Episode 5
· 52:30
A driving force very much was being a true neighborhood shop. I wanted to feel that connection with our with our guests. And immediately, I'd go to the school playground, which is walk away from here where my kids and everybody else's kids in the neighborhood goes. And as soon as one parent found out that I'd leased this space, the entire playground had found out. And it was just this, like, swell of support just kept growing and growing exponentially for what we were doing.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And so we knew that connection was really gonna resonate and make this shop be the community hub that it's become.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Hey, everyone. Welcome to Tasting Notes Toronto by Insider Wine. I'm your host, Alex Abbott Boyd. In this episode, I sit down with Ben Pliski Summers, cofounder of Bossa Nova Wine and Beer in Roncesvale in Toronto. During the height of the pandemic, when restaurants around the world were being closed down, the government of Ontario tried something new.
Alex Abbott Boyd:For the first time, they allowed bars and restaurants to offer alcohol to go. Seeing an opportunity and that one that was almost certainly not what the government had intended Ben and his partner Dan opened the first business in Ontario that was created specifically to be a wine and beer retail shop. And Ben and Dan's goal was not just to have a place where people could buy beer or wine. It was to be a real part of the community, a hub for the people of their neighborhood. In this conversation, we get into how they created Boston Nova wine and beer, how they go about achieving their goal of being not just a retail shop but a part of the community, as well as some of the fascinating nuts and bolts of the economics of running a wine and beer shop in Ontario, here's my conversation with Ben Pliski Summers.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Ben, thank you so much for being here.
Ben Plisky-Somers:No. Thank you for having me.
Alex Abbott Boyd:To kick things off, could you share just a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you came to be doing it?
Ben Plisky-Somers:My name is Ben Pliskey Summers. I am the co owner of Bossa Nova Wine and Beer, a both retail store and wine bar on Rodsfield Avenue in Toronto. Long wine journey from starting off in in bars in The UK. And then when I moved to Canada, took a bit of a detour working for the government of Ontario for about twenty years. But kept my interest in wine current and ongoing throughout, and it was about five, six years ago that I meaningfully reentered the wine industry by opening up the wine shop.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. What what part of the Canadian government were you working for?
Ben Plisky-Somers:So the government of Ontario predominantly social services. Yeah. About twenty years.
Alex Abbott Boyd:When you were working in hospitality back in the day, where was that?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Predominantly your classic English pubs. There was one in particular that really grounded me in hospitality industry. It's no longer a functioning pub, unfortunately, like so many establishments in The UK. But then I worked for quite a long time at what was at that point in time, I'm not sure if it still is, The UK's busiest and most profitable drinking establishment, which was the Warwick University Student Union. Wow.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It had about nine or 10 different pubs and bars and clubs in one location, and it was a riot every single day. Wow. I'm guessing intense.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Not a lot of fine wine happening? No. Not fine wine.
Ben Plisky-Somers:A lot of vodka red falls, which was the big thing at that time in the mid nineties. But, yeah, an opportunity to work in restaurants in the local area around the Inverse Sea, which was my introduction to fine wine and at that point.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was the spark that that got you into wine? Was it something that happened at Warwick University or something after?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Wine in a very pedestrian way was always a part of my life. My parents used to host really cool gatherings for all of their friends. There was drink everywhere. Just a lot of fun all the time. Wasn't great wine, but I was able to try a lot of different things.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And then just growing up in England, we're definitely exposed to a lot of different alcohol beverages. So it was very much a part of my awareness. And it wasn't until in Canada, a super good friend of mine became a sommelier, started to raise the game in terms of what kinds of wines I was regularly drinking, and then started going back to, like, one school and gaining formal education and doing a lot of my own events on the side from my real job.
Alex Abbott Boyd:When people are getting into wine, it can feel just so intimidating. There's so much to know. How did you begin learning about wine? Did you go straight into classes or even before classes where you're trying to educate yourself a little bit? And what was it like navigating that that world?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Self education and lots of reading, lots of tasting, lots of watching the Food Network. There was a fabulous program in the early two thousands with a sommelier from the Napa Valley region, Andrea Robinson. Just watching her such an education, such enthusiasm that she conveyed and instilled in me. My friend, Sarah D'Amato, still one of Ontario's top wine thinkers. Just the lack of pretension and snobbery that she has about wine really resonated with me and my style and thinking about what wine is and should be.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Gave me the confidence, the scope, and the curiosity to continue learning and growing.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you went down the WCET Road?
