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LUXURY: SELFRIDGES – The perfect service

20 December 2007 By db staff writer

As evidence of its commitment to a high quality drinks offering, Selfridges employs a sommelier as head buyer for wine and spirits. Dawn Davies tells Patrick Schmitt about her role

All you need to know about Selfridges’ approach to wine and spirits is summed up in the title of its head buyer: “sommelier”. Essentially this isn’t a normal off-trade purchasing position, where ranges are restricted, personal advice is limited, and brands feature heavily. Rather it is one that requires the skill and vinous knowledge of someone who’s worked in the fine dining sector, and can apply those abilities to retail. One in which the buyer can effectively arrange an extensive restaurant wine list on shelf and then recommend those choices in person, either on the shop floor itself, or via e-mail.

The title also implies a demanding job, with long days, but Dawn Davies, who holds this position, says that the hours are more civilised than those of a genuine sommelier, which she was, until recently. Having worked at Mju, Boxwood Café, The Square and then The Ledbury, Davies was used to working 90 hours a week. So when Selfridges’ restaurant manager, Ewan Venters, who used to be one of her regulars, offered her the role of wine buyer, she didn’t need much persuading. “Now, when I leave at 8pm I feel I’m going home early,” she says.

Davies is in charge of “everything alcoholic in Selfridges’ four stores”, aside from concessions, and has actually been told to treat the task as though she was constructing a restaurant list. Hence, Davies has given more shelf space to “smaller growers and moved away from bigger companies”. She also has the help of “restaurant-trained sommeliers on the floor.”

Risk taking
“I was lucky to work for Nigel Platts-Martin, who taught me about balance in a wine list, and the importance of depth and breadth, and not to be afraid to take a risk on little wines,” she explains.

Dawn Davies: background

“I cheated my way into the industry,” says Davies modestly of her rapid rise up the wine trade. She began her on-trade experience in a bar in Edinburgh, where she was studying social anthropology. On finishing her degree she became bar manager. Later, while travelling around Australia with her then boyfriend, a chef, she had a life-changing meal at Tetsuya in Sydney, and decided to shift her career from bars to restaurants. On hearing that Tetsuya Wakuda was opening an outlet in London, Mju, she approached the restaurant and landed a job as a waiter. She was trained by the sommelier there, Nobuko Okamura, and when she moved to Zuma, Davies followed her. This was followed by sommelier positions at Gordon Ramsay’s Boxwood Café and Nigel Platts-Martin’s The Square and The Ledbury, before joining Selfridges.

The new wine and spirits section at Selfridges, part of the Wonder Room and incorporating the Wonder Bar, is, in fact, smaller than the old space, but has more shelf area for wine (Davies has added 100 new lines) and, notably, what is referred to as a “Champagne Wall”.

“We are heavily led by Champagne, it probably accounts for 50% of sales, but I am trying to shift the focus because I don’t want to rely too much on one category.”

“Gifting” is key to Selfridges’ business, and hence the success of the beautifully packaged Champagne exclusives that adorn the new London shop. In this sense, Selfridges does have a hint of the travel-retail sector about it, but with extremely high quality shelving and lighting. However, Davies does have a few obscure growers, and it’s not as though restaurants are afraid to stock Champagne’s most famous brands.

As with any retailer, there is no average customer, but Davies records a particularly broad spread of visitor type. “We have such a wide profile, from the top-end city banker to old school gent, and then young and trendy types, looking for the latest spirit. We also have a tourist base, who go for things they can’t find outside London, for example Scotch and gifting beers.”

For Davies, a “big love” is Australia, and she wants to champion the country’s vinous regional diversity because “it’s something people tend to neglect”. Italy, Burgundy and Austria are also passions, but the strong Australian connection stems from a trip Davies went on with the likes of Joelle Marti, Hamish Anderson and Ronan Sayburn in the early stages of her career as a sommelier. “It was such fun and showed the depth of Australian wine – there’s so much more than just Rawson’s Retreat.”

Expanding Selfridges’ fine wine range is another key emphasis for Davies, who explains that a lot of time is spent on simply sourcing in this area of the trade. “Luckily,” she recalls, “when I was at the Square I was given a lot of chances to try back vintages.” Currently she is working on expanding the number of fine wines from Italy and she has just added Soldera 1997, “one of the best wines I’ve ever tried”. Bordeaux first growths are “huge” she adds, “because if people want something special they have in their heads it has got to be Bordeaux.” Having said that, she also reports increased interest in top Burgundy. And for those looking to build up a fine wine collection, Davies offers “a personal cellar service – all they have to do is e-mail me”.

Wonder Bar

Davies’ buying role includes selecting the wines stocked in Selfridges’ new Wonder Bar, all of which can be found in the adjoining shop’s shelves. On opening, this futuristic wine sampling bar attracted widespread press coverage for its law-breaking drink serving systems. Called Enomatics, these £5,000 machines distribute vinous samples, and were initially set to serve wine in quantities of less than 125ml, breaking the minimum serve set by the Weights & Measures Act passed in 1995. The machines are still operational but now serve legal measures, defeating their initial objective – which was to allow drinkers to try small samples of a range of wines.
According to Davies, the issue is under consultation and Selfridges is working with the manufacturers of the Enomatic to lobby the British government on this topic.

Overall, Selfridges’ wine range stretches from £6.99 to £1,500 a bottle and Davies says the shop has a “good range at £8.99 for dinner”.

Beer is another area Davies wants to tackle: “I want to bring in more English beers and there are some very exciting US beers on the market.” In spirits, like Champagne, Selfridges offers a number of exclusives, and while Davies takes her vinous inspiration from restaurants, when it comes to the stronger stuff, she looks to style bars.

Keeping in touch
The next stage for Davies is the creation of a wine club, for which she is currently building an email database. In the meantime she seems more than busy keeping up with the surprising number of demands from her old restaurant regulars, who still contact her for wine recommendations. “I have to source for them,” she states.

It seems Davis hasn’t just kept her previous job title, but also many of her customers. As for contact with those in the kitchen, she’s kept that too – her boyfriend is executive pastry chef at The Ritz.