The Art of Business

A Mad Scientist Goes Underground:
The Wine Cave in Kingston
By Jonathan D. King. Photos by Roy Gumpel

If Vince LoDato has the air of a mad scientist, it might be because he used to be one. As the owner and operator of the Wine Cave in Kingston, LoDato has managed to build a wet hole in the ground into a unique business venture and a new career while embracing his inner oenologist. An expert in lasers and thermonuclear power with a PhD in theoretical physics, LoDato, after a 35-year career in science, changed direction in 1997 and decided to go (literally) underground. At the time, he was running Bizzy Bee Equipment, a company he founded that designed a tool used in the manufacturing of high-density computer chips.

A gregarious and loquacious man, LoDato met me at Le Canard Enchaine in Kingston in early April, and we chatted over lunch and a bottle of wine.

“I’m like Horatio Alger,” he said laughing. “Proof that you should never give up on yourself. Look at this picture,” he said and showed me a picture of an obese man holding a shovel standing in front of what is now the Wine Cave when it was still just a cave. “That’s me six years and over one hundred pounds ago. It was one of the lowest points of my life. My house had just been burned down, under very suspicious circumstances, and my sister was killed in that fire. I lost everything. I had to close my company Bizzy Bee Equipment when we were on the verge of something big. But we can’t talk about that,” he said, hinting at nefarious sources for his bad luck.

He paused and continued “Well, I owned the property that included this cave since 1985 and I love wine. One of my previous jobs was sommelier at the DePuy Canal House. And I had an idea. People thought I was crazy. But I didn’t whine, I got into wine,” he said as he raised his eyebrows and smiled. LoDato is full of these funny rhyming little quotes. As I poked around his Web site, www.wine-storage.com, a site that he built himself, I discovered that he has an entire page dedicated to goofy puns and wisdom, much of it attributed to his Dalmatian, Cooper.

One of his current projects is the 1990 Gan Eden Cabernet from California that he brought for us to sample over lunch. He opened a bottle as he recounted the story of his acquisition of the entire world supply directly from the wine maker at an auction. “This wine is a great Cabernet and while 1990 might seem old, it is just entering its prime because it has been properly stored. It’s been winning awards consistently for the past three years, the most recent just eight months ago. At an auction in February people paid $45 a bottle for it. This is a valuable wine and I am selling it at a very reasonable price. I’m practically giving it away. And it’s kosher too!” It was velvety smooth with a strong fruit flavor and a graceful finish with a bouquet hinting at black cherries and dark chocolate. It grew in complexity as it aerated and was a perfect compliment to my rare ahi tuna steak drizzled with a wasabi sauce. LoDato continued talking about how the grapes were from Mendocino and Alexander Valley, naming the vineyards and commenting on how the winemaker had chosen them and how 1990 was one of the best years for California grapes. His enthusiasm for wine is both tangible and contagious and after a couple of glasses of the Gan Eden I was excited to see the cave. He explained apologetically, “What can I say, I’ve got grapes in my genes, I’m Italian.”

From Le Canard we headed down to the cave. As he opened the door and we stepped into the cave, the change in atmosphere was dramatic. In a word, moist. The walls glistened and seeped as the sound of water dripping from the ceiling punctuated the melody of a small stream. Thick fuzzy white patches of mold randomly mottled the walls. After passing though the small entry room containing a display rack of wine that LoDato distributes—mostly to local restaurants like Le Canard, Ship to Shore, and the Downtown Cafe—the cave opens up into a much larger cavern filled with racks, shelves, lockers, and pallets covered with wine. The cave is 32 feet wide, about 16 feet tall, and 100 feet underground, with a bluestone slab floor.

“For privacy’s sake I can’t really comment on who has wine stored here, but people from all over the world have their collections here…But I’m not so focused on that aspect of the business any more. The business has evolved over time and now I’ve got an importer and distributor license. That’s where the real money is. So now I am always buying and selling as well as storing.”

The cave is an old bluestone mine from the 1860s that goes back about 125 feet. It has a fresh spring flowing through it and Vince built a cistern to hold a large pool of mineral water to keep the humidity high. He explained to me that the humidity is why cave storage is the perfect atmosphere for preserving wine. It has been shown that the ideal conditions for wine storage is a temperature of 56-58 degrees Fahrenheit and a humidity level of greater than 70 percent. This prevents the cork from drying and shrinking and minimizes oxidization, which results in the decay of the wine as the alcohol turns to vinegar. What is good for a cork is bad for a label so most of the bottles were wrapped in thick layers of plastic with only the cork exposed.

He rummaged around on a rack wiping dust off the plastic trying to read the labels. “I’m going up to Albany for a tasting this Sunday and we are going to open a bottle of 1865 Madeira. That should be interesting,” he mused. He continued looking and started to seem concerned when he couldn’t locate the bottle he was searching for. He reminded me of the absent-minded professor, the genius that misplaces his keys. After a few tense minutes with the help of my key-chain flashlight he exclaimed, “Ah!” and held it up triumphantly. As he wiped a window in the dust and showed me the label bearing a stamp from 138 years ago, I inquired if the wine would still be good. He said, “It could be if it had been kept in the cave since then. But it depends on how it was stored before it got here.”

From physicist to oenologist Vince LoDato has enthusiastically embraced a new career late in life and shown that even a damp cave can be a portal for a successful business. He added “It’s one of the best jobs in the world. This is a great industry…I travel around and get to taste wine, meet friendly people, and look for great deals. So I’m going to do this for a little while longer, make some money and then get my old company Bizzy Bee Equipment going again.” He chuckled as he quipped, “If you cut me, I bleed grapes, but if you scratch my surface I’m a scientist.”

The Wine Cave is located at 77 McEntee St., Kingston.
LoDato can be contacted at 340-9466 or via www.wine-storage.com.

—Jonathan D. King