Chasing Passions and Building Promise Winery: The Journey of Stephen and Jennifer McPherson

When I was approached by a PR firm to interview the Stephen and Jennifer McPherson, I gladly agreed not knowing a thing. Podcasts guests are not hard to find in the industry...but good podcasts guests...that is a different story.
I am about the story. That is what I am pitching in the world of wine; innovation in marketing and packaging are important, but what is that innovation centered on? The story.
And here is a story, what started as a promise between spouses, became a reality and one that they, as many life changes perform, they wish they had started earlier.
If you ever wondered what happens when a top entertainment exec swaps red carpets for rolling vineyards, Stephen and Jennifer McPherson’s journey will uncork your imagination. On this episode, you’ll hear firsthand how passion trumped the allure of Hollywood glitz, beckoning Stephen from ABC to the grape-stained heart of Napa Valley—all because of a vow made to Jennifer on the eve of their wedding. You’ll be invited into the world of Promise Winery, a boutique operation run by this husband-and-wife team with just three employees and a steadfast commitment to staying small, authentic, and deeply personal. Get ready to learn what it takes to follow a dream in an industry that, while brimming with camaraderie and collaboration, is anything but easy. The McPhersons peel back the layers of their calling, sharing stories that reveal why wine is far more than a business—it’s an expression of emotion, a vehicle for connection, and a labor of genuine love. You’ll laugh at the tales of pigs, homemade prosciutto, and kitchen experiments, and come away touched by their philosophy that great wine is born not in boardrooms but through personal relationships, intention, and joy. As you listen, you’ll pick up intimate details about wine’s power to unite, the changing landscape of Napa, the eccentricities of wine marketing, and the importance of sticking to your values when trends and algorithms tempt you otherwise. This isn’t just a tasting—it’s a tour of the soul behind the bottle, with wisdom for anyone dreaming of a life built on what matters most.
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Promise Winery
Website: https://www.promisewine.com -
Wine of the Month Club
Website: https://www.wineofthemonthclub.com -
Rombauer Vineyards
Website: https://www.rombauer.com -
Goldman Sachs
Website: https://www.goldmansachs.com -
Naked Wines
Website: https://www.nakedwines.com -
Winc (formerly Club W)
Website: https://www.winc.com -
Chateau Coutet
Website: https://www.chateaucoutet.com -
Colgin Cellars
Website: https://www.colgincellars.com
#WineTalks #PromiseWinery #NapaValley #WinePodcast #WineIndustry #WinePassion #WineStories #Winemaking #BoutiqueWinery #WineLovers #WineCommunity #WineExperience #WineTasting #FamilyBusiness #WineJourney #WineAndFood #WineEmotion #WineEducation #WineCulture #AuthenticWine #paulkalemkiarian #winetalkspodcast
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We know ourselves and each other and
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our brand and what we stand for by now. That ultimately,
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at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and cents choices,
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but if you have the luxury of making a choice
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based on does this feel true to us? That's always
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going to prevail. Sit back and grab a
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glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, beautiful
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Southern California, about to have a conversation with Stephen and Jennifer McPherson of the
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Promise Winery. Introductions in just a second. Yes, I am the guy
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that tasted 100,000 wine in his career and sold 17 million
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bottles all by myself. But now, while we're here, here to have
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a conversation with Stephen. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
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me. Call yourself co founders. I mean. Yeah, yeah, we
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really started it together and have been running it together. You know,
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we've stayed small over 20 years. It's. It's us and three employees. I
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can't believe it's from 20 years. And thank you for the visit there, by the
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way. It was pretty amazing perspective on the wine
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trade in Napa, which is in a little bit of turmoil right now with, you
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know, prices being. Trying to try to hold your prices, but.
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But the industry sort of a dip. Yeah. And here's this
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full on, or I'm going to call it organic experience at the Promise
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Winery. You know, and everybody's gonna say, what's the promise mean? You know, that's certainly
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a question. And I understand that this was. Yeah. Tell me the story.
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You want to start with that? Yeah, go ahead, babe. Well,
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Steve was pretty successful in the entertainment
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business, but I could see that his spirit
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was dwindling and just being
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sucked dry. And every time we would go to Napa Valley,
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which was frequently, I would say at least three
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times a year, four times a year, he was a different
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person. He was more alive. He was. He was himself.
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He was truly just connected.
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And I said, one day, one
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day, Steve, we need. This needs to be in our lives
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forever. So promise me you're going to pursue your real
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passion and you're not going to. You're going to keep dreaming
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and you're going to promise yourself
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and us that you're going to have this. We're going to
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do this. You're going to. You're going to figure out a way to. To
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keep this part of you. Forever.
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And he made that promise. Yeah, he made that promise on our wedding. Well, and
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it's, you know, we dated for almost four and a half years.
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And, you know, I was. I was a type. A kind of
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competitive businessman. And I would. For years, I would say,
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honey, I looked at the strap planning sheet, this is a bad business. You know,
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you're making a product, you're putting it in the closet for three years. And she
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was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And it. It really. It took.
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It took all that time, I think, you know, for me to really see
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that she was right. And, you know, the Promise was
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really on the eve of our wedding, you know, that weekend.
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And we. We had no idea really what that meant. It's not like the
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promise was, listen, in 20 years, we want to have a winery that produces
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X. And, you know, but it was enough to push me
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over the edge to take that chance. And we
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just. That fall we got married in. In. In June, and
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that fall we bought some grapes from a friend of ours, and
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the rest is history. I mean, not only did you tell. You make a promise
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to your wife, but you told her she was right. Some of that. Yeah,
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exactly. Set the
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president. Yeah, yeah. Good way to start the
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marriage. Yeah, that is a good way. I mean, I'm still struggling with that 35
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years later. It's an interesting.
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It's an interesting perspective because it does take that long, and it is a difficult
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business, and it's very hard to make money. And not unlike
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owning an airplane is not a profitable thing generally, it's very
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hard to run a business like that. And wine is the same. So it
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does really just take an amazing amount of passion. And
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clearly, when we visit the Promise Winery, that's what's built into this,
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into the landscape of Napa Valley. But
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you can't do it without that, can you? No, you really can't. And
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I think we say now, 21 years into the business,
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it has not been easy. And I wouldn't change my perspective
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of this is a great business to make money at, but
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it's an amazing business if you love it.
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And it makes us enormously fulfilled. And
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it's become life. Life's work for us
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to some extent. But that's, you know, I think
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there's so many. There's always a million reasons why not to
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pursue your dream or that harder road or that,
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you know, that kind of, you know, quest project
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that you might have. And I think, you know, that's who I was, you
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know, for four and a half years. And then once. But once you get
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into it, you know, if you face problems, you face drought, you
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face recession, you face. You Know, mountain lions eating your goats.
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You know, stuff. You get through it. You get through it.
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Whereas, you know, if you don't love it, then, you know,
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dealing with, you know, something that is
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really problematic and challenging in a business, if you. If you're not
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invested and love that business, it's really hard. It's really hard to do. But
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every morning I walk on the beach. When I met Hermosa, we walk all the
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way to her Manhattan pier, come back, and it's, you know, three miles, and they
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go in the water. Promised myself I would do that. But the night before, we'd
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watch La La Land, which I think is a great movie. Great movie. Yeah.
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My wife loves musicals, so, you know, but really, I came away
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again, and I just love the end of it. And it's controversial, you know, people
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always argue about what. What it meant. But when you're chasing
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your dreams, you know, you. At any age, at any time in your life,
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if you have that chance. And I did this sort of Instagram thing. I
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said, you got to chase them. I'm chasing one right now. This podcast is a.
