Leah Randazzo is raising a glass to blending business ownership with personal passion.
Randazzo, with husband Nick Pardo, took over ownership of Cellar Door Wines & Spirits at 575 Main St. in Hobart about two years ago. But, Randazzo said, her love of wine spans decades.
“I always wanted to do something in wine, even before we left the city,” she said, noting that she and Pardo moved to South Kortright from Brooklyn. “I was trying to put together some way that I could turn a passion for wine into a more established hobby. The thing I really liked about it, and what I’m doing today, is connecting people and introducing them to wine. It’s an ongoing lifelong journey, and I think a lot of people feel intimidated asking questions but, because it is a lifelong thing, no one is ever going to know everything. I don’t have a professional background in wine. I worked hospitality for a couple years outside of college but, beyond that, it’s something I’ve been interested in for almost 20 years.”
Randazzo said, after a 2019 opportunity that fell through, a chance for store ownership returned in 2022.
“It was New Year’s 2022 and we were ringing in 2023,” she said. “My husband ran to Cellar Door before we owned it. He goes there, picks up a case of bubbles and runs in, still holding the box of wine, and said, ‘Did you know Cellar Door was for sale?’ and I said, instantly, ‘Well, we’re going to buy it.’ So, it just felt like the right thing and a time when you get an opportunity that you once had but didn’t work out. We had a couple of calls with the previous owners and … just had our two-year anniversary (in late May).”
Cellar Door, Randazzo said, offers a diverse but accessible selection.
“We have wine and spirits, and our ethos — and one of the most important things about the products we bring in — is a focus on viniculture practices, in the vineyard and the production process,” she said. “Everything is organic, biodynamic or sustainably made, with the exception of some champagnes, but everything has been made with sustainability in mind.
“We bring in wines and spirits that fall under those characteristics and, beyond that, we have some really small producers that we like to focus on — people who have been making wine for a very long time, or are converting vineyards from traditional practices to organic practices, to give smaller producers a little bit more of the spotlight. That works for us, because it’s important to stand behind every single bottle that we have in the store. I wanted to be able to say, every single bottle of wine in here was made thoughtfully, both with the consumer and the earth and soil and nature in mind.”
That approach, Randazzo said, is yielding a diverse clientele.
“We’re having a really good time servicing a really wide array of people,” she said. “We’ve got folks who come in and are totally nerdy, and I will talk to anybody about wine for a very long time. So, we have a couple of customers who used to work in wine professionally, from an education or production component, and the other end of the spectrum is people who maybe don’t want to go to Oneonta or drive further for wine, looking for a sauvignon blanc. I say, if you’ve got 17 bucks for Kim Crawford, I’ve got something in here even better for you.
“It’s mostly people who come in and, if they’re willing to give us a chance … we usually talk to them and find something that they like,” Randazzo continued. “We’ve got a really good customer return rate. We’re developing that customer profile and learning those things by talking to them and suggesting things. People spend their hard-earned money on something that they’re not sure they’re going to like, so that trust is so important and, because we are so small, (shop manager) Shaye (Troha) and I are able to taste 90% of what’s on that shelf, so we have personal, intimate experiences with most of our products.”
In that way, Randazzo said, the community has embraced the shop.
“It’s been really positive,” she said. “The guys we bought the shop from — Josh and Christopher — they are both New York City restaurateurs, and I wanted to keep some of the things they’d brought in and some of the profiles of wine — higher end, a little more elegant, but also a lot of natural wine. I broadened our selection a bit, in both price point and flavor profile.
“We’ve got a lot of fun, fresh, low-intervention wines that were not previously on the shelf, so we just expanded out from all kinds of lateral directions and customers have responded very positively,” Randazzo continued. “We get compliments frequently from people who shop here. I’m really proud we’re able to have so many options for so many diverse palette types for under 40 bucks, and we have 50 individual bottles of wine for under 20 bucks.”
Randazzo said the summer season will bring continued connections.
“We are just releasing our tasting calendar right now,” she said. “We try to have tastings here during the summer, with either a winemaker or a representative of the importer we’re working with. These people know a lot about the wines they’re making or selling, and it’s a fun, educational moment where we can ask questions, customers can ask questions and can try before buying.”
Randazzo said she is also working out the details of a wine club.
For more information, visit cellardoorwinesny.com or follow @cellardoorwinesny on Instagram.