The Bin Ends Blog has moved to www.binendswine.com

Thanks!

We’re proud to announce the opening of our first store in Braintree Massachusetts.

Visit us at:

236 Wood Road

Braintree, MA 02185

Shop online beginning May 16th at

www.binendswine.com

In the wine trade, they are sometimes called overstocks, inventory reductions, or just simply closeouts. The economics of the wine trade frequently dictate that a wine be “moved out” just as it is approaching its peak level of drinkability. Shouldn’t these wines be going up in price, not down? Why does this happen? There are many reasons; here are just a few examples.

Since fine wine is an agricultural product, it is invariably tied to the cycles of the environment. Every 12 months a new vintage pulls into the station like a freight train coming down the tracks. At the same time, the whims of seasonal weather variation lead to shortages or windfalls in the grape harvest on an annual basis. An abundant grape harvest in any given region will result in a surplus of wine; in many of these cases the vintage will not sell out before the next vintage arrives. Today’s business environment emphasizes and rewards consistency and control, something which our favorite fruit of the vine strenuously resists.

In the United States, alcoholic beverages have been classified as controlled beverages since the repeal of Prohibition. This means lots of rules and regulations (three tier distribution, franchise laws, etc) that create inefficiency and leads to the frequent loss of wines in the gears of the distribution machine.

Wine marketing is often a rather counterintuitive affair. A common practice among wine marketers is the allocation of significant percentages of production to restaurants. The theory is that a greater number of people will be able to appreciate their wine in a restaurant dining room than at the dining room tables of the American consumer. This may have been a valid theory twenty years ago, when restaurants typically practiced a restrained and reasonable 2x mark-up over cost on wine. Over the last decade, wine list mark-ups have climbed as high as 3-4x cost in some restaurants (sometimes more), which has made many wines cost prohibitive to consumers. These days, a good local restaurant with a reasonable mark-up on wine is worth its price in gold. Attempts by wine marketers to artificially manipulate the marketplace in this manner frequently leads to scenarios where perfectly good to outstanding wines become caught in a spiders web of marketing red tape.

These are just a few examples of market forces that that lead to the development of Bin Ends. It should be noted that poor quality of wine did not make our list. Does this mean that there are no poor quality wines? Of course there are. Bin Ends is simply committed to making certain that poor quality wines never cross the threshold of our loading dock door. Our promise to you, our customer, is that every bottle of wine that makes it to the floor at Bin Ends must be of very good to outstanding quality and represent a great value. What about wines of slightly lesser quality? For these wines, we have developed a program called Cooking Wine for Hunger Relief to address these orphans. Life is too short to drink bad wine.

There may be an endless supply of bin ends for us to bring to you, but that does not mean we have an endless inventory of any one product. Many of our selections will be small lots of product, meaning that “once it’s gone, it’s history”. We feel that this is one of the things that will make Bin Ends so much fun. Coming back every week or two will always provide you with a fresh line-up of products to taste and enjoy. Variety is the spice of life, and at Bin Ends, variety will be our way of life. – John Hafferty

In the beginning, it was all about Bordeaux for me. Packed in wooden cases and bottled in broad-shouldered dark green glass, each bottle inspired visions of expansive vineyards, dark, cool cellars and French castles. Bordeaux was – and remains to this day – the Mecca of the fine wine world. The home turf of such noble grape varieties as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc, this was the region where one could cut one’s teeth on the fruit of the vine and truly gain a meaningful understanding of the term “fine wine”.

My friends and I called it Bordeaux Bounty Hunting and it was a whole lot of fun. One or two Saturdays a month, we would head out in our Range Rover (I use poetic license here), our wallets full of Jacksons and our car trunk bare down to the spare. Our mission was to bag big game – classified growth Bordeaux. The wilderness of the small town New England packie back in those days, pre- Wine-Searcher and e-robertparker.com, was a fertile oasis of fine wine treasures and classified growth Bordeaux was the king of the jungle. “Do you have anything packed in wood?” was always a good opening question. “We’ve got a friend who likes French wine. Do you have anything laying around?” was a reliable follow-up. It wasn’t like shooting fish in a barrel (what’s the sport in that?) but we nearly always arrived home at the end of the day with something more than an empty gas tank and memories of classic New England back roads. If we had wood, we had won.