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Chasing something to do with wine
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and tell the stories of the wine business. Because there's so many. Your story
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is one of them. The passion it takes to do this is
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purely required. And the question is, why? Not expecting an
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answer, necessarily, but why did you light up when you showed up in
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Napa Valley? And why did you notice that? And what. You know, what is it
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about wine that makes you do this? Is it some kind of connection to the
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earth, Some kind of soulful, you know, and there's maybe no
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answer. I think it's a. For me, it's a lot of things
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with my entire life put together.
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You know, I was fortunate when. When I was 10 years
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old, my dad became the headmaster of the American School of Paris. So
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it was life changing. We moved there, and I lived grade school and
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high school there. And he, you know, it was
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1976, so it was just after the French tasting. My
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dad was taking classes at Spurrier's place. Really? Wow.
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Yeah. So wine became part of, you know, who we were.
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And they just love. Both my parents just loved France and Europe.
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So we never came back for visits until each. Each
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kid got one visit for college choices.
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But then secondarily, I was playing soccer in the
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French leagues and at school, and so I was never home for
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dinner. So my mom, at about age 13, was like, Listen,
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I'm not cooking two meals a day for the family, so let me
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show you how to cook Basic things. And I just fell in love with
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it. And ever Since I was 13, I've
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loved to cook. And you fantasize about being a chef
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and just love restaurants and all that. And
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so it kind of. You know, it. It kind of started
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back then, and then it's just. Just kind
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of continued to. To roll forward. I mean, I went to college and we only
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drank beer, but kind of immediately after college, when.
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When I started to make just a little money, you know, started
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to collect a few bottles here and there, and it just
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became like a real. It was a passion, and it is a
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passion. And, you know, then when you get involved in it, you get even
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more deeply involved in it. Farmer. And you become,
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you know, a viticultural big purveyor. Yeah, yeah,
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exactly. That's an interesting
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leap from, you know, an American lifestyle to living in Paris, and particularly
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1976. I had Steven Spurrier on the show before he passed away, just before.
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Oh, cool. We met him once in Naples. Really nice guy. Then
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I went into Cob de Madeline in. In the District, and she goes, this is
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not the same one that you think it is. My God. I
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thought I was taking the history here, but know,
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culturally, wine was in the 70s, right. When this picture was taken in
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1975, Jim Barrett used to come into the store. And in fact, when he won
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the judgment, he came in and said, you know, would you mind? He actually asked
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my father to carry the wines because everybody's asking for donations.
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Like he said, just go down to PB Liquor. But.
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But what an amazing time for the wine trade. And
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is there a chasm between that lifestyle that you. That you witnessed in
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Paris and going to school in Paris to what you
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felt like you had experienced as an American kid? Like, did you before then?
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Yeah. Well, I mean, my dad, you know, he. He passed last
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fall. But we used to laugh, you know, before we went to France,
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wine was, you know, Lancers in the old. Yeah,
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we used car. Yeah, Lancers and Chianti in those big
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things because the kids liked it. But, you know,
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so, yeah, I mean, there was a giant difference between the two. And
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I. I look back and I think, boy, I, you know,
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would I have been that interested in wine had I never gone to France, but
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then moved to California and Napa? Was there? Probably not.
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What about your experience with wine, Jennifer? Did you. So,
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interestingly, my. Sorry, mom. My mom was a
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horrible cook, but my dad
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was a great. Was a great chef and really passionate about
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cooking. First generation Italian.
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So every. Every Sunday, it was an
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occasion. And it was a time where we would all
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gather in the kitchen or we would at least kind of come together
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as a family. That was kind of short lived.
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But then later on in life I started working in restaurants.
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And wine was not a big thing in my life, my
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childhood, growing up at all. I do remember,
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you know, some, like, neighbors drinking box wines, etc.
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And I remember certain, like I looking up to a
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certain neighbor, the fact that she had a Chablis. I was very
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interested, like, ooh, what's Chablis? Gallo, Chablis or regular? Probably
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Gallo. I mean, it's, you know, New Jersey. I'm not a lot longer
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though. But I remember when my dad came
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home, just like he would come home with records or he would come home with
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books, or he'd say, hey, need to watch this movie. He started
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coming home with wine. And, you know,
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when my dad did something, I just perked up a little
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bit. So that was my first interest. And then the restaurants,
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and then I finally got an upscale waitressing job where you got
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to, they, you know, got, gave you the chef's meal ahead of
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time and the wine pairings that went with it. So that was when I was
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a student at NYU and other
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jobs like. Which is a hotbed of food. Yeah. And I also,
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when I was pursuing a career in
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theater during my NYU days, I also
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temped at Goldman Sachs. And a lot of those,
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they're mostly gentlemen at the time, were all into wine.
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And I remember helping plan trips for them. And just,
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I just, just these little pockets of interest all started
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coming together at once. And that was my
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early 20s. And it was just,
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it was, it was a curiosity, it was a, it
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was something that I wanted to learn more about. And so when Steve and I
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met in what was 2000, that was my mid,
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my mid to 20s, late
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20s. We, I mean, he was
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more, you know, he's a little older than me, so he's, he's got a couple
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years ahead of experience. And so
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he, we, we started, you know, he started teaching me more and we were,
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we were tasting more together. And my love for
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wine grew with our relationship. But I almost,
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I almost killed the relationship early on because I went over to her
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apartment and there was a Wine Spectator on the
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coffee table and like a, you know, just an idiot
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guy. I go, like, whose is this? As if it couldn't
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possibly be hers. Oh. And she's like, it's mine.
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Idiot, comma. Yeah.
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You know, it's a fascinating industry and sometimes it
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does Take that sort of time and
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many different inputs for it to come around. I did this for 15 years,
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probably, and I just. It was just a businessman. I just sold it, and I
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did the best I could at making margins and selling good things. Of course, that's
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how we stayed alive. But probably, like, 20 years
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ago, it hit me that there's something very unique and special about this
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brevage that. That can't be defined that way. It can only be
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defined in the passion you get when you talk to people that
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try to understand it, because we're never going to understand it.
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So. Sorry, go ahead. We were recently in Burgundy, and we were
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meeting with this particular winemaker, and his
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young. His English was. Was great, actually.
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And by the third time he mentioned the word
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emotion, it just. The light bulb kind of
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went off, and I was like, of course. This. This is why we're
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all in this business. He kept saying, like,
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my wines express emotion. And I was thinking, well,
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all great wine, if you taste a great wine and
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everybody's great wine is different, but when you open it, when you taste
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it, you feel something. And
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we're in the business of feeling. We're striving
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to produce a product that. That
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excites people, that moves people, that awakens people,
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that brings joy and
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appreciation and connection. And how do you not want to be a
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part of that? It's such an undefinable piece of
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what wine is. All those wines behind you, all the wines my dad
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sold, it doesn't come from 19 crimes in apothec Red. And
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that's fine. We need those wines to get entry into the industry,
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so people do. But my. My typical premise is every
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generation at different points of the generation. The baby
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boomers were probably into wine before. The
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millennials are, though. My millennials at my home drink plenty,
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and my depletion is much faster than I expected it to be.
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And. And then the Gen Z's, which is the huge topic of current
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marketing issues in the wine business, will be a little bit later.
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But I think the indefinable thing about what you just said is
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that will unite everybody. I was just at a tasting, you
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know, Duclo, which is a Christian Moex moex
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distributor in LA, and they have a lot of Bordeaux tastings.
