I owned Esquin and knew there was a market for storage lockers."

Chuck traveled around the country looking at storage lockers. When the time came to move the store and he found the present building on Fourth, he knew it would be just right. "We own the building, so we'll never have to move all the storage. It would be a nightmare to contact everyone and have their wine moved," says Chuck.

Tastings are another way to learn about wine and Esquin offers two tastings a week, Thursday from 5-6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 1-4 p.m. There is never a charge on these two days. It's always an open house format where people can wander in and out. A knowledgeable person is there to pour, answer questions and highlight the characteristics of each wine. What is being tasted varies—it might be wines from a certain region or there might be a specific winery and their rep in attendance, or it might be a type of grape. "In March, we celebrate Washington wine, so there will usually be 4-6 regional tastings, like Walla Walla or Yakima wines," explains Chuck.

Tastings have changed a bit, thanks to Esquin and the Washington Wine Commission. The Liquor Control Board had rules stating that tastings were to be two ounces each and no customer could have more than eight ounces. That meant only four wines could be tasted. Esquin was instrumental in working with the Washington Wine Commission to get the Liquor Control Board to change the rules to simply say no customer can have more than eight ounces. If tastes are less than two ounces, a customer can try six or more wines.

After all the growth at Esquin, what's next? "We have more to do to be the best wine store in the Northwest," says Chuck. "We're close, but we want to add more product, take care of more customers and remodel or expand our existing space. We'd like to continue to increase our mailing lists and add wine storage customers. So really just getting bigger and better at what we're already doing." He'll get no argument from us on that plan!