Justus Benjamin, Certified Sommelier and San Diego Business Owner

Justus Benjamin describes himself as a "recovering attorney", now turned certified somalia. His love of wine has evolved into three exciting concepts in downtown San Diego: Boutique Vino, Le Charcuterie Bar, and the recently opened Sabre Champagne Bar. 

In this wide-ranging interview, Justus describes his journey from attempting to attend medical school, transitioning to law school, and working as a lawyer for 10 years, before pursuing his passion for wine.

Visit the Sabre Champagne Bar website here.

Connect with Dr. Sciarretta on Twitter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Superintendent's Hangout where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, Dr. Sheretta. Come on in and hang out. In this episode, I was fortunate to sit down with Justice Benjamin. Justice describes himself as a recovering attorney, now turned certified Sommelier. His love of wine has turned into three exciting concepts in San Diego. For over six years, he's been a noteworthy leader at Boutique Vino, which is a locally famous wine shop and hangout in the East Village neighborhood, not too far from where this podcast is being recorded. Justice is a member of the East Village Association, which focuses on continued urban development and study growth of new businesses. And we talk about some of the opportunities and challenges of doing business in downtown San Diego, in particular related to the homelessness crisis. Justice recently expanded his portfolio with the addition of the charcuterie bar, which he describes as quote, a cheese chop with benefits. Coming this winter, he will be opening the Saber Champaign Bar inside the Pendry San Diego in the gas lamp district of San Diego, which is a little bit farther west from the East Village neighborhood where he started his venture originally. Justice encourages us to drink better by drinking small. His thoughtfully curated wine program contains selections from smaller states and unique locales around the world. This was a wide-ranging conversation that detailed Justice's journey from first attempting medical school, finding that was not his calling, then going to law school, doing 10 years in various law firms on both coasts before he pursued his passion and eventually left his day job for his passion. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Welcome, Justice. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. It's great to have you. Thanks for having me. I was wondering if you could start out with just telling us a little bit about yourself. What's your origin story and what brings you to the present moment here?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, I like to think of a kind of a chameleon of a human. Reinvented myself a few times, but um a Navy brat. So I ended up in San Diego for high school. Um and I think like most young men or maybe most kids, I tried to get as far away from my parents as possible. So I went to the Midwest uh for undergraduate at Wash U. Um was supposed to be the first doctor in the family, did pre-med. Um and then right at the end I got disillusioned with the with the medical field, and I decided to apply to law school. Ended up going to law school in New York, uh, Hofstra, um, and then practiced in New York for about five or six years, transferred out to San Diego and practiced another five or six years. And then eventually I found myself falling in love with wine, and wine kind of led me to a newsletter. The newsletter kind of started taking up more and more of my time, so I was doing double duty. I realized that the UPS guy didn't want to talk about wine with me, so I started looking at places where I could open an actual physical shop. Um, and so we ended up in the East Village, and it's kind of we started as one little suite that was about 450 square feet. Uh little, I like to call it a little shotgun wine bar, and now we are about 1,500 square feet. Uh and we also opened a little cheese shop that does wine, and then hopefully sometime in the fall, we're gonna open a champagne bar inside the Pendry Hotel. So three different kind of phases, but uh all the way along, that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

What what did your family think of almost almost having the first doctor in the family?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah, I always like to say uh my mom cried uh when I told her the first time. She cried when I told her I got into law school. Uh she cried in shame at my graduation of law school. Um and then she cried again when I told her I was leaving the law to uh to be a psalm uh and run a wine bar. But now she likes it, right? The the the goodies with wine are much better than the goodies as a lawyer. So she likes her because she liked her free Rombauer every now and then.

unknown 4:19

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, she gets tangible tangible benefits, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Aaron Powell Yes, exactly. It took her a while to come around, but now she's happy.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So you you uh you probably chose the two most difficult states to pass the bar in, right? New York and California.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, hindsight being 2020, right? So as a kid, I was like, I just want to live in New York City. I didn't realize that the bar was going to be hard. Um then you know living in New York City for so long is like I just want to have the sunshine and not have to wear a jacket when I'm in the office. So I need to get back to California. So it just a kind of a uh happy coincidence, unhappy coincidence that both of those bars are hard.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

What what was your area of expertise and area of focus in in the law?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, I wanted to be a tax attorney when I was in school because I wanted to get out and really help people. And then when I got out or graduated, it was a mortgage-backed security crisis. And so I had a minor in accounting, and so what I ended up getting into was securities litigation. So um working with people like Goldman Sachs on the defense side, and then you know, kind of high uh white-collar ambulance chasing on the other side when I did plaintiff's work, um, but really looking into using that forensic accounting to kind of unwind some of these tranches and some of the wrongdoing and bring suits, especially with banks like Wakovia and Washington Mutual went under, Lehman Brothers. I worked on that case. Um kind of, you know, you get funneled to where the jobs are. And there weren't a lot of jobs in taxes or tax law when I got out, and so that those are jobs that were available, especially New York City being a financial center.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I just saw in the paper today where the one of the co-founders of country Countrywide just passed away. Yeah, so yeah, exactly. And to his death, he said that he he it wasn't his fault. The no-doc home loan that was then bundled with a whole bunch of other no-doc home loans, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Trevor Burrus Exactly. Yeah, and it seems like forever ago. And I guess it was a little while ago, but I talk to people sometimes, and I mentioned Lehman Brothers or or Washington or Wakovia, right? And people don't even know those banks or those, you know, those mortgage houses, which is really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

