One Amazing Outfit

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:14:49 -0700

This blog entry is the third in a series dedicated to telling the stories of our distributors. We greatly value our partners, and are honored to work with such a strong network of brave entrepreneurs.

From the beginning we’ve known that Mosaic Wine Alliance (MWA) in Southern California is a classy group of people. Our main man Pierre collects vintage cars including a prized Rolls Royce. Ryan’s first visit included swanky tasting events with retail buyers from Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. And these buyers were overflowing with praise for MWA’s customer service and quality of wine. How cool that our family import company is among one of their suppliers!

MWA began as a collection of smaller distributors joining together to compete against the ever consolidating world of mega-wine distributors. By being able to share inventory, resources and relationships, each of the individual distributors thrive. As one of their suppliers, we appreciate that they keep their selection of wine small and focused. They also have a strong ethic of providing good customer service to no only to their customers, but also to their suppliers. It is a refreshing way to do business, and we can learn a lot from them in how to work with our own suppliers!

Focusing primarily on our Gozzo Organic line, MWA’s buying trends have been different then our other distributors – reflecting the particular tastes of California wine drinkers. Instead of focusing primarily on malbec, Gozzo’s Cabernet Sauvignon has been a hit. I guess California’s reputation of loving big meaty cabs is true!

Earth Friendly Distributors

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:28:26 -0700

This blog entry is the second in a series dedicated to telling the stories of our distributors. We greatly value our partners, and are honored to work with such a strong network of brave entrepreneurs.

Unity Selections, Denver, CO: Andy Lum’s mission is very similar to our own. He distributes wine that is biodynamic, organic or made with sustainability in mind. In 2007 Andy began his company after working for Grand Vin, a distributor in Colorado. Curious to learn more about Andy’s background, I googled “Grand Vin Colorado”. What I discovered is that Grand Vin is now part of the second largest distributor in the US, Republic National Distributing. While I’m not certain of this, I’m curious if the take over of Gran Vin by this distributing mega-house contributed to Andy’s following comments on the consolidation of the wine trade:

“The wine industry, like other businesses, has experienced progressive consolidation in all its tiers of distribution (producer, wholesaler and retailer/restaurant). These consolidation forces threaten to standardize wine quality and diminish the scope of alternative consumer choice.”

Ryan and I are impressed by Andy, his amazing team, and the thoughtful way he runs his company. His work is most certainly increasing “the scope of alternative consumer choice” by offering delicious earth-friendly wines.

A Family of Entrepreneurs

Wed, 2 Jun 2010 16:07:01 -0700

Wine passes through many hands (as mandated by the United State government) as it makes its way from the winery to your table. Luckily, the importer is in a unique position to guide where the wine goes as it passes down the global supply chain. So we try to choose partners that have our same beliefs. Our wineries have incredible stories and we celebrate them at length on our new website, but I want you to know a little about the other incredible partners we work with. Over the next few blogs, I will tell you about one such set of partners: our distributors. Each one has a unique story and all are owned by brave entrepreneurs. Today I want to celebrate the first distributor that took a chance on Elemental Importers’ wine.   American Northwest, Seattle, WA: Owned and operated by Oleg Fedechkin, his wife Rina, and son Anton. Emigrating from Russia when Anton was just a child, the Fedechkin family took many twists and turns before finally settling in Seattle. Along their journey they lived many years in Spain. There they grew a love and passion for Spanish wines and culture. They brought this knowledge and passion to Seattle where with no real connections in the community and limited English skills, this brave family began importing and self distributing their beloved Spanish wine. Over the years their company has grown to be a respected supplier of wine, beer and sake from across the United State and the world. Spanish wines? Of course. But their global collection spans from California to Argentina to Italy to Israel and to Japan.

The Joy of Doing Good Business

Wed, 19 May 2010 16:07:01 -0700

Ryan and I just launched a new website, and in the process we rewrote our "About Us" section. This was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be because it forced us to narrow in on what we valued and why we do what we do. It is easy to be passionate about many different things in this business (the wine! the food! the travel!), but we wanted to get at the core of it all. Of course we love wine. But what else?

We sat down around our kitchen table to discuss. After kicking around some ideas, we gravitated to one common theme: doing business the right way. Recently we've all seen how businesses driven by greed can harm our environment, their business partners, and their own customers. Frankly, because of their poor examples, business hasn’t been looking so hot. However, Ryan and I love entrepreneurship. How do we reconcile this? We realized that our passion comes from working with and supporting strong, successful, family-owned businesses that are a blessing to their communities. Our greatest joy is in visiting our wineries and seeing firsthand how they treat the environment with respect and bring honorable employment to their neighbors – while making great profits. And their example encourages us to do the same. We believe that by doing business right, entrepreneurs can and do change the world for the better.

So this is our promise (and our passion) as written in our “About Us”.

Being a family business, they only import wines from family-owned wineries. Ashley and Ryan personally visit each and every producer to guarantee that they respect and care for their workers and for their land with sustainable, often organic, environmental practices. They then work hard to instill these same values throughout their entire global supply chain.

P.S. Here is a shout out to all those large corporations that are doing business right. They do exist, and our world is better because of them. Let’s raise a glass to business with ethics!

New Website!

Mon, 3 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Welcome to the new Elemental wesbsite! It has been a long time in the making but we are really excited about it! Through this, you can check out the wines that we are importing, learn about the wineries, and see photos of where they came from.

In the coming months we are going to be putting up videos of our adventures and will be expanding our line of wines. Also, all of our past blog postings are still available on our old site: elementalimporters.blogspot.com