Ben Plisky-Somers:WCET Road? Quite honestly, somewhat naively at the that point in time, thinking that WCET was a more theoretical academic approach to learning about wine Mhmm. Versus the court of master sommelier route, which I perceived to be more service oriented. No. That's theoretical and academic, but No.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Certainly with a service component that working for the government of Ontario, I didn't think I was ever gonna need again, which is the largest nail
Alex Abbott Boyd:that I own a
Ben Plisky-Somers:wine bar. Little did I know.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And how did you find the program
Ben Plisky-Somers:with WCET? I think WCET is an absolute fundamental essential building block within a suite of ways to learn and think about wine. It gives you the to so many critical concepts, how grapes are grown, where they're grown, why they grow, how wines are made, why certain winemaking decisions are made through to all sorts of wine regions of the world that you just might not know about, think about. It's beautiful. It's a great program.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Highly recommend it to everyone. But it's when you're truly curious, no one program is ever enough. I do encourage myself and others to find other ways to learn as well, be it through conversations, listening to wine podcasts like yours, reading books, taking other programs from other providers. There's so many free and expensive ways to learn about wine that there's something for everyone.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think even just someone who they never think they're gonna work in wine, they just enjoy wine, you think WCET one would be something worthwhile?
Ben Plisky-Somers:I think WCET one, I am gonna start teaching it for one of the main schools in Toronto. So definitely, it's a beautiful program to give you the essentials. And for most people, I think that that that is more than enough. Okay. You know?
Ben Plisky-Somers:You wanna have a bit more confidence when you walk into a wine shop or a restaurant to get the kind of wine that you like. No. Level one is the if you're already somewhat knowledgeable or ultra curious, then the higher levels, level two, three, and eventually beyond are gonna really fit that level of curiosity a bit better.
Alex Abbott Boyd:By now, what which school will you be teaching at?
Ben Plisky-Somers:So I'll be teaching level one for fine vintage, and I'll be teaching level four, the flagship of the w set program at George Brown. I'll be teaching the fortified wine courses
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Ben Plisky-Somers:For George Brown, which is super exciting. Sherry, in particular, is is my passion.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. Oh, very cool. What how did how did you get hooked on Sherry? It's such an underappreciated beverage here.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. Super underappreciated in so many parts of the world, but there are It's one of the most complicated and unapproachable categories of wine No. I think in world, which a for someone that's curious and academically leaning in the wine world is quite a challenge. So it really excites that kind of passion. And the the diversity of styles available.
Ben Plisky-Somers:There is a sherry set every course of a meal, for every type of food, for every type of mood. It's such a wonderfully broad categories that taste strange and amazing. Most of it's dry. So for a lot of people out there, don't have the we can see notions of what grandmothers were drinking fifty eight years ago. There is the it's just a beautiful category that's reinventing itself currently and deserves a lot more attention than it has.
Ben Plisky-Somers:There's a producer called Willie Perez. His bodega is called Luis Perez, his father's name. Multi multigenerational families. Their wines, one in particular, Saint Quelladeno, is just a chalky, precise, umami driven slice of dough I recommend. His best friend, Ramiro Ibanez.
Ben Plisky-Somers:He has a bodega now called Ramiro Ibanez. Used to be called Cota forty five. Stunning wines. They are making cherries from single parcels of wine that truly represent their terroir, their soil, their unique growing conditions. And so to be able to drink artisanal cherries that are so distinct from one another, it's almost a Burgundy approach to Sherry.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It was very widespread, the norm, a hundred and fifty plus years ago, but has had been lost for quite some time in the move to industrialize and make more profit, but Romero and Willy, their wines are superlative.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So to come back to to what we were talking about before, you're working for the Ontario government. You're doing WSET classes at night and on the weekends. How did Bossa Nova Wine Bar come to be? And what gave you the confidence to take that jump out of a safe government job into the crazy world of wine?