So you start the the wine newsletter. Tell us a little bit about that. Is that still going on?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I don't do the newsletter anymore. We have a wine club now. Okay. So the newsletter was was kind of my outlet because I like people. That's really why I'm in wine, it's for fellowship. But the part of the law that I was in was a lot of, it's less client-facing, right? You do have clients, but they're institutional investors, they're very large. Um so you're really dealing with representatives uh of larger corporations. And so you lack kind of that collegiate, but you know, collegial or or um familial workplace. And for me, you know, wine, I my family always knew cocktails and and and beer and that kind of stuff, being from the New Orleans area. But law school is the first place I really got into wine, and I love food, and like wine and food are kind of the two things that are really it's really the only alcohol for me that goes with food.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And food is really sitting around a table, and so I just I went down the rabbit hole. So I fell in love with it, I nerd it out, I got a little type 85 um license, which is you could run a wine shop out of your like an office in your house. And so I would buy 10 wines a month, I'd buy like a case uh, which is 12 bottles, and I would just email these guys. So I read books, I would read, you know, articles from San Francisco Wine Chronicle and all those kind of things. And I just email these producers and I said, Hey, I've got a little wine thing. Do you have a case of wine for me? Do you have two cases of wine? I just want to throw it into my newsletter. Um, and eventually it started mushrooming, right? So 12 bottles, or I would do five, five wines to ten wines a month, but really I could only at that point do about 12 people, and then it became 24 people. Um, then it became 36 people, right? And then all of a sudden I'm spending more time packaging right, wine, writing newsletters, um, and also working a day job.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

So it's hard to keep the billable hours up when you're doing that, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Exactly right. Exactly right. So burning the candle on both ends a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

And so from there at a certain point you must have had a jumping off point, right? How do how does that how did that look in your life where you went from a dependable paycheck to owning your own business, and at a certain point the dependable paycheck's gonna have to sunset?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Aaron Powell Yeah, it was right about the time when I got the space. And so what I did was I was a terrible in my mind it made sense, but it was not a great business um idea at the time. I said I'd work at the law firm in the daytime, and then when I got off, I would open the shop, but I wouldn't have any real hours, right? So I thought it would be really cool. You know, it's just a wine shop. If it's open, it's open. Um so I'd work every day at about like five or six. I'd go downtown to the East Village, and then I would open. Um and then every Saturday and Sunday I would be open regular hours. And some people were like, oh, this is great, right? And when people were there and they loved it, and then you know, maybe it'd be like two or three weeks later, they would say, Hey, I tried to come by on Thursday and you weren't open. I said, Oh yeah, it's just when I'm here, I'm here, and when I'm not, you know, they're kind of like, well, I like this place, but that that doesn't work. Um you're not gonna make it that way, right? And at some point I decided, you know what, the wine started piling up instead of going out the door, and I looked at it and I said, if we're gonna do it, let's actually do it, right? Um because I think having the other steady paycheck, which is good, um, also kind of took away the need to make it work. Right. The hunger, right? Right, exactly. Because I was I it was fine, right? I was like, oh, if I'm not open, who cares? Right? But the customers and the community were like, well, this guy's it's weird, right? We can't go here. Um and said, you know what? You could I, you know, my act my license is still active. I said to myself, I'll always keep my day job, which for me is paying my bar fee every year. Um, but let's give it a real, a real honest go.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So it's almost like the transition from fulfilling hobby to your a professional endeavor.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Aaron Ross Powell Right, exactly. Exactly. And and it became uh you know, work became the chore. Like I used to enjoy going to to the office, and then all of a sudden it was like I was going to the office to kill that time, knock that out so that I could go to my passion, and which is get down to the wine shop. And businesses are like babies, right? They need you've got to care for them, you've got to nurture them, or they don't grow.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

What's been the most unexpected challenge uh that you've had to date?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Uh you know, I would say learning the so the law, the law degree and the law training was great for getting things like the permitting done, um you know, understanding the legal ramifications of something, right? That that method of thinking I think is invaluable. But the the unexpected things are kind of all of the the ancillary admin stuff that you never think about, right? It's getting a business license, it's sales tax, it's doing your your federal taxes. Welcome to California. Right, exactly. So it's all these things, and there's no, you know, there's no real crash course. So then I sometimes I would just be doing stuff and hanging out, and then I'd get a letter from the city that says, hey, have you, you know, you've we've noticed you've been open for three years, and I don't know how they noticed, but I'm sure because I'm doing sales tax, they said, you know, you you owe three years of business licensing. And it's like, oh, okay, wow, that's you know, and those kind of things were that's kind of the hard part. Because the dream is the easy part, right? Having the idea is the easy part, but then so much of your effort and your time goes into executing the idea that you don't also realize that there's a lot of regulations, which are, you know, good or bad, um, sometimes necessary to to realize that dream and keep it functioning. So that I think was the most unexpected challenge. Do you have employees? Yes. So we have um we've got four at the wine shop and we've got two, three at the the cheese shop now. And that's its own. That's its own other little bag. Now I'm I'm spoiled because they're all great and wonderful, but it took, you know, hiring um people and trusting them with kind of your baby is really, really difficult. And you don't realize, you know, looking back, a lot of the issue was me, right? I didn't know how to manage people, but I, you know, you project outward and you're saying, well, these guys aren't great. Um and maybe it was a little bit of both, but now looking back, I I've I feel like I'm a much better manager, much better listener. Um someone used to say, like, w training someone and and and hiring someone is watching them do your job worse than you and being okay with it, right? And a lot of it is it's somewhat that, but it's a lot of you releasing control and trusting. It's like any relationship. You know, it works when it's trusting, and and I've been lucky enough to find really good people now.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, that's we're at 165 employees, I think. And I reflect on my journey over the years. It's I'm I just started 18 years here, and I think about just the the the HR challenge, and that's I think why why a lot of these you see a lot of these companies that are they specialize in providing back office HR services for small businesses. Because they know there's tons of people. Most business owners in America are like you, right? They're small, they have a dream, a passion, but no one wakes up and they're like, my passion is I want to do human resources in my small business. Uh and so that's that's a really tricky thing, and all the other regulations that come along with that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Or even knowing that you should be providing that, right? So when I started, there was no HR. It's just like, would you like a job? Sure, I like a job. Okay, well, you take it's got to you know, and then you realize you know that HR is important, right? It's so you've got to give people packets and information and and have avenues and you know ways to communicate and tools to communicate. But yeah, when you're right, when you start, that's not what you're thinking about. It's like, can you help? Yes, I can help. All right, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Right. So you said you have a wine club. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

