Profile: Laurette Cossaboon

LAURETTE
COSSABOON • 38
• Buyer & Sales • Ball Square Fine Wines
• Somerville, MA

HOW
I GOT MY START I’m from
Walworth in upstate New York, near Rochester. We had one
blinking light. I was 19, at Finger Lakes Community College
majoring in travel and tourism, when I got recruited by
Disney World, who was hiring for the opening for the Grand
Floridian Resort, and I moved to Orlando.

NOT
MICKEY MOUSE Disney in
1988 was very diverse in staff and clientele. At the Grand
Floridian, the Disney flagship, I was waiting on contest
winners who were barely making ends meet to crown royalty –
and everyone in between. When I served the Princess of
Bahrain, she would only eat off our finest china. Her
entourage had a whole wing of a floor; no men could go in;
armed guards checked every package, poked every dish. A
friend waited on Princess Diana and her little boys on a
chartered yacht; there was a media frenzy of crazed
Americans.

EVERY
GUEST is KING We were
intensively trained in Disney culture and what it meant to
be a Disney employee. Disney’s big thing was Customer
Service, and other companies worldwide were coming in to see
how they did it. Key personnel held seminars. There were no
customers, only ‘guests’. You treated them – from the first
of the morning ’til the last at night – as if they were the
only persons walking through the door. Not like family,
understand, because you want to keep that nice level of
professionalism. That was difficult, especially at the Grand
Floridian, because people asked endless questions about VIP
guests. Grooming and graciousness were part of it. You tried
to create as many magical moments as you could, since for
many it would be their only trip to Disney World. It was
very expensive, and all about the show, on-stage and
off-stage. Cursing, smoking, gum chewing were all taboo. If
you saw anything on the ground, you’d pick it up – I still
do! If anyone wanted a family photo, you volunteered to take
the shot.

SOMMELIER
DAYS We opened up a new
concept Disney restaurant called Citricos. Every “cast”
member who had customer contact knew how to pair wines with
every dish the chef created. He was from Alsace, and a
terrific chef; he’d always urge us to ‘think about the
flavors’. Dishes were intensely flavored, and featured local
citrus and warm-water fish. The Court of Master Sommeliers
[CMS] and Robert Kracher Imports trained us for the
last few weeks. When Opryland Hotel opened the Gaylord Palms
(4 star, 4 diamond) in Orlando, I was on that opening
team.

PASSING
TESTS I caught the bug
and got thirsty for more. Pre-opening ramp-up time was
intense, but I stayed on and helped develop training for the
next wave. We got certified when we took all the CMS basic
certification exams. There were basic questions about the
industry, world regions and grapes. There was some tasting,
but no blind tasting exam. Of course, the CMS is much more
service-oriented than the Master of Wine program. Since I’ve
been doing more retail, I’ve gravitated more toward that
side of training.

READING
in the GARDEN While at
Disney, I became a garden geek and worked at Home Depot and
got state certified in their horticulture department. That
tied into the wine thing, as the more I learned about grape
growing affecting the end product, the more interested I
became in the Master of Wine program. And I’m a history
buff, too – read a lot. When you learn about the historical
regions, like Chateauneuf du Pape being a refuge for the
Popes in Avignon, the more it piques that interest of
learning and how wines and dishes of an area were literally
made for each other.

TRAVEL
AGENT My first job in
Boston was as a travel agent, but the industry has changed
since 2OO1. Security is big, people travel differently, book
their own trips on-line. I loved Bermuda: a small but
beautiful and interesting place. People are well-educated,
and very well-traveled, as they get island crazed. They wait
for ‘seat sales’ to pop up and go all over the
world.

WINE
and SPIRITS I was
working here part-time, then became full-time as a buyer.
When I tended bar at Disney, their attitude was: “Learn
everything you can.” There were spirits training classes;
they brought in a portable still. We’d try to taste
differences between 5 tequilas, 5 vodkas, 5 of everything.
This is more fun on the retail side. At a bar, you make
somebody a drink, but in retail, you tell people all you
know about the spirit, and people love to tell their friends
what they learn from you.