Ben Plisky-Somers:I loved the first fifteen years or so of my government career. Did super amazing and and very impactful things for Ontario. Got a lot of enjoyment out of it. But as my wine interest was growing, my passion, enthusiasm for the government role was waning. No.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And so I really honestly thought I was gonna open up an import agency kind of on the side and just moonlight in the wine industry a little bit more than I had been the previous fifteen years. And then the pandemic happened, and the potential for opening up an independent bottle shop became more and more apparent to me. And that had been a passion since I came to Ontario in 9697. Coming from London, where there's bottle shops, independent wine retailers is the norm, to the monopoly, the prohibition era system of Ontario was a real shock. My business partner had moved from Alberta, and he'd witnessed the Canadian transformation from a monopoly to a private sector beverage alcohol space.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Ashit, how did you and Dan connect?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Dan and I actually connected in the government of Ontario. We worked together in 2002 and stayed friends. He left after about three, four years, and he became, after a couple of other career moves, he became a beer sommelier and a beer writer, very respected expert in in that field. So I approached him during the pandemic, him having the experience of Alberta and being a good friend. I said, listen.
Ben Plisky-Somers:This is what I'm seeing happening in Ontario right now. Any advice? What do you think? And by the way, would you like to go into business with me? And we're, like, not Toronto's first wine and beer specialist retail shop.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And did he have experience in retail working at Walmart or just yeah. He just saw what happened.
Ben Plisky-Somers:He saw what happened. Retail, like we all probably did as kids, but but not quite the level that I had. My family had deep roots in retail in The UK. So, yeah, we decided to go on this crazy journey together. My government understanding of kind of regulation and was so important in being able to literally be Ontario's first independent bottle shop.
Ben Plisky-Somers:There were other trailblazers called Goodfrey as the freight, which is they they a defunct bottle shop near then called Great Crush were probably the first that they converted an existing license into a retail license, whereas we converted a dress shop, a liquor license. Like, it was a retail focused in
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Through the province and the inspectors and everybody that needed to approve this thing No. Threw them for a loop. Yeah. They didn't quite know what to do with this.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think it is still very much a loophole that at least initially allowed you to be no.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Still a loophole? No. I think the as the province looks at an expanded beverage retail sector, it's done it a little bit piecemeal. Convenience stores have one set of rules about how they're allowed to operate. The grocery grocery stores have a different set of rules about how they can operate.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I think that we have a few more barriers than others to provide retail services. For example, we still need to sell food with every purchase to go Yeah. Which no other retail player in Ontario has to do. Okay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That makes sense. And so you and Dan, the it's the middle of the pandemic. You and Dan have connected on this idea. Were you set on opening up Bossa Nova here in Montesvale? Were you looking in other neighborhoods?
Alex Abbott Boyd:How did you know you'd found the right space?
Ben Plisky-Somers:I live around the corner from Bossa Nova. This is I saw the space to come available the day the lease sign went in the window. So it was always on my mind. Dan lives close, about two, three kilometers away. So we looked at his neighborhood as well.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I think for me, a driving force very much was being a true neighborhood shop. So it had to be either his or my neighborhood. I wanted to feel that connection with our with our guests. And so we were very lucky. We got this space quite quickly.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And immediately, I'd go to the school playground, which is a block away from here where my kids and everybody else's kids in the neighborhood goes. And as soon as one parent found out that I had leased this space, the entire playground had found out. And it was just this, like, swell of support just kept growing and growing exponentially for what we were doing. And so we knew that connection was really gonna resonate and make this shop be the community hub that it's become. And you can see it.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Like, people that didn't know each other in the neighborhood that just saw each other at the dog park started talking with one another. Friendships were made, and it's very lovely. And so yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It's it's so lovely when you can feel so connected and a part of the neighborhood and a part of the ecosystem of the neighborhood.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. I think that Roncestershire, obviously, in particular, it's not unique in Toronto, but I do think it has a very special environment where the local community is so supportive of local shops, even more so when they're locally owned. And so we've got a hyper committed, hyper supportive, hyper enthusiastic, regular guest community. We know if we know nearly everybody by their first name. We talk about it's not just about the wine and the beer.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's about dinner and the weekend plans. No. It's just lovely. It's cool and special, and I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, that's wonderful. How did the name Bossa Nova come to be, and what does it mean?