What does that look like? Uh we do three wines. So when I fell in love with wine, I joined, I think like a lot of wine people, I joined too many wine clubs, right? I would I went to Napa, I joined like 10 wine clubs. Um and I realized, and no fault of the wine club, but when you join at a winery, you get their wines, right? And it could be quarterly or monthly. Um but if you stay in long enough, you realize you're just getting the next year of that wine, right? You're not expanding it. It's you're loyal to that brand and it's great. But I get into wine because I want to expand my library of things, right? It's less, it's more about you know, wine is a condiment, it's a it's a conduit to conversation, it's condiment to food, and so my library is bigger than I can choose the right thing. And so our wine club, I wanted to say, you know what, let's not do that. Let's never repeat a wine. We do three wines a month, and it's seasonal, right? It's whatever I'm drinking, you get no choices, there's no reds only, there's no whites only. Some months you get all white, some months you get all reds. Um, but it's really about exploring wine and playing around with wine and really teaching people that wine is not a cocktail, right? Wine is, you know, for Thanksgiving we will do like a Beaujolais, which is this kind of French and light red wine that's perfect with turkey, which a lot of people haven't had, right? But the idea is it's only weird until you try it. And it's okay not to like it as long as you know why you don't like it. And so we're always trying to get people to drink differently.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So do you ship the wines out? Or do the people come to your shop?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

So when we started, we we really wanted to be like I always joked that the shop is like a community trust, so I would not ship anyone's wine. I would say, hey, we have a pickup party, you can come taste the wine, but you guys have to come here and get it. One, because it would just mean I couldn't ship all the wine anymore. But also it became this kind of monthly thing where people in the neighborhood would be excited, they'd come down, or people lived in North County uh would come down, they would look forward to it. We do now ship it because a lot of our members now moved and they want to keep it, and so we do we do ship uh currently. But it kind of still that monthly party is kind of a big fun thing, kind of the one of our identities of the shop.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

How do you compete with the big players that are out there, right? Because I'm I'm not an expert in wine, but I'd imagine there are national wine club players, right? And there are probably chains of wine bars as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Aaron Powell Yeah, so we we our whole thing is we like being small. We could we like to say we're locally famous. And so our idea is we don't do um, you know, kind of the bigger wines, right? We we try to stay small artists and producers because if you're buying something, let's say like Kemus, for instance, which is a great wine, once a Ralph's has it or a Vaughn's has it, they can buy it at such a scale. Costco, right? Or Costco. Right. Um they can buy it at such a scale that it would be wrong for me to sell it to you, right? They're they can just sell it to you at a better price. And also you already know what you're getting there. Right. Right? And for me, a wine bar is about coming in and getting something unique or trying something different. Or if you're getting a cab, you're getting a cab that this guy produces 200 cases of it, right? And he might come in and pour one day. You know, the grocery stores, the bigger wine bars, they're they're selling to a different audience than what we're doing. I think we're we're trying to get people that are uh wine curious, um, but also really looking for less mass-produced kind of things, right? And we're less widely available.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

How do you source your wines? Do you travel to to do this?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Or yeah, so we do a bunch of a bunch of different ways. So we do, you know, we have distributors, right, which everyone uses, but we tend to use smaller distributors that to kind of focus on uh classic or really kind of boutique y guys. We do travel for it. Um we meet winemakers, we chat about them, and now it's nice with like social media, especially with, you know, the what I hate to say a nice thing about COVID, but one of the outgrowths of COVID is a lot of these small wineries, and even the bigger wineries that would never deign to go to these wine shops because they need to, started reaching out and started providing channels and direct channels. One, the margins are better for them, and they had to uh during COVID, um, but it it it increased kind of the access for everyone. And so now we are, you know, people the wine world got smaller, which is nice. There's always big players, right? But some of these wineries looked and said, Hey, yeah, we can ship this all to our distributor, we can take a 30% cut. Or what they found during COVID was their wine club members were saying, Hey, you guys are in trouble, no one's going out to restaurants, we'll market it to us, we'll buy it. Hey, no one's going to restaurants, but we can do over-the-counter, right? We barred the door during COVID, we had like a little shop window. And a lot of these big wineries that no longer had restaurant sales said, Hey, do you guys want to take this on? Do you would you like it? We'll make it available to you. And it was great, right? Because then restaurants would package food and we could sell you great wine. Um so that's kind of been the one of the nice outgrowths of that kind of time.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

