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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Wine shop Vino Del Mundo opens on Fairfield square
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FAIRFIELD – A new wine shop has opened in downtown Fairfield called Vino Del Mundo, Spanish for “Wine of the World.”
The business is located at 56 S. Main St., formerly home to Pura Vida Med Spa. Vino Del Mundo is owned by Ken Malloy, who opened his new business on Dec. 22. The Fairfield Area Chamber Ambassadors will greet Malloy with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 16.
Malloy has been a wine connoisseur ever since he was 18, when he began working at a retail wine shop in his home state of New York, in the city of Locust Valley. He had no experience at the time he was hired, and started with simple tasks like moving boxes up and down the stairs.
“I was basically a mule,” he recalled. “But while I was doing that, I picked up things about wine. I really didn’t drink wine at all. I tasted some, but I didn’t have a palate for it yet.”
Later, Malloy found work as a bartender and in the restaurant business. He got to sample food and beverage from all over, and that’s when his interest in wine took off.
“I started falling in love with wine, and especially French wine,” he said. “I was dating a gal whose parents were from France, and I was learning French, plus enjoying French food when available. I was kind of obsessed.”
Malloy moved to Fairfield in 1986 to be a broker at Danaher Oil. He enjoyed traveling to Midwestern cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Minneapolis not just to meet with clients but also to sample cuisine, and wine, from all those places. Though he didn’t have a wine cellar, he acquired a nice collection of wine bottles that he stored in his basement, and admits that his collection got so large that it was “a little out of hand.”
Malloy’s day job was going well, so he never seriously considered giving it up to focus on wine full time, and instead it remained a hobby for decades. But his thirst for knowledge about wine never died. He has read about wine every day for 30 years, and could do it the rest of his life and never get tired of it.
The idea of opening his own wine shop had been bouncing around in Malloy’s head since the 2000s, and finally last spring that seed took root. Malloy found a downtown property he liked from Mitchell and Tympest Hora where he could open a shop in a highly visible place with heavy foot traffic. He liked the idea of calling it “Vino Del Mundo” because he wanted to introduce people to wines from all over the world.
At Vino Del Mundo, Malloy offers 77 varieties of wine and not just from the most famous locales such as France, Spain, Italy and America’s Pacific Coast but also Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Slovenia and South Africa, just to name a few.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
