A Safe Haven for your wine investments.
New wine storage facility in Paso Robles offers safekeeping, pick-up, shipping and other services.
By: Arthur
Przebinda
E-mail:
xenophile@redwinebuzz.com
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October 7th, 2008 In a roller-coaster economy, a portion of consumers may turn away from luxury goods like wine, some theorists say. But wine is more than a pricy hobby or indulgence for some. It is an investment. Even those wine enthusiasts who steadfastly do not curtail their wine spending in tough times may choose different strategies of getting their wines in the face of rising fuel costs and searing heat waves. |
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Enter Safe Haven Wine Services in Paso Robles. There are numerous wine storage facilities and services in towns and cities throughout the country. There may even be one in your neighborhood. Many larger wine stores offer this service. There are also specialized, climate-controlled wine storage facilities in many towns.
What distinguishes this Safe Haven from a facility in your neighborhood is its location and range of services.
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Safe Haven Wine Services is located in Paso Robles - just east of the town proper and north of Highway 46 East and the new Firestone winery, but south of the Paso Robles airport. Located in a large building, the facility includes a climate-controlled storage area where wines are stored securely in a temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity of 65 to 70 percent ensured by double-redundant climate control units. A "tasting lounge" with capacity for 20 people has a wet bar, barbecue, TV, DVD player and audio-visual equipment. |
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Safe Haven offers individual storage lockers. Racks are optional. (Click on image to enlarge) Courtesy: SHWS |
Some time ago, I received a press release about Safe Haven. The services offered - besides storage and shipping - looked interesting but I don't like to just regurgitate marketing copy. So, I decided to speak personally with owners Corrine and Daniel Appelbaum about their new venture.
rwb: How did you come to start your company? It’s probably not the only one of its kind, is it?
Corrine Appelbaum: We’re the only one with our combination of services that I’m aware of. There is another wine storage facility in North [San Luis Obispo] County but it doesn’t offer the array of services that we have combined with personal storage. There are several facilities, like ours, throughout California.
When Daniel and I moved back to the Central Coast from the Bay Area, we had a big wine collection and needed a place to store it. The only option that was available to us was the one in Atascadero, so we put our wine in there.
At that point I said: “Hmm, I think this can be improved upon for a number of reasons”. I thought that the idea of wine storage was absolutely necessary and I was surprised there wasn’t really anything dedicated to that in Paso Robles, with all the wineries here.
So we took this idea and decided to do our research by visiting every [wine storage] facility that we could find in California over the next several months. We took notes about what we did and didn’t like and what could be improved upon. Based on that, we created our business model.
We knew we wanted to put in lockers. Then we wanted to do an event room to be able to bring wine enthusiasts together. With Daniel's background in logistics, we knew there would be a need for people that are storing their wines with us to also have shipping.
rwb: When did you open your doors for business?
CA: It was towards the end of June.
rwb: So how has business been?
CA: Every week, it gets better and better. We're doing our best to get the word out through a variety of media. We're also introducing ourselves to local hotels, wineries, bed and breakfasts, tour companies, limousine services and event planners.
More and more people are stopping by the facility and taking a look at the lockers. We moved in a bunch of wine over the last couple of weeks. We're starting to process wine club shipments.
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rwb: Geographically speaking, where is your clientele from? I would imagine that the majority would be from the surrounding areas. Daniel Appelbaum: It's about half and half. Abut 50% are wine travelers who come to our area and are storing wine with us and want it shipped back to their home. They will purchase their wines and store it with us and we ship it back to them - usually in increments of a case or two. So they take advantage of a lot of the wine clubs and purchasing wine in larger quantities from our area and they store it here and we ship it back to them. |
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The storage facility is well insulated and climate-controlled. (Click on image to enlarge) Courtesy: SHWS |
DA: And the other 50% would be local - folks from this area. Obviously, because of the temperatures here - in excess of 90 or 100 degrees- they store their wines here in a temperature-controlled environment. They have very easy access to it anytime that they want.
rwb: So do you have any international clients or are they mostly U.S.- and California-based?