How has uh inflation impacted you, if at all, in terms of customer base and perhaps your cost of operations?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, so everything's getting more expensive, right? Especially during COVID when we shipping was bad and backed up. But we were talking about us buying from distributors or wineries. We get notices every, you know, every quarter when they put a new portfolio out and they say, hey guys, just letting you know, all of our bottles have gone up, you know, one to two dollars a bottle, right? Which then gets passed on down the line. So um that's really been where where it's it's gone up. And it you know, so far, you know, on a dollar bottle of wine, that probably ends up being about if we pay a dollar for it, then you're gonna pay like a dollar thirty. Um it does register because sometimes you know people see wines and right we get familiar with wines, and so I've had customers say, well, this was twenty dollars last year, it's twenty-two dollars, you know, this year, you know, and just I think it's a conversation where you're honest with people, and most people understand. Right? It's you know, they cost we're not creating a margin, it costs us more, and so to maintain that same margin it's costing them more. And thankfully it hasn't been a real um impact. Although people I think are shopping less and are buying less, but it's just a function of everything being more expensive.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah, I was I took an Uber recently traveling, and the guy said he his business was way down just because fewer people were going out to restaurants. This was in San Francisco, so which is always expensive any and at any time. Um so you mentioned Napa. Do you do you ha also uh uh have carry any wines from Bay de Guadalupe in in Mexico and Baja?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

We do. So we actually do we did a trip there in uh May of last year. So we took some you know, we sold tickets for our customers, we did a little overnight there. Um I've always loved that area. Um I think the wines are kind of up and coming. Uh and and it's one it's a great way to you know, temecula is fun. Um I think the valle is a little more um maybe the wines aren't at the level of temecula yet, but they are pushing rapidly to do that. Where I think temecula sometimes is a resting of the lawyer. But it's great to be able to go an hour in either direction and get a completely different wine experience at different varietals.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

And the and the culinary uh uh experience in in Baja is pretty amazing. The food is world class.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Yeah. It's very it's a it's it that is really the why I tell most people to go. Right. Right? The wine is sometimes challenging, maybe it's a different palate than what people are used to. But the food and for the value that you're getting down there, it's really, really impressive.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, the natural beauty is pretty amazing. And I'm gonna get go way beyond my expertise here. So I'm treading on uh but w the times that I've gone to Vadalupe, um I see a lot of wines that are blends. Is that an intentional thing, do you think, or is that simply that it's just a matter of trying to combine uh from very small uh vineyards and package it together?

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Uh that's a that's a very um traditional thing. So Bordeaux, which is a like most people know Bordeaux, most of those wines are blends. They're blends. So it's a classic way of when you are in a challenging growing region. So it's a little bit of both of what you said.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

So it's not blend isn't necessarily bad.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Blend is not necessarily bad. It's actually sometimes great because it you, you know, whenever you add a bunch of different things in something, you get into complexity. But it also allows you for things like so in Bordeaux they do it because sometimes Merlot ripens better than cab or cab franc. And so we can use more Merlot this year. But if cab ripens really well and we want more structure, we can use more cab, right? So it gives you um leeway for the art, right? For to be creative and have fun. And sometimes you know, grapes when they are singular aren't as palatable sometimes, right? So so blending is is a traditional thing with wine. Um you'll see that in Paso Robles as well, uh with the Grenachera Mouvet blends. Um that which is from the Rhone Valley, so it's a very classic way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Are you seeing uh or hearing conversations about climate change and its impact on growing seasons and and just I guess the taste of of you know grapes and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah, so the um I was in France this past October, uh Napa before that, and what you're seeing is a lot of the so if you go to the vineyards, and I would I think they're doing this in Temecula as well, they're they have research plots. And so what they've done is they've taken grapes that aren't necessarily grown in Napa or France. So in Napa they're doing Tempernillo and they're doing Turiga Nacional, which are Spanish and Portuguese grapes, that withstand really, really high heats, and they're trying to see how they grow in Napa because they're trying to get everyone's trying to get ahead of the curve. And what you're seeing in places like Oregon, which is known for Pinot, which is a nice, soft, very thin skinned grape that can't handle a lot of heat, as it gets hotter, you're seeing them plant more cavernet, right? You're seeing them plant sturdier grapes. So there's a lot of right now research, things like that going into it, um to kind of get ahead of climate change. Right. I think sadly, and maybe it's just a fact of life, they've accepted that we can't slow it down, right? Right, and we can't stop it. But it's a you know billions of dollar industry. We gotta figure out a way to keep it going. And so they'd rather introduce people to it early, right? If they if you start having Timpernill now with your cab, 20 years from now you're gonna be less jarred than if all of a sudden it becomes uh Napa Timpernillo instead of Napa Cavernet. So wine's not going anywhere. Wine's not going anywhere. I don't I think uh the one of the few things I know about life. Humans will find a way to ferment something, right? Um Yeah, you can find that in the Bible, right? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Uh so you you're located in downtown San Diego, specifically the East Village. Yes. Um can you tell us a little bit about why you chose that area, or perhaps it chose you, and also your role with the East Village uh association, the business group.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, uh so I would say it it more a little bit chose me and I chose it, right? Because that's what I could afford at the time. Um so I I was looking at being on the harbor and doing all the fancy things, and then you get a price and the port tells you this and that. I said, Oh well, maybe I should go a little inland and go to uh to an area um maybe not as popular, not as close to the water. So I ended up in that little space uh with the great landlord that that really kind of gave me the leeway and the price point that I needed. Um but I I like to think that now the East Village has kind of adopted me and I I've adopted it as a second home. So, you know, every I think every neighborhood has its challenges. East Village is is great because when I went in there I didn't really know much about it. And then, you know, it's it's a great kind of artist community, or formerly an artist community. It's one of the bigger neighborhoods in in San Diego, if not the biggest. And it's got its own cool little vibe, right? I I know a lot of people now just go either gas lamp or they go to Petco Park, but East Village has really cool breweries and an art scene, uh, lots of shops in there, uh which has made it really, really fun. And it's a lot of regulars, um, it's a lot of locals down there, and also you get a good mix of tourists, right? We get Comic-Con and these kind of things. Um, and a lot of you know, people that are moving to San Diego for the first time wind up in East Village. It's kind of a nice little gateway.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