Ben Plisky-Somers:We, Dan and I, beer and wine, it's the same but so different. We couldn't think of anything that really spoke to both our passions in a meaningful way that was connected to beer or wine. I can't remember now if this is just romance or real, but Bossa Nova, the album by the Pixies, I believe was on the stereo at the time. And we were reminiscing about going to a Pixies concert many years ago, and we just love that band. It's one of our shared favorites.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Bossa Nova's great album. And we're like, That'll do. There you go. Love it. I think we talked about it for about a minute, and that was it.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It was Bossa Nova.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I love that.
Ben Plisky-Somers:A lot of people obviously think it's for the Brazilian music. And we disappoint a lot of people to say it's 1990 in debrochaine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Very cool. And you mentioned your vision is to become a part of the community, a neighborhood wine bar. How do you go about curating the wines that you sell to achieve that goal?
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's a great question. I taste all the wines before I buy them and try to include my tea on all those tastings or open up a bottle thereafter so that we can authentically genuinely communicate our passion for the wine and why we love it. That's first and foremost. We have to love it in order to sell it. Secondly, it has to be, quite frankly, non LCD.
Ben Plisky-Somers:We wanna be a little bit different, a little bit special, a little more artisanal, like I was saying before. And thirdly, I think that it really needs a wine to convey a sense of responsibility to the environment, to their own local communities, the winemakers' local communities. It's gotta be sustainable, organic, biodynamic wine. They've gotta pay workers fairly, treat them fairly. Hard to know some of those things with wineries that you don't necessarily intimately know, but we do our research to really know the history, know the ethos of the people that are making the wines that we sell.
Ben Plisky-Somers:We love supporting small wineries represented by smaller import agencies like yourselves. Being a small independent shop on Roncesvalles, we really wanna create synergies and opportunities for similar business partners
Alex Abbott Boyd:No.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So that we can all grow and sustain each other so that we can all thrive in the face of big corporate Mass produced businesses.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It occurred to me, if you were launching a wine retail shop in almost any other part of the world, the first thing you could do is work in another one and kind of learn the ropes and then open your own shop. Whereas here, you were just making it up from scratch. How did you go about learning what the right mix between, say, familiar regions and varieties and obscure ones between everyday priced wines and special occasion priced wines? Was there a bit of a learning curve, and how do you think about that now?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. Superb question. I would say, I think two things to that. I alluded earlier to my family's kind of retail background in The UK. So I have a bit of an understanding, a bit of an appreciation for what makes a good retail experience.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And secondly, somewhat related to that is I know how I react emotionally, financially to my own in store experiences when I'm out shopping. So I've got a sense of what attracts me, what puts me off. And when it comes to wine, especially now being in the wine business, I don't have that much money myself, so I cannot, won't, expect people buying wine from me or beer from us to pay over the odds, to only have expensive wine choices at their disposal. I think you have to have more value oriented choices, both for people that's what they're comfortable with Yeah. That want to enjoy wine on a Monday night.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's not just a Saturday night thing. Wine is supposed to be a communal sharing, convivable component of a family or friend lifestyle. So I really choose wines and an in shop experience that I hope, I think, we have proven fits well with that kind of mentality, that kind of approach. I do think you to get great wine that's well made, where people are being paid properly, that it's quality driven. Yeah.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You are gonna pay a little bit more than you are in a supermarket in the general listings of the LCBO. I think people would be very surprised if they start breaking down the cost of the wine and what that money is actually going to. It's the LCBO. You think about, you know, the average price of a cork today is about 50¢ a piece. The average price of a bottle is about $1.15 a bottle.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You think about the freight charge. You think about all these components, taxation. It's 71 and a half percent. That's before it even hits a shelf. You've got another 13 HST minimum to go on top of that.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You look at the cost of a bottle of wine, and if you're paying a very low price, there's not a lot of room for the winemaker to put a lot of quality into the liquid inside the bottle because of all those other costs. So you have to pay a little bit more to get something that is really drinkable. Forget special, like, just drinkable. But that doesn't mean you have to pay, like, $50 for a bottle of wine. Sure.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You've got 50, 100, 115. You just keep getting more special, more memorable, more unique. But $25, I think, is a really great price, and you're gonna get an amazing bottle of wine from Bossa Nova for that amount of money.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's great. How what percent of the wines that you sell would you say are, say, 30 and under and then 50 and under?
