Business & Tech
Raising A Toast To Park Ridge Wine Store's Anniversary
The Bells will call a taxi for you to attend the tasting event that marks a half-decade of business at WineStyles in Uptown. And the Park Ridge residents will give you a lesson in Wines 101 and beyond if desired.
Doug and Tracy Bell can advise you on fine wines ‘till you’re blue (or maybe red) in the face.
But the best way to nail down a proper wine as accompaniment for dinner, or just savoring, is to attend WineStyles’ five-year anniversary wine-tasting event from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, and 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1.
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“We’ll have three different vendors pouring (from 15 to 20) wines,” said Doug Bell. “Mostly it’s our loyal customer base that comes in and supports it.”
Earlier:
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The Bells turned an avocation sampling wines across the country into a vocation with their store at 105 S. Northwest Highway for the holiday season in 2007. They want to share their love of the grape with even more local residents.
The wine-tasting event, held annually on the store’s anniversary, is free to the store’s Wine Club members and $10 for non-members. As an inducement to the casual drinker to attend in a hazard-free manner, the Bells will call a taxi to transport anyone who doesn’t trust himself to drive after the tasting.
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Park Ridge’s WineStyles, operated as a locally-owned store as part of a national franchise, emphasizes all levels of wines with a new toe-dip into the craft-beer market.
The Bells, Park Ridge residents for most of the past two decades, thought it would be fun to be in the wine business. Tracy’s familiarity with Park Ridge goes back even further to childhood. Her father, Ken Weiler, was head pro at Park Ridge Country Club, where Tracy also worked.
Customers hit the door at opening
Peddling wine is hard work. The Bells are in the middle of their holiday season, in which Thanksgiving is a huge boost to sales. A visit to WineStyles at 11 a.m. the other day featured customers coming in right after the store opening to sate their desires.
“We looked at opening up a retail store,” said Doug Bell. “So we always wanted to be in Park Ridge. We were always looking at locations and different ideas.”
Her interest piqued by a WineStyles store she visited in Florida, Tracy Bell got her husband on board to open the store on Dec. 3, 2007.
2007 was good, then recession hit
“We had a decent December, but the next year was a huge dropoff,” Doug Bell said of the onset of the severe recession. “People keep drinking. They were drinking more expensive wines, but (the economy) brought down their pricing.”
And, yes, there is a significant difference between $50 vs. $10 brands of wine. So the drinkers did sacrifice taste for price.
“There’s a lot more put into them,” Doug Bell said. “They are single vineyards. The grapes are much more tended for. There’s way more care in the way everything is aged. There definitely is a quality drop. There still are a lot of wines that are overpriced. Some are underpriced.”
Tracy is wine-taste expert
Tracy Bell actually is the resident taste-test expert to whom Doug defers on wine specifics. Doug Bell is at the store part-time when he’s not working as finance manager of a downtown Chicago Lexus dealer. As her husband spoke, Tracy was a dervish of activity waiting on the first customers of the day.
“I ask them what kind of taste they like – profile white or red,” said Tracy Bell. “I’ll guide them that way. Depends on what they want to spend. I’ll show them low end and I’ll show them high end. They can choose.
“It’s more of what kind of wine I like. It’s more what I’ve grown to appreciate or not appreciate. But everyone has their own palate. I don’t like sweet wines, but I’ve got a ton of people that love sweet wines. I have to appreciate that. When they ask me how do I like it, I’m honest.”
When Tracy first tastes a wine, “I like a nice nose – a nice fruit on the nose. Every wine is different.” Overall, the couple tends toward red over white wine as personal preferences, but are “open to all of them,” said Doug.
The entire price range of wines is featured by the Bells, with one exception. “Below $10, we don’t venture there,” said Doug Bell. “We don’t go into the $3 or $4 bottle of wines, it’s just not our market.”
