Key Accounts – Dynamic Collecting with Our Team
Over the years, K&L has put together remarkable teams of industry-leading specialists. From the veteran retail and auction buyers to a best-in-class operations department to one of the most knowledgeable in-store sales teams, we strive to craft engaging and dynamic omni-channel retail experiences at every level. Such is the case with our Key Accounts department, a dedicated sales team that helps distill an ocean of opportunities in a curated and personalized way for wine collectors at all scales.
If you ever find yourself looking for specific allocations, special orders, or recommendations on the world’s top collectibles, this team is here to help. From identifying the next great wine, trend, or under-the-radar pick, our Key Accounts team has their pulse on the market and a deep knowledge of new releases and back-vintage classics. They also provide account management, from selling to buying, from ordering to shipping.
Meet the Team….
John Christensen
KS: Let’s start with who you are and what's your role?
JC: I'm the newest Key Account Manager on the team, joining K&L about 7 months ago. In Key Accounts, we assist our top clientele with a dedicated contact to elevate and add a personal touch to their shopping experience. My favorite thing about working for K&L is the extremely experienced team we have here. There's always something you can learn for someone. Specifically in Key Accounts, I am proud to be a part of small, but high-performing team of seasoned professionals who get to assist our top clientele with whatever they need.
KS: How did you get into wine?
JC: I grew up in a family that always had wine on the table, and we often took trips to Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, and Sta. Rita Hills. Seeing the vineyards and being exposed to how wine was made really interested me, so as I got older, I began to read more and more about it and eventually fell in love with the intricacies and complexities of wine. I definitely wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.
KS: How did you get from an interest in wine and vineyards to working in the biz?
JC: After graduating from college, I wanted to try my hand out in the wine industry, so I got a position in distribution with Southern Glazer's, which was a great entry into the business as it taught me a lot about sales and customer service. Looking to learn more about the great wines of the world, I was lucky to score a position with an auction house, which exposed me to exactly what I was looking for. The auction side of the business is fascinating, as you get to deal with a huge variety of collectors, from small collections to huge collections, and no two are ever the same. You constantly see wines you've only read about and are lucky to taste those legendary bottles on occasion.
After a few years at the auction house, I had the good fortune to work a harvest at Stolpman Vineyards in Ballard Canyon, which was an amazing experience. After that harvest, I went back to Spectrum Wine Auctions and took on their growing retail department as the head buyer, which was a great challenge. After growing that business for a few years, learning loads along the way, I was looking for a new challenge and had a short stint with and importer, then was lucky to find the Key Accounts position with K&L Wine Merchants, which is a firm I've always held in high esteem.
KS: Wow, cool! We love Stolpman at K&L.
JC: Yeah! The team at Stolpman is the best, and the wines are even better! I worked the 2018 harvest there.
KS: You’ve worked in almost every quadrant of the wine biz! And now you're working with clients, I imagine you must have to stay well plugged into the fine wine side of the business. How do you keep tabs on it/keep learning? Are there any publications you follow?
JC: I feel very lucky to have experience in so many different parts of the business. For keeping tabs on the industry, I always follow Wine Business and the who's who of critics for the most recent reports on wines—Wine Advocate, Vinous, John Gilman, the Spectator, etc.
KS: Do you have a favorite wine category that you like to collect and/or drink? Any life changing bottles?
JS: I definitely can't nail it down to one category, but I most often find myself gravitating to Burgundy, Northern Rhône, Champagne, and the Central Coast. My ah ha! wine was a bottle of 2007 Château Rayas Pignan. It definitely hit a different level for me. 1970 Hanzell Pinot Noir was another shockingly good bottle that was every bit as good as a top vintage of La Tâche! Those old well stored Hanzell's are absolutely amazing.
KS: Do you have a favorite food/wine pairing?
JC: My favorite pairing is a good bottle of white Burgundy with Sushi. One of my wife and my favorite things to do is bring a solid White Burg our favorite little omakase joint.
KS: What do you like to do outside of wine?
Outside of wine, I love to be outside, and often find myself hiking, going for long bike rides, and golfing. I also love to travel, which isn't always to a prominent wine region, but often is.
Gary Norton
KS: What do you do at K&L and how long have you been here?
