Wine Importing in the Time of Covid: Part One
Part One
On the day restaurants were ordered shut in New York City, my restaurant clients owed me money. Tens-of-thousands-of-dollars money. Restaurants and retailers have 30 days to pay for wine in our state, so having several outstanding invoices was nothing extraordinary. Wondering if they were ever going to reopen and pay their bills, however, certainly was.
When you're a wine importer, cash flow is absolutely everything because you need to plan out your purchasing long in advance. It could easily be four months from the time you choose wines to the moment they arrive at the warehouse. Your finances hang in a delicate balance all the while, juggling invoices both sent and received, ranging from due now (customs, some wine), due in 15 days (most transportation), due in 30 days (New York, New Jersey), due in 60 days (some other states), and due in 90 days (some more wine). You pay bills for wines yet unseen, and you recoup profits just now from inventory long gone.
Take the container of wine I bought in January 2020. At the time of departure, I paid for ocean and overland transportation, customs costs, and for much of the wine. The wines arrived three weeks later, and one week after that I received samples to the office. So, the absolute earliest I'd be looking at any payment for my troubles would be within 30 days from showing my first sample bottle, or about 8 weeks after the wines' departure. By then the invoices for the rest of the wine are due, and I should already be thinking about the next container.
That's exactly what I was doing in early March 2020, before everything was thrown into limbo. I was ready to settle up payments with the winemakers and order more wine. Actually, the wines were already ordered and the shipment was planned: it would be a container of fresh spring whites from north Hungary, an unfiltered medium-bodied red, volcanic Juhfark and Hárslevelű from the mysteries of Somló hill. The wineries were applying their US labels and preparing their pallets, expecting their partial payment within a week's time. And then restaurants closed, and I found myself wondering how I could survive the upcoming weeks, let alone afford new wine. I run my business expecting - needing - those invoices to be paid in 30 days. There was no federal or state aid available to me because of my status as a sole proprietor; I didn't have the luxury of waiting it out.
What if this was the end of restaurants? I imagined myself in small claims court, the judge sighing at my demands for payment against entitles long dissolved. After agreeing on the futility of my efforts, we would take a moment to reminisce about those dining institutions slowly fading into memory. Ah, Le Bernardin. Did you ever go for lunch? That was the move. The omakase at Sushi Nakazawa was divine. I never went to Compagnie, but I heard about it. Oh yes, my wife always drank a lot of Riesling at Terroir.
At the time of the pandemic, restaurants and bars (the on-premise licensees) accounted for about half of my sales in New York. Wine shops (off-premise accounts) made up the other half, and the fate of wine shops was still unclear. One day everyone thought wine shops would be forced shut, and the wine industry was shadowed in a sort of fin-de-siecle Hungarian pessimism; the next day people were claiming that fabulous sales were being had by so-and-so, unheard-of numbers, soaring profits. Reports were conflicting, and regardless of what was true, I was certainly unsure where it left Hungarian wine. It was a moment of apocalyptic food storage and hoarding, and there was a lot of talk about bulk wine sales.
You take on a lot of responsibility when you're a wine importer. Clients are counting on you to bring them drinkable, sellable, well-priced glug, and to keep whatever they liked in stock for reorders. But they can't exactly promise to buy an item from you, because things are always changing. The buyer who loved your wine could suddenly move to Seattle, and the new buyer might have an unwavering francophone snobbery or work exclusively with their buddies' portfolios. Other forces are often at work, too - the wine from a competitor, the boss' private label, an accountant who recommends buying cheaper wine with higher margins. Meanwhile, your producers rely on you to support and defend them in a faraway market, to sell their wines with gusto and fight for placements, and to remit timely payment for a job well done. You want to do them right - they deserve to be celebrated, and it's your job to make people understand that. And then you have an endless supply of random Hungarians, disappointed that you didn't include their favorite bottle - usually a wine of questionable merit, made by a neighbor, uncle or well-positioned friend - in your selection.
I called my winemakers first. This shipment would be delayed indefinitely, I told them, and settling any outstanding payments would be the priority. I promised them that this upcoming shipment would still happen, I just didn't know when. They were understanding, but I felt plenty of concern reverberating over the telephone line. Restaurants (including winery restaurants and wine tasting rooms) had closed there, too.
Approaching restaurants was more complicated. How does one reach out to a devoted manager or restauranteur, your friend and a supporter of your business, after they've been dealt such a devastating blow to ask about bills? There they are, trying to grasp the enormity of what’s just happened, and you're wondering if this is a good time to delicately inquire about those outstanding invoices. Soooo...think you might be able to remit payment soon? Seeing restaurants closed breaks your heart, too, not for the sake of business but because those places mean something to you. People came together in those spaces, birthdays and holidays were celebrated, old friends met new ones and boyfriends were introduced. Those spaces shaped us. Unfortunately, when you're a tiny business you can’t always afford to wait it out and be polite. You are responsible for the livelihood of others. You approach your issues head-on, because you don’t really have room for error.
Amazingly, it was the smallest restaurants and cafes, the mom and pop joints, that paid me immediately. Garrett from Cherry Point brought a check to my door one day after I wrote him. His invoice was not yet due. Another small restaurant, Reunion, paid me within moments - on Venmo, because it was the quickest option. It left a powerful impression on me because they had been among the clients I felt the most guilty asking money from. And there they were, unwavering in the face of their obligations, doing what needed to be done. Maybe that's one of the many things that separates small businesses from big corporations - when you're small you actually have to pay your bills. But it was more than that. We know what it's like for a check to actually matter.
There was kindness and a feeling of solidarity in the air. Clients who never picked up the phone called me to see how I was. They asked if they owed any money. Wine buyers at larger restaurants promised to prioritize payment to me since I was so small. Some of them took months, but eventually every bill got paid. And a lot of my clients at retail assured me that I could continue to count on their support in the upcoming months. I guess they were worried about me just as much as I worried about them.