ST. LOUIS (AP) - At a time when her teenage peers were downing sodas and other sweet drinks, Gina Hoagland was falling in love with dry wine. A high school friend’s parents introduced her to their wine cellar and allowed her to choose any bottle. They would then educate her about its taste and origin.
“There was this whole world in a glass,” said Hoagland, who began her freshman year in college with a wine rack in her dorm room. “Everybody else was drinking to get drunk, and I was sipping my Entre-deux-Mers.”
Last year, she broke ranks again by purchasing Webster Groves-based Trademark Wines, making her a member of a small but growing group of women in the United States who own liquor distribution operations. Missouri, like most other states, has a three-tier distribution system put in place after Prohibition under which alcohol producers and suppliers must sell their products to wholesalers or distributors, who then sell the beverages to retailers.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (https://bit.ly/2n0WZRi ) reports that because many alcohol wholesale businesses are family-owned and privately held, it is difficult to determine just how many women are heading up these operations, but women in the industry say it is still very much male-dominated, particularly at the large distribution level. That puts St. Louis at the forefront of women’s ability to break through the distribution industry’s glass ceiling, because Sue McCollum is chairman and chief executive officer of St. Louis-based Major Brands. The company, which distributes beer, wine and spirits throughout the state, employs more than 500 people and serves more than 9,000 retail customers. It is the largest women-owned distributor member of the national trade association Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.
St. Louis is also unusual in that it has at least two smaller distribution businesses that are completely owned by women. One is Hoagland’s Trademark Wines and the other is Classique Wines & Spirits, which is owned by the mother-daughter team of Diane Raab and Summer Endraske.
It’s more common to find women in partnerships with male relatives. For example, Elizabeth Engelsman co-owns Pinnacle Imports with her brother Bill Kniep, and Dana Atwell co-owns Vinoteca with her husband, Brad. Pinnacle and Vinoteca are both distributors and importers.
“It’s definitely always been a good old boys’ business,” said Classique owner Raab. “When I bought the business in 2004 there were only four other women-owned wholesalers in the U.S.”
Efforts are underway to encourage more women to become involved in the distribution end of the business. In fact, a panel discussion on this topic during the Third Annual Women of the Vine & Spirits Global Symposium was held this month in Napa. Women of the Vine & Spirits is a membership group that supports the advancement of women in the alcohol beverage industry. The symposium follows an announcement last October that the group and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America had formed a partnership aimed at helping to develop business opportunities for women.
“This is an industry about relationships, and women are great at relationships,” said Major Brands’ McCollum. “But it’s a relatively new industry for women, and I’d love to see more women join it.”
Though industry efforts are relatively new, Hoagland had really considered going into the wine business as far back as the mid-1980s when she graduated from Georgetown University. Instead, she decided to pursue an MBA at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. But Hoagland still had the wine bug, and after graduation - despite student loans - she made a modest purchase of first-growth Bordeaux wine futures as a consumer.
Hoagland’s passion for wine remained a serious hobby as she went on to become chairman and principal of Collaborative Strategies Inc., a St. Louis-based firm that provides board development, strategic and succession planning services to a variety of financial, manufacturing and distribution companies. In that position, she got to know many people in the beverage and restaurant industries.
“I then started thinking there might be a place for me in the boutique wine business,” she said.
Hoagland became interested in Trademark Wines, which was founded by Cal Nicholson in early 2010. Nicholson also owns Nicholson Jones, a premium Napa Valley producer of limited production wines. The winery is named after Nicholson and his wife, Pam Jones Nicholson, the CEO of Enterprise Holdings.
“Cal wanted to focus on his wines and turn the distribution business over to someone he could trust,” Hoagland said.
Unlike Hoagland, Raab had not originally thought about buying a wine business. Instead she was primarily looking for a part-time job when she and her husband moved to St. Louis from Chicago because of his work.
Raab had worked as a broker for Sonoma-based Iron Horse wines in Chicago, so her daughter, Endraske, suggested she might like a sales position at Classique. Endraske was working as a buyer for The Wine and Cheese Place retail shop in Rock Hill at the time.
“That part-time job lasted about 35 or 45 days,” said Raab, who took the sales position in 2001. “When you work for a small distributor, you do it all.”
Then in 2004, she took the leap and purchased Classique, which is now based in Webster Groves and has a second warehouse in Kansas City. Endraske joined her mother about a year and a half later.
“I had never really run a business, so this was really learning by doing,” Raab said. “We focused on wine that people could afford, and we worked hard to deliver good customer service.”
Both Hoagland and Raab attribute part of their success to finding wines that have good “stories.”
For example, Trademark will soon start distributing wines from Leonard Wine Company, owned by St. Louisan Tom Leonard and his Napa-based winemaker son, Chris. The boutique winery specializes in small production roussanne and zinfandel wines. Its roussanne wines are made under the Muddy Arch label - a tribute to the owners’ St. Louis background.
“People like to hear a story,” Endraske said. “When you’re excited to sell something, that enthusiasm comes out.”
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, https://www.stltoday.com
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