GN: I’ve been with K&L for the better part of the past decade. I’ve held several roles within that timeframe but today I am one of the company’s Key Account Managers.
KS: How did you get into wine?
GN: My professional career started in the legal field, where I managed a handful of law firms that specialized in debt restructuring and related insolvency proceedings. I enjoyed the work from an academic standpoint and had early aspirations to become a lawyer, but eventually began to question whether I wanted to trudge through the legal industry for the rest of my life. The answer turned out to be no, although the notion of charging $5 per minute to provide an opinion was very appealing! I eventually decided an occupational pivot was in store and hit the proverbial ejection seat. It was 2014, I was in my mid-twenties—with no kids and no mortgage—and decided to dive into what I was truly passionate about: wine.
KS: How did you get to K&L?
GN: Aside from a few restaurant jobs in college I had no formal wine education before K&L. I’d long been passionate about food and wine, had little interest in returning to the nocturnal nature of the food service industry, so I started targeting opportunities with wine importers and similarly situated companies. One day I saw that K&L had an opening and applied for the gig. Amusingly enough, I received an email from K&L’s HR director informing me that, based on my resume, I had likely applied for the wrong job. I hadn’t, but that was enough to drum up a conversation, and the rest is history!
KS: Can you tell us a little about Key Accounts and your role?
From new client acquisition to retention to marketing to sales, this department does a bit of everything. At the end of the day, we’re here to make sure that the company’s top accounts are treated as such, and we go to extraordinary lengths to do just that.
KS: How do you keep tabs on the fine wine world?
Keeping tabs on the wine world is tough, there’s no getting around it. It requires wholesale immersion in everything from global economics to consumer trends and everything in between. One has to constantly sharpen their knowledge of fine wine and the various intricacies therein, especially at this level. We’re dealing with the most well-heeled clients on the planet, many of whom have been buying DRC since before I was in Huggies. Having the wherewithal to establish trust and provide meaningful advice to these folks requires both confidence and a comprehensive understanding of a complex and ever-changing industry.
KS: What kind of wine are you personally into? Do you collect? Desert island wine?
GN: Since the birth of my son in 2021 my wine budget has waned significantly! As to my tastes, I’ve got a pretty broad palate. Willamette Valley Pinots induced some of my first ah ha! moments in the industry, so they’ll forever occupy a special place in my heart. Meeting people like Rollin Soles (Argyle, Roco), Ben Casteel (Bethel Heights), Jim Maresh (Arterberry Maresh), Luisa Ponzi (Ponzi Vineyards), and Jason Lett (Eyrie) were truly formative experiences. Napa can get a little stuffy sometimes, and Oregon at that time was the antithesis of that. Outside of the U.S., I’m a big fan of Left Bank Bordeaux, particularly Pauillac, and have particular affinities for Barolo and Rioja. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy aromatic whites and bubbles as much as the next oenophile, but if I’m going to flex on a bottle, it’s very likely to be red and imported from Europe.
Selecting a desert island wine is an impossible task. There are so many legends out there, and attempting to parse it down to one is somewhat of a fool’s errand to me. 1945 Mouton, 1947 Cheval Blanc, 1982 Las Cases, 1985 Sassicaia, 1966 Heitz Martha’s, 1978 LT… I could keep going but you get the picture. Distinctly singular and bucket-list caliber wines I’ve been fortunate to actually drink are 1982 Pichon-Lalande, 1996 Margaux, 1989 Palmer, 1995 Ducru, and 2009 Cheval Blanc (alongside the 2008 and 2010, the former of which stood up to its reference-point counterparts in surprisingly spectacular fashion). In the past I’ve also had life-affirming experiences with old Georges de Latours from the 50s and 60s, and somewhat recently 1928 Haut Bailly, 1983 Pavie, and 1979 Giscours. I can say, with relative certainty, that the ‘82 Comtesse was the greatest wine I’ve ever tasted, but ’96 Margaux stirred me to a similarly visceral state.
KS: What do you like to do when you’re not living the wine life?
GN: Enjoying quality time with my family, particularly my wife and son, is what keeps me centered. Without them I’d be without purpose.
KS: Advice for someone who wants to start a collection?