And we're we're just up the hill here from from East Village, and actually, apologies to the listeners for the drilling sound in the background. That's we're in the building that we're in, uh, is there's some construction going on. So it's probably appropriate to the conversation about an east about East Village as a location because East Village is really in transition, right? I having been in San Diego now for 30 years, I remember when there's no way you would have put a wine bar in East Village. There wasn't much of anything going on that was uh good. Yeah. Right? And so it's changed a lot. But despite the opportunities, there are there are a lot of challenges with downtown San Diego. And can you talk to us a little bit about some of those?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah, it's an interesting, like you said, it's interesting. There's a lot of new buildings going up, um, but we all we also have a huge homeless issue. Um and I, you know, East Village is kind of the the epicenter for San Diego's homeless issue. And I see it every day when I'm walking to work. You know, I'll see a new condo or or new apartment building going up, and I'll also see tents on the other side of the street. And it it's as a business owner, it's hard because I want people to be able to enjoy wine. Most people want to enjoy wine at night, um, and we want to make people feel safe and happy, but there's also, you know, we want to treat everyone with perspective, but also balancing the business aspect of that and figuring out how you know if there was a solution that was easy, obviously we would have done it. But it it's sometimes hard when you're a business owner, you know. I've got ladies that work for me and coming in and and having the they have to call the police sometimes or clean and safe to kind of help people move along or let us open the shop. And I think a lot of business owners feel like the city hasn't necessarily looked at their side of it. Yeah. Right? We I mean everyone in this has a has a stake. Um and I think that sometimes it we feel like we're a little lost in that stake.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

I know there's a I I don't know if it's a lawsuit or just some talk of a lawsuit by by a a collection of of business owners. Um maybe you know more about that than I do.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah, I think it it was uh the it's a law, it's a lawsuit now. Um and I think it was it's kind of in response to m most of my customers, I would say 80 percent of them, walk to my shop. And when there's tense on the side of the store on the sidewalk, what people are doing is they're then walking into the street, right? And it creates kind of this thing of people are driving, Padres games, walking on the street, um and balancing that with the safety issues. And and and what we don't want, uh, which is sometimes happens, is that people decide, well, it's not worth it, right? Right? It's not it's not worth it to go to this restaurant or to this wine bar uh be just because it's just gonna be too much of a hassle. Right, and trying to really balance that. And I think the lawsuit kind of grew out of businesses calling, right? We have clean and safe, and we would call, and clean and safe. They're overwhelmed, right? It's it's a bigger issue than that they're that's a city service? It's a city service, it's nonprofit. So you can call, clean, and save. Now it's an app, um, and they will like escort you to your car, or they will come and clean up things, or ask people to move along, which is a great service when it works. It's just I think the sheer number of calls that they are getting, then it becomes kind of a feudal thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

It's just it seems like it doesn't matter who the mayor is, like him, hate him. It seems to just be this progression with an upward trajectory, right, in terms of numbers. Although I did see that the latest homeless count uh was actually showed some decrease, especially because they changed, now they're supposedly gonna cite folks for public camping. Yeah, see if that'll happen.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

I think that starts on the 30th. I you know, I think and I don't know too much about it, but I feel like citing people that don't have homes is somewhat futile. Yeah. Right? I mean, where are you gonna send the bill? That's right. Would they pay the bill if they could get it anyway? Um I think there has to be a way to actually provide places for them to go, but also get them to go there. Right. And I think that's the crux of most of these issues is even if we build these spaces, how do we get people to go? Right, if they don't want to go. Right. And I think that's really the that's where it always stops, right? Because you have to treat people with dignity, they are people and and but we also have to solve this problem for health and safety and all these other things. And I think that is the sticking point. I wish I knew the solution, but I think that's always um that's always the thing why these things don't ever go as well as possible, right? Um and I will say the one nice thing I I've I I anecdotally experience, I don't see that many families out there, right? I don't see that many children out there. Um so I I would like to think that that means that they are getting services, and the people that want to get services um are getting them. I think it's sometimes uh a mental health issue that the people that should be getting some services aren't aware that they should or can't.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, I have an upcoming interview with um the mayor of Escondito, Dane White, who um, apart from being the youngest mayor in Escondito's history, uh was homeless himself for a for a period of a couple years. And he talks about the fact that there's some percentage of the population, uh homeless population who are just going to refuse shelter. Yes. There's some percentage. Uh but the overlay of mental health issues and substance abuse is really where the crux of the challenge is. And then the families, if you can find a place to house them, um that that's that uh that takes some of the edge off. But I think the high profile, we tend to think of homelessness as kind of a uh a uh homogeneous type of uh uh problem, and it's not, right? Everybody's story is so different.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Yeah, it's it's real really challenging. I was in in Waikiki Beach, and I never thought that I would like you know I'm just a New York kid who went who ended up in Hawaii uh for work, and the number of homeless people living there, camping on the beach. I see why if you're gonna choose a place that would be the place.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