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12 people get invited every time. And he
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poured a bar sack. Chateau Coutet, this is only a couple weeks
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ago. And that was the word I used. I looked
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at the presenter, I said, this is the most emotional wine I've
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smelled in years. And who knows why he goes the previous. He
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completely agreed. He goes, the previous vintage was not like this. And
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then the guy next to me hits me with. He goes. He goes, right. You
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know, because whatever it was that just jumped out of the glass and
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made your brain go spinning in different directions was.
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And that. That's the part that's really. Isn't that fantastic when you have that kind
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of a moment? It's the connect. Yeah, absolutely. And I. And
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how do we tell everybody about this? How do you guys go about with the
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promise, expressing that passion
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to the public? You know, I think it's a
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challenge. One of the reasons that, you know, we
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have stayed small and aren't
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in distribution is because ideally, we
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want to. Make some money because you can't do it the other way.
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We'd like the experience of introduction to promise to be the one
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that you had where you come and you spend, you know, a couple
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hours and you're really being introduced not only to the
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wine itself, but the story behind the wine. The
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why are you doing it? Who are the people behind it? And,
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you know, when you. When it's on a list at a
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restaurant or hotel or liquor store,
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you know, it's just. It's another bottle on the shelf. And
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so I think that it is a challenge. We talk about it all the time.
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I think that, you know, my hope going back a little bit to
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this new generation, one of the things that I hear about them that I
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love is the idea that they really. They're
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interested in wine, but they want to know more than just like, oh, it's
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false scarcity, or it's the most expensive wine.
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They want us, like, who's behind the wine? Why is these people
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making the wine? You know, what's this grape? What does that mean?
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What is the story behind it? So, you know, I'm hopeful that that will actually
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lead to a deeper connection to win.
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I know everyone gets worried about kind of the sober, curious,
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you know, generation and. And all that. But.
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But, yeah, I think that's. That's part of the challenge of how do you. How
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do you introduce and sell wine to people in a personal
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way and. And convey that connection? I would
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add to that that. Well, because our brand is so personal,
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we do kind of lead you to that emotional place
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with. With the names of our wines. You know, if you. That's
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true. And we did that very purposefully because
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we want to. We. We as a
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couple, always want to keep ourselves,
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remind ourselves of what we're here on this planet to do.
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Experience, joy, live. Live a Life of
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gratitude. Have intention.
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Be in love. Yes. Share love. Give love.
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I mean, I always, you know, I always tell my kids, like, keep your heart
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open. It's just those are the, that's what
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we decided to name or to kind of announce
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each wine we have with an affirmation
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that we, we want it always share.
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You know, it's a. Your success at the
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entertainment industry, I think. How long were you? About
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26, seven years. And you ran CBS or ABC?
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ABC TV? Yeah. Okay, this is where Chapter got it wrong. I knew it was
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abc, but it says, I'm not kidding you, it says
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what lessons you learn at cbs. That's, that's funny.
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Yeah, because, you know, we were, we were Disneyland with the kids, my
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grandkids. And we went to the Goofy's kitchen and one of the
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chipmunks came over. You know, this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the names
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Chip and Dale. And so I asked Chap GT which one is Dale?
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Which one's Chip? And it was wrong. So it comes over and I said, hey,
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Chip. And he goes, no, I'm Dale. You know, you can't say anything. But he's
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like, no, no, no. But 25 years
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in an industry like that, that's so fast paced and so much pressure and so
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much going on that this must be an amazing departure from that. But
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did you bring, were there lessons to come over from corporate
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America into. Good question. Managing. Managing a winery.
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I mean, to be honest, the first lesson was not a good lesson.
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I mean, it wasn't a good lesson about the entertainment business. To
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me, one of the biggest, just right up front differences about the
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industries is the wine industry is unbelievably
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collaborative and people are generally in it
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because they love it. The entertainment industry is
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unbelievably mean spirited, cutthroat. And
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there's a lot of people who don't love the industry. They're just
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feeding off of other people who, you know, are
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actors or directors. And, you know, there's eight layers of
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publicist and manager and agent
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and, you know, just taking money. And so
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for me, when we first, you know, started Promise,
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you know, people like Ann Colgan being, you know,
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unbelievably generous and nice and, you know, kind of helping us. Colonel
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Rumbauer, you know, it really
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was an awakening of like, oh, so
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you can, you can be in a business that is not
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about, you know, beating the other person. Yeah, that's
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interesting. That was, that was a huge difference. There's so much generosity of
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spirit in, in the Valley, especially in Napa
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Valley. It's so refreshing and
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it's. It's interesting. It's a great community. I
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wonder if. I wonder if that's because
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every product, the honest wines are so uniquely different
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that the competition really is not about who makes the best
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wine. It's who's making the wine that expresses who they are, where they're from,
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and that you really don't butt heads. You might. You might. For the marketing
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dollar, if you're on the shelf at Ralph's, you know, you're.
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I don't know if you've been to Ralph's lately or Safeway, but there's a shelf
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talker and a thing on every single bottle. No way of understanding.
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A consumer has no chance. Yeah. To figure something out. But in this case,
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like, you know, airtime and. And Nielsen ratings, all the things that
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you chase, all the metrics you chase in entertainment, it's cutthroat. Yeah. I
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want to be a star. I'm gonna do everything I can to climb to the
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top. Performance. And there's. There isn't climbing to the top. It's also
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so much. I mean, the entertainment business is so much about the dollar. Yeah. I
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mean, you know, people are in it just because the money is there.
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But I think you're right. I mean, wine. Everybody's
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wine is different. And, you know, I think everyone
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is in it for, you know, their own good
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reason. And, yeah, we. We've just been
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kind of so. So struck by
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not only the generosity of just in general, but, like, when bad
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things happen, when fires happen, when droughts happen, people
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literally giving, you know, fruit and giving barrels
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and giving winery space to other
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winemakers. And. And I think it goes around the world. We love to travel,
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and we go to wine regions whenever we can. And there.
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There's a. There's a. A collaborative and camaraderie
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in Burgundy. There's one in Italy. There's, you know, it's true.
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Something very different. Completely true. I tell
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people that we did sell 17 million bottles of wine here, and we
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did taste 100,000 wines every Tuesday. We tasted wines
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forever. And that has. That
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credential, was great for consumerism, but it's the
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credential of this podcast that we tell the stories. And I bring these people on
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the show, like you, that when I travel to different parts of the wine region,
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how we are received, like in the vineyard with
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Monsieur Clouet at Chevalon. Yeah. I mean, that would
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have never happened because I was selling 20 wines out of the Wine of the
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month club. Right. But because I'm part of the process to tell the stories and.
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And understand and show the public what's behind a good bottle of wine.
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It's become a different reception. Yeah. No, you're part of the love affair that
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we all have. Everybody, in their own way, has with this business.
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It's kind of interesting you're talking about the camaraderie, because if you listen to the
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old timers about the original Napa Valley Business association,
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you know, certainly there's camaraderie there. There's a woman named
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Joanne dupuis. She's probably 96 now.
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Incredible lady. She was. She was tapped by Spurrier to deliver
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the wines from Napa to. To Paris. There was no
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way to do that back then. It's still it, really. And so she put them
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in her suitcase because she's traveling. Oh, my God. Tennis thing that she was doing.
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And she says it's very funny because this bottle of Freemark Abbey
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broke on the carousel, and there's this red wine dripping onto the.
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Onto the thing. But the reason I brought that up was that there is a
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camaraderie there. And I'm dealing a lot with the Armenian wine industry right now,
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which is. Which is an incredible story because it's 6,000. We know
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it's 6,000 years old, minimum, because they found the winery that's 6,000 years old.
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And so. But it got stalled by socialism and the ussr
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and so they're kind of like the newest, oldest wine region in the world. Right.