Ben Plisky-Somers:I would say 30 and under, probably around 15% of our wines, roughly. 30 to $40, probably that's our most represented price range. Probably looking at around 25, 35% of our wines in that range. So, yeah, under $40, I would say, is about half of our collection. Oh, very.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Certainly 40% easily.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I won't ask you to share how you mark up the wines, but I guess I'm curious given that there was no other established business model and practices when you got started. Was that a learning curve too? Have you adapted that over time?
Ben Plisky-Somers:A huge learning curve, and I think that it's a tricky one and something that we're still trying to grapple with as all our other costs increase. Paper bags. I don't know. Rent, obviously, big conversation in Toronto right now. So I think we've remained consistent, not because we were priced too high to start with, but we believe in being fair and competitive, paying our own stuff, a really great wage.
Ben Plisky-Somers:We pay living wage.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How important do you think it is for the viability of the shop that you're selling beer as well as wine? And although the beer is in your area, could you should you share a little bit about what your beer program is like?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. The beer, it's such a wonderful opportunity to have the kind of range that I think a good beverage retailer should have. We I think I mentioned earlier, we are the only beer and wine focused shop in in, I think, Ontario. I'm pretty sure Ontario. Our collection is pretty much fifty fifty.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Our clientele, I would say roughly a third are exclusively buying beer. About a third are exclusively buying wine. Yeah. And about a third are buying bucks. There's everyone.
Ben Plisky-Somers:A third of people seemingly love to have a can of beer, like, at the start of the day and Yeah. A glass of wine later Yeah. With dinner. And we see it on the bar side, especially groups of friends being able to come and enjoying quality beer at the same table in the same place as quality wine. It's really it's so rare.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And so we really Dan is predominantly beer focused. I'm predominantly wine focused. We're friends. And we're and we're business partners. So to be able to marry those two things together is fantastic.
Ben Plisky-Somers:We didn't think we were going to be when we first opened, but we've become one of Ontario's best sided collections as well, which super we probably need to change the sign on the window. But we've got we really responded, I think, to what this community were looking for Yeah. While applying our expertise to give them the best quality within the things that they wanted. I think you asked earlier something about how we select what we buy. I said I tasted everything.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I really want to give people the best thing that I can find within each category. I think that the way that we buy our beer and our wine is far from lazy. We are so committed to researching and investigating and getting the best value for money. So if you are buying a $25 bottle of wine here, it's great. If you are buying a $150 bottle of wine here, it's great.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's worth more than worth the money.
Alex Abbott Boyd:In terms of the wines that you focus on to showcase in your shop, I'm sure a lot of that has to do with what you think your guests like, what you like yourself, and all the other factors that we've talked about. But one one of the things that just stands out to me that sets Bossa Nova apart is so many of the wine shops that kind of started during the pandemic and are still going are a bit more focused on natural wine. It was a is a conscious decision as a point of difference? Is it not what you think your neighborhood is looking for? Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I'd just be curious your thoughts there. Also, we can also just cover that when you're buying artisanal wines from small family producers, as you've talked about, it's hard to argue that they're not natural. I 100%.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I was just gonna say the exact same thing. If you're a committed and focused grape grower, you are not putting insecticides, pesticides, etcetera, in your land. If you are a permitted and focused winemaker, you are taking the time to make that product well. You're not using additives and tricks to speed things up, to make that wine taste the exact same way every single day, every single year you ever make it. You are celebrating the differences that each year brings, which is what makes, I'm sure, for them, growing grapes, making wine exciting, and for us to explore, discover, taste wines over and over again.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So by virtue of being careful and committed and artisanal, 98% of our collection is close to being natural. Super, super close. What personally I prefer as a wine drinker is a clean, stable, classic expression of a wine from a place. I don't like to be surprised by flaws and faults and badly made wine. I do not want people that spend money in my shop to be surprised by those same things and to have a bad experience and not come back.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I think that some natural wine has a greater risk of exhibiting those flaws and faults because either winemakers haven't yet quite mastered what they're doing because they're not adding protective gases like sulfites to the wine. It makes them hard to transport. They've gotta come a long way to Canada from Europe, Australia, wherever. And so a lot of faults can be created without the winemaker even knowing. So I think that natural wine is an exciting, critical category within the wine world.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I do enjoy it, but, typically, I will go for something that is near natural because put just enough. I'll use sulfites again as an example. Just enough sulfites, way less than conventional made wine, but just enough to keep it stable. And that's what I want. I want my guests to know they're getting the wine that the winemaker intended.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Arguably, some of the best, most expensive wine in the world is natural wine. We're young enough to sign. I have to make Romani Conti as a fire giant Annie. No intervention. Example of one of the most expensive wine to pull that would never declare themselves as being any of those things.
