The Fizz #31: Eric Moorer of Domestique and Selection Massale is building a thriving wine club through connection
Eric Moorer, Director of Sales and Customer Engagement at Domestique, and wine rep at Selection Massale, talks through creating a successful wine club, and the importance of self care.
For the 31st issue of The Fizz, I spoke to Eric Moorer, sommelier and Director of Sales and Customer Engagement at D.C. wine shop Domestique, and wine rep at Selection Massale. Eric started the thriving Domestique Wine Club, now in its third year. He has a unique lens on the wine world, working in two areas of the industry at the same time.
Eric comes from a restaurant background, and in this piece we speak about the toll that restaurant work can take, how Eric prioritizes self care, and his feeling of being grounded in the work he does today. We also talk through what it means to create a successful wine club, how he got started, and how he worked to strengthen the Domestique community, which currently sets the Domestique wine club apart. If you’re looking to start a wine club or create a better retail experience, this is the issue for you.
Margot: How did you get into wine?
Eric: I moved back to Pittsburgh after I graduated from college and I started working at a restaurant called Sonoma Grille. This restaurant had this massive domestic selection of wine to go along with food that's slightly French inspired, but really meant to capture what's happening in domestic cuisine. I was super frustrated because the best way to move up is obviously to learn about wine and the best way to make more money is to learn about wine. It was this big challenge for me, because I had no concept of wine in any sense outside of drinking Korbel when I was 12 or on New Year's or countless bags of Franzia White Zinfandel or Sunset blush.
At that point, we had a guy at the restaurant who was the most interested in wine. He would always take the time pre-shift to talk to me about wine, to introduce me to wine, to have me think about wine in a different way, which had an impact on why I try to get people to think about wine in a different way, because I always thought about wine just being like this kind of upper class, fancy celebratory beverage. When in reality, that's not what it is at all. It's something that's meant to be enjoyed with your friends, meant to be enjoyed with your family or people that you care about. So he took me under his wing. He showed me a ton of different wine. He really was super gentle in the way that he kind of brought my palate along.
The first wine he ever poured for me was Stags’ Leap Petite Syrah. I went “oh, okay”. He just kind of brought me along in a really gentle fashion. I started selling more wine from that point and started tasting more wine and trying to adjust the price point of my checks. I started having conversations with customers, which became really interesting and understanding how customers were super passionate about wine. I got really excited and I was like, okay, I'm going to study more about this, and I wound up going into the WSET.
I was just hooked. I understood that there was so much that I didn't know, and I understood that I could benefit myself financially. Making more money is definitely a big part of the reason I got into wine. But, you know, once you hop down that rabbit hole, it's hard to stop. I was super intrigued by people, by stories, by farming.
I worked at Sonoma Grille for five years. And we had a super fantastic team of people who we had together for a large portion of that.
Margot: How'd you get to where you are in D.C.?
Eric: I left that job after five years and I took another job at an Italian place that focused on Southern Italian wine and cuisine. I started out bartending. I became a manager and the sommelier on duty—that got the attention of this group that was opening a new restaurant in a brand new hotel, and I worked that job for just about a year.
Every bad thing that could happen to a restaurant is what happened in this restaurant. I started out, I got hired to be the sommelier. I got promoted to being a Beverage Director within two weeks because our Beverage Director got fired. Our G.M. broke his leg in like 13 places unloading restaurant furniture off the back of a truck.
So it became myself and one other manager who like joined us late. The two of us were essentially there every day for 10 weeks. I burnt out in the hardest way possible. It was going to work at six o'clock in the morning to open for breakfast, then having a break in the middle of the day, then going and closing the restaurant and sleeping in my office and then waking up to open breakfast again on Sundays. The hours were crazy and you know, everybody has that experience of being jaded in the restaurant industry. That was definitely mine.
My friend Vanessa happened to text me on the right day about a job in D.C., so I wound up working for the Dinex group for Daniel Boulud's restaurant group here in D.C., but there was no coming back from that burnout that I had experienced.
