By Annali Hayward
New Canaan is blessed with many independent stores and businesses — it’s part of the fabric of a town that prides itself on supporting its own. But how does a New Canaan native realize his dream of uniting his two favorite things: wine; and his hometown?
Just ask David Fieber, owner of DB Fine Wines on Cherry Street.
Fieber opened his store in 2019, and as he looks forward to five years in business this June, he sat down with the Sentinel to talk wine.
Fieber himself sprung from the local terroir: a graduate of South School followed by St. Luke’s in 1999, he recalls growing up in New Canaan with fondness, at first on Old Studio Road.
“It’s just a beautiful town,” he said. “I always loved being here.”
But it wasn’t a straight path — Fieber wound his way to a life in wine. After school, he got his start in the restaurant business, where he began to learn about both the industry and — bit by bit — the mysteries of vines and vineyards, eventually taking charge of curating wine lists. His family took note of his growing expertise and dedication, investing in him and the restaurant, which kept Fieber busy through the end of 2007.
Fieber has admiration for restaurant industry “lifers,” but other avenues beckoned. In 2009 he began working for an online wine retailer. Along with his technical knowledge — “we ate, slept, breathed wine,” he said — it was there that he began to develop his distinctive, deep-seated respect for the customer.
“There’s a lot of nonsense out there on the internet with regard to wine,” he said. “That’s why your customer service really has to shine through. You have to be better than the rest…or you’ll just be another statistic.”
With a decade under his belt, Fieber’s goal was finally within reach. In 2019 he felt the time was right to harness his passion and depth of knowledge to serve customers in New Canaan in his preferred, personalized style.
“I always knew that this is the market that I wanted to be in growing up here,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of a good people here in town that do cellar and appreciate wine.”
What of the wines themselves? Don’t let the name fool you.
“Fine wine doesn’t need to be expensive,” Fieber said. “Our wines start around $10-12 a bottle.” Indeed in terms of sales volume, the sweet spot for the store is around $15 to $30 a bottle, and of the 500 SKUs in stock, you can bet Fieber and his team have personally vetted each one, using their “formula for finding great wine.”
“The winemaker is always the most important thing,” he said. “The second most important thing is subsoil — where the grapes are being sourced from. And third, to a much lesser degree, is vintage.” Fieber values vintage, but maintains “great winemakers sourcing from great vineyards can make wonderful wine, no matter the calendar year.”
Fieber’s store is quietly elegant, with wooden shelving zoned largely by country of origin.
“You don’t see any shelf talkers here,” he said, referring to the labels and scores often found on the shelving in liquor stores. “We are the shelf. We want to tell you why we selected this wine.”
In terms of their approach, it’s not a hard sell. Staff aim to understand “who we’re speaking with,” what their tastes are, and make recommendations from there. They keep notes on customers’ tastes, palates and reactions, and their database runs into the thousands, shipping often to customers as far away as Arizona.
But for lucky locals, DB’s monthly tastings are a way to find new wines. Shortly after opening, the evenings “started to snowball” — but during Covid, they were quickly off the menu for a long time. Now, Fieber seems them as a real driver.
“They’re a blast,” he said. Around 20 people gather around the hightops in-store, testing 10-12 wines around a theme, such as Old World vs. New World.
What about his personal palate? Five years ago, Fieber would have said his favorite region was Napa. But as time passes he’s drawn to Burgundies overall.
“It’s hallowed ground,” he said. “Burgundy has the ability to take you on a journey.”
But even a fine-wine store owner doesn’t drink Montrachet every day. Fieber loves to explore Italy, and enjoys Spain and Portugal’s bold offerings for “bang for your buck.”
He is circumspect on the various trends in wine today: he demurs on the merits of extraction systems such as Coravin and sees sulfite-free “natural” wines as a fad — although he does see sustainability on the rise. Naturally, he’d rather drink water than bad wine, and he’s a staunch defender of the Stelvin enclosure (otherwise known as the screw cap), calling it a “misconception” that it is only for cheap wine.
Ultimately what drives Fieber is his passion for ferreting out unusual wines and matching them to customer preferences. Although today he lives just over the town border in West Norwalk, he savors his peaceful commute, and loves coming in to work every day. This is one native seed that found good soil.