Ben Plisky-Somers:They just make wine the way they almost probably always have made wine. I think that the natural wine category is a bit sad. We shouldn't move away from it No. A little bit. Conventional winemakers can make bad wine.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Natural winemakers can make bad wine. Good winemakers just make good wine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That totally makes sense and is very well said. How do you talk about wine? When someone walks in off the street, and I know you wanna make them feel welcome and, like, that they're just part of the you're part of the neighborhood and you're just neighbors. How do you go about figuring out what wines to recommend?
Ben Plisky-Somers:What do you like to drink? What would you like to drink today? What was the last great fountain of wine? Or what was the last sporting wine you enjoyed? Very much a believer in.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You can't give someone a Cabernet Sauvignon. He's all that he want is Sauvignon Blanc. It could be the best wine. You know? The best wine pairing in the world.
Ben Plisky-Somers:But if that's not what they enjoy, there is no point giving them that. So hold your ego or preferences or whatever it is and just give people what they want. And you can only do that by being curious about people and asking them what they like, don't like. And often they're saying, I don't know how to explain it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's what I was gonna say. It's like when I was getting into wine, I was in New York. There's great independent wine retailers, but it was still intimidating or I just feel silly or I feel like I couldn't describe what
Ben Plisky-Somers:I wanted. And Right. And I think talking about what bottle of wine did you last have? Yeah. Okay.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It was Yellowtail. Alright. Did you enjoy that? What was it in that bottle that you enjoyed? Was it let's say it's yellowtail, I'd say, Shiraz.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Super fruity, nice, smooth, on the palate, like, some right through, just, like, easy to go down. Great. We got that kind of wine. A lot of people, I think, get so nervous if you ask them a very specific, very easy to answer question. What did you have for the last time?
Ben Plisky-Somers:People are away? Did you buy through all?
Alex Abbott Boyd:I love that question because, you know, what do you like that could almost feel like there's a right answer or a wrong answer. What was the last thing that you drank that you like is a little bit more inviting?
Ben Plisky-Somers:You quickly, I think, develop a suite of questions to Mhmm. Break the ice. Some of them don't immediately glance, so you quickly pivot and use another one. But I would say within three to four questions, we're recommending points to people that are they feel confident that they're that we're responding to what they're looking for, And we're feeling confident that they're gonna come back K. And say, you know, look.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. Not that wine. That is you. It's I say buy another bottle of wine, fantastic. But if we've given them the ability to be a bit more confident to go to a restaurant or another shop or whatever and continue their own journey, fantastic.
Ben Plisky-Somers:But wine geek walks, you know, beer geek, right, we could do that too.
Alex Abbott Boyd:We've touched on a lot of the factors that are important to you, whether it's making sure to treat everyone as your neighbor, to be inviting, to have wines for all price points, to have beer as well. If we're to highlight just maybe one or two things that you think really the keys to what what's made you successful and still going, what would those be?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Well priced, fun, relaxed, approachable, and and expert. People are spending a lot of money on a luxury product. I think we provide the right level of approachability, but expertise that gives people that confidence that they're spending their money wisely.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's great. How have the tariffs that are going on between The US and Canada impacted you? Has it been was American wine a meaningful percent of the wine that you were selling?
Ben Plisky-Somers:The US wines have never been a significant component of Bossa Nova's offerings. I think where it is impacting Bossa Nova, worryingly, is going to impact Ontario carte blanche is the pressures it's having on our currency Mhmm. That is making it more expensive to buy wine from Europe, Australia, etcetera. Canadian currency is not doing well.