STORE
AIDS For our size, we
have a raft of SKUs. We have the wide selection we do
because our clients ask for niche products and we go and get
them. We could just go with stock items, but we like to find
out-of-the-way things. We use some shelf talkers, but it’s
mostly conversation. Somebody just asked me about wines from
Peru (I know nothing); we can’t wait ’til Eastern Bloc wines
start rolling in. We have many Greek and Romanian customers,
but surprisingly few Portuguese. We have little storage
space, but take many special orders.

ROLODEXING
Romanians like their native wines, others like the Pacific
Northwest. I can’t keep enough different South Western
French wines in the store; we phone or email a bunch of
people when they come in. We have flavor profiles on certain
clients. I zero in on people’s palates also by keeping
record of what they buy and follow up if they liked it. It’s
easy to do what the customer tells you; I do a lot of
listening.

SOFTWARE
Spirits 2OOO is our current software, and we’re fine-tuning
a program called EnoFile.* Customers can come in and swipe
their card and look at their purchases. If they try a
bottle, they can write up and share their notes online at
home, or with us and other customers. It was designed for
wine, but we’re stretching it to include beer and spirits,
too. It will help with inventory control, as well, with all
our SKUs.

GREAT
TASTINGS We hold
tastings on Fridays between 4:3O and 7:3O. Our grand tasting
is once a year in October, right here in the store, as we
gear up for the holidays; it’s bigger every year. One
customer asks in advance so she can get the day off from
work! Approximately 14 distributors represent their product.
We have a few hand-crafted beers, Dogfish Head in the past.
Sometimes launching new spirits, like Starbucks Coffee
Liqueur. Chris’ mother, Joanne, a native of Greece, spends
weeks cooking up platters of spanakopita, kasseri pie,
pastitzio, kourabiedes and baklava for this giant event. We
bring in extra help to serve up finger food and slivers from
our cheese case, and open up about 75 different wines.
Tasting sheets with every wine are printed out for note
taking. Sales are high for the day and people come in later
to select and discuss their favorites based on their notes.
Turnout can be well over 2OO. It’s all day Saturday, October
2O, with much residual goodwill rippling through the
holidays. A lotta work, but a lotta fun!

CUSTOMER
SYNERGY It’s kinda
tough space-wise. We have add-on racks. We squeeze in as
much as we can. There are wines that I don’t put on the
floor and hold for special customers. They come in with
their notebooks and Blackberrys asking questions. We have to
stay on our toes, and not only taste almost every wine that
comes in, but follow them from vintage to vintage. I might
say [to owner Chris Lianos], “I don’t like this
wine, but I think I know who would.”

AVOID
the OBVIOUS Because
this area is working-class, we can’t stop carrying heavily
advertised pop brands. Companies are shaking up a bit, with
the liquor side getting more interesting as distributors
consolidate. It pushes us to do more with aperitifs and
interesting liqueurs. Our sake section has tripled in a
year, quite a bit of it high-end boutique items. But we
can’t quite phase out Yellowtail and 1.5s are ever
popular.

ON
the BALL But this
area’s also becoming gentrified, with old houses broken into
condos, and professional influences from Boston. It’s learn
as we go with Chris, who’s owned the shop five years. We
take a lot of pre-sells, based on last year’s business – we
took our first Bordeaux futures. We attract foodie folks,
who make a dish and want that right wine. Germany and
Austria have exploded beyond Dr. Loosen and Kerpen – lots of
small producers are becoming favorites. The labels can still
be a nightmare, but people are showing patience, and we’ve
become a go-to shop. We may tackle Terry Thiese’s portfolio
a little more this year.