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Because now they finally have technology. They're making great wines, but they can't get along.
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And anybody sat there from the industry will. Will agree with me. So I'm
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not throwing anybody under the bus here. But they don't have that
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association. And they do look at it because we're Armenians and we're Middle
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Eastern merchants as competition. Interesting. I don't think it. I don't think
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it changes the industry until there's some kind of
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camaraderie. There's some kind of relationship built
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amongst them. To promote each other. Yeah. Because.
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Well, to promote the region. Right. It's the same issue as it would be with
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Napa. You know, the wines are going to be different. So you're really not going
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head to head because. Yeah, going out to the world with a new region
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and a new grape that no one's ever heard of is not going to be
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easy on your own. Right. It's just not going to happen. Anyway, The. The.
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The mood, what you did and what we did at the Promise. Let's talk about
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the winery for a second, because you treated my wife and I with an
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incredible experience with Beth. Getting there was a fun drive. You
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know, it's not far from Silverado Trail. You just take a little trip up and
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you go into the mountains, and you end up in this really cool location with
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beautiful facility and hospitality. And
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so much, I think, of wine is
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moving back to what is the experiential part of it. And we talked
432
00:26:58,390 --> 00:27:01,580
about it a little bit. The Internet. It started with. I'll just give you a
433
00:27:01,580 --> 00:27:05,380
little history. The marketing of One Month Club started with a handshake at a
434
00:27:05,380 --> 00:27:09,100
show. My dad started this idea, and I
435
00:27:09,100 --> 00:27:12,860
took it over. We grew because we shook hands
436
00:27:13,100 --> 00:27:16,860
with everybody that walked up. Anybody that joined this club, I had shaken their hand.
437
00:27:16,860 --> 00:27:20,700
There was no mail order. Then it was at a show.
438
00:27:20,700 --> 00:27:24,420
We went to the Taste of. You know, there was Festa Italia at
439
00:27:24,420 --> 00:27:27,740
3rd Street Promenade. There was the Taste of the Garlic Festival. There was all these
440
00:27:27,740 --> 00:27:31,570
things going on. I did 75 shows a year. That's one and a half
441
00:27:31,570 --> 00:27:35,210
a weekend. Wow. So. But the point was, that was an experience
442
00:27:35,210 --> 00:27:38,730
for the people that shook our hands. Right. They met the guy.
443
00:27:38,970 --> 00:27:42,170
I had salespeople, too, but they did it. And then we got away from that
444
00:27:42,170 --> 00:27:45,810
with Groupon, started this whole trend of things
445
00:27:45,810 --> 00:27:49,650
and the cheapest thing you can find and, you know. Right. And. And
446
00:27:49,650 --> 00:27:53,170
we had people taking advantage of our offers started that way. And then the Internet
447
00:27:53,170 --> 00:27:57,010
came, and we. We were on 1997. We started. And that changed the way
448
00:27:57,010 --> 00:28:00,170
consumerism is. And I think. I think that
449
00:28:00,650 --> 00:28:04,210
there's been enough. Not deceit, but enough problems with the
450
00:28:04,210 --> 00:28:07,690
crap that's being sold on the Web and the clubs that offer
451
00:28:07,770 --> 00:28:11,530
six, you know, 12 bottles for $60 in free shipping. Right.
452
00:28:11,930 --> 00:28:15,610
That the consumer's gotten tired and that we want to go back
453
00:28:15,610 --> 00:28:19,290
to that handshake and that experience and
454
00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:23,450
a person behind the product. Yeah. I think you're just. What you're saying
455
00:28:23,450 --> 00:28:27,030
is there's hundreds and thousands of ways you can
456
00:28:27,030 --> 00:28:29,590
buy any kind of product over
457
00:28:30,790 --> 00:28:33,750
the Internet. But I think you're
458
00:28:34,310 --> 00:28:38,150
onto something for us anyway, which is it takes away
459
00:28:38,550 --> 00:28:41,590
a lot of the experience of
460
00:28:42,870 --> 00:28:46,230
why we drink wine, which is to connect with people
461
00:28:46,390 --> 00:28:49,270
and to meet people and to
462
00:28:50,380 --> 00:28:53,900
build relationships. I remember Colonel Rumbauer said to me, you know,
463
00:28:54,380 --> 00:28:58,220
when people come to Napa, everyone can go into a tasting room and they
464
00:28:58,220 --> 00:29:01,740
go, this is 37 cabernet, and it's 12% this, and it's de
465
00:29:01,740 --> 00:29:05,540
stemmed and this. And he was like, introduce Yourself just say,
466
00:29:05,540 --> 00:29:08,780
hey, I'm Steve McPherson, and get talking. And, you know,
467
00:29:09,180 --> 00:29:11,780
you'll talk about the wine. That's the best part of the business. You know, I
468
00:29:11,780 --> 00:29:15,580
mean, like, you probably had that experience with Beth. It's like she's not in
469
00:29:15,580 --> 00:29:19,260
there selling wine. She's there to show you the place, show you the wines,
470
00:29:19,260 --> 00:29:22,920
hope you enjoy yourself and, you know, understand what they're about.
471
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,800
Do you think the trade self propagates the aristocracy of, you know, the
472
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,480
perceived aristocracy of one by doing that, by. By going to a tasting room and
473
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:34,320
have some person who's just learning talk about the bricks and
474
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:37,999
the alcohol content and the. I mean, I. To me,
475
00:29:37,999 --> 00:29:41,840
it's off putting because I feel like we. We
476
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,640
often say, like, when people come to promise, it's like, no snob zone. Like,
477
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:49,000
you know, like, you know, and I think that,
478
00:29:49,410 --> 00:29:53,090
you know, Parker was great for people who
479
00:29:53,090 --> 00:29:56,770
were intimidated by wine. And, you know, okay, I feel better.
480
00:29:56,770 --> 00:30:00,610
It got a 92 or 93 or whatever, but I think
481
00:30:00,850 --> 00:30:04,250
it made people who don't have all the semantics of the
482
00:30:04,250 --> 00:30:07,730
sommelier and don't maybe have the knowledge, who cares?
483
00:30:08,130 --> 00:30:11,970
Did you enjoy it? You know, what wine do you like?
484
00:30:11,970 --> 00:30:15,650
It doesn't matter that it's so and so's pick. You know,
485
00:30:15,890 --> 00:30:19,530
it matters what you love. And so I love it when people come in
486
00:30:19,530 --> 00:30:23,250
and, you know, you'll have couples and, you know, one will like
487
00:30:23,250 --> 00:30:26,530
one of our wines and one will like another one. And I'm like, that's
488
00:30:26,530 --> 00:30:30,290
fantastic. Like, that's what the way it should be. You know, it's not
489
00:30:30,290 --> 00:30:33,810
that that one's the most expensive. So if you don't like that, then you're not
490
00:30:33,810 --> 00:30:37,610
knowledgeable. It's ridiculous. There's no right. Yeah, there's
491
00:30:37,610 --> 00:30:41,410
no right. You want people to say when they pour the wine
492
00:30:41,410 --> 00:30:45,170
at home, oh, this is the McPherson family's
493
00:30:45,170 --> 00:30:48,830
wine, and this is their thing, and they make their own prosciutto over there.