I saw that Selection Massale was opening a shop in DC., but they weren't opening until October, so I took a job at a restaurant called Pineapple and Pearls here, which is a two Michelin star restaurant. Once I had my head turned by the option of working in a place like Domestique, I came to the realization that I didn't have to work in restaurants to work in wine, and it was kind of a turning point in my career.
I started with Rebekah Pineda at Domestique. We started in October of 2018 and it was a whirlwind experience. The first time that I met Rebecca and Jeff together was when we went to New York for a portfolio tasting. We tasted some awesome wines and we got to meet the rest of the Selection Massale team. It was a natural fit, like we all want and wanted the same things.
We all wanted to be a wine shop where you had that element of hospitality. We wanted to be approachable, accessible. We wanted to be a place that people wanted to come back to, not just because of what was on our shelves, but because of how it felt to be there. A lot of it was good timing and good fortune.
Margot: What does it mean to be an approachable and accessible wine shop?
Eric: It means that we want to meet people where they are, we want to have conversations, no matter what the level is, no matter what your confidence is in your wine knowledge. What matters most is connecting and making sure that people are very comfortable talking to us, very comfortable asking us questions. It matters that they feel welcomed whenever they walk into the shop or call us or email us, that there's not that barrier between yourself and a wine professional or whatever you want to call us, that there there's no need for intimidation.
We want to make the experience of buying wine simpler than a lot of other people seem to make it. An easier process where you feel like you were spoken with and not spoken to.
Margot: I love that. How do you, in practice, make that happen? Do you set up the shop in a certain way?
Eric: So, I think from the off, when you walk into the shop, you're immediately greeted. I've walked into wine shops and I can just walk around, which I think is fine. But somebody who is walking into a shop either for the first time, or they're not super confident about what they're looking for, and you leave them to their own devices for long enough, they're going to get into their head and they're going to feel like nobody here wants them.
And I felt that way before, and I completely understand where people come from on that angle. So we greet people immediately when they walk into the shop. I don't think the first question that we ever ask is “what do you need”? It's like, “what's up”? “How are you”? Things like that. If it's not somebody that we know who shops regularly, we give them a tour of the shop. We try to keep that brief just so they have an idea of where things can be located.
During the pandemic, we opened up a series of appointments—either phone appointments or in-person shopping appointments. We got a lot more attention from people who were a little more shy because they knew that they were going to have that one-on-one experience where it was safe. Making sure that people can walk in and not feel pressure is a big thing. There's always that feeling of somebody's watching you in a wine shop—there seems to be pressure when it comes to wine shopping. And so we're going to take that away.
Margot: You started and currently run the Domestique wine club. What was that set up process like, and what did you get from it?
Eric: When we started our wine club, it was like the second month that we were open. I had no idea what I was doing. I'm going to admit something that I don't know if I want out there, but I'm going to tell this to you anyway. I don't think I've ever looked at another wine club ever. Like, not once.
I felt like 75 bucks was a good price for the wine club. I feel like people are charging more than that, so it feels like a good place where we could get good wine to people and we can also not lose our backs on it. From there, it was mostly whatever sticks, sticks. One of the first wine club offers, I put champagne in it, because I was just like, yeah, let's do it. Like, we can do it. I put a magnum in one month. It was a big learn on the go sort of situation, where I just wanted to put good wine in front of people.
I also wanted to put wine in front of people that I don't think they would buy for themselves. I wanted to lightly and slightly redefine the way that people think about natural wine, where you have a month of wines and there's nothing that's “funky”. What it really is about is farming. It's people, it's, you know, the things that you're doing that lead up to having a product in a bottle. I want it to be less about consumption and more about people. We grew wine club essentially from the very start of Domestique and recently, even over the last year, we've made sure to be more interactive with producers.
We've always like had a good rapport with the people who were in the wine club. We were always in constant communication with those people, but then we added the Instagram lives, we have producers on. We have live tastings. The notes for our wine club stop being about what's in the glass and started being about the background of the wines.
