Here in Larchmont, we have many wine shops, and probably we all have our favorite.  But did you know we also have a wine importer in town?  Bedford Brands, owned by Susan and Mario Belardino, has been here since 1993.  Their wines can be found in Post Liquors/Wine Sellers, Lusardi's, La Fontanella, Siena, Agostino's, Scarpetta, and Spadaro's.

It’s an interesting story.  Mario Belardino was born in Rome, Italy, and came here as a baby with his family.  In 1949, his father Aldo began importing Italian wine, and was a pioneer in bringing Italian wines to the U.S., eventually selling his business to Heublein Inc. in 1982.  Mario Belardino didn’t enter the wine business right away, working first as an attorney, and then, in 1972, he and Susan Belardino decided to open a ski resort.  They bought some land near Hunter Mountain, in the Catskills, and built Cortina Valley up from scratch, running it until 1987, when they sold that business to a Japanese and Korean investor group.

Some importers focus on boutique wines from small vineyards.  Bedford represents wines from the larger estates, those owning many vineyards, making great wines at a wide range of prices.  Because Bedford has 40 distributors nationwide, and needs enough of each wine for all 40, these larger estates are the ones that are a good match for the Belardino’s business approach.  In general, Bedford imports from only one winery per region of Italy, although an exception is Tuscany, which has many wine making sub-regions. 

It’s a tricky business, wine importing.  You can’t attract distributors unless you have enough product to offer them; and you can’t attract suppliers if you don’t have distribution to offer them!  It takes time to find the right suppliers and the right distributors, and hope that these two important networks grow at about the same pace.  But some suppliers have been with Bedford since the beginning, and others have joined more recently, as if unhappy with some other importer that had represented them.  About a year ago, Bedford began importing wines from Argentina and Uruguay as well, including a wine they worked to develop for several years which is a clone of the French varietal, Tannat.

What’s the best thing about the business?  For Mario and Susan Belardino, the satisfaction comes from hard work with good values, knowing the business is the fruit of their own labor and watching their son learning the ropes and doing them proud.