Profile: Hellen Gallo Bryan

GETTING
STARTED I worked in
restaurants through college, studied French, biology, and
music theory in Alsace. In the early ’80s, I worked for
Gallo – no relation! – around New York for eight years on
national accounts, even on-premise, reporting directly to
the winery. I was a maverick, tried to convince them to
diversify. I had a great career with them, learning
everything I know today about pricing, marketing,
programming, working with distributors.

IMPORT
HEAVEN As wine
director for Domecq, I worked brands like Quinta do Noval,
Marques de Arienzo, Schlumberger, La Ina, Carlos I. At
Palace Brands we had Croft, Mouton Rothschild, Delaforce,
and a great Italian book – Ceretto, Felluga, Caparzo,
Monsanto, Mastroberardino, Anselmi. I fell in love with
Italy – it’s numero uno for food and wine. I brought this
knowhow to Winebow in 1998, and love it, love it! I feel
like I’m running a small regional company within a company.
I do everything here: finance, market, train, price, pay
bills, sell wine. Everything stops at my desk. I inherited a
$1.9M territory – by 2003, we’d reached $6.4M. I’ve had a
great ride moving under-performing brands and fixing
regional distribution problems.

LONG-SIGHTED
STRATEGY Winebow
grew from being ‘shipment oriented’ to being ‘depletion
driven’ – shipments being sales from importer to distributor
and depletions sales from distributor to retailer. We care
about store level sales, because in a perfect world,
shipments equal depletions. My job is keeping our
distributors in inventory. I’m responsible for building
container orders. I work directly with purchasing directors
and in-house brand managers, like Larry Bassett (United),
John Slocum (Slocum & Sons), Alan Cox (United NH). I
tell them what they ought to buy, get them promos from
European producers, plan pricing, and set brand
strategies.

BIG
VENTURES Recently
Winebow founder Leonardo LoCascio took on equity partner
Freeman Spogli. They’re not in wine and spirits – I think
Leonardo preferred a fresh, passionate partner. Did he sell
out? Not at all! This means seed money to do great things
both in national imports (my area) and distribution,
aligning with like-minded wholesalers in states (NY, NJ, DC)
where Winebow acts as both importer and wholesaler with an
international portfolio.

HOT
WHITES Prosecco has
exploded – I couldn’t believe there are a thousand
producers! Some hot whites are Argiolas Costamolino,
Botromagno Gravina (monopole), Giacosa Arneis, and Anselmi
San Vincenzo. Ricardo Cotarella, consulting enologist
extraordinaire, made at Falesco a Vitiano bianco from – get
this! – Verdicchio, Vermentino and Viognier. In Alto Adige,
Tramin’s Willi Stürz won winemaker of the year, and two
wines got Gambero Rosso’s tre bicchieri. Everybody’s crazy
for Sicily – Morgante and Regaleali.

HOT
REDS People aren’t
buying high-end reds unless it means something. The
classics, we sell out; for the Bruno Giacosas and Roberto
Voerzios people look for seconds! High-end Chianti, Tuscan
and Umbrian international blends are hurting, but Brunellos
and Rossos are still hot – I could’ve sold triple my Fanti
allocation. 2002 might be a poor vintage, but there’ll be
some terrific Rossos. Syrah is seeing big plantings in Italy
– it grows well, and everyone loves those sweet
tannins.

HOT
PROPERTIES
Basilicata, a ‘hot’ region since Mel Gibson, is home to our
new property Cantina di Venosa. It’s not in this market yet,
but the main grape, Aglianico del Vulture, is considered,
with Nebbiolo and Sangiovese, as one of Italy’s three noble
red grapes. LoCascio has bought property in Bolgheri with
Marilisa Allegrini, called Le Sondraia. It abuts Gaja’s
vineyards. Alberto Antonini, their mutual choice to be
winemaker, makes Seghesio’s wines in California, one of
those flying winemakers with clients in South America,
California and Australia. Puglia, Italy’s wine lake, is
improving quality as northern producers are buying a piece
of the south to launch new projects. Chris Ringland, our
consulting enologist at La Corte, is the only Australian to
get 1OO points from Robert Parker. Our Marche properties are
lots of fun, too: Saladini Pilastri and
Colonnara.