We started with a new app called Demi, which gives us a ton of interaction with people and gets people in the wine club talking about the different wines. I mean, we don't talk about wine in our Demi, actually, it's mostly about plants and pizza. You're having a connection with these people to the point where you're talking about more than wine, right? We're just having fun. I started a thread the other day where I was like, okay guys, we all need to share our pets now. It created like this two day long thread of dogs, cats, lizards, plants, all sorts of things. Then somebody says we should have a plant swap. This community that we have—people are sending pictures of what they're cooking alongside, different wines, even if it’s not our wine! They feel comfortable.
Margot: Yeah. That's really special. You've really built your own community.
Eric: It helps sometimes when you have no idea what you're doing.
Margot: Well, I love that, because you're not influenced by outside thoughts of what it should be or what it should look like or whatever it is. You're just doing your thing. What would you say you've learned from this experience?
Eric: I think that you can't think about things from one perspective. You can't talk about things based on what you like yourself. Once you're able to remove yourself, not completely, obviously you want to use some sort of judgment there, but once you're able to remove yourself from “how would I want this experience to go” and think about a greater whole of how other people would like to experience ago, that’s helpful.
You want to give people a reason to stick around. You want to give people that sense of community. People can go anywhere and buy wine, you have to offer something different, something unique. I think that in doing that, what we wanted to offer was stripped down to something very simple in its authenticity. I think that that's a really important part of building something like this. Something that I've learned is—don't try to be something that you're not. Be comfortable in your own skin. That took me a long time to do for myself.
Be your most authentic self. People may like it, people may not, but people will certainly respect that you put yourself out there like that. I think that little bit of vulnerability allows for a group sync on vulnerability, where it's like, oh okay, we can do this. You're able to offer more because you're seeing it less like my wine club and more of the whole group.
I try to approach things on a really individual level when it comes to any decisions that I make in terms of purchasing, changes that we want to make to wine club, or changes that we want to make in the shop. If there's not a person who I can think of offhand who would appreciate it then maybe it's something that we should rethink until we get a bit more polished.
Margot: I love that. Can you tell me more about what you do at Selection Massale?
Eric: I sell wine to very fine people who work in restaurants. I am essentially the DC market for Selection Massale in terms of on-premise sales. I take wines to restaurants that I love, because I don't have a ton of wine to sell. I take wines to restaurants that are good homes for certain wines. I have like this super tight knit circle of restaurants that I work with.
We have regular conversations about menu items or things that people are enjoying, or profiles of wine they've asked for.
Margot: Have you worked in wine sales in the past, or is this your first time?
Eric: First time.
Margot: What made you decide to go for that?
Eric: It was an opportunity to expand our network. It was an opportunity to see a different side of this business. It's an opportunity for me to grow and adapt to something that I've not done before. It was exciting and it was helpful to the people that I work with.
Margot: What are some of the joys and challenges of that work?
Eric: Some of the joys are like the just flat out reactions that you see on people's faces or in their actions. Like when you pour them something that you're really passionate about. Riding my bike around D.C. on super hot sweaty days with a cold backpack full of wine, that’s a joy. Some of the struggles are the fact that we are still in the middle of a pandemic. You know, things are weird still. Buying is just completely different right now. And so that's definitely a struggle—whether it's quantities or the time when those orders go in. It’s definitely a challenge, trying to navigate this COVID restaurant world.
Margot: Because you're both on the retail side of wine and the importer side of wine, you get a unique look at the wine world. Have you noticed American palates changing or American tastes or ideas around wine changing?
Eric: That's a good question. I wouldn't say that everybody has developed a slightly more esoteric palette, but I would say there's been a noticeable shift in people seeking out different wines. Whether it's from the country of their origin or their family's origin or they traveled somewhere and had something that changed their mind. I think you see peoples’ eyes being opened to different things. I would say gone are the days of Robert Parker, hundred point wines being like what you had to drink, and there being a more gradual shift towards a broader scope of grape varieties, wine styles, producers, countries.
I see a lot more diversity in what people are asking for. I think that the general palate is going beyond things that everybody told them they should drink. There's so much out there and people are more willing to explore it.
