Sage Wine & Spirits
Bringing the World and Community Together at Ballston Spa
Doing the right thing while also having fun seems like an increasingly complex proposition.
Sure, you’d like to fly to France for vacation—but think of the carbon footprint! That dress you spotted on the rack is super cute, but it was made in a country that you’ve read has terrible labor laws. You want to make Thai Chicken Spring Rolls for dinner, but half of the ingredients you need are flown in from across various oceans.
It’s all enough to make you want to take up residence in a local cave for the summer and learn how to craft clothes from locally grown fibers, when you’re not spending your days hunting and gathering ingredients for your evening meal.
Jes Rich lives the push and pull between desire and responsibility— financial, ethical and otherwise.
“I am constantly making business decisions that aren’t good for my pocketbook but allow me to sleep at night,” she says.
Rich opened Sage Wine & Spirits in Ballston Spa in 2016 with both a humble and ambitious mission.
“I wanted to offer a wide range of wines and spirits from across the world, with a healthy representation of New York brands, at different price points,” Rich explains. “But I also only wanted to sell wines that are farmed with the health of the planet in mind, and are also doing the right thing for the community. And I had to like them.”
A not-short order, but one that Rich approached from an unusual angle that may have enabled her to dismiss the strictures and conventions that many seasoned retailers seem boxed into after decades in the biz.
Escape from the Ivory Tower
Rich, like many liberal arts college graduates in the late ’90s and early ’00s, emerged from college with “no idea” of what to do next. What does one do, after all, with a sociology degree from Amherst?
“I decided to go to graduate school,” Rich says. “Like many other people who have no idea what they want to do, but love learning.”
She admits that she struggled to find a program that she could truly connect with.
“I would leave a program, do farmwork for a while, and then go back to school again for a slightly different program,” Rich says.
Eventually, she zeroed in on Gothic Literature as her focus and was content to plan the next several decades around studying and teaching the genre. But, as it does, life intervened.
“I got my masters at the University of Sterling in Scotland, and it was a wonderful experience,” Rich recalls. “But when I returned to the U.S. to get my PhD, I found that the high level of competition and judgment within the program and between post-grads just wasn’t for me. I realized I did not want to do this for the rest of my life and that ultimately, being a full-time academic probably wasn’t meant to be.”
After a stint managing residential life at colleges in Massachusetts, Rich returned to the Capital Region to figure out what was “meant to be” for the long haul. Rich grew up on a 200-acre horse farm in Saratoga (her mother sold it in the late 1990s) and relished farm life and the outdoors.
“In between graduate studies I always gravitated toward work in agriculture,” Rich says. “But I also knew that wasn’t for me full time either.”
Instead of seeking out farmwork, she got part-time jobs at a plant nursery and a wine shop.
“I discovered I was really good at selling things,” she says. “And I loved spending time with customers. And somehow wine knowledge stuck with me in an academic way that all of the things I studied in graduate school did not.”
In 2016, she noticed that a Victorian-era store front on Front Street was vacant. The two-room store featured original stamped tin ceilings and three tinkling chandeliers. A world of possibility.
“I realized I had to take it, or someone else would,” she says. “I felt like I could combine all of my passions—agriculture, community activism and education—in a very specific type of wine and spirits store.”
Curating a Different Kind of ‘Best of’
Every year, wine and spirits lovers work themselves into a lather over various “Best of” lists, dashing out to snag Wine Spectator’s and Tales of the Cocktail’s top picks. Rich decided to use her academic chops to create her own sort of highly curated “Best of” list, all of which is for sale.
“When I spent time managing college students at residence halls and working in retail, I spent a lot of time with Millennials,” Rich says. “And I realized that we shared a lot in common in terms of the way we thought about the world. And knowing that they’re the future, I felt good about creating a store that also coincides with what they are looking for and prioritizing.”
An increasingly significant percentage of the spending public— but an even larger chunk of younger people—are choosing to buy from companies whose values align with their own. Corporate social responsibility, a commitment to inclusion and diversity, eco-friendliness and a focus on community outreach are consistently prioritized by members of Gen Z and Millennials, according to several academic studies. A study conducted by YouGov and Whole Foods showed that close to 70% of Millennials are willing to pay more for organically produced products.
“I decided that I would only sell wines and spirits that prioritize the planet and the people in it,” she says. “And I also wanted to create a space that didn’t feel crowded. A lot of our furniture was made by a local artisan. I painted the wine racks green and made everything feel spacious so there’d be enough room to hold tastings, and also for people to come in and hang out and ask questions.”
The name—Sage—is fitting, because it connotes both the earth and wisdom. Rich is the only person who works there, and she prioritizes one-on-one service with an open, knowledge-seeking bent.
“One of the biggest issues with wine retail is the sense of judgment,” Rich says. “I’ve been studying wine for years, and I have my own store, so I know quite a bit about wine. But I have left wine stores feeling really bad because of my interaction with the staff. I want to meet people where they are and help them find things they want, and help them learn— but making them feel great about the experience in the process.”
Rich’s ultimate goal isn’t to just sell wine—but to translate wine culture.
“This probably isn’t good for my bottom line, but I really don’t approach my work as a capitalist,” she says. “If people leave here with a bottle great. But if they leave here feeling like they had a great time and learned something, that’s even better.”
Rich has also created a cross-referencing system for the roughly 500 wines and spirits she stocks— about 10% of her offerings are spirits.
“Not many of my brands are certified organic or biodynamic, but most of them farm organically and biodynamically, and I keep track of that so I can point people to bottles when they come in and ask,” she says. “And I’ve been building it out so now I can also point people to bottles that are vegan, low in sulfites, made by women or people of color, made with indigenous yeast, unfined or unfiltered. My cross-referencing system is, to be honest, a little out of hand, but it’s very convenient.”
Creating a Safe Space for Everyone
In addition to creating a store that aligns with her broad sociopolitical paradigm, Rich has built a space that she hopes will give everyone hope.
“I remember when I put the Pride rainbow sticker on the door, I felt this pit in my stomach,” she says. “I felt the same way when I came out as queer at 17. I felt this dread and fear. Like, ‘what will happen now?’ But a few weeks after I put the sticker up, a group of high school students walked by. One pointed to the sticker and said, ‘Look! A rainbow sticker. That is so cool.’ That was it for me.”
Rich says she realized that any discomfort or fear she felt initially was worth it if it made others feel accepted and welcome.
“I remember what a big deal it was walking around and seeing rainbow stickers on doors when I was in high school,” she says. “It meant that it was a safe space for the LGBTQ community, a place where they would feel welcome and may encounter other queer people.”
After that initial step, Rich says she has become increasingly comfortable voicing her opinion on local, regional and national matters that she believes directly affect the LGBTQ community.
“I try to pick and choose and not make Sage’s social media presence all politics,” she says. “I also share information on issues affecting the wine community, like the recent frost that decimated harvests in the Finger Lakes. But I’ve also gotten great feedback on posts that draw attention to important votes locally and nationally that could affect voting access, women’s rights or LBGTQ rights.”
Rich has also gotten blowback. Members of the right-leaning Facebook group Moving Saratoga Forward have called her out and criticized her by name for her outspokenness.
But in the end, Rich believes that their dissatisfaction with her choices is more about them than her.
“I realize that certain people will never shop here because of what I represent,” Rich says.
You know what? Rich is fine with that.
Sage Wine & Spirits is at 55 Front Street in Ballston Spa. 518-490-2095.
