Two Nicks are better than one. At least that’s proven true for the owners of Classic Wines Limited. President Nickolas Garyet and Vice President Nicholas Pavona have found that branding themselves informally as “Nick & Nick” has made their Lansing-based beer and wine wholesaling business more identifiable.

“Nick was my boss for 10 years,” said Pavona. “He worked at another wholesaler for 16 years, and I was there for 10 years. We have a lot of respect for each other.”

That means the two Nicks have now been working together for almost three decades. The duo decided to start Classic Wines in 1986, but did not get their distribution license until February 27, 1987, their official starting date.

“The mid-Michigan area was being serviced at that time by larger wholesalers outside of the area,” said Pavona. “We thought the mid-Michigan area could sustain that type of distributor here locally. We started looking at soliciting other brands to bring to Michigan.”

While Classic Wines gets it products from all over the world, the company supports Michigan items, with wines from Grand Traverse Bay and the Leelanau Peninsula, and beers from Kalamazoo to Dexter to Detroit.

“We’re big promoters of Michigan industry,” said Pavona.

While the company still deals predominantly in wine, beer distribution has become a growing part of Classic Wines.

“The beer revolution of—as Nick likes to call them—the ‘industrial beers’ from hand-crafted microbreweries,” noted Garyet. “We think we’re on the leading edge of that change. We ended up being the place to go to because bigger distributors either don’t want to handle them or don’t know how to handle them. Being it’s similar to what we’re already selling, we were successful with that.”

“In ‘90, we had just really gotten into a little bit of beer,” added Pavona. “Now our beer portfolio is 20 to 25 percent of our overall business. We are still selling the same type of high-end, handcrafted-type beers. We just have a larger portfolio. We also have non-alcoholic drinks. That’s three to five percent of our business, which includes Perrier and Evian. We sell organic pops out of California. It goes along with the hand selling that we do with wine.”

“We might have products that are not commonly known, so our salesmen have to go out and hand sell them,” Garyet explained. “The customers have to be introduced to them and their quality.”

“We are a pre-sell organization,” said Pavona. “Everybody leaves in the morning to solicit business and comes back with the orders to be delivered the next day. A lot of brands have to be developed and grown.”

Anyone with a beverage license for alcohol can become a customer of Classic Wines. Due to a highly regulated alcohol distribution system, licensees, such as restaurants, grocery stores, or even nonprofit organizations, must buy their products from a wholesaler.

“It’s a controlled business,” Garyet stated. “It’s a controlled product. But it’s good that it’s controlled. It certainly sets the parameters for us and the kind of business we can do. It doesn’t leave any questions as to what the right approach is.”

Classic Wines is licensed to sell items throughout Michigan, but the majority of its wine sales are in Ingham, Eaton, Clinton and Shiawassee counties, with a wider market for its beers.

Locally, Classic Wines participates in a lot of events, like the Festival of the Sun, JazzFest and Common Ground.

“We don’t advertise, but we figure by being a good community member, it’s a kind of advertising for us,” Garyet stated.

Classic Wines is also an active member of the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re not really looking for networking or leads,” Pavona explained. “What we’re trying to do is help them create a healthy business environment and with that comes the type of businesses that we’ll be able to solicit.”

Classic Wines has benefited from the arrival of all the new restaurants in the Eastwood Towne Center, while continuing to supply Lansing’s mainstay independent restaurants. But the already competitive wholesale market has become even more challenging as buyers are now more likely to be part of national chains.

“The Lansing market has lost a lot of independent retailers and restaurants,” noted Pavona, “On-the-premises retailers have been gone for quite a while. Even 15 years ago, Meijer would have a buyer in each store, and we had personal access to that buyer. Now everything has to be authorized out of their corporate office in Grand Rapids, Sam’s Club out of Arkansas, and Kroger out of Cincinnati. They’ve all gotten bigger and, with the ability of the computers, they’re able to control the inventory from a distance.”

“In some ways, [regulation] is good,” said Garyet. “You inherit business, such as new restaurants coming to town, saying, ‘You have all of the things on our list’ [so we become their wholesaler]. With another restaurant, ‘You don’t have anything on our list,’ so it’s good and bad.”

Classic Wines has grown each year it’s been in business, so the company is now moving to its own larger site on Cavanaugh Road between Pennsylvania Avenue and Aurelius Road.

“We’re making the move to build some equity and some assets and to end up with a more efficient operation than we have now,” Garyet explained.

With the holiday rush winding down, the company plans to move in early 2005.

“We expect to do around 40 percent of our business in the last quarter,” said Garyet. “It’s when all of the major holidays that traditionally affect the alcohol business [occur]. We prepare ourselves for it, and that’s really where our year is make it or break it basically.”

Currently, Classic Wines has 22 employees.

“We have literally no turnover,” said Pavona. “The majority of people who make a decision to come work with us stay. But as our business has grown, now we’re accountable to 20 families. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“We view it that way, too,” added Garyet “We feel responsible for those people and to their well-being and hope they feel the same way toward us.”