494
00:30:49,550 --> 00:30:53,350
So let's talk about that. I mean, of all the experiences there, there
495
00:30:53,350 --> 00:30:56,670
is to have in wine. And I've always told
496
00:30:57,150 --> 00:31:00,990
as a consultant, when I talk to people like, you want people to sit
497
00:31:00,990 --> 00:31:04,430
at the dinner table and tell your story when they open the bottle, you don't
498
00:31:04,430 --> 00:31:07,310
want them talking about how they got it for five bucks on Groupon. That's not
499
00:31:07,310 --> 00:31:10,750
the story. Right? And so, man, going to. Going to the Promise,
500
00:31:10,990 --> 00:31:14,730
it's in a beautiful room, and then she brings out,
501
00:31:14,730 --> 00:31:18,370
you know, home cured prosciutto. I mean, that is a real
502
00:31:18,370 --> 00:31:22,050
organic approach to what she has to. Doing
503
00:31:22,690 --> 00:31:26,450
the hen house. Yeah. Right. And the, you can, I mean, she shows
504
00:31:26,450 --> 00:31:29,730
us how the eggs roll down the, you know, the astroturf there. Isn't that a
505
00:31:29,730 --> 00:31:33,090
great. That's like, that's a really cool thing. What spawned
506
00:31:33,490 --> 00:31:35,970
that part? Like, you could have opened a tasting room. You could have been weddings.
507
00:31:35,970 --> 00:31:38,770
You, you're building the barn where you're going to put all kinds of cool
508
00:31:39,420 --> 00:31:42,860
venue type things. But what spawned this? Now
509
00:31:43,820 --> 00:31:47,580
she's laughing already. Well, I just think I'm just remembering
510
00:31:47,580 --> 00:31:50,860
when he came home and he's like, I bought a couple pigs.
511
00:31:52,860 --> 00:31:56,340
I was like, and where are we? You know, your marriage is pretty good though.
512
00:31:56,340 --> 00:31:59,820
That. Yeah. Survives that, right? Because I would say I bought a couple cars.
513
00:32:01,420 --> 00:32:04,180
That's what I actually always say. I'm like, well, it could be worse. He could
514
00:32:04,180 --> 00:32:07,990
be buying, you know, sports Ferraris and whatever. But no, my
515
00:32:07,990 --> 00:32:11,510
husband likes to foreign hogs. Well, you saw the
516
00:32:11,590 --> 00:32:15,070
designer pigs, the Burkle slicer in the, in the tasting room.
517
00:32:15,070 --> 00:32:18,830
Beautiful. I joke that that is my midlife crisis
518
00:32:18,830 --> 00:32:22,550
Porsche. Like, that's what I buy. I mean, probably costs about the
519
00:32:22,550 --> 00:32:26,230
same. Yeah. I love, I mean, I love all
520
00:32:26,230 --> 00:32:29,990
sorts of food. Yes. And I love, you know, I love
521
00:32:29,990 --> 00:32:33,620
the idea of artisans of any kind. If
522
00:32:33,620 --> 00:32:36,860
somebody makes the best butter in Vermont,
523
00:32:37,580 --> 00:32:41,260
great. Let's, you know, do that. If somebody makes the best,
524
00:32:41,340 --> 00:32:44,700
you know, prosciutto, like, I want to find out.
525
00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:47,780
And you know, people say, well, how did you learn to do that? Because I,
526
00:32:47,780 --> 00:32:51,500
I'm obsessed with it. I love it. And I, you know, I literally research pigs.
527
00:32:51,580 --> 00:32:55,300
We originally had Asaba pigs, but we decided
528
00:32:55,300 --> 00:32:58,650
that the genetics just weren't the same. And then we got the
529
00:32:58,650 --> 00:33:02,250
Mangalitsas. And then I was lucky enough when a herd of
530
00:33:02,250 --> 00:33:05,970
Iberians went belly up. I was able
531
00:33:05,970 --> 00:33:09,690
to get, you know, two of those. But it's really just
532
00:33:09,690 --> 00:33:13,450
a passion. And you know, we, we
533
00:33:13,450 --> 00:33:17,090
do it with our, you know, our prosciutto, the,
534
00:33:17,090 --> 00:33:20,930
you know, the, the chickens. While our daughters will only let us
535
00:33:20,930 --> 00:33:24,450
use them on property for eggs. They're bluefoot chickens, the
536
00:33:24,450 --> 00:33:28,210
poulet breast from France. And they're the best chicken
537
00:33:28,670 --> 00:33:32,270
world for meat. And so we do, we have a
538
00:33:32,270 --> 00:33:36,110
partnership with the Montessori school, and so we do raise some of them there
539
00:33:36,510 --> 00:33:40,190
and you feed them corn and milk for the final three
540
00:33:40,190 --> 00:33:43,990
months of their lives. But it's all that stuff.
541
00:33:43,990 --> 00:33:47,830
We have a partnership with the chocolatier that we make bean
542
00:33:47,830 --> 00:33:51,390
to bar chocolate. And I just love their passion about it.
543
00:33:51,870 --> 00:33:55,440
They make to me the best chocolate, you know, that
544
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,760
I've ever tasted. And, and they make it in their own way. They, each
545
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,680
chocolate has a little salt and cinnamon added and they have, they like
546
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,360
a certain bean from Ecuador and those kind
547
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,560
of food passions. You know, you're talking about your daughter
548
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:14,400
in, you know, upstate New York, buying the vegetables from
549
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,080
the farmer. I mean, you know, one of the, one of
550
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,879
the toughest things, moving away from France and coming
551
00:34:21,879 --> 00:34:25,719
to the US and we went with our daughters later in life too. We,
552
00:34:25,879 --> 00:34:29,239
we took them when they were younger for a full school year.
553
00:34:29,479 --> 00:34:33,239
But you know, in France, you know, there's the butcher and it's probably
554
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,799
a third or fourth generation guy and there's a
555
00:34:36,799 --> 00:34:40,239
vegetable guy and there's the fish guy. It's a Whole
556
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,879
Foods. It's. Yeah, it's not a Whole Foods and a huge
557
00:34:43,959 --> 00:34:47,719
mass, you know, Bristol Farms. And they're passionate about what they
558
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:51,350
do. Right. I mean, I would go in, you know, one night thinking I'm going
559
00:34:51,350 --> 00:34:54,710
to get a hanger steak and the guy would be like, you're not getting that.
560
00:34:54,710 --> 00:34:58,350
Like, you know, that's not good today. And this is what you're getting.
561
00:34:58,350 --> 00:35:01,910
And you're like, okay, seems, seems like a good bet. There's,
562
00:35:01,910 --> 00:35:05,510
that's the interesting part. And clearly
563
00:35:05,990 --> 00:35:09,750
your European lifestyle has evolved and that explains
564
00:35:09,750 --> 00:35:12,790
a lot of what we saw at the Promise Winery because
565
00:35:13,510 --> 00:35:17,290
you are what you eat, eats, right? There's a professor of
566
00:35:17,290 --> 00:35:19,490
Yale names Paul Friedman. His,
567
00:35:21,170 --> 00:35:24,450
his lectures are about medieval servitude,
568
00:35:24,850 --> 00:35:28,610
okay. But his passion is the evolution of food in America.
569
00:35:28,850 --> 00:35:32,170
Really. He's written two or three books. One of them is called the 10 Top
570
00:35:32,170 --> 00:35:35,970
Restaurants, the Influential restaurant in America. And they're nothing what you think they are.
571
00:35:36,210 --> 00:35:39,090
And the other one, I can't remember the name of it, but it's about how
572
00:35:39,170 --> 00:35:42,810
America, with the freeway system and the Howard Johnson's of the
573
00:35:42,810 --> 00:35:46,380
world have homogenized the regional foods.
574
00:35:46,700 --> 00:35:50,380
Like you can get Texas chili in New Hampshire and etc. Etc.