Alex Abbott Boyd:The LCBO gave you an extra 5% off as a licensee, but that largely, at least, wines went to currency. Yeah. And so they stayed pretty much the same.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I think LCBO pricing strategy is patently unfair. It's very welcome that they've given us a discount. However, their price includes the price that it takes for them themselves to retail wine. Yeah. So when you buy a wine for a bossa nova or our good friends at Great Witches or anywhere else in any restaurant in Ontario, you are paying for the electricity to power LCBO lighting.
Ben Plisky-Somers:You are paying for LCBO retail staff. LCBO rent for bottles of wine that will never go on their retail shelves. So the Ontario consumer is paying for my lighting, LCBO lighting.
Alex Abbott Boyd:My lighting. Yeah.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Your lighting. The cautious staff coming up. So I think the LCBO has the more reflective of its role as a wholesale distributor and relinquish its pricing as if it is the sole retailer in province because the Ontario consumer is paying more and and more, and there's no reason for that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So right now we're sitting in the wine bar, beer bar next door to Bossa Nova. How did this second location come to be?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Dan and I, aging in years, that we would never open a bar unless a space where we're right next to the retail shop became available. And after about three years of operating the retail space, their location Royne store became available, and they said, we're gonna kick ourselves if we never if we don't explore that opportunity. So many people in the show who say, we agreed to hang out. No. Cute bit when they did it.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So we uncondale barboss and over. It's been a year, and it's this great place to meet over a couple of glasses of wine or beer. We've got bar snacks. It's cool. It's it's a very neighborhood driven space.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And I'm guessing if someone likes a wine or a beer that they have here, they can just go next door and buy one?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. They could go next door. They can they don't even have to get up from their table. We'll go next door for them. Or if we've
Alex Abbott Boyd:got it here,
Ben Plisky-Somers:we'll sell it at shop pricing from here. We've got 30 wines available by the Bluffs. Wow. They change really regularly, so it's a really great opportunity to buy and try wines that typically you wouldn't find available by the glass in those places.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How are you having so many bottles open? Are you using Coravin?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. I have a special system, actually, filled with Cannero at Salt Wine Bar in Josh Gray archive, used similar systems. We've all jerry rigged our Coravin wine preservation systems to a big gas canister so we can pump protective gas, argon gas into the bottoms of points on a set or two per squeeze as opposed to about a dollar per squeeze or more, it really creates an opportunity to broaden the bite the glass program and provide real choice with real quality. We've got Roa champagne. We've got Burr on Lo.
Ben Plisky-Somers:We've got Premier Cru Burrundy over By the Glass. And because we don't have a kitchen, a full kitchen, we have barnsets, like empanadas and cheese plates, charcuterie. But because we don't have a full kitchen staff, we're really able to provide those wines at very reasonable pricing, which is really exciting. It's a great place to just expand your horizons, geek out. If you're a wine geek or just try something different and unique and special at Barber Sonova.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's such a special opportunity for people to have Premier Cru Burgundy by the glass, I'm guessing not at about $80 a glass.
Ben Plisky-Somers:No way near. I think our current Premier Cru Burgundy is at 30 and less.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Wow. Yeah. Cool. So switching gears slightly outside of work, so outside of Lasa Nova or tastings with agents like me, how does wine factor into your everyday life?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Even though England is no longer a part of Europe, I always grew up with a very European lifestyle. Wine was always around and a part of our upbringing even if it wasn't always best wine. Maybe that's a more European tradition than most would think, but I enjoy a glass of wine with dinner and enjoy from more new regions, new grains, new to me producers, part of my ongoing ability to think about and talk about and educate people about this crazy ever changing world that we enjoy so much.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are some of those new discoveries of regions, trends, producers that you're really excited about right now? The UK. You just hosted a sparkling wine or UK wine event?
Ben Plisky-Somers:Sparkling and still UK wine education night. I think I've done two or three now at the shop in Bossa Nova. I think I left The UK thirty years ago, but wine then was an absolute joe, as most people probably continue to think it is. But with climate change, unfortunately, England is progressively, consistently enjoying the kind of weather that enables them to make exceptional wine. Many of its sparkling wines are competing against champagne.