COOL
BOSS Leonardo has
kept an open door to me from the beginning to discuss wine
matters. Since I’d worked with Capezzana, he asked me about
Carmignano (Italy’s historic ‘Supertuscan’ since 17OOs)
before we took on Pratesi, a fine family estate there. He’d
call to talk about Piedmont vintages. Sometimes he’d ask
about my day-to-day business, which might drive me crazy,
but at least I know the boss cares! He’s a really good
person – pro family, pro women. At a national meeting when I
was seven months pregnant, he called me up to the front and
made me a vice-president. It was exciting, but I felt even
better that he’d made me an example, sent a positive message
to the young women in our company. After I had my second
son, he called up and asked, “How’s Oliver?” He was checking
on our physical and mental health.

EDUCATING
EVERYONE Depletion
strategy is concerned with education: distributors,
restaurant staff, retailers, end consumers. Winebow’s huge
on education. We just hired a woman from Society of Wine
Educators to work on education exclusively. That’s why my
New England staff is up to five. In these days of dauntingly
huge portfolios, we can’t expect distributors to do
everything for us. Leonardo hired an army of 5O district
managers to represent our wines, and educate trade and
consumers. In Massachusetts, Bob McVicker and Ann Williams,
concentrate on presenting our mid- to high-level hand-sell
products. We’ve entered into very tough franchise agreements
with distributors to represent our wines in this
marketplace. If we come out with a new wine, they need to
cover for us, and not cry, ‘Oh, no more SKUs! Enough product
line extensions!’ Otherwise, we have to look elsewhere, and
a tit-for-tat relationship is not a good one.

KEEP it
SIMPLE I’m halfway
through a master’s course in gastronomy at BU’s culinary
school. I’m a founding board member for BU’s Elizabeth
Bishop Resource Center, and it fits very well with Winebow’s
outreach. In my seminars, I always talk about wine with
food. You have to. And people want to hear stories! I can
talk forever about fixed acids, residual sugars, oak barrel
grains. But what do they ask me about at the end of the day?
‘Where can I buy this? What about artificial corks? Why do I
get sulfite headaches? Is it organic? What’s the winemaker’s
wife’s name?’ Salesmen are a jump up from that – give them
three solid selling points and let them loose to the trade.
Take Anselmi: one – hillside vineyards, two – low yields,
and three – single vineyards with chapels.

HOT
SPIRITS Though I
prefer to sell wine, spirits are great fun. Geeky wine guys
love high-end artisanal spirits, especially when you can
tell them that dollar profitability for Jacopo Poli grappa
in two weeks topped, say, a whole month of
Vitiano.

SIZE
MATTERS United got
Winebow into Massachusetts restaurants based on our volume
brand Pinot Grigios, Stella and Zenato. I was shocked to
find New Hampshire doing over 5O% of sales in 1.5s, and we
haven’t a single magnum in that market. I hope to change
that soon! Massachusetts is driven by 75Oml trade. Speaking
of diversifying sizes, I’m seeing unprecedented requests for
375s. Piedmont doesn’t make them, Tuscany and Puglia very
few. Via Valverde – Paolo Diecidue’s new North End
restaurant – offers 4O to 5O half-bottles; Peter Nelson of
Wine Bottega had me help select the list.

PRICING
STRATEGIES If I
could sell wine out of my trunk in the North End, I’d sell
more wine, because everyone would think he’s getting a ‘good
deal’. Wherever you go, people want to think they’re getting
something for less than the published price. This despite
the fact that people know it’s a three-tiered system, with
markups at every level. I think our pricing is fair. We
don’t ask a lot from our distributors, we work with them to
grow brands. We program 1OO items a year, nothing too high
end. (We program Falesco’s Vitiano, but not Montiano.) It’s
always a crapshoot; with the up Euro, price increases hit
our already tight margins. If we then have to yank price
supports (depletion allowances), that impacts budgets for
advertising, promotion, newsletters, winelists.

BEYOND
ITALY Winebow does
handle a few artisan properties outside Italy: I going to
Scotland to visit Bruichladdich (brook-laddy), an Islay
single malt property that was Distillery of the Year, run by
ex-Bowmore distiller Jim McEwan. We’re looking long-term at
growing the national side of our import business to include
value areas like Spain. Don Woodall, Winebow’s National
Sales Manager, feels that Spain is positioned about where
Italy was 1O to 15 years ago, with consulting enologists.
We’re starting to test-market some Spanish ventures in New
England.