But they have the same challenges.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, exactly. And it I think it's frustrating for people that go there, that pay a lot to go there. Or or I think Sandy Higgins, right? Um we pay a lot to live here, and then to see someone on the street um kind of occupying your same space is sometimes frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So you talked a lot about the wine side of things. Uh what about the cheese? So there's a gotta be a science and an art to that too, right? The selection and and the promotion and so I'd like to say I'm just laundering the things that I love.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Um cheese, meat, and wine. Yeah, so I I'm a I'm more of a grazer now on the stage of my eating life. Um, and so we do cheese boards at the shop, and and people would come in and they would say, Well, can you do an event? And it really, the wine bar wasn't really built for it. Um and we found like this cute little spot on Tinted Island, and you know, I said, you know what we should do is just get a cheese case, we'll do a cheese bar and make it more like a bistro, right? We do event trays to go. Uh but I it's one of those great pairings of the world, you know, it's cheese and meat and wine and and just people hanging out. And and I one of my favorite uh restaurants, Gucci Arbano, used to have this great communal table, which is no longer there if they remodeled, but that's what we did there, right? We put a long communal table, it seats 12 people, and it's great to see people come in and they're by themselves, and all of a sudden when you're across from someone and you're eating wine and cheese, that they strike up a conversation and then it becomes friends, and then it becomes, you know, this kind of even if it's just friends for the the hour that you're there eating cheese and meat. Uh that to me is what I got into all of this for to create spaces for people. And we don't put televisions in any of our spaces because I want, you know, we have phones, we have televisions, we have everything. Right. It's great sometimes to remember the art of conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Where you're not looking over someone's shoulder at the Padre's losing yet again.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Right, exactly, exactly. Well that's a sore subject. But yeah, but it it it's really fun to see, and I see it more in younger people than me too that come there for dates, which, you know, again, anecdotally, they don't have that same me and you grew up, we didn't have you know, our phones didn't even have color. Um and we had pagers and other things. You know, to see them actually have to talk and and it's interesting, it's a and they they like it, right? I I think there is this idea that we can exist in this phone and social media, and that's sometimes that's fun. But I don't think like you said, wine's not going anywhere. I don't think people interacting with one another is going anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

What advice or what counsel can you give someone who doesn't know much about wine uh is curious but maybe intimidated?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think that's that's the one real knock on wine that I think beer has and that cocktails have is this this idea of pretension, right? This this is you have to know things, you need to put a jacket on, you need to have shoes on. You need to speak with a British accent as well. Correct. Yeah, and I'm I'm hearing a t-shirt and flip-flops, I'll be at work later, right? Um And that's what we try to do, is kind of demystify wine. I say go in there and try things. Find a wine shop that you like, everyone's palette's different. I know people are into um wine ratings, and I kind of give the same advice. Find a try one of the wines that they rate. If you like the wine, maybe that that rater and you are good, right? And you should trust his rate. If you don't like the wine, you should find someone else. And that's the same thing with the wine shop. Go somewhere, walk in, and and be honest and communicative, right? I like this. What do you have that's like that, but I want to try something different, right? And we're we're a lot like school librarians. We just want someone to talk to us. That's every sanger in the world, right? We want to get you to the right place. And so if you come in and you say, I'm currently drinking really heavy calves from Napa, I want something like that, but I don't want to be Napa cab. We might steer you to someplace in Sicily, right? And all of a sudden you're there, and it might be fruity, but it's gonna have a touch of earth, right? And I always say just try wine. Because there's no right way to do it, there's no wrong way to do it. Um, and education is really the way to do it, right? Do tastings, take small little um pours, but just find a place that that cares about you finding the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah, because I think the point, the rating systems, right? Like, I know I'm not a big wine drinker, but you go to Bevmo or whatever, and you're like, oh, this has 87 points. And you're like, is this event worth more for me or the person who I want to share it with? Do I care about them more? Should I go to 92 points? Like, and then there's the dollar thing, and then you got people who go, I don't really care. I just get two buck chuck at at Trader Joe's, which is now whatever, four bucks, but whatever. Uh and so it's an interesting, it can be intimidating, I think, because with beer or cocktail, like anybody can go in and go, hey, what do you got in IPA?

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Like, just give me an IPA.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Well, and the beauty of kind of beer and liquor is inconsistency. You don't want your Bud Light to taste different than you had it from 10 years ago, right? And the beauty of wine is it's inconsistent from year to year. It's a moment in time, which I think that is the one thing that makes wine fantastic, and it's the one thing that makes wine infuriating. Because I had so many people come in and they was like, I love this producer. I got this wine last year. Why does it taste different? And I said, Well, how was your year last year? Was it exactly the same as your this year? That is infuriating about wine, but it's also what makes you fall in love with it because it's it's always changing, right? And I think it's really the only liquor or the only alcoholic beverage that does that, right? You want your tequila to taste the same way when you when you drink it years from now as it does now. Um and that makes it easier, right? If you've had Ballast Point Sculpin, you know that you can trust that that's going to taste like that in your whatever bar in the world you want to go to. Um and and wine is not like that. It requires a little bit of commitment and a little bit of learning.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

So I see in your in your uh bio that you've got uh champagne bar uh plans coming up. Yeah, so talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Again, laundering the things I love. So champagne bubbles is one of my favorite things. Um we were lucky enough to run into um one of the owners of the Pendry just doing the wine thing. It's one of the great things I love about uh being in the bar hospitality space. You can meet all walks of people. Um and he's he makes his own wine. He said, You know what we should do? We should have we should build a champagne bar together. And this was years ago pre-COVID, and I said, Yeah, yeah, whatever, right? Um and he came back and he said, No, look, I've got the space now in the building. Um let's build, let's let's do this. Let's build a champagne bar and and and try to make something that San Diego I think needs. So San Diego's had a couple champagne bars before. Um and again, going along that same path, my whole thing is I love to educate people and make things accessible. And so it'll be some champagne, but it'll also be Spanish cava and prosecco and American sparkling so that people can taste different things at different price points. And of course, we'll have some still wines there. And it's also the thing of yes, it's a champagne bar, no, you don't have to wear a tie, right? You don't even have to wear shoes if you don't want to. It's it's more about um like when you go places overseas, especially France or Italy, they treat wine like we treat beer.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Right? And it's and so you see a lot more people drinking and enjoying it. It doesn't mean the qual the quality is actually a lot higher than our wine. Um and that's what I'm trying to emulate, right? This idea that it it doesn't have to be a production, it's sometimes just fun. Right? It's less about the wine, it's more about the people. Because that's like you said in your in your grocery store Bevmo example, it's everything we do is about mood, food, and hospitality and who you're with. All right, and if you're with a friend that's always drinking out of solo cups, you're not gonna open champagne for them. And that's fine, right? Because there's other options. Um it doesn't mean you're not friends, but you know, and if you're going on uh out on a date and it or it's an anniversary, you're obviously going to pay a little more attention to whatever you're doing, eating or drinking.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