COGNACS
Some come in for their yak-and-coke, but for those looking
for something extra, I like to show Pierre Ferrand. A good
friend was looking for a special bottle for a friend born in
1977 – we discussed port, but I said, “How about a vintage
armagnac?” We’d done a pre-sell on some vintage spirits, and
we happened to have a ’77 Cerbois. You have to do more
research and talk, it’s not for everybody. Some say it’s
better than cognac, distilled only once in a continuous
process, and retaining more character. Upper level Hennessy
and Remy always sell well. Martel Cordon Bleu is one of my
favorites – the nuttiness makes it stand out. We can’t do
much with Richard and Louis XIII off the shelf with our
clientele – I sold more of that at Disney by the glass.
Leressingle is for those who don’t want big name brands,
Planat for those who like the taste of cognac but not the
price tag. We’d like to have a Ferrand tasting this year,
maybe November. Germain-Robin from Napa does okay, though
most people still think traditional.

HOLIDAY
SPIRITS For Calvados,
we have a standard and a 1O year. Grappas are big around the
holidays, Alexander’s sangiovese, Trere, Castello la Leccia
and Nardini flavored all do well. Our Limoncello goes beyond
Sogno – people ask for small family-owned boutique houses.
Bradley Jarvis, Master of Scotch, came in for a single-malt
tasting, burning his peat and all. People came and took
notes. A high-end tequila tasting was a success, too. We’ve
added a small cigar section last year, two humidors, by
request.

GO-TO
GUYS Steven Chevalier
of Ideal and Lindy Campbell of Boston Wine are always
finding us niche wines, spirits and unusual dessert wines
like cassis and pastis. Ideal supplies consistently good
wines for our conscientious caterers, like A.J., or Gerry
Pierce at Peasant Stock. Since Boston Wine was bought by
Winebow, we’ve had unprecedented pricing opportunities.
Their book has increased quite a bit, and they still have
the fine Spanish and German wines we’ve done well
with.

FINGER
LAKE WINERIES They’re
doing a lot to upgrade New York State wineries. I still love
to dance around those wineries with a good friend from
Keuka. I really enjoyed The Red Newt – their beautiful
little bistro uses local agriculture. Atwater is another
favorite. Most of the good ones sell all their wines at the
cellar door so they’re hard to find elsewhere. One year
while at Niagara on The Lake [Ontario] I tasted ice
wines. After all those years by the Finger Lakes I finally
went to the other side!

BEST
TRAVELS When I visited
Napa a few years ago, I loved Shafer Vineyards – a very
green, organic winery (bat houses, song-bird houses,
integrated pest management) that gave a real sense of place.
I tapped my resources and we got a private tour and barrel
tasting! I’m trying to learn more about Italy – love their
cooking and hope to visit.

LAST
READ I like to tap into
the books. People who trained me in the CMS at Disney –
Andrea Immer, Doug Frost – are now writing books, and I love
to read them. A customer gave me wine & war, how they
shuffled the wine around to keep it from the Nazis. I like
decanter, a British magazine that really works for me and
what we have in the store. You have to peruse wine spectator
a lot – wine enthusiast a bit.

PHILOSOPHY
Coming from a service rather than retail background, I say
customer service is #1. You make customers one at a time,
and lose them the same way. We want this to be their wine
shop. You have to listen to your customers, find out what
they want, and give it to them. We send out 13OO emails a
week and continuously ask customers for their feedback. I’m
not going to get rich doing this, I do it because I love it.
I could make a living doing something else, but I might not
enjoy coming to work every day. My passion for wine
translates to my customers, for sure.

*ENOFILE
WEBSALES
Ball Square’s
website at present appears modest in format, but is becoming
increasingly innovative and interactive. Site-browsers may
search for wines in stock by type (color, style), region
(country, province), grape varietal, or winery. Moreover,
Lianos and Cossaboon are now hosting a site where customers
(and others) can post their wine profiles, picks, etc. and
exchange views . . . Customers may ask to be alerted when
favorites (Molly Dooker, South Australia), scarce (Beaux
Freres, Willamette Valley), or seasonal (spring roses, fall
meads and Lustau sherries for the holidays) items arrive.
The new system will be up and running this fall. Hale
Communications will be assisting with the initial roll-out,
any media coverage and brochure marketing.