Inside Berry Bros. & Rudd’s festive US launch
Berry Bros. & Rudd kicked off its highly-anticipated US venture yesterday morning [4 November] with the BBR leadership flying into Washington DC for a three day launch to the clients and press. Roger Morris reports.
Berry Bros. & Rudd kicked off its highly anticipated US business venture yesterday morning (4 November) in downtown Washington, D.C., opening the doors of its first US wine store and by taking its first online order in the US – including cases of Château d’Yquem and cru Burgundies – only one minute after that sales channel went live. Additionally, BBR ownership and business leaders flew to the American capital to take part in three days of customer and media entertainment.
“This move was three years in the making,” said CEO Emma Fox as the shop opened at 10am, with board chairman Lizzy Rudd noting that “We first tried 22 years ago to open a New York store but the regulations wouldn’t work.”
“We want to especially appeal to collectors and to people who are recently interested in wine and want help in building their cellars.”
BBR lured Sotheby’s former US resident leader Jamie Ritchie to take over as its managing director for international and auctions business, although as he explained in an exclusive interview with db in September, “I’m here through the end of the year to get the business up and running before going to Asia in March.”
In launch publicity, BBR touted its 327 years of being in the wine business, and the Berry Bros. & Rudd logo and its history is being prominently featured in the store, as it was during the off-site launch festivities.
The kick-off lunch for friends and collectors, held at the Swann House in the city’s near-northwest section, featured wines from two long-term BBR partners, Bollinger and Harlan Estate. Jean-Baptiste Rivail, EVP of Groupe Bollinger USA, represented the Champagne house, and Will Harlan spoke for the Napa Valley iconic winery.
In the discussion with db, Ritchie echoed his mantra that he wanted to “make wine fun again,” and said he plans to reflect this approach at the elegant, yet somewhat staid, Washington store.
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“Wine has been too much about transactions, and I want to have events with producers as well as social events with wine as a lubricant,” he said. But, as in England, the private client part of the business will also be key in the US market, and Edward Richardson has been named head of private clients, USA, for the firm.
The eye-catching feature of the establishment is a long back wall of single rows of individual bottles of wine that are categorized into Bordeaux, Burgundy, US and Rest of World sections. Around the room, there are tables with upright displays of Champagne and BBR house wines that mostly also bear the name of the producer, such as a house Pinot Noir made by California producer Au Bon Climat. A small spirits section fits along a front wall, and there is also side room for conferring with individual customers.
According to Ritchie, three of the employees at the Washington store are from the London office, but the remainder are local hires.
At present, there are no immediate plans to stage a US auction, but Ritchie indicated that is part of ongoing plans. “We do keep our relationships made through the years,” the former auctioneer noted. He also said that the online business stocking will not be run out of the wine shop but has its own warehouse. Store inventory is not that different than what is sold in London, Ritchie said, except there are more US wines stocked.
Both Ritchie and Rudd said there are no concrete plans to expand into any other US cities in the immediate future, although neither ruled out the possibility of that happening in the coming years. “We also are interested in learning more about American producers in areas such as Virginia,” Rudd said.
For American buyers, the Washington store will be opened six days a week – closed on Sunday – and it has its own website, us.bbr.com.
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