What's your favorite wine right now? What are you thinking about drinking when you have a moment to relax this evening?

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Uh wow, that's a great question because they're kind of all my babies. But it's been so hot. Um I'm drinking a lot of Sanserre, which is a French um Savignon Blanc, and a lot of rose. I always like to say that there's this whole thing that real men drink pink. And I rose is like the Swiss Army knife or the little black dress of wines. It goes with everything or it goes by itself, right? And I try to encourage it's always a great price point. Um, you know, I would say you could drink the best rose wine in the world at$75 if you wanted to, but I would say most roses are in the$20 range, are fantastic. As long as they're dry, they're really wonderful. And you know, it's gonna be$84 at the beach tomorrow, right? So drinking a lot of rose.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Is it ever too early to have a glass of wine in the day? Uh so when I think by itself, not mixed, not diluted with something.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

You know, I'd say no. I'm a big fan of day drinking because I as I get older I want to end earlier. Yeah. So I would say the answer to the question is no, because it allows me to end earlier. Yeah. Uh but no, so when I took the Psalm exam or the second level of the psalm exam, they tell you to not brush your teeth, but to have a glass of really dry high acidic wine or squish your mouth with it to kind of to prep yourself. Um and in the same way, a lot of us do mimosas for brunch, right? Or we do like a Michelada or something. Wine is actually a little lower alcohol than those things, translates a little better and it cuts through the richness. So I say there's there's look, if it's an eye opener, yes, we have an issue. Um but if if you're having like eggs and pancakes and things like that and you want a glass of bubbles, I think that's a again, I think wine is one of the better accompaniments to food. Um so I would say no, not a problem.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

What's the process that someone goes through to become certified for?

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, so there's there's uh four four levels to become a master psalm. So I think most people have seen, or I shouldn't say most people, but a lot of people have seen the psalm movies. Um so level one is a two-day test. Um so you're in a room eight hours a day, they kind of take you through how to take the test, you get briefed on kind of the wines of the world, um, and then you take a test at the end, you pass the test, you are now an introductory. You're not a psalm yet, but you're now allowed to take level two. And so level two is a much bigger jump. You've got to be in wine for about a year and a half to two years. If you're working in the industry, and so this is when you get the blind taste, right? So you get four wines, but you've got a blind taste and get correct. Um, you have service, which is opening a bottle of champagne. Um, they create kind of a mock restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

And so they they, you know, the maider D comes out, he says, these are our specials of the night, these are our wines of the night. You have six, uh, you have a six-top, this is an anniversary party, go. And they open the doors and you go in, and so they ask you questions, you do these things all while you are talking about cocktails and wine and these kind of things. And then at the end of that, you have a um theory exam. So it's a whole long, it's about an eight-hour day. Um, and I would say the pass rate on that is about 20 to 25%. So it's a very difficult exam. Um kind of like the bar. Kind of like the bar, yeah, exactly. Kind of like the bar. Except they don't make you do a mock trial for the bar. So a little bit more fun.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Um, and then, you know, so level three is what I'm I'm sitting for now or gonna be taking testing into. You instead of getting 30 minutes to blind four wines, you get down to I think it's about 20 minutes, and you get no paper. Um, you know, and they keep increasing everything. So at the end, there's only about 250 to 300 master psalms in the world. So that's level four. That's level four. So level three, um, I think there's maybe a thousand in the country. Um, so you know, as as everything, as you go along, it gets progressively harder. Um, but it's really about and I would say blind tasting is like a great parlor trick, but it's a great way to investigate that example. I said you walk into a wine shop, what do I want? If you're a great blind taster and you know the markers of wine, I can get you to where you need to go, right? And get you that bottle in your hand, and that's really what it's about.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

So there is some inherent ability that's part of this?

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah, I think there's some inherent ability, but there's also um like everything, the more that you do something, you you see the patterns, right? And so you can see the pattern of what a Nabak cab generally looks, smells, tastes like. You can see a pattern of what a Chardonnay looks. And so when you do it blind, you're looking for those markers, right? It's and it's more of a game of what is it not, right? So if I know Chardonnay spends some time in oak, generally it's gonna have vanilla and a little butter to it. I know that Sablanc almost never does that. So it's not Sablanc, right? All right, and I can say it's not Riesling. So now I'm down to like two wines. I'm with Chin and Blanc and I'm with Chardonnay, and I'm comparing and saying, well, Chin and Blanc is usually woolly and has honey. This doesn't have honeys, right? So it's not Chin and Blanc. Um, and that's kind of how you get to tasting.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

And then you spit it out.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Yes, yeah, fortunately, I know everybody's gonna be. Another wine.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Everyone's like, do do I get to time one on? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

