Vino virtuoso directs Costco's big wine world
But this is no professional musician; the man at the keyboard is just enjoying a moment of relaxation. In his working life, David Andrew plays on a much grander scale. It's not too much to say he helps orchestrate the wine tastes of people throughout the United States.
As wine director for Costco Wholesale stores worldwide, Andrew sets the overall mission of the Issaquah-based chain's wine departments, advising and educating buyers for 350 warehouses in 33 states and seven countries. In nearly four years in the job, he has presided over Costco's meteoric rise to a dominant position as a wine retailer, with annual sales tripling to $600 million in that time.
By comparison, wine sales at all Washington State Liquor stores totaled just under $37 million for fiscal 2001. The total retail market for wine in the U.S. is estimated at just under $20 billion annually.
Costco's wine sales aren't in cheap boxes sold by the palletful, either. The company you may know better as the headquarters for bulk dog food and toilet paper has become one of the country's biggest sellers of exquisite premium wines, including some of the most sought-after and expensive vintages in the world.
It is the country's biggest retailer of Dom Perignon champagne, and the biggest purchaser of Bordeaux wines. Costco, Andrew says, "isn't where you buy the cheap stuff; it's where you buy the good stuff cheap."
Born in Scotland and a resident of Seattle the past six years, Andrew, 39, makes regular trips to wine regions in the U.S. and internationally. He acknowledges being "bombarded on a daily basis" by vintners.
"They think that if they can get to me, their wine will get into Costco. I see everyone. But if I don't like their wine, I tell them — and the buyers, too."
The eight Costco regional buyers have complete autonomy in tailoring their wine buying to their regional markets. They are free to disregard Andrew's advice (and do frequently, he says). The results can vary store by store.
In Washington, Andrew says, "We really support the Washington wine industry."
His close relationships with the Costco buyers are cemented in lengthy annual educational excursions, such as last month's trip to Tuscany, Italy, where the buyers met the best and most interesting of the growers.
"It's great for a buyer who is coming to the wine trade relatively new to see exactly why Brunello is different from Chianti," Andrew said. "I line them up with everybody I want them to see. Now they've eaten with these growers and asked them questions. The buyers are personally involved and they're knowledgeable about what they're buying."
With all this experience to draw on, is there a magnificent cellar lurking in Andrew's house, which he shares with his partner, a lawyer at Microsoft? He laughs.
"People ask me that all the time — and they're always very disappointed. We think wine is for drinking and don't really have a big cellar. All the good stuff I keep off-site in a wine-storage place. ...
"People love to share wine. It is very social and convivial; that's what wine is all about. I don't see the point of buying wine just to have it; it's for drinking."
He is remarkably unstuffy about a subject that can send wine writers into orgies of burgundy-tinted prose. He is lenient about which wine goes with what food.
He is unimpressed by the rating systems offered by several authorities, most notably by Wine Spectator, where Andrew says he has "a good relationship and many friends." While ratings serve a purpose, people should "trust their own tastes" more, he says.
One problem with American wine drinkers, Andrew suggests, is they don't appreciate the virtues of cheap but excellent wine.
"All the time, I'll hear 'I need to spend at least $20-$25' on a bottle of wine for a certain occasion. But we have a Cabardes wine, from the south of France near Carcassonne, with all the interest of southern French wine, all the international taste and the south-Rhone spice. It's just delicious, and it's $5.99."
That Cabardes wine, Salitis, impressed Andrew enough that he "gave it a go, and the stock sold very quickly — and now we take a huge chunk of their production."
So you're forewarned: Now they're ordering the producer's sauvignon blanc, which is only going to Washington state and which should arrive in mid-July.
Andrew started learning about wine in London but then worked a variety of jobs, including modeling and doing TV commercials in Europe. (Anything we might have seen on this side of the Atlantic? "Well," he confesses, "for a time, I was the Gillette Man.")
"But I wanted to be in the wine trade, as I had been in London. You miss it. I fell in love with wine at an early age and, while I was studying English literature and history of art at Glasgow University, I took a year off and went to Chateau Margaux in Bordeaux to work the harvest there. I then moved to London to work in the wine trade."
In London, he studied at the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, receiving their certificate, higher certificate and two-year diploma in all aspects of wine and the wine business. Years later, he was drawn back to the ultimate challenge for the wine connoisseur: the Master of Wine program.
He describes it as a "very British" program with a demanding set of three levels of exams — and a pass rate he says is just 7 percent. Candidates are rigorously tested on tasting (including not just identifying wines but describing how each is made), winemaking theory and practical aspects of viticulture.
There are just 17 Masters of Wine in the United States, Andrew said, and he's not ready to join them yet. He has passed the wine-tasting part, leaving two levels yet to conquer. And he'll continue to pursue it, he said, for "the personal challenge. This is a recognition that standards are important, and a personal goal to achieve."
One who has already achieved it, Bob Betz, says Andrew "will be a great addition to our ranks. He is bright, articulate, has a terrific palate and a wonderful grasp of wine growing, winemaking and marketing. He is a true student of the world, bringing something to the party that a lot of wine professionals lack — a broad experience and an appreciation of the full realm of wine."
Betz is vice president of winemaking research for Stimson Lane Vineyards and Estates, the umbrella organization that counts Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest, Snoqualmie, Domaine Ste. Michelle, Villa Mt. Eden and Conn Creek among its labels.
Betz doesn't think Costco can make or break a winery, "but it can add a lot of fuel. Being there (at Costco) is a great help, because it enhances the availability of wine in a place where people are there to buy paper towels and those rotisserie chickens.
"Their wine selection is like a treasure chest. I really think they've redefined the retail stage for wine, and other products as well," Betz said.
The focus on elite French wines is part of that redefinition.
The carefully controlled French system means extreme measures are necessary to acquire the volumes of the top wines Andrew wants for Costco. He buys futures on Bordeaux himself, going to France twice a year to taste and buy the major wines two years before they'll be ready to sell.
Most retailers, Andrew explains, sell the futures to their customers, who put down their money right away and get the wines in two years. Costco simply sells the wine once it receives it, charging the futures price plus the chain's usual markup (a maximum of 14 percent, often less).
Right now, he's buying 2001 wines, which will arrive in 2003. "We buy them as soon as the prices open and hope that in two years' time they will increase in value — as they usually do," he said. "I buy 7,000-10,000 cases of futures a year, of the top 40 to 50 Bordeaux wines, to make sure we have the wines we want."
The 1999 vintages are in Costco stores now: Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Margaux, Chateau LaTour, Chateau Mouton Rothschild. The wines retail in the vicinity of $125. That's actually a great price, and Costco members — whose median income is about twice the national average — aren't slow to snap them up.
What does Andrew like to drink? He's a big fan of Washington wines, the best of which have "just what I like: ripeness and flavor but more European restraint." He loves Rhone wines (Hermitage, Côte-Rôti), and champagnes (not just the fancy ones, but also the nonvintage brut bubblies, such as Pol Roger and Nicolas Feuillate).
But hands down, it's the Bordeaux wines that always bring him back for more: "They have everything — the blend, the complexity. Great wine is a living, growing thing, and experiencing it is a wonderful voyage of discovery."