Dellie Rexed

Candor,
humor and persistence mark Dellie Rex’s style over her
distinguished career in Boston’s wine world. Ms. Rex’s
wide-ranging experience includes wholesale (Classic), sales
rep (Racke USA, Dreyfus Ashby), entrepreneur (her own Wine
Experiences and Rex Associates), consulting (Wines of Spain,
Trade Commission of Portugal, Geerlings & Wade, United
Liquors), education (Cambridge Center for Adult Education,
Boston University, now New England Culinary Institute).
Today she’s writing a brand new wine studies textbook.

Testimonials for this amiable veteran were not hard to come
by. Tom Schmeisser, wine buyer at Marty’s Liquors in Newton,
had this to say: “Dellie is La Grande Dame of Boston’s wine
business. She’s been the woman working longest in the trade,
and has excelled at retail, wholesale, supplier level,
education. Now at NECI she’ll become a greater asset than
ever in the realm of higher education.”

Like most women
working in a largely male arena, Rex can tell a few war
stories. Yet she learns from them, shrugs them off like
raindrops and paddles gamely on. “You have to be
thick-skinned to handle all kinds of customers,” she said
over lunch in a South End cafe. “When I was starting out in
sales with Classic Wines, I made a first call on a
well-known woman chef. I’d barely introduced myself when she
went into a flaming tirade about an order gone wrong. I
could barely keep my composure because I was taking it
personally, and when I went back to my car I burst into
tears. Then there are the sweethearts, like Tom Larsen of
The Pillar House (formerly in Newton where Routes 16 and 128
meet). He was a perfect gentleman, sharing his knowledge,
tasting wisely and buying with intelligence, working
patiently with me on his wine list. Tom gave Patrick Dubsky
(of Rialto); his first sommelier job.”

Rex took a
detail-oriented, hands-on approach toward sales and customer
contact. “My fat retail account notebook covered everything
we tasted, their comments, likes and dislikes, personal
connections, wife and kids names! Like a pitcher’s books on
hitters, I asked myself, ‘What can you serve up that he’ll
respond to?’

When she worked
in marketing, circumstances threw her a few curves: she lost
two jobs in five years. “I lost my post as marketing rep for
Racke USA when an incoming veep imported his whole team. I
worked as regional manager for Dreyfus Ashby; but a cash
flow bind when they opened Domaine Drouhin forced them to
let go all their regional reps.”

Rather than risk
losing yet another job, she started Rex Associates, and
began representing individual wineries and trade groups like
Wines of Spain. “Ironically, Paul Hart of Rex Hill Winery
(Oregon) was the first to sign on; then Sokol Blosser, Louis
Martini, Chateau Woltner (they made fabulous Howell Mountain
Chardonnay) and Hyatt Vineyards. These five wineries stayed
with me for years. Today it’s wonderful still to be
recognized when I walk into restaurants in Newport or
Brattleboro.”

The call of
education was strong, and Rex responded by beginning to
teach wine classes, now a widely popular pursuit. “After I’d
taught years at Cambridge Center for Adult Education, I
decided I could do better on my own. I started Wine
Experiences, my informal education service and wine-tasting
hosting operation. I gathered (a) hundred names on my own
mailing list and bought another. It did very well, and has
been fun. I had a great time consulting to Geerlings &
Wade, the mail order wine company, who’d send 25 to 3O
people to me to train in wine sales. United Liquors hired me
about a decade ago to train their entire sales force in
(regular) wine sales. My favorite question from those guys
was ‘What’s indigenous?’ I’d answer, ‘Native grapes.’ Their
response: ‘Whyn’t you say that?'”

After twelve
years of running her own business of marketing, sales,
training, and tastings, Rex found her true calling amid the
enthusiasm and freshness of collegians. “My most enjoyable
and gratifying role by far was to teach young people about
wine, as Adjunct Professor in the Hospitality Program at
Boston University. Students always astound me, how well they
taste wine! They can talk about them and identify them.
Exams included a blind tasting of five wines to be
identified by varietal, appellation and vintage. Extra
credit if they pinpoint the producer! Last year, one girl
went five for five! Boys may do equally well. If I’d stayed
on at BU I’d have developed other seminars in European Wines
and The New World (Southern Hemisphere).