You know, you you know, especially when so I would say summertime we're not really buying that much, but when we're in real buy mode, we probably taste 50 to 60 wines a week, right? So you you have to spit. And the other issue is not only getting drunk, but it also burns out your palate, right? So if you spit it, it kind of keeps you fresh for longer.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Yeah, because after several I'm sure everything gets dull, but everything starts tasting good.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Yes, everything tastes good, everything looks good. And you're buying and you're buying too much wine. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

That's yeah, it's interesting. So the whole, you know, you always for people who don't know anything about wine, they kind of joke about the oh, that this is grown on the south slope and it's just tastes it has a hint of such and such, but that's real. Yeah. For people who know that's real.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Yeah, because those have different markers. So generally south-facing slopes um get more sunlight, right? And so you get a riper berry. So when things ripen, the alcohol generally goes up. So as things ripen, the sugar goes up. When you ferment things, one sugar becomes two alcohols. So the more ripe the grape, the more alcoholic on the back end, which alcohol feels different than water, right? And so there are things that you can kind of figure out and guess, right? So if you're drinking two wines that you know are the same grape, but one is much more apparent in alcohol and much more lush, you can guess that it's received at least it's a warmer climate.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Is there anything that we have not touched on in our conversation today that you'd like to uh leave our listeners with about you know your journey, uh maybe some advice for folks who start out in one career and then are tempted by a passion?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah, I would say my dad always says this like sudden, you've got three or four times in your life to reinvent yourself, but do it smartly. And so, you know, I chased my passion, but I didn't just completely leave law, right? I I kept my job until I couldn't keep the job. Um, you know, I did the med school thing until I just could right. I I did pre-med, but at that that touchstone moment, it was like, well, uh, do I really want to do this? Will I be a good doctor? Will I enjoy being a doctor? Or do I really want to do something that's more in the legal field? And I think listening to like paying attention to really how you feel, despite, you know, everyone tell everyone has an opinion on everything that you do. But also taking the tools from the other things that you do, right? So being a lawyer helped me build a business, helped me the ability to read and process and delineate things helps me to be a better wine person, right? And being a better wine person made me be a better manager, right? Because paying attention is half the job um and listening to people. Right? It's a it's humbling to start a small business because especially when it's just you, but once you take on other people's uh lives and livelihoods, it's a real responsibility and you really have to kind of grow.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

I'd imagine that the advent of social media has helped somewhat, right? With it's probably a good time in history to start a venture like yours that's kind of a hybrid, right? Of uh a number of bricks and mortar, brick and mortar locales as well as uh uh wine club and shipping and all those pieces.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Yeah, I mean social media is it's great free advertising, right? We don't have to buy commercials, we don't have to buy ads and newspapers. People will follow you on social media. Sometimes creating content is hard, but also I think, you know, we're irreverent. So boutique underscore Vino is our is our what you know, we do things that we are doing, right? So we saber champagne and we put it on our Instagram where we use a sword. Um you know, we we and we let people do it on their birthday, right? So we get Kevlar gloves for them, they get to use the sword. Um it's become kind of like our little calling cards. They chop it? Yep, they chop it off and uh then we drink we always say we drink what we kill. Um so there's no waste there. But yeah, so it's uh it's and it's a fun way to show people uh wine and and that it can be fun. You can see our shop, which is kind of like woodsy and fun. It's and we're what we're tasting before we buy it. We like to take our reps hate it, but we love to take pictures of them and put them on and say, hey, Brian is in here from here and he's we're tasting this today. Um and I think it really it lifts the veil, right? It makes you a part of the community and then lets people see, hey, you're you're you guys are just guys, you're just people like us. Um and and that makes it kind of takes away the the pretension of the wine, right? Like, yeah, we have some, we have certifications and all those kind of things, but we're also just enjoy wine. Right? We just enjoy buying you guys the right things.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

I'd like to close with a question that I pose to uh most of the guests, which is imagine that you get the opportunity to create a billboard for the five freeway and uh people are driving by at 65, 70 miles an hour. What message do you put on there about your vision for the work you do, the passion you have, and conveying that to the world, something that people folks will remember as they whiz by.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Gimmicks over substance. I mean, sorry, substance over gimmicks, right? I think San Diego is a pr it's a gorgeous city, uh, especially with hospitality, but I think a lot of a lot of people um or a lot of our venues now are a lot of they're pretty, they are cool, this thing moves, smokes come out of here, and I think we lose the craft. We're losing kind of the artist and things of well, was the food any good? And then people say, Oh, but it was pretty, right? Or were that was the wine list any good? Yeah, but it was gorgeo right, the nice view. Right, exactly. And I I always try to instill that into my staff. Um and when we go out in the city, we try to support guys that are are really trying to do substance over. It doesn't mean it can't be pretty, but I think that's a thing to apply for life, right? It if the substance is good, everything else will kind of come with it. Right? We may not be the prettiest shop, but I like to think that we've got one of the better wine lists.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Yeah, and that's a actually a somewhat of an East Coast ethos. I I remember myself being from the East Coast, it took me a long time in San Diego to kind of accept that there was some beautiful veneer, and there's value in that, but but to get to that substance, you don't always find it.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Yeah, and I I would say San Diego in a lot of ways, it's an old city, but it's a new city in a lot of ways, right? We don't have, especially on the East Coast, you can go to a deli. It may not look like much, but that deli might have been there for a hundred years. Generations. Right. Um and San Diego doesn't always have that, right? And so we're getting there, but I think we are on the front end of that.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Well, thank you very much, Justice, for your time this afternoon. I know you got to get to work and uh and and start tasting and and uh and good luck with the uh level three of your certification, and it was great chatting with you this afternoon. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the superintendent's hangout. You can follow me on Twitter at DVS1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to Brad Bacaal for editing and production assistance, and to Tina Royster for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.