In a jewel-box space, Eric Broege and Carolyn Kemp hung his artwork and stocked shelves with offbeat bottles. Even an $8 spaghetti wine excites them.

By Stephen Meuse, Globe Correspondent, 7/23/2003

WEST CONCORD – Carolyn Kemp and Eric Broege were living a bohemian life in a rented Oakland, Calif., warehouse in 1988. At 28, she was a published poet, he, 23, a lithographer and portraitist. That spring, when the professor who had agreed to preside over their wedding ceremony failed to show up, the pair took matters into their own hands.

Before 80 bemused guests assembled in a redwood grove, the couple married themselves. The gesture was an early indicator of a talent for improvisation. If, as longtime Concord resident Ralph Waldo Emerson said, all life is an experiment, it looked as if these two would do fine.

Today, you can find Kemp, Broege, a black spaniel named Ferdinand, and – if it’s a Saturday morning – their 12-year-old son, Hank, in Vintages, Adventures in Wine, the shop they own and operate here. Even Emerson might have enjoyed the ”adventures” part of this enterprise.

Vintages is a tiny jewel box of a shop, which seems to have room for everything except run-of-the-mill wines. It’s a true boutique where every bottle is hand-picked, and the focus is high-quality, off-the-beaten-path properties. That means many of the labels will be unfamiliar. ”Our goal is to present a selection of wines from producers that are among the best in any given region,” says Broege. ”An ideal wine shop is one where you get as excited about an $8 spaghetti wine as about a first-growth Bordeaux. It’s not an elite thing.”

The couple’s own wine adventures began in January 2000, when they bought Vintages, a wine and liquor store, from then owners Marjorie and David White, friends of Kemp’s parents. ”We made the move at the peak of the dot-com bubble,” Kemp recalls. ”Then, it seemed pure folly to be sinking money into such a retro endeavor.”

For Kemp, a Concord native, it was a homecoming of sorts; Broege was raised in the West by his art-critic mom. Moving to the East Coast meant their son could be closer to his grandparents and she to her family, but it was an adjustment for him. ”I forgot to ask about the weather,” he says.

Kemp found work as a software marketing specialist. Since there were no fine-art-quality lithography shops, Broege couldn’t do his work. Instead, he did some ”underground catering” and took care of Hank as the pair pondered their next move. ”People begged us to open a little bistro or wine bar,” says Kemp. When they bought the wine and liquor shop, her parents helped by lending capital, Broege hung his lithographs on the walls, and the shop reopened. They decided to model Vintages after the famous Berkeley wine shop run by Kermit Lynch. ”We took a chance replacing the old inventory with new items,” says Broege. The Whites cautioned them that challenging the clientele might be risky. It didn’t prove to be the case.

The second year in business, their enthusiasm ran into some good luck. Broege and Kemp attended VinItaly, the Italian trade show, and found an funny varietal wine from an Alto Adige co-op. Their shop became the only one in the United States to offer it. The Italians were skeptical that Americans would take to it, but the wine was wildly successful.

Customers were beginning to trust the couple.

Broege’s confidence in his ability to choose wines developed quickly. It’s a crucial skill some retailers never develop, preferring instead to rely on distributor recommendations or information from wine magazines.

People are surprised to learn the artwork adorning the walls is Broege’s own. ”They can’t imagine that an individual can have different talents,” he says. But the artist claims to see a similarity between his two disciplines – buying high-quality wines and portrait painting. ”In wine,” he says, ‘’some people are able to transcend nature. In that sense wine can be art. I look at everything I do with the same eyes, and when a single aesthetic directs your life, there are some things you just can’t do.”

Emerson would have loved this place.

Vintages, Adventures in Wine, is at 53 Commonwealth Ave., West Concord; 978-369-2545.

Stephen Meuse can be reached at mailto:%20onwine@attbi.com.

This story ran on page E2 of the Boston Globe on 7/23/2003.