(PD) - When Bill Traverso needs to buy some Italian wine for his tasting class at Santa Rosa Junior College, he has relied on Bottle Barn and its knowledgeable wine buyer, Ben Pearson, to help him find bottles from various regions.

“You get that type of personal service there,” said Traverso, whose family owned a gourmet food and wine store before it closed in 2012. “They do a good job of keeping up with consumer trends.”

A collective fear, however, went up among customers when they spotted a notice on the door announcing that longtime owners Bruce and Loretta Emmons are selling the Santa Rosa liquor store they bought nearly 25 years ago. Sajive Jain of Tiburon will take over the business next month.

But those fans can breathe a little easier — decant, if you will — because no significant changes are planned and Bottle Barn’s 14 employees are staying on through the transition to the new owner.

“There will be no personnel changes. Everyone was leery. But they met him now . . . and they all plan to stay,” Bruce Emmons noted in an interview.

Though it is housed in a 12,000-square-foot warehouse with a decor that is more Soviet than swank, “The Barn” has become a fixture among North Coast wine aficionados like Traverso and those who can’t tell the difference between a pinot grigio and a pinot gris.

And it has done so as the David against Goliath with competitors such as Costco, Trader Joe’s, BevMo, Whole Foods Market and Oliver’s Markets in a cutthroat retail marketplace with slim profit margins.

The formula for Bottle Barn’s success has been pretty simple, Emmons said. Treat your employees well. They are among the most knowledgeable in the local area when it comes to alcoholic beverages, a hard task given it has roughly 10,000 bottles of wine, spirits and beer on the shelves.

“He (Bruce) told me once, ‘You get the employees you deserve.’ And he’s got some good employees,” said general manager Jason Schneider, who has been with the store since 1997. “That doesn’t happen because the place is terrible.”

The Emmonses have been rewarded with low turnover. They pay their employees well above minimum wage (some earn six-figure salaries when bonuses are applied), offer a 3 percent employer match on its 401(k) plan as well as fully paid medical insurance for its employees.