“One question on
my final exams was: ‘Choose one person that you feel has
contributed most to the US wine trade. Defend your choice in
an essay.’ Every year one or two chose Louis M. or Louis P.
Martini. I was very touched by that; – you can’t talk about
the history of Californian wine without mentioning the
Martinis. (My other, and a quite distinct, role at BU is to
sit on the board of the Elizabeth Bishop Wine Resource
Center, where Sandy Block, Bill Nesto and Alex Murray all
teach.)

At BU, Rex
designed and taught three courses (Overview of Fine Wines,
French Regional Wines and Wine Regions of the US), but she’s
taking a new tack at NECI. “I’ve inherited and am adapting
their curriculum. I am designing and teaching a new course
in the business of wine. (The BU students asked for it but
we just never got around to it.) Kids are interested in how
it all works: the structure, chain of distribution, the maze
of laws, career prospects.”

Rex is keenly
aware that wine has become increasingly integral to the
culinary experience. “In every role – chef, front-of-house,
distributor,” she enumerates, “wine is far more prominent in
the mix of things than it was in the ‘7Os. Wine and spirits
are near the top of the list of things that a restaurateur
needs to do well. At NECI, it’s wonderful to work with eager
kids who’ve decided they want to make hospitality their
career. Don’t be surprised if we’re soon graduating highly
qualified sommeliers to work alongside the fine chefs we
already train!”

NECI, founded in
198O by Francis Voigt as a cooking school, today offers
several programs: associate degrees in Culinary Arts, Baking
and Pastry, associate and bachelor’s degree in Beverage and
Food Management. Rex scopes out her tasks within the
structure. “My job is to coordinate the entire fine beverage
program and teach courses; to train the culinary arts staff
in wines so they can incorporate them into their curriculum,
especially matched with foods; advise them on ways to
increase sales and profits in the beverage programs in four
restaurants and two bakeries; and the toughest challenge –
to look at their entire beverage curriculum to assure
uniform standards for beverage knowledge.” (see chart
below)

Rex is gratified
to see many young women entering the wine business. She
laughs as she says: “I should hang out another shingle as
‘Career Advisor’ because I get many phone calls – mostly
younger women – seeking advice or leads. Most will be in
sales, but do you realize how many women sommeliers there
are now? Alicia Towns, Cat Silirie, Jeannie Rogers, are only
the more established ones in Boston. Interest in enjoying
wine has spread throughout the culture; it’s obvious in
Boston. Few shops and restaurants still think they can
afford not to have a wine savvy staffer, one who knows wine
varietals, basic wine/food matching, how to read European
wine labels. If a Macon-Villages or a Riesling Kabinett is
the better choice for a dish or a recipe, talk to that wine,
find it for them. I’m a Europhile and Francophile: I still
think the wines of Europe (especially France) are still the
world’s greatest – though maybe not for long!”

Rex’s
expressive, colorful, conversational style, obsessive
note-taking, and deep teaching experience have naturally
pushed her into writing. “I’ve wrapped up a contract with
Delmar Publishing (Johnson Learning Group) as co-author to
an introductory textbook on the world of wine that will
appear in March 2OO6. When my editor asked me what was
lacking in print, I said that nobody has yet written a
textbook on American wine, so that will be my next writing
project. That book will be aimed at the same demographic:
students in culinary arts and/or hospitality administration.
Most books in print on American wine focus on adult
consumers touring in wine country.”

As a closing bit
of philosophy, Rex quotes ancient wisdom. “‘What goes around
comes around’ is an expression you hear a lot in the wine
trade. I try very hard to live by The Golden Rule, which is
the basis of Judeo-Christian theology. If you do something
negative to someone, it will surely come back to bite
you.”

DELLIE
on DIVAS I’ve
collaborated with Divas Uncorked as a speaker; they’re a
dynamic group that’s making important strides in reaching
out to middle-aged African-American women, a demographic
group that the wine world has ignored.