The bounty of those vinous expeditions is down to a spare few bottles today. What a pleasure it has been to pull those corks, pour a little magic into a glass and reminisce. The 1983 Chateau Potensac was a simple Medoc that, despite its modest Robert Parker rating of 84, was alive and kicking well over 15 years post vintage. The 1985 Chateau Le Tertre-Roteboeuf, a seemingly toss-off St. Emilion, continued to smoke bottles costing 3 to 4 times as much long after the glue on the front labels failed, rendering them faceless though not forgotten. On what is still to this day a surreal memory, we struck pure gold in the cellar of a package store in Allston, of all places. The outside of the cases read Lynch-Bages, Pichon-Longueville, Comtesse de Lalande, Palmer, Cos d’Estournel and La Dominique. The vintages ranged from 1982 to 1985. “The previous owner bought them and left them down there in the basement to rot, ” said the person who waited on us. “I’ve got no idea how much he paid for them, but they take up too much space. Give me $100 a case and they’re yours.” Yes…they would be ours and we would treasure them for a very long time to come. Some might be tempted to sell wines like this at auction, but we preferred to revel in the pure pleasure of appreciation for something so perfect and priceless.

Discovering those wines was truly like “finding a Picasso at a Yard Sale”. The fine wine market has changed a lot over the years, in large part due to the Internet. With a couple of key stokes, one can conduct an appraisal of virtually any wine sold anywhere in the world. Does this mean that there are no longer any buried treasures waiting to be discovered by the avid fine wine bargain hunter? Hell no!! With the ever-growing abundance of fine wine from every corner of the globe exploding onto the American marketplace, there are plenty of fine wine treasures out there. Today, treasure hunting for wine is not just about Bordeaux; is also about everything from Australia to Italy, from Paso Robles to Spain. This makes the whole sport even more fun than in the good old, pre- worldwide web days. There is still gold in them there hills!

This is what Bin Ends will be all about. The appreciation of fine wine has always been a great equalizer. An interested, passionate consumer can consistently enjoy a superior bottle of wine simply by acquiring a few, relatively easy to learn skills. I know this to be true because I have lived it first hand. Bin Ends brings me back to my “Bordeaux Bounty Hunting” days. There is a tremendous amount of quality fine wine to be found if one knows where to look and how to acquire it. At Bin Ends, “Great wine at Serious Savings” is our mantra and our mission.

If you plan on attending the 12^th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival from May 14^th to May 18th, we invite you to taste and learn more about “Bargain Hunting for Fine Wine Treasures” at a seminar that I will be hosting on Friday, May 16^th at Le Languedoc. For more information and to sign up for the seminar, go to the following link: http://www.nantucketwinefestival.com/html/events.asp.

jh

Many of you have been asking the question over the last several weeks. We are pleased to announce that things are going remarkably well. After experiencing a bit of holiday season turbulence during the second half of December, Bin Ends is now flying high at cruising speed and altitude. We are on course for our Grand Opening some time between late March and mid-April 2008. We are within a week to ten days of an opening day announcement.

The final touches on the design of the Braintree retail space and the Bin Ends logo are all coming together nicely. This work has been developed by the remarkably talented team of Cat Stramer and Greg Sullivan of Blue Slate Design. We could not be any happier with the look and feel that Bin Ends is going to bring to the fine wine retail marketplace. The logo truly speaks of who we are and what Bin Ends is all about. Many thanks to the team at Blue Slate Design for helping us to translate our ideas and vision into what will soon be a concrete reality.

This past Monday, Bin Ends was formally granted our All Alcohol/Retail Package Store license by the Town of Braintree, Massachusetts. We have already begun to source many outrageous fine wine values from virtually every major wine producing region in the World. From day one, Bin Ends is going to be a fine wine bargain hunter’s dream come true. It is hard for us to contain our excitement when we acquire such outstanding fine wine as top notch premier cru Burgundy or benchmark California Chardonnay at savings of 25% or more. We are having a great time already! We look forward to making the fine wine shopping experience a whole lot of fun for our loyal customers as well. Keep on the lookout – an opening day announcement is around the corner and the best is yet to come.

Do you remember the first moment you realized that a glass of wine could be so much more than a simple splash of refreshment?

For me, I can remember that moment as if it was yesterday. The year was 1988. I was working as a commercial real estate broker in the metro Boston area. I was several months into my first apartment in the city, a dumpy four bedroom suite that would normally have been home to a bunch of B.U. co-eds. My roommates and I, all no more than a couple years out of college, watched a lot of Celtics basketball, cooked a lot of mac & cheese and drank a lot of beer. I was on a beer run to pick up a case of brew for another night of watching hoops with Bird, McHale and Parrish when I was bitten by the bug.