DA: We've shipped to New Zealand. We've been asked to ship to parts of Europe. So I would say that we definitely will be doing some international shipping.
CA: In terms of storage, we don't have anybody international, yet. Bu I see that as a possibility. We gave a presentation to a large tour company here a few weeks ago and they said a large percentage of their clients are international.
rwb: Do you pick up and store wines from the immediate Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo County area or do you pick up wines from points further north and south?
DA: We can pick up pretty much anywhere from Northern California to Southern California. It does work. We haven't expanded that far. It's definitely part of our business plan. We have alliances with companies that bring in glass from the Bay Area that would bring in the wine and various other companies that would bring in wine to our facility.
Right now, we are focused on a 15-mile radius around our facility. We have hundreds of wineries and hundreds of individual wine makers that are making wine at various crush pads.
CA: Also, to give an example, we have a client from Texas. He was doing wine tasting from Santa Barbara to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Once he established his account with us and had a locker, practically every day he would receive wine shipments from wineries all up and down California that he had obviously visited and liked their wine. We store it for him and send it to him as he wants.
DA: Yes, there are two different things going on here. One is that we pick up wines from wineries and handle their direct shipping for them. But what Corinne was referring to is a really big part of what we do here: There a lot of folks that travel, visit all sorts of wineries and join wine clubs all over. We receive those shipments, inventory them, put them in the storage locker and ship it to them as needed.
rwb: What is the main advantage to the client of having multiple wineries shipping to you and then Safe Haven shipping the wines to them?
CA: The first advantage that comes to mind, is the issue that a lot of people have in their homes: They simply just don't have the space and they don't have the temperature controlled environment in their home. And so this is a good solution for them. They're able to purchase the wine they like. They can have it stored here and then shipped to them when they want it if they don't have the space or the conditions at home to store it properly.
rwb: I was looking at your web site and saw images of lockers with slide-out racks. I think I read somewhere that you have walk-in cellars and that you offer bulk storage. We're in earthquake country. How are the wine protected against earthquake damage?
DA: The lockers were designed to earthquake standards. They're bolted to a six inch concrete slab. So in a large earthquake, the only thing left standing in our facility would probably be the wine lockers.
CA: [Chuckling in the background.]
rwb: But are there ways of securing, say, cases of wine inside a walk-in cellar?
DA: Well, no. Those are just like having a walk-in closet in your house. There is nothing we can do [to secure the wine there] but stack it on the ground. Lockers with a capacity of 12 cases, when completely full, would see very little movement of wine in an earthquake.
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CA: The [sliding] wine racks in the photos are actually racks that we purchased for the photos. If customers want to put a rack in their locker, they can buy it from us. Most people just stack their cases boxes of wine in their locker. rwb: Can you go into some more detail of the cost of your services? CA: We have top [row] lockers starting at 25 dollars a month. We reserve those for people from out of town and those clients who want long-term aging. They are only accessed by us or our employees. The other three [rows of] lockers are much more easy to access. They are priced according to the length of the agreement. We have a six-month agreement at 31 dollars a month, a twelve-month agreement at 35 dollars. These are all paid in advance. |
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Custom codes secure each locker. Courtesy: SHWS |
CA: We also do month-to-month at 39 dollars a month for people that need, maybe, temporary storage if they're moving.
rwb: I was under the impression that you have individual units of varying size and capacity.
CA: All of our lockers are the same size. They each store 12 standard cases of wine. The difference in price is based on their location - in terms of accessibility. We currently have 292 lockers, with about a third rented. Once these are filled, we will install an additional 208 for a total of 500.
DA: The lockers have security locks on them and everyone puts in their own code. They also have a bolting system. If you wanted to have a locker plus one above and one below, they would be bolted together and all you would have to do is put in one security code on one door and the lockers would open simultaneously. So if you needed to store 36 cases of wine, you would get three lockers to store your wine.
rwb: I wanted to go back talk about shipping and order fulfillment. Does a company like yours face any additional challenges in shipping state-to-state being that you are not a retailer and you are not a producer and there are some states that would not allow retailers to ship within their boundaries?