575
00:35:50,460 --> 00:35:54,220
And it sort of dumbed everything down. And I think that's changing. I think it's
576
00:35:54,220 --> 00:35:57,980
changing for the passion that you guys have to making sure people
577
00:35:57,980 --> 00:36:01,620
understand it. Having lived in France, you know, they protect their butter, they
578
00:36:01,620 --> 00:36:05,140
protect their cheese, obviously they protect their wine. And I think, I think
579
00:36:05,140 --> 00:36:08,820
we're learning that, you know, like my daughter's learning, you
580
00:36:08,820 --> 00:36:12,410
know, like I took the grandkids and we picked apples. I mean it was unbelievable.
581
00:36:12,570 --> 00:36:15,530
What a, what an organic experience. I hope that
582
00:36:16,650 --> 00:36:19,770
we can figure out a way to have these small
583
00:36:20,010 --> 00:36:23,050
production Whatever it is, whether it's apples or
584
00:36:23,370 --> 00:36:27,010
pigs, that we can figure out how to keep the
585
00:36:27,010 --> 00:36:30,770
doors open and monetize it. Because, I mean, you. This
586
00:36:30,770 --> 00:36:34,170
is why we've grown to become a commercialized
587
00:36:35,170 --> 00:36:38,290
production facility, because it's really difficult
588
00:36:38,530 --> 00:36:42,370
financially to. To keep it going. Well, they say, you
589
00:36:42,370 --> 00:36:45,970
know, we butchered our farms. The. The book, the Third
590
00:36:45,970 --> 00:36:49,610
Plate, by Dan Barber, the chef of Blue
591
00:36:49,610 --> 00:36:53,170
Hill Farms. You know, when he wrote that book, actually, probably
592
00:36:53,170 --> 00:36:56,890
organic farming was difficult to feed the masses. It wasn't producing as
593
00:36:56,890 --> 00:37:00,700
much. But that's changed a lot. Right. And. And I
594
00:37:00,700 --> 00:37:04,420
think people like to go down the street to get their fresh bread. I think
595
00:37:04,420 --> 00:37:08,260
there's a cultural evolution. It's very slow. I mean, we only
596
00:37:08,260 --> 00:37:11,780
changed food in America in the 80s, you know, from. From frozen
597
00:37:11,780 --> 00:37:15,580
steak and, you know. Yeah. Oh, when we moved to
598
00:37:15,580 --> 00:37:18,540
France, cheese before, that was Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Right.
599
00:37:19,420 --> 00:37:23,100
So great. So now you have
600
00:37:23,660 --> 00:37:27,220
a list of customers. Right. They're members. You join the
601
00:37:27,220 --> 00:37:30,940
Promise. Yeah. Is not open to the public, generally. Correct. Maybe
602
00:37:30,940 --> 00:37:34,020
by appointment, if somebody wants to do it. But. And then how does. So they
603
00:37:34,100 --> 00:37:37,380
visit, they make an appointment, they come see Beth, They.
604
00:37:38,020 --> 00:37:41,540
Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, we're not open to the public, and
605
00:37:41,940 --> 00:37:45,620
so they have to know somebody, you know, know a friend or be a friend.
606
00:37:45,620 --> 00:37:49,300
And we, you know, we only see
607
00:37:49,300 --> 00:37:53,060
one party at a time because we really want that experience to be,
608
00:37:53,300 --> 00:37:56,980
you know, personal. And we. We try not to see, you know,
609
00:37:56,980 --> 00:38:00,400
parties over 8 or 10 because want,
610
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,680
you know, it to be intimate and. And be
611
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,600
a certain kind of experience. Are there plans for weddings,
612
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,840
engagements? You know, No, I. I think
613
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,480
we do. You know, people do get engaged there
614
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,200
sometimes, and there's. There's a lot of people who.
615
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:23,000
Who will buy the wine for a wedding or for an engagement or to
616
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,800
give as a gift. And that's great. That's, you know, that's become part of
617
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,640
what Promise is and. And what the story is. But,
618
00:38:32,260 --> 00:38:35,940
yeah, it's. It. It's a. It's a really personal
619
00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:39,780
experience, and I think that's becoming
620
00:38:39,940 --> 00:38:43,780
much more important to people out there in wine.
621
00:38:44,820 --> 00:38:48,660
Clearly, the picture of my dad, actually, this patch, this is
622
00:38:48,660 --> 00:38:52,420
Les Amie Divines. It was. It was an organization. I've
623
00:38:52,420 --> 00:38:55,540
talked about this on the show before, but it's an organization in America. It was
624
00:38:55,940 --> 00:38:59,260
150 chapters. You had to have a wine shop to own a chapter, but it
625
00:38:59,260 --> 00:39:02,780
was about the experience. So my dad would put on dinners at Marineland,
626
00:39:03,020 --> 00:39:05,980
and they go down there, and the women would Wear their minks. And this is
627
00:39:05,980 --> 00:39:09,700
a big event. Robert Mondavi would speak. Balzer, all the famous critics would
628
00:39:09,700 --> 00:39:13,180
speak. And it wasn't about the aristocracy of the wine. It was just the experience
629
00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:16,980
of wine. And I think what you're doing is critical to
630
00:39:16,980 --> 00:39:20,540
the industry to grow and get away from.
631
00:39:21,420 --> 00:39:25,100
I think all this non alk stuff and lox stuff and White Claw and all
632
00:39:25,100 --> 00:39:28,720
those competitive. There's always been competitive beverages to the wine trade.
633
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,000
They've just evolved a lot more now, though. Yeah, there are a few more now.
634
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,200
But I've had people sit there and try to tell me that they have this
635
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:38,920
brilliant idea to put wine in a 375 with a, you know, a
636
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,680
Voss bottle like thing. Right. Like, that's. That's not.
637
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,440
What possible marketing angle can you take with the
638
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:50,160
beverage that's six. At least 6,000 years old and change it.
639
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:53,560
It's the same beverage as it was when Noah landed his ark on the. Yeah.
640
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,870
Mount Ara. Yeah. Right. It may taste a little better than. That, but
641
00:39:57,750 --> 00:40:01,590
no, I think all those gimmicks are just that they're gimmicks. They'll
642
00:40:01,590 --> 00:40:05,310
come and go. Yeah. I mean, White Zinn was a mistake. Yeah. Right. We
643
00:40:05,310 --> 00:40:08,710
still get people who think they don't like rose because of White
644
00:40:08,710 --> 00:40:12,509
Symphony. You know, they think that's what rose is meant to
645
00:40:12,509 --> 00:40:16,150
be. So that's an evolution, I guess, of generations we have to suffer through.
646
00:40:16,870 --> 00:40:20,390
I spent 25 years here with my wife. I worked 10 years at the one
647
00:40:20,390 --> 00:40:24,190
month I made more money when she wasn't around. But she's a licensed cpa and
648
00:40:24,190 --> 00:40:25,910
all of a sudden I had to follow the rules
649
00:40:28,310 --> 00:40:31,990
to this day. You guys worked together before
650
00:40:32,070 --> 00:40:35,750
you joined together in this. No, no, we didn't.
651
00:40:35,750 --> 00:40:39,350
You got up, went to work every day and. Yeah, yeah, was. She
652
00:40:39,350 --> 00:40:43,030
was very separate. She was slinging hash of the restaurants. Yeah.
653
00:40:43,670 --> 00:40:47,510
She has another career. I. I briefly thought maybe I wanted to
654
00:40:47,510 --> 00:40:51,100
work in the entertainment industry, but I. I jumped ship on that
655
00:40:51,580 --> 00:40:55,420
pretty early on and I went back and got my master's in psychology.
656
00:40:55,580 --> 00:40:59,420
Oh, wow. So I practice psychotherapy still, currently. Yes.