“Would you like to taste some Burgundy?” was the question that the gentleman asked me, raising a glass in my direction as I walked down the aisle toward the beer cooler at the back of the store. I hadn’t even really noticed the crowd of folks standing around the table, whom I would eventually get to know as regulars at these Saturday afternoon tasting soirees. What the heck? Why not? Free wine…. Burgundy no less….. this is from France, right? But these are white wines…. I thought Burgundy was a red wine? This one says Chassagne-Montrachet and this other Puligny-Montrachet… what is the difference between the two? How about the difference between all of these other wines labeled Puligny-Montrachet? They all taste really delicious, kind of similar but different….why is that? Yes, it does taste kind of buttery… how do they do that? I didn’t even feel the hook being set.

In between the rush of questions about exactly what I was tasting, I found myself being drawn into the conversations of the other folks tasting with me that afternoon. You will sometimes hear of wine being referred to as a “social lubricant”…. this is absolutely correct. There were the two investment banker types who were debating the merits of Remoissenet as a Burgundy negotiator or something like that. One guy said he preferred Latour, but I could tell he didn’t know what he was talking about. Even I knew that Latour was a Bordeaux. There were the three college professors who were weighing the impact of late August rains on the physical maturity of the grapes and alcohol and glycerin levels. Glycerin? Isn’t that what they use in car batteries? Another couple ( who had actually brought their own wine glasses!!) spoke of weekend trips to Beaune while they were studying abroad in Paris, bicycling among the vineyards during the day and hanging out nights at the Pickwick Pub. Really? They have a British pub in Burgundy? A mixed cheese tray was being manned by a women who I soon learned to be a retired restauranteur and colleague of Julia Child. It would be another few months before I would be prepared to deal with the culinary subject matter at that end of the table. All I cared about that afternoon was how much more I seemed to enjoy my cheese with that glass of wine in my hand. Who would have guessed that there were so many ways to enjoy a glass of wine?

In one afternoon, I had been introduced to no less then a half a dozen different dimensions, and in the years ahead many others would follow.

That evening, my roommates and I enjoyed another Celtics victory while scoffing down mac and cheese tuna noodle surprise with a bottle of 1986 Remoissenet Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru “Les Folatieries”. Larry Bird lit up the court with a triple double, and damn if that bottle of Burgundy didn’t make that glorified tuna noodle casserole actually taste pretty good. For me, it all started right there.

Tell us about your “first time”. It is great to hear how others have found their way to a greater level of appreciation for a glass of wine. Please do share.

Best Regards,
John Hafferty
Bin Ends
Great Wine~Serious Savings

Welcome to Bin Ends, where great wine meets serious savings.

My name is John Hafferty and I would like to introduce you to what I believe is the most exciting new concept in fine wine retailing since….. well, I’m still thinking. Bin Ends will be the first of its kind, a leading destination retailer in the off-price specialty fine wine and spirits marketplace.

The buyers at Bin Ends will scour the trade each day in search of outstanding opportunities in order to bring you, our customers, top quality fine wines at tremendous prices. When wine makers produce more wine than their traditional channels will bear, Bin Ends buyers will acquire them at significant savings. Those savings will then be passed along to you, our customers.

The bottom line is this: Bin Ends’ customers will find the same top-quality fine wines that can be found in traditional package stores and fine wine specialty shops, but at great savings of up to 50 percent. Bin Ends will only sell first class fine wines. It is my commitment to you that we will never knowingly sell damaged or distressed merchandise. Everything that Bin Ends sells will come with a satisfaction guarantee.

The first Bin Ends retail store will be located at 236 Wood Road in Braintree MA, just off of Route 93/128 at Exit 6 . The store will be 4000 square feet of incredible fine wine bargains spread out within a clean, contemporary setting, designed with an open, industrial loft feel. Customers will be assisted by our team of knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=bin+ends,+braintree,+ma&ie=UTF8&ll=42.228644,-71.015282&spn=0.061775,0.116043&z=13&iwloc=A&om=1

What if you can’t make it out to beautiful Braintree, MA?

Our web site, www.binendswine.com will offer the same great values over the internet as you will find in our store. Bin Ends will also be adding fantastic new wines to our inventory every day. You will be able to stay up to speed on the latest additions simply by checking onto our site or by signing up for our convenient e-mail notices.

Look for our Grand Opening in March 2008. In the meantime, come back to our website regularly to follow our progress as we get ready for launch. Check out our blog and meet the rest of the Bin Ends team, including my partner, as we share with you all the cool little things that will make Bin Ends such a unique and fun place to shop for fine wine. I look forward to your feedback and hope that you will help to spread the word to your family and friends.

Bin Ends is coming soon – let the treasure hunt begin!!