Ben Plisky-Somers:They're feet winning and loin tastings against champagne. And many of the still wines, particularly from an area called the Crouch River Valley in Essex, they're making Burgundy and Le Flore, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. So much so that Domaine du Roche, one of the big Burgundy houses, has invested in Danbury Ridge, one of The UK's most exciting wine producers, to make a wine from their fruit. So champagne have bought vineyards. Burgundy producers are buying vineyards in The UK.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's a very exciting region that I think is like Ontario, much for lined, much to offer.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Does highlighting those wines is it a way for you to feel a little bit connected to where you came from? For me, that's a big part of why I like to champion Australia.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yes. It's it's so beyond what I knew. Be in England at that time, we had a grapevine growing in my garden my whole life and never ever thought that thing was something connected to a liquid in a bottle. So I'm quite disconnected, I would say, from a personal perspective to to what's going on now. So I'm gonna go back increasing it, and make out more and more veneance, and reduce that gap my experience?
Alex Abbott Boyd:I think it would be so meaningful. I left Australia when I was 11, so, obviously, I was not drinking a lot of wine, and the cool climate stuff there was still quite new. But it's just something about selling wine from just the regions that you go to on a school trip and are now suddenly fine wine regions. It is very special.
Ben Plisky-Somers:I mentioned the the crouch through the valley. It's parts of it are so well known for a soil type called London clay, which is this incredibly sticky, incredibly shifting soil type that is a nightmare to build on you, causes a lot of subsidence, a lot of building collapses. It's a nightmare to file on because you can't get tractors through it. It's a sticky, quick sand like sludge that as a kiddo, like, got stuck in so many times. I can't glide from head to toe.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So to think that he's one of the most celebrated terraze for a while. He's got all the Yeah. I'm hopefully gonna visit Danbury Ridge. Well known for being on this soil test. See, and being able to make that connection to this childhood memory and this adult enjoyment, I think it's gonna be quite thrilling.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It'll be so special.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So special. So exciting to talk about it, learning about wine and thinking about wine, being able to communicate the excitement that our discoveries around this subject has with Nimble, I think, is part of what makes Fosterville really special and other wine shops and had sommeliers in restaurants in the city. Right? That's what we should be doing No. As white professionals.
Ben Plisky-Somers:It's not, like, picking out, trying to talk about, like, leaves in barrels with people that just don't care. It's communicating your passion No. In a way that makes it super exciting to me.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, and you can tie it to something that you experienced in childhood that's gonna resonate with people, I think. Right. Desert Island wine. If you were to drink just one style
Ben Plisky-Somers:One style. Probably white. Cherry or Chenin Blanc. Yeah. I think I've got so many basins covered with styles.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. I can do that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. So what's keeping you excited for the future of Bossa Nova, and what do you think the future holds?
Ben Plisky-Somers:I genuinely am excited to see what the government does with the beverage alcohol retail space. In credit where credit's due, they have changed the space more in four years. The it has changed in a hundred and four. So we are in a bit of a brave new world that hasn't been carefully molded, so there's more work to do. Big sides to see where that that's coming.
Ben Plisky-Somers:And if done in a meaningful way, could really open up lots of opportunities for Boss Nova. If the LCBO were to become wholesale distributor at a reduced price, then we could better compete against them and provide better quality at better pricing than what Ontario consumers. Super excited about that. Yeah. Boston over the future in that area.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Also super excited to just continue increasing the range of vines that we're able to offer in continue to increase people's perspective about quality. Why he mentioned Australia earlier? So many people's perceptions of a place like that is warm, behold, cheraz. You and I know so many people probably listening now. There's so much more than that.
Ben Plisky-Somers:So No. To be able to represent places in a comprehensive way. Super exciting. I think Passover, Diocesan continued to do really cool a really cool job at that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Awesome. Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap
Ben Plisky-Somers:it up? Don't think so. This has been super fun and wonderful.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time.
Ben Plisky-Somers:Yeah. Thank you.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Thank you all so much for listening. Now if you enjoyed this episode, I have a quick favor to ask. Please hit that subscribe button. And to the many of you who already have, thank you so, so much. It really means a lot.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Producing this podcast has been just a ton of fun and really meaningful, but it's also been a lot of work. The way you can let me know that you're enjoying it and that I should keep it up is hitting that subscribe button. Plus, I've got exciting interviews lined up, and I would hate for anyone who's enjoying the podcast to miss one of them. Until next time. Cheers.
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