657
00:40:59,580 --> 00:41:03,140
And so is there a lesson to learn working
658
00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:06,380
together or. Because you still have sort of separate. You have your own career
659
00:41:07,180 --> 00:41:11,020
that takes time away from the wine together because my wife and I would sit
660
00:41:11,020 --> 00:41:14,100
next to each other. I finally learned I should not put a window between our
661
00:41:14,100 --> 00:41:17,580
offices. Yeah. I mean, you know,
662
00:41:17,820 --> 00:41:21,390
it's interesting the. The place where. Because, you know, we.
663
00:41:21,390 --> 00:41:25,190
We live in Los Angeles for the most part. We have lived
664
00:41:25,190 --> 00:41:28,510
in Napa as well, but for our children's education.
665
00:41:29,070 --> 00:41:32,830
Live in Los Angeles. And that. That gives a little bit
666
00:41:32,830 --> 00:41:35,710
separation because I. I do spend more time.
667
00:41:37,310 --> 00:41:40,910
We have some more space. Yeah, that's good. But I mean, you know,
668
00:41:41,310 --> 00:41:45,070
in la, the only place that it really caused a problem is that our kids
669
00:41:45,150 --> 00:41:48,950
at some points have said, honestly, can we not talk about business,
670
00:41:49,190 --> 00:41:53,030
like at dinner? You know, because if you mentioned. Yeah, if you
671
00:41:53,030 --> 00:41:56,390
guys talk about the wine industry, we're. We're getting up and having dinner in the
672
00:41:56,390 --> 00:42:00,030
other room. Okay. That's really funny. Yeah. My kids haven't gotten there
673
00:42:00,030 --> 00:42:03,470
yet. Maybe because I'm the guy. I have the purse strings when it comes to
674
00:42:03,470 --> 00:42:07,070
the bottle of wine, so they don't get cut off. But they're still, you know,
675
00:42:07,070 --> 00:42:10,870
they're 17 and 19, almost 18 and 20 now. They're just. And they're,
676
00:42:10,950 --> 00:42:14,620
by the way, their palates are great. They're an incredible cooks. They
677
00:42:14,620 --> 00:42:18,260
love to cook. Yeah. And I think they're. They're just coming around to
678
00:42:18,820 --> 00:42:22,260
enjoying wine. But, you know, they've seen.
679
00:42:22,580 --> 00:42:26,180
They've seen how bumpy a road it can be. And,
680
00:42:26,180 --> 00:42:29,940
you know, I think at some point, one frustrated moment,
681
00:42:30,260 --> 00:42:32,740
one child said to one water tank,
682
00:42:34,180 --> 00:42:37,380
why can't you have a normal job like everybody else's parents?
683
00:42:37,700 --> 00:42:41,500
Yeah, that's really funny. A normal job. Yeah. Like, what is
684
00:42:41,500 --> 00:42:45,140
that exactly nowadays? Yeah. Well, if you look,
685
00:42:45,380 --> 00:42:48,900
you can't see this picture, but the. The actual beer box was behind
686
00:42:48,980 --> 00:42:52,460
this display. And that was the first display of the wines of the month. So
687
00:42:52,460 --> 00:42:55,740
that's where I spent most of my time when I worked at the pharmacy in
688
00:42:55,740 --> 00:42:58,020
the wine shops was in that beer box. And then.
689
00:42:59,700 --> 00:43:03,260
But, you know, it's interesting because maybe, maybe it is.
690
00:43:03,260 --> 00:43:07,030
Maybe the timing of what you're doing, it coincides with the sort of the
691
00:43:07,030 --> 00:43:10,670
timing of when my dad started in the 70s and
692
00:43:10,670 --> 00:43:14,190
wine became popular in American
693
00:43:14,190 --> 00:43:17,830
culture. And now the experience coming back to wine is
694
00:43:17,830 --> 00:43:20,750
what we need to show the public. And that's what you guys are putting together.
695
00:43:21,149 --> 00:43:24,670
Ear. Lips to God's ears, to everybody. I mean,
696
00:43:25,150 --> 00:43:28,870
wine has gotten. I don't understand, you know, now they're trying to
697
00:43:28,870 --> 00:43:32,590
medically substantiate why it's bad for you. The media
698
00:43:32,670 --> 00:43:36,470
has kind of seemed. Seems to want to go after
699
00:43:36,470 --> 00:43:40,270
it a little bit. That's true. I don't know why that is.
700
00:43:40,270 --> 00:43:43,630
And the teetotalers, the pro neo prohibitionists are back.
701
00:43:43,950 --> 00:43:47,550
Yeah. Rather than talk about the
702
00:43:48,190 --> 00:43:51,870
beauty and the history and all
703
00:43:52,430 --> 00:43:56,150
the benefits which there are, those
704
00:43:56,150 --> 00:43:59,950
studies being Done. But the media doesn't seem to want
705
00:43:59,950 --> 00:44:03,710
to talk about that angle anymore. Well, the media has changed
706
00:44:03,710 --> 00:44:07,230
so much. I mean the media is now there is no news,
707
00:44:07,310 --> 00:44:11,150
it's all entertainment. It's all driven by clicks and,
708
00:44:11,390 --> 00:44:15,070
and so, you know, being negative unfortunately sells.
709
00:44:15,630 --> 00:44:19,070
And so I think people find things to go after and,
710
00:44:19,150 --> 00:44:22,990
and find, you know, it's, you're going to get a lot more clicks with
711
00:44:23,870 --> 00:44:27,520
nobody's drinking wine ever again. Then, hey, here's a really
712
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:31,240
cool region, Armenia, that's just starting out and
713
00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:35,040
it's been around for 6,000 years. I mean it just unfortunately it doesn't
714
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:38,760
get the same amount of attention. But I
715
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,200
think it should, I think all these things should.
716
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,080
So we have to find a bridge and an
717
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:47,560
invitation and
718
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,480
some kind of way to include the TikTok generation and
719
00:44:54,140 --> 00:44:57,700
into enjoying wine. Well, it's a,
720
00:44:57,700 --> 00:45:00,460
it's damned if you do and damn if you don't when it comes to social.
721
00:45:00,460 --> 00:45:04,260
Because if you don't do it then you, you look this. Not square but not
722
00:45:04,260 --> 00:45:07,740
contemporary. Exactly. Where else do you mark. There's no such thing as, as
723
00:45:07,820 --> 00:45:11,620
Larry Tate PR anymore. Right. You know, that doesn't exist. You can't go into
724
00:45:11,620 --> 00:45:14,940
a PR to say and what the PR agency is going to do today is.
725
00:45:15,180 --> 00:45:18,260
Right. Go to the web and go to the social. That is what it is.
726
00:45:18,260 --> 00:45:21,840
Right. But I think, I think philosophically you just have to stay the
727
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,760
course. And I tell this to a lot of miners I speak with,
728
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,000
it'll ebb and flow. And if you're not true to what you are and what
729
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,800
you're doing, then all you're doing is cheating yourself and you're not going to
730
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,480
be able to control what the market does for you anyway. So you might as
731
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,280
well just stay true to your story and, and represent what you are.
732
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,960
And I think that honesty. Yeah, in all products.
733
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:45,960
Right, exactly. All passion comes out. When you talk about the health benefits. I
734
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:49,360
mean that book right there, that's the Morally Safer's, you know, the result of the
735
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:53,030
morally safers. 199060 minute display
736
00:45:53,030 --> 00:45:56,590
of the Mediterranean lifestyle, which includes a heavy steady
737
00:45:56,990 --> 00:46:00,830
diet of wine is part of it. It's certainly not the
738
00:46:00,830 --> 00:46:04,430
criminal part of somebody's lifestyle. I forget the new.
