'WHEN I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself... You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.'

Kingsley Amis wrote these austere and unforgiving lines in his book Everyday Drinking. While some connoisseurs would probably want to have a go at him, Amis, a supreme boozer himself, had a point. There is something in wine - or maybe in its fumes - that defies simple description, that makes its lovers grope for something more to capture their joy.

But Tan Wee Han, managing director of Crystal Wines, is brutally business-like about wine. For him poetry is secondary to bottomlines.

'The wine business is almost like a commodity,' he explains.

'The same wine sold by two different companies is still the same wine. The service and all that is important, but you are not selling a different wine from me.'

The trick to stand out, he says, is to understand what people like to drink, which isn't always the same as what is good.

'We have brought in wines that we thought were really good, what many people would think is really good, and then we just have a hard time selling. People just will not buy it in volume,' Mr Tan says.

'They will say, "It's good - what else do you have?" Certain wines don't encourage repeat purchases and understanding customers' demand is an art.' According to him, Singaporeans do prefer particular flavours of wine, though he isn't revealing anything. 'That's my trade secret,' he says.

But he does say how he profits from the mystique that surrounds the wine culture.

'Drinking wine is a lifestyle. Drinking good wine is important, yes, but it's like driving a Ferrari, it's not just about the car. Yes, it's a good car, but there's more than that.

'Our wine shop has nice lighting, nice decor, a cosy corner. We allow them to enjoy us, and feel comfortable buying from us. Then they'll ask us what to buy.

'Customers need to feel good. Yes if the customer checks around he might be able to compare prices, but if he trusts us, they feel it's OK to buy from us.

'I used to have multiple wine shops, 1,000 square feet, we'll stuff it up and try to pack in as many bottles as possible, all floor to ceiling. It doesn't work.'

It didn't work because just selling wine isn't enough, Mr Tan says. You need to sell a lifestyle.

He is now trying to be a 'private banker' for customers trying to build their collections, handling everything from building a cellar and arranging storage, to recommending new wines for drinking and investment.

Next up is to provide premium cellar services for professionals, managers, executives and businessmen, many with overseas experience, newly wealthy and ready to spend on the finer things in life.

'We go to their house and help them build a new showroom cellar,' Mr Tan says. 'I am an engineer myself, I can appreciate this part of the work. People will be able to say, this is my music room, this is my audio-visual room and this is my wine cellar.'

Like the wines in its cellar - the oldest, if you want to know, is a 1952 Chateau Petrus for $2,000 - eight-year-old Crystal Wines has aged well.

It has about 10 per cent of the domestic wine market, says Mr Tan, who forecasts revenue of $14 million this financial year. Net profit, he says, is about 3 to 5 per cent.

That doesn't seem a lot, but things were much worse just three years ago.

'By 2001 we were quite hungry for growth . . . so we actually expanded our business from wine to spirits and beer,' Mr Tan recalls.

'By 2003 we realised that the business was really challenging for us. Most of the competitors were international companies, brand owners. As distributors only, when it comes to investing in the brand, they could take a much longer perspective.

'They could spend money to build the brand for the next five years, but for us, we're thinking, I'm a distributor, I wonder if the principal will come in next year and take the deal away.'

Crystal Wine had sole distributorships for Jack Daniels, Budweiser and Beefeater gin, but despite these marque names, the company was bleeding red. Throughout 2003, Mr Tan slowly divested the spirits and beer business, and concentrated on what he knew best.

How big was the revenue he had to sacrifice? In that year, the company had turnover of about $30 million, he says, and three-quarters of that came from spirits and beer.

The oldest wine in Crystal Wine's cellar is a 1952 Chateau Petrus worth $2,000.

'We were repairing the ship while sailing it, we couldn't stop the boat, make all the repairs, and then start again,' he says. 'That was a lesson for me, restructuring the company on the go, and having to drop a big part of revenue just to become more profitable, and to set ourselves in a direction that the business could grow.' He has learned the hard way that the alcohol business is a cut-throat commodity-based industry. Flogging your favourite tipple just doesn't cut it. 'Now our best asset is knowing our customers, rather than having a product and trying to sell it.'

To that end, he conducts weekly tasting sessions. Each can cost up to $400 per person, and contrary perhaps to textbook economics, the expensive high-end wine tasting sessions are better subscribed. In fact, he says, they are waiting list only.

Still, to him it makes sense to buy expensive wines. 'The Singapore duties we pay for wine are fixed per bottle, we pay about $7.20. If you're drinking a wine that costs $200, your duty becomes 3.5 per cent. So it pays to drink expensive wine here, if I'm buying a bottle of $30, one third goes to duty, one third goes to moving the bottle here, so the value of the wine itself is only one-third.'

And if your heart breaks at drinking something priced like liquid gold, Mr Tan says that wine is equally good untouched.

'It's a good investment portfolio. The key thing I always say is that it is a diminishing supply, increasing demand, item. More and more people want it, while more and more people have drunk it.'

'We have seen many of our clients make a lot of money,' he says. So the simple red isn't just a simple red, nor is it just a fruity richness with transparency and delicacy. It is a capital intensive financial product, and yet it seems so much more. Wine evokes glistening chandeliers, scented handkerchiefs, music dance, and more. Money can't buy that kind of branding, but you can try to; and that is Mr Tan's business.

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