![]() ![]() Its average American Express order is $345 compared to the industry average, for wine & spirits retailers, of $45-50. Make no mistake, though: Sherry-Lehmann does more than its share of high-ticket sales. The store also carries about 70 cognacs, “and we have at least 50 different vintages of Armagnacs alone,” Aaron added.īut even more important to Aaron is the fact that Sherry-Lehmann does not focus only on the most expensive products and the wealthiest customers. That includes about 60 single malt Scotches ranging in price from $35 a bottle to $3,950 for The Macallan 50 year old, as well as 160 different cordials. “We carry over $1 million in spirits inventory,” he said. Indeed, spirits also play an important role, Aaron noted, even in a store as wine-focused as Sherry-Lehmann. The store also exclusively introduced several well-known brands of distilled spirits to the U.S., including Chivas Regal in the 1940s and The Macallan in the 1970s. in 1947, as well as Chateau Petrus, which was basically an unknown vineyard here when Sherry-Lehmann “discovered” it and began selling it in the mid-1960s. And I can go on and on and on.” Indeed, Sherry-Lehmann introduced Dom Perignon to the U.S. We introduced expensive South African wines with great success where, before, only inexpensive ones were available. “We started following California wines decades ago and introduced Mondavi in the East as well as Jordan wines. “We most likely sell more classified-growth Bordeaux than any other individual store in the world,” said Aaron. Sherry-Lehmann stocks 5,000 wine and spirit items. ![]() What’s the guiding principle behind choosing the wines for such a well-known and highly regarded operation? “Well-chosen diversity,” said Aaron. “And Michael is one of the foremost experts on Italian wines,” added Aaron. Yurch, who has been with Sherry-Lehmann since 1985, also has extensive experience in the industry, including a stint at an importing company. He is widely regarded as a world-class expert on French wines, receiving the Ordre du Merite Agricole from the French government in 1997 and the European Wine Ambassador’s Award from the European Wine Council in 1999. Aaron, who began working at Sherry-Lehmann at the age of 14, also worked at vineyards in California and France and at Excelsior Wine & Spirits, an importer. Michael Aaron, chairman of Sherry-Lehmann (and son of Jack Aaron, the other founder), and Michael Yurch, Jr., Sherry-Lehmann’s president, proudly continue the tradition of wine expertise. Michael Aaron and Sara Weinberg, director of advertising, reviewing one of the Sherry-Lehmann ads used in The New York Times. When Sam Aaron, one of the two brothers who founded the business, died in 1996, The New York Times hailed him as “a seminal figure in developing America’s taste for wine.” Meanwhile, People magazine described him “as the man credited with introducing many Americans to fine wine” and called Sherry-Lehmann itself “one of the world’s best-known retail wine shops.” Ninety-four percent of those sales are wine - and wine is what Sherry-Lehmann is famous for. The fact is, though some 700,000 people walk into the Sherry-Lehmann store each year, the bulk of the store’s business comes by phone, fax and, increasingly, through its website.Īnd Sherry-Lehmann’s business, in total, reaches sales of over $30 million a year. And one certainly does not see the store’s 65,000-square-foot, climate-controlled warehouse, located, as it is, in Brooklyn. (See sidebar.) Neither does one see the buzzing warren of offices and storage and other workspaces above and below the sales floor, including a phone room, an office devoted to Sherry-Lehmann’s website sales and a staging area for deliveries. At 1,800 square feet, it’s a tiny jewel of a shop, outfitted to look like a wine cellar: rough plaster and wood beams form the ceiling the walls feature dark wood paneling and glass-fronted cabinets dating back to the 1930s wine-themed art and antiques are on display and to top it off, a staff, wearing ties and dark-green aprons, which speaks in low tones to customers about the fine points of the finest wines and spirits in the world.īut one does not see the nine POS terminals, hidden as they are in the store’s antique sales counter, nor the rest of Sherry-Lehmann’s $2 million, state-of-the-art computer system. Second, the size of the Sherry-Lehmann store can be deceiving. ![]()
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