739
00:46:04,430 --> 00:46:07,950
There's a, there's, there have been a few of them and there's one
740
00:46:07,950 --> 00:46:11,630
that's like just published within the last year or two as
741
00:46:11,630 --> 00:46:15,350
well. So it, there are, it's kind of. Like
742
00:46:15,350 --> 00:46:18,940
if you don't, if you, you know, where history repeats itself and
743
00:46:18,940 --> 00:46:22,260
sometimes we don't learn the lessons. And I'm going to talk about climate change for
744
00:46:22,260 --> 00:46:26,020
a second. Not a political show. But, you know, I had somebody criticize my
745
00:46:26,020 --> 00:46:29,340
show because I said that, well, Paul should be talking about policies.
746
00:46:30,220 --> 00:46:33,340
But, you know, there's been Paul's your show. You could talk about whatever the hell.
747
00:46:33,340 --> 00:46:35,780
You want to talk about. That's true. But, you know, I don't want to ruffle
748
00:46:35,780 --> 00:46:39,260
any feathers when it comes to that. I'll have to ruffle wine feathers. You're gonna
749
00:46:39,260 --> 00:46:42,900
ruffle somebody's. Yeah, but you know, there was a cold snap for 15
750
00:46:42,900 --> 00:46:46,020
years in the late 1700s. You know, champagne suffered
751
00:46:46,500 --> 00:46:50,060
drastically for it. And that's, you know, that's just the way it goes. It happens.
752
00:46:50,060 --> 00:46:53,380
Before I was reading about Barcelona,
753
00:46:54,900 --> 00:46:58,580
there was, oh, there's a new book out from the Cladstrups
754
00:46:58,580 --> 00:47:02,100
who wrote Wine and War. If you haven't read that book, you must read it.
755
00:47:02,340 --> 00:47:06,060
And then they also wrote Champagne Charlie. And then they just. She
756
00:47:06,060 --> 00:47:09,770
just released a book called Eugenie, which is the
757
00:47:09,770 --> 00:47:13,530
story of Napoleon III's wife when they
758
00:47:13,530 --> 00:47:17,290
created the 1855 classification. Got it. And the clad strips
759
00:47:17,290 --> 00:47:21,130
are brilliant people. They live in Paris, they're Americans. So I was
760
00:47:21,130 --> 00:47:24,370
reading that book and they were talking about in Barcelona because she was
761
00:47:24,530 --> 00:47:28,250
princess or the family was from Barcelona, that there was
762
00:47:28,250 --> 00:47:31,970
massive drought and then
763
00:47:31,970 --> 00:47:35,730
massive flooding, destroying like. Sounds familiar, you
764
00:47:35,730 --> 00:47:39,210
know? Yeah, it sounds very familiar. Right? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That was like 18
765
00:47:39,210 --> 00:47:42,430
something. Yeah, yeah. So just. It ebbs and flows. But
766
00:47:43,470 --> 00:47:46,710
so I'm going to do. So we're almost out of time. It's
767
00:47:46,710 --> 00:47:49,870
unbelievable. That's like one of the fastest. Yeah,
768
00:47:50,430 --> 00:47:54,110
no, it's been great. This is a, this is
769
00:47:54,110 --> 00:47:57,630
fun. Since we're talking about the health
770
00:47:57,630 --> 00:48:01,150
benefits, this is a book by Dr. Murray,
771
00:48:01,230 --> 00:48:04,510
who is a French doctor in the 70s. He was an MD as well as
772
00:48:04,510 --> 00:48:08,280
a homeopathic doctor. And this is Wine is the
773
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:11,760
best medicine. Now, the answer to the question I'm going to ask you is going
774
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:15,520
to be a French district or a French varietal. Yeah, but.
775
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,520
And by the way, if I ask give you three answers,
776
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:23,880
only 33% of the people get it right. But
777
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,480
it's kind of like the Master of Wine and Master Psalm test in
778
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,040
that the answer is important, but we kind of want to know what you're thinking
779
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:34,700
to get to that answer. Got it. Okay. So. So don't be
780
00:48:34,700 --> 00:48:38,420
embarrassed. No, no. So there's. I'll give you an ailment and
781
00:48:38,420 --> 00:48:42,220
I'll give you three potential cures or at
782
00:48:42,220 --> 00:48:45,820
least symptom relievers for that. So we could
783
00:48:45,820 --> 00:48:49,620
do. Let's just say we have a fever. We could
784
00:48:49,620 --> 00:48:53,340
have a grave or a dry
785
00:48:53,340 --> 00:48:55,980
champagne or a coat de bone
786
00:48:56,860 --> 00:49:00,710
to handle our fever. What do you think it is and why
787
00:49:01,750 --> 00:49:05,510
you think it is? I'll
788
00:49:05,510 --> 00:49:09,030
accept two different answers from two different people. A champagne.
789
00:49:09,270 --> 00:49:13,070
A what kind of champagne? A dry champagne. Dry champagne. Cote
790
00:49:13,070 --> 00:49:16,870
de Bonne Burgundy. As you know, essentially the
791
00:49:16,870 --> 00:49:20,150
first place I go is. Is. Is the alcohol content.
792
00:49:21,430 --> 00:49:25,110
And whether you want. You want to have more alcohol for a
793
00:49:25,110 --> 00:49:28,910
fever or you want to have less alcohol for a fever. But that's. That's
794
00:49:28,910 --> 00:49:30,390
only one element. Certainly.
795
00:49:33,270 --> 00:49:36,830
I think just my. My. My
796
00:49:36,830 --> 00:49:40,470
gut is champagne. Because
797
00:49:40,950 --> 00:49:44,549
I find champagne to be the most festive
798
00:49:44,630 --> 00:49:48,110
of what you've. You know, what you've given me in terms of the
799
00:49:48,110 --> 00:49:51,910
choices and kind of uplifting in that sense.
800
00:49:52,950 --> 00:49:56,670
And it is lower alcohol. So maybe if that is. If that
801
00:49:56,670 --> 00:49:59,430
is a way to go. But, yeah, I think I would go champ.
802
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,200
A nice, like, blanc de blanc. I mean, what occasion doesn't improve
803
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,480
with. Yeah, well, I think that's the answer to all of them. Right.
804
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:12,000
To help you. At least you feel better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's a dosage
805
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,560
with this. So you're right. You're part of the 33.
806
00:50:15,959 --> 00:50:19,440
Oh, my God. And almost the. The reason is because these wines
807
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,840
contain, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person.
808
00:50:23,240 --> 00:50:26,520
Phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating. Sulfur
809
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:30,600
in sulfate of potassium form, whose detoxifying
810
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,400
action on the body has been established. Huh. That's really interesting.
811
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,120
What do you think the dose would be? It might be enough. In my
812
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,920
room, two bottles. And call me in the morning. I split the
813
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:43,280
difference. There's a bottle a day.
814
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:51,160
Honey, we got to switch doctors. He's got some YouTube stuff you
815
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,940
can find. But you speak French, obviously, so it's got. It's in French. Yeah. I
816
00:50:54,940 --> 00:50:58,620
bought both versions. This and the French version. That's. I found this, My
817
00:50:58,620 --> 00:51:02,340
dad's library. That's fun. So I want to touch on one thing. Sure. Before
818
00:51:02,340 --> 00:51:05,620
we go, that you said, which I think is so important
819
00:51:05,860 --> 00:51:09,340
and so dead on. It's about staying
820
00:51:09,340 --> 00:51:12,980
honest to what you're doing. