Exclusive Interview with Wine Down Box

The holidays are right around the corner. As you panic, trying to find last-minute gifts for your spouse or San Diego friend who has everything, why don't you pause and consider the gift that keeps on giving? Wine Down Box is a monthly package that comes straight to your door, containing a wine, meat, and cheese pairing perfect for any wino or foodie who craves decadent flavors.

Wine Down Box is a young company - still in their first year of business - based in the San Diego area. They participated in our recent European Market at the Del Mar Plaza in San Diego, and we were lucky enough to sit down with Tony Martinez, one of two co-owners of the company. Martinez spoke candidly about how the monthly food pairings are chosen for Wine Down Box, and he even gave us an exclusive sneak peek at Wine Down Box in 2016.

Fine Magazine: Tell me about your business. How does Wine Down Box work?

Tony Martinez: Wine Down Box is a monthly subscription of wine, meat, and cheese. A new pairing each month is delivered right to your door. We want to promote discovery of new things that you otherwise wouldn’t have tried from small producers and artisanal meat and cheese makers.

Where did the idea for Wine Down Box come from?

It’s a mixture of different things. I’m born and raised in the Bay area up north, so I have roots tied to wine country. My mom lives in Livermore, which is a small winery town, and then Napa is not too far away. So I’ve been immersed with wine my entire life. 

Also, when we did the research and bounced around ideas for a new wine business, we found that no one was doing a subscription box.

Really?

Yeah, no one was doing specifically wine, meat, and cheese. We found people doing each one individually, but no one doing them together. So we thought, "Okay, let’s give it a shot." So from there, we started working.

What businesses and providers have you worked with in the past?

We have a new winemaker and artisanal cheese and meat maker each month, so we’ve worked with 9 [providers] so far. Starting with Margerum Winery in Santa Barbara, then Mattucci in Oceanside—a great urban winery, Paul Mattucci is really an artist when it comes to it. We served [Mattucci] at the Del Mar European Market event. We had great reviews from people in person, and everyone who received a box loved it.

Our latest partnership is with Maroon Winery up in Napa. I think it’s very important to represent Napa with a Cabernet, so we were excited to do that in our December box. 

How does Wine Down Box choose wines?

My partner, Andrew Herndon, has the knowledge of wines and how to pair them. He’s our resident expert on the pairings and the product specials. It makes it easy, because I can focus on business development, while I know we’re getting a quality product each month from him.

And how do you come up with your wine pairings?

We go into each month knowing which wine varietal we will feature, so we are always pairing around the wine. When pairing, we think about whether it will be based on contrasts or similarities. For example, think about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and how the savory saltiness of the peanut butter pairs with the sweet fruity jelly. 

Basic components are things like sweet, sour, bitter, and salty in foods, or dryness/sweetness, acidity and effervescence (bubbles) in wine. Textures in wine would be tannin, alcohol, oak, and body. In food, it would be fattiness and overall body.

We use fundamental tenets like this to create the pairings and then find the best artisans to fulfill our pairing. We, of course, have the very difficult job of sampling multiple pairings to ensure we deliver the highest quality pairing and products.

I imagine you spend a lot of time tasting and experimenting with flavor combinations.

We go through an extensive tasting process. We have all of the samples sent to our office. We’re really big on working smarter, not harder. If you do it once, you don’t want to have to do it again and be inefficient, so we document every step of the way.

What can we expect from Wine Down Box in the future?

In the future, we’re going on a national scale. Right now, we’re limited based on legal aspects like how many different states we can ship to. We’re currently undergoing the legal process of shipping to 14 different states. There are some states that don’t allow the shipping of alcohol across state lines. But with our future partnerships [with wineries], what we’re planning on doing is expanding to 40 states. Each month, we just plan on growing and keeping our foot on the gas pedal!

Right now, since we’re new and young, we’re picking [wines] for our users. What we’ve found is that people like what they like. They don’t like stepping out of their comfort zone. So to fix that problem, what we’re going to roll out in the next month or two is "Pick Your Own Box." So instead of partnering with just 1 winery, cheesemaker, and meatmaker each month, we’re going to partner with a handful, so that each person can customize their own box the way they want.

So, for example, if you like to drink Cabernets, then each month you’ll specifically receive a different Cab with different meats and cheeses.

Exactly. You chose your wine path. The wine is the focus point—as it should be—the meats and the cheeses are accents for the wine.

Okay, one final question. It's the moment of truth: red or white?

Red, all the way, red. [Laughs] I wore a red shirt today too… color coordinate it. I mean, on a hot day, I’ll do a Chardonnay, but I’m a red wine drinker all the way. That’s why I’m excited for the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it ties into why we chose a Cabernet for our December wine box. We wanted a full-bodied red for people with their Christmas dinners. But you know, [Wine Down Box] is nice for any occasion. During the day, with a significant other, for an anniversary... It's a nice break from normal life to take 30 minutes to yourself and just relax.

Learn more about San Diego's own Wine Down Box on their website, and check out their social media pages for updates!