GN: Call me 😊
KS: Tell us about your perfect day.
GN: Every morning I wake up and see my son’s smiling face constitutes a perfect day for me.
Tracey Rose
KS: How did you get into wine?
TR: I definitely got the bug at my first front-of-house job waiting tables at a French restaurant in Chicago called Aubriot. I was part of the opening staff for a James Beard–nominated chef Eric Aubriot. I had no idea what I was getting into, but that was the first time I tasted Sancerre, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Alsatian Riesling, all alongside beautifully composed dishes. Oh, when they say you can taste pepper in CdP, wow, you really can! <mind blown>
KS: Did you have a particular bottle that really did if for you?
TR: Well, there is one wine for sure that catapulted me to the next level. After 2-3 years of tasting and note taking, I had a solid working knowledge, but one evening at another restaurant I tried 1995 Eyerie Vineyards Pinot Noir, and that wine was transforming. It was so layered with spice, floral, black raspberry and the silkiest texture, I couldn't believe I was even drinking wine.
KS: That sounds amazing
TR: It was.
KS: Is Pinot still your favorite?
TR: They say all roads lead to Burgundy...so, yes. But, I also have an intense love for Champagne as well.
KS: I don't blame you! On either front! So how did you get from fine dining in Chicago to K&L?
TR: That is a long road—fine dining was concurrent with an attempt at stand-up comedy. Then when the "band" (the comedy group) I was working with broke up, I moved out to the Bay Area. Finally in 2005 I pivoted from restaurants to only wine at North Berkely Imports, who specializes in Burgundy among other things. I'd always heard how great it was to work for K&L, so when an opportunity came my way, I took it. Glad I did.
KS: Wow, comedy! How fun! Is that something you still do?
TR: Not exactly, though I have performed storytelling at The Moth (and won a StorySlam...pats self on back).
KS: Can you tell me a bit about Key Accounts and what you do? So, you guys keep tab on the high-end fine wine market and help customers who want to collect at that level?
TR: In my own words, I work in a sort of concierge role for top clients.
KS: And you work with individual clients, getting to know their tastes then finding them what they're looking for?
TR: Exactly that—as I connect one on one with clients as well as by using their buying history, I can easily make quality recommendations and put wines in front of the customer that will more likely make a connection.
KS: How do you keep tabs yourself on the fine wine market? Are there publications you follow?
TR: It is a big task to stay on top of all the publications, but that is a key to success. I look at all the usual suspects—Wine Advocate, Burghound, Vinous, Suckling, but there are niche publications that I like, too. There's a great Burgundy blog called Winehog that has the best details on historical owndership of vineyards with phots and vineayrd maps. It's geek-o-rific.
KS: Any tips for people who want to get into collecting or building a cellar?
TR: You don't have to spend a lot per bottle to have a quality cellar with depth and longevity. Tasting a lot of wine gives incredible context to what is quality at different price points. I guess that's where my expertise comes in—being in the business over 20 years, I've had a lot of opportunity to taste....great wines and not-so-great wines.
KS: Do you have your own collection?
TR: Mini-collection. My cooler has a a little bit of everything. I like to say my secret power is that I can see the greatness in every varietal—every wine has its moment to shine, and so I have Burgundy and Champagne, but also, Napa Cab, German Riesling, Brunello, and Txakolina, though at my heart I am a Francophile. The best wine I pulled out was a K&L beauty—2019 Valle Reale Montepulciano d'Abruzzo... so freaking good and so cheap! I wish we had more, but it's sold out. My favorite wine to age is definitely 2008 Champagne—my wedding year
KS: Oh I had the 2008 Le Brun de Neuville recently—gorgeous! It's very cool we are still getting trickles of '08s. Gary (Westby)'s Champagne program is so good.
TR: I know - he's da bomb!
KS: What do you like to do when you're not living the wine life?
TR: My two big pasttimes these days are pickleball and the community band (I play the euphonium). So, I am pretty busy away from wine.
One thing I wanted to add was that the human connection is a big part of what we do in KA. It can feel nebulous and hard to measure, but I get feedback from my peeps that they love that they have "a person" to reach out to regarding wine, and not just when something goes wrong. Customers are connected to K&L in a very postive way even if they never set foot in a physical store.