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A new direction for retail
Vanessa Conline, Head of Retail at Sotheby's Global Wine Division, M. V. Vanessa Conline, Master of Winew.Share her vision for the future with us. Through a series of wine tastings and events, she hopes to make Sotheby's wine retail base an attractive place that can meet all the luxury needs of consumers.
Time has become our most precious resource, and Vanessa Conline, Head of Retail at Sotheby's Global Wine Division, is M. Vanessa Conlinew.He also knows this. Conlinn joined Sotheby's in March 2023 and is responsible for strengthening the company's wine sales business and overseeing its digital content production and community strategy. Kang Lin's goal was clear – she wanted to let more people around the world know about Sotheby's wine retail business. For her, it's a task where every second counts.
Previously, she was the Director of Wine Access and the Director of Sales for Dana Estate and Airetta Wine, and sourced wine for two prominent retailers in Manhattan. With a wealth of experience in the wine industry, Conlinn wanted to elevate Sotheby's wine sales service into a more holistic and luxurious experience.
While it is unfortunate that many customers do not know that Sotheby's has a wine retail service, it also gives us an opportunity to actively engage with customers through wine experts to help them understand the business. At present, customers are Xi buying watches through us, but buying foreign wine from other places. We hope to cover all the luxury purchases of our customers and provide a more comprehensive and complete one-stop point of sale. 」
Vanessa Conline, Head of Retail at Sotheby's Global Wine Division, M. V. Vanessa Conline, Master of Winew.）
The Sotheby's Bucherer salon on Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich's boutique shopping street, is the perfect example of this multidisciplinary sales service. Located on the third floor of the renowned Watch & Jewellery Gallery, this salon offers a new and dynamic luxury shopping experience. Experts in various fields will guide customers through a selection of watches, jewellery, leather goods, paintings and winesLovers of fashion, art and fine wine will be able to shop in the comfort of their living room at home.
Exclusive tasting opportunitiesThe c**eau (French for cellar) cellar in Bucherer is a prime example of Sotheby's new retail strategy. It includes a wide range of rare and aged wines, which are usually reserved for long-term customers. "C**eau doesn't look like a traditional wine shop, it's more like a world-class wine cellar for a professional collector," says Kang Lin. At the opening party in September, Sotheby's invited Joe Rorke, Regional Director of EMEA at Harlan Estate in London, to Zurich to introduce and taste the 2015 Promontory and the 2006 Bordeaux Premier Domaine Château Margaux.
Every month, we will hold an event in C**eau, inviting winemakers and castle managers to participate in order to raise awareness of these wines and promote education and exchange about foreign wines. If you want to create a tailor-made wine tasting with your friends, we can also provide that service. If we don't have a certain kind of wine that the customer wants, we can also find it for you. Through a cross-sector sales approach, Conlin hopes to attract new customers to Sotheby's wine retail business who have not previously been involved in auctions, and at the same time, it will also make it easier for auction regulars to buy their favorite wines.
We want to integrate all the luxury divisions in order to achieve this cross-sector sales channel. Not everyone is an auction buyer, and even if they are regular auction attendees, sometimes they need to prepare the wine on the same day and give it the next day, so they can't wait until the auction to bid. 
Entering Napa Sotheby's has been selling wine since 1970, opening a wine retail service at its headquarters on York Avenue in New York in 2010, followed by a second brick-and-mortar store at One Pacific Place in Hong Kong in 2014. New York*** has a collection of about 800 bottles of wine,** including market-leading wholesalers, or purchased directly from distilleries and private cellars. Sotheby's official wine ** provides more diversified brand wines for you to choose from. In addition, Sotheby's has a private customer sales department that provides VIP white glove service, and customers can make appointments by email and email.
Sotheby's is a specialist in fine wines, and the most popular products in our New York store are naturally from classic French wine regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne. Recently, however, Napa Valley's wines have also been gaining momentum, which is exactly what Conlinn wants to promote. One of the newest additions to Napa Valley is the wines of Massican Winery. Led by former Larkmead winemaker Dan Petroski, the winery specializes in Mediterranean-inspired liquors that are perfect for accompaniment to meals, so they are loved by sommeliers.
With wines priced under $50 per bottle, this young winery is approachable, and I'm excited to include them on our wine list.
The private label was a huge success.
Sotheby's wines are mainly Old World wineries. The wine cellar is a mix of old and new, and there is now an extensive 1980s Bordeaux wine cellar for customers who want to add to their collection. We often work with private wine cellars, so there are often surprises. We have just recently acquired a collection of exceptional private wines, including Grand Cru Burgundy wines from DRC and Coche-Dury, which is incredibly exciting. Sotheby's own wines, including Provençal rosé, Blanc de Blanc Champagne and Langhe Nebbiolo, are among the most sold products in the store, accounting for about 30% of the store's total sales.
Sotheby's has partnered with esteemed wineries such as Super Tuscan Onaria to create Sotheby's new in-house Tuscan wines, which have attracted a loyal clientele. Conlinn is looking forward to adding a Napa Valley Cabernet to her own collection.
Our in-house Blanc de Blanc sales skyrocketed. Champagne was one of our best-selling wines during the pandemic. The heat continues to show no signs of abating after the pandemic, which means that people are now not just drinking champagne on special occasions.
Creating a Tourist AttractionAlthough Sotheby's New York has been open for more than a decade, Conlinn is looking forward to bringing a new look to the store and making it a new attraction. Our York Street headquarters is beautifully located and perfect for spending afternoons. We're gradually making our store a place for people to pass the time and socialize, so we've added more seating areas and introduced more wine tastings. To add style to the New York store, Conlinn recently hired Montreal's Etienne Guérin as a wine concierge to share his extensive knowledge of wines and his work at the winery. Kang Lin said: Ai Tian comes from the restaurant industry and has worked under celebrity chef Daniel Boulud, so he is very familiar with the hospitality industry. I hope that he can attract more customers for us, build up a customer base, and hold wine tastings for customers, so that our store is not only a retail base, but also a social place for wine lovers to gather and communicate. One of the fascinating features of sake is that it encourages people to talk and interact together. 」
Conlin also wants to attract a wider customer base to the store, and she's excited to see that change start to happen. Recent. There has been a wave of growth in the number of our young customers, which is due to the fact that people are more willing to buy fine wine during the pandemic. Our team members in New York are young and active, which helps lower the barrier to entry and attract more women and younger customers. Looking to the future, Conlinn is looking to launch Sotheby's wine salon concepts in other important international cities, with her eyes set on Paris. Sotheby's currently has an office and an auction house in Paris, but no retail operations. I want to take the concept of salon internationally. The more we can meet all the needs of our customers, the more valuable and indispensable we will be to them. Kang Lin said.