Buon Compleanno Eataly!

Eataly opened two years ago today.  The Flatiron location of the Italian mega store is the first in the states, though plans are quickly developing for Chicago and Los Angeles locations.  Dan Amatuzzi is the Wine Director at Eataly.  He oversees the wine program at each of Eataly's six restaurants and he works closely with Eataly's wine store.  Prior to Eataly, Dan was the Wine Director at Otto from May 2008 to July 2010.  I worked with Dan during these two great years and learned more about Italian wine than I ever imagined possible.  His passion, knowledge, and approach to wine lit a fire in me that continues to burn.  When Dan left to open Eataly, he offered me a job in the wine store.  I took it.  Always a fellow of few words, Dans advice was to show up on August 24th, a week before Eataly opened, and "Just ask for Niccolo."

New York State law prohibits wine, distilled spirits, and food to be sold in the same store.  That’s why the entrance to Eataly’s wine store is separate from the 50,000 square foot food mecca.  Eataly turns two today, but on August 24^th, 2010, just one week before it opened, the wine store didn’t have a single bottle on its shelves.

There were Post-it notes were everywhere.  The names of wines and their producers were scribbled on yellow pieces of paper and stuck to the empty shelves.  Matteo Remondino meticulously placed each Post-it.  Sometime before August 24^th, he flew in from Turin, home of the 2006 Winter Olympics and Oscar Farinetti’s first Eataly, where he works in the wine store.  His English wasn’t spectacular, but the six of us who opened the store spoke through a strong understanding of Italy’s geography and an obsession with the country’s wines, many of which were scheduled to start coming in on August 24^th.  Before they did, we took the time to learn the lay of the land. 

The store’s layout mimics the shape of a horseshoe; sparkling and white wines are on the left (starting with wines from Italy’s north and moving south), the entire back wall is devoted to Italy’s noble nebbiolo grape and the great Barolo’s that it produces, and on the right is a bounty of other red wines from Italy (also north to south).  Given enough time, anyone could eventually figure out what wines went where, but we didn’t have enough time.  We had a week, and over 600 different labels to stock.  As the cases came in, it helped to know Livio Felluga makes wine in Friuli, and that Friuli is in the north of Italy.  When Travaglini’s Gattinara came in, it was useful to know Gattinara is a DOCG in Piedmont, also in Italy’s north.

One bottle from every case that got put away had to be set aside to later be scanned and put into Eataly’s system.  Labels were printed with unique barcodes (“code bar” according to Matteo), and the bottles were then individually stickered so they could easily be rung up and accounted for when it came time for inventory.  The ensuing week was a blur.  By the end of it the store was ready for the droves of people that were lining up outside the doors in the early hours of opening day on August 31^st. 

Working in close confines surrounded by walls of wine, our days were inspired and generally far less chaotic than those on the other side of the wall.  The wine store will always be the eye surrounded by the storm of 25,000 people that pass through Eataly’s doors on a daily basis.  As the inventory continues to evolve and expand, Eataly’s wine store gets that much closer to being the city’s premiere shop for Italian wine.  August 24^th was a Tuesday.  The first cases of wine started coming in around a quarter to eleven and they have not let up since.