The Old Crockett Wine Emporium

Offers new choices for wine enthusiasts

By Jan White

One of downtown Crockett’s more recent additions to its infusion of retail shopping is e Old Crockett Wine Emporium. e store, located at 233 East Goliad, is owned by Michael and Abbey Nucci, relative newcomers to the area.

“We were living in the city, and I was getting restless. I knew that there was something bigger and better for our family — for what God had planned for us in life.”

At the time, Michael and Abbey Nucci had no idea that the bigger plan was to put down roots in a small East Texas town. e Nucci family moved here from the Dallas area about two years ago, where Michael was a high school football coach and Abbey a school teacher. e couple had discussed moving to a smaller town when Michael got a call from a friend about a coaching position that had just become available in Crockett.

“I’ve lived my whole life in Texas, and I’ve never heard of Crockett,” Abbey admitted.

But the couple took a chance and visited on what Abbey calls a “date with the town.”

“It’s a coach’s wife’s term for scouting out the possibilities for a new position to see if it would be a good t to live there.”

A er spending some time in Crockett, Abbey said, “I knew in- stantly that this was where I wanted to be. We returned to Dallas with two signed teaching contracts and an o er on a house, which was accepted while we were on the road back.” ree months later, they moved into their home on Memorial Day weekend. But once the Nuccis settled in, they realized there wasn’t access to some of the things in a larger city.

“In any direction, it’s at least a 30 or 40-minute drive to get the things we wanted or were accustomed to cooking with.”

One day when the couple was relaxing over the weekend, they ran out of their favorite wine. Since they couldn’t just run to the store and get what was wanted, Michael suggested they open their own wine shop.

“I think we’ve met enough people now that would be interested in it.”

It was the end of June 2022 when Michael came up with the idea. Although it was challenging to get the shop rolled out during football season, they were open by October.

“And that,” said Abbey, “is how e Old Crockett Wine Emporium was born.”

When talking about shopping in a small town, Abbey describes losing sales to other cities and towns as leaks. “We know that there are leaks — people are going other places to get things. And we felt like this was one of the ways Crockett was losing money. Peo- ple were going elsewhere to get gourmet food and wine options. Why not stop the leaks esides selling select wines, the emporium carries its own private-label infused oils and balsamic vinaigrettes. e got our kids involved, and it became like a whole event. ur kids wanted to do it for birthday parties, so that’s how we got the name Nucci family kitchen.’ We’ve made all these memories with Italian music blaring and pasta and our everywhere. It’s the one time I don’t care that our’s all over the oor.

The Nuccis put a lot of thought into their wine selection.

We’ve been to most of these places, Abbey said, indicating the bottles perched on the wall shelves. We take vacations incorporating wine into them. We’ve been to Italy, so we have Italian wines. We’ve been to Napa. And there’s this great tasting wine from the north fork of Long Island that’s where my husband’s from , so we’ve got that. And we’ve visited all the Texas wineries too. It’s almost like a personal collection, but expanded a little bit.

The Nuccis brought in wines that they personally loved. And for the wineries they haven’t been to, they did their research to make sure they were really high-quality wines and rated well on the Wine nthusiast list.

All of our wines are 88 points and above, Abbey said. n a high-school grading scale, that would be a .

She also emphasi ed that they try to provide wines for all the different price scales.

We try not to offer wines and products that can be purchased at Walmart or - - or rookshire’s. We’re trying to get some more variety to our customers because that’s what we believe they want.

We import our olives from Tunesia, which is south of Sicily. The company we used to infuse them wanted the highest quality of olives on the market. And the balsamic that we sell, like the dark balsamic, is the highest sugar content you can put into a balsamic without it becoming some other product. It’s thick and good, and it’s not runny. The cherry balsamic is perfect on peaches and really good on salads. I can’t wait until the spring and summer months when we can use it with local ingredients for salads.

The emporium also sells a variety of other gourmet foods, which you won’t find in local grocery stores. And, of course, there’s the pasta.

My husband is Italian, so we really try to dig deep into the Italian side of things. e’s very passionate about food, so he makes a lot of it himself. e’s got all these sauce recipes. Then he got into making his own pasta.

Abbey says that some of their best memories have been made around making pasta.

The pasta they sell is as close to what they make in their kitchen as possible.

We are educators, said Abbey, and we care about people. We want to give them information and understanding about what we sell here when they walk through the door.

She credits her valuable assistant, ade obes, for helping keep the shelves organi ed and informative. obes’ handwritten notes on the various wines and their nuanced avors help customers choose exactly what wine they want. The first question they ask when a customer enters the shop is, What kind of wine are you looking for o you like white wines or red wines And more importantly, what are you planning on serving it with, because that, emphasi es Abbey, can be a game changer. enjamin ranklin once said, The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation.

There are people with knowledge about wines, but who don’t understand wines. Wine is actually food. ou pair it with food purposefully, and it can change the entire meal. rinking wine isn’t just about having a good time. It’s about enjoying what’s on the plate in front of you. The wine choice is intentional.

The emporium has hosted several wine tastings and hope to offer more in the future.

As a new business owner, Abbey said that one of the things they love most about Crockett is that the community is unique in that they want to see small businesses thrive.

They like to reach out and help you. They want to see the square grow. They have visions of what it used to be and want it to return to what it was.

Abbey says that the name The ld Crockett Wine mporium is an homage to the vintage vibe of the downtown area.

And we are pretty proud of our store. We hope it brings value to the community and people’s lives.

Why not visit The ld Crockett Wine mporium and make some great discoveries of your own