Margot: Where do you think there's opportunity right now in the American wine world for growth change?
Eric: It’s everywhere. I think that there are people who are doing really fantastic things in this country in terms of promoting different faces for every area of the industry. I think that people who look like me are becoming more and more interested in a world that felt walled off to them before. I think that you see some of that work being done now, and it's not on a grand scale. You're seeing it in places of smaller production and you'll see it at a couple of bigger name producers who control a lot more of the market and the attention that goes into the market.
We just need to continue presenting opportunity to people and showing people that everything can be what you make it. There is room now where I feel like there wasn't room before for different voices and different faces to make an impact on the wine world. We should focus on the people. You will find so much more diversity in that once you stop glorifying one segment of this extraordinarily vast universe.
We should take a step back and look at different segments of the wine world and see that people are doing fantastic things. When you see more people who look like you, no matter, where you're coming from, it just plants that seed of opportunity and a possibility. I remember like the first time that I bet a Black sommelier, it was DLynn Proctor, and I was like, oh shit. This guy dresses like me. He's got an immense amount of swagger, he broke things down in such a cool way. This is something that I could absolutely do.
Margot: Domestique runs the Major Taylor Wine Fellowship. You all have set up an advisory board to help your efforts towards strengthening community. What does that mean in practice?
Eric: It means reaching out to people that we've connected with who are underrepresented in this community, and putting our heads together to figure out how we can make this opportunity optimal for somebody who wants to take their next step in the wine industry.
What we're trying to do is show people there are different facets to wine and jobs that can be had within it. We want people to see as much as we could possibly show them while they're with us. The advisory board is full of people who are creative, who are financially literate, who do different things—writing, communication, etc. They act as a sounding board for whoever the wine fellow would be, so they have people to reach out to for support.
Margot: That's awesome, creating new lines of support for people. What are you excited about right now, what’s on the horizon for you?
Eric: I have no idea for the first time in like 10 years. Like, since I started this job, I haven't been thinking about what do I have to do to extract myself from this situation and get myself into a better situation? Working with Domestique and Selection Massale has been amazing.
It's been challenging in different ways because I get put in positions to succeed and grow. I get a lot of what I would be looking for otherwise through my job right now. I’m super happy with what I'm doing professionally for once. It's almost three years that I've been there. Outside of feeling like I'm a part of something again, I just get put into great positions by the people who I work with and people who were connected with.
Margot: That’s so great. You don't always have to be looking for the next thing, it sounds like that’s a sign that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Eric: Yeah, I didn't know that until recently. The better part of the last year I’ve worked on myself a lot. I've gotten back to doing things that I really enjoy doing—practicing French and gardening, reading, and hanging out with my dog. The biggest plus side of this pandemic has been the ability to have a bit more time to do those things. I’m just working on refocusing my life.
I want to be better speaking French. I want to be able to communicate with producers when I talk to them via email or on a call. Growing tomatoes and peppers, having herb plants right out back here, it’s one of those things that reminds me of my mom and growing up, because my mom was always big into gardening. The coolest thing that I've done this year is been selfish and figured out stuff. That really makes me happy.
Margot: I love that so much. I feel like in the restaurant world and in the wine world too, we're always pushed to go, go, go all the time, and you lose a part of yourself that way. Then it feels like your value is based on your productivity. To hear that you're investing in your own personal growth—that's just awesome.
Margot: How can folks best support you?
Eric: Just be nice to people, that’s how you can best support me. Be helpful to somebody else— wine people, being helpful to somebody who's a little bit newer, a little bit greener, you can really help someone that way. That's what I'm looking for.
Margot: Thanks so much for your time, Eric! Can’t wait to come visit you at Domestique some day soon.
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You can support Eric by signing up for the Domestique Wine Club, and following him on Instagram. Eric supports the non-profit So Others Might Eat (SOME), which is local to Domestique in D.C that “helps our vulnerable neighbors in Washington, DC, break the cycle of homelessness through our comprehensive and transformative services”. Donate to this important organization here.
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