DA: Yes. The wineries have specific licenses as to where their shipments can go. They give us the shipments and we ship them. There are eight states into which no one can ship. UPS or DHL or FedEx do not deliver to those states. As far as the remaining states go, the bulk of them are reciprocal states which means that anyone can ship to those states. And there are some that have specific permits, restriction and the wineries themselves deal with those restrictions.
rwb: So, it sounds as though if a potential client is in a state that does not allow shipping, your service will not provide them any recourse.
CA: One of the things we recommend in those situations is to provide an alternate address. They might have a relative in a neighboring state. There are some solutions to that but we don't break the law by shipping into states that don't allow it.
rwb: So, it sounds like a company like yours does not offer any loopholes for residents of states that bar wine shipping.
DA: [chuckling] No.
CA: I feel badly for those people.
rwb: Let's talk a little bit about monitoring the weather for shipping. I read that on your web site. Are we talking about monitoring the weather in California for shipping wines to your facility, or are we talking about monitoring the weather nation-wide, paying attention to the ultimate destinations to stage shipping to out-of-state clients?
DA: Ultimate destination. All shipments that leave here that are going outside the West Coast are shipped only on Mondays unless we're instructed to do otherwise. In almost all cases, the wine will be received by Friday. So we monitor these particular routes. So if there are heat waves or anything with the consequences of jeopardizing the wine, we do advise the client and they will let us know if they want us to hold that shipment. We also have the option to ship second-day or overnight, depending on what the wine is and what the client wants.
A lot of people who store wine with us are from areas of the country where it can be rather warm. That's why they keep their wines with us.
rwb: Which shipping companies do you use to ship from your facility to the consumer.
DA: We use, primarily, UPS. We occasionally use FedEx. We found that our relationship with UPS is one that, we think, offers a much higher level of service.
rwb: And picking up from producers to your own facility, do you have your own fleet, do you have an affiliate transport service?
DA: We have our own truck. Almost all shipments that come into our facility, at this time, are all brought in by us. If we're going way outside our area, it's much better to work with other companies where we all consolidate on one truckload and bring it into our facility. One of those companies would be Douglas Wine Transport which specializes in wine shipments.
rwb: Can you talk a little bit about the services you offer, like inventorying wines, etc?
CA: We're pretty excited about our inventory program. We just completed two rather large collections. One, in particular: a local wine maker just recently moved her entire personal wine collection and we inventoried 396 bottles. We have a [computer] program that gives an absolute abundance of information. Everything from tasting notes to best time to drink and scores and a lot of other stuff. We can put it in a spreadsheet and email it to the client. It's been a very popular feature with some of our clients.
Another really popular feature is consolidation of shipments. If a wine country traveler comes into the area and goes wine tasting at several wineries. Rather than have each winery from which they buy wine ship out wines individually, which can be costly, we can consolidate that into one or two shipments.
rwb: What has been the biggest challenge to this new venture?
CA: The biggest challenge has been getting people to see the value of this service. It allows you to consolidate shipments, save money on shipping.
The social facilities at Safe Haven also carry appeal if you enjoy entertaining or hosting friends. For those who live near Paso Robles or those who visit the area frequently with their friends, this service can be a bonus. This part of the facility also appears to be ready for meetings, conferences, retreats and press events.
In addition to inventory tracking, Safe Haven's web site allows clients to organize events and have RSVPs tracked. Their blog looks promising as well, focusing on issues relevant to wine storage and shipping.
As Corrine correctly points out, large capacity wine storage is a service that someone either needs or they do not need. It is hard to convince someone on a budget or someone not interested in increasing their wine purchases and consumption that they should buy more wine so they can then see a financial benefit of storing and consolidating their wine shipments with Safe Haven.
The greatest value of Safe Haven is greatest to those who already are (or are on their way to being) members of multiple wine clubs in the Central Coast. Shipping costs vary by destination, carrier and the size of the package. Readers should review their shipping costs to determine how much they can save by consolidating their shipments. If you anticipate your collection to grow, if you would simply like to save on shipping costs or just do not have the capacity for long-term wine storage at home, Safe Haven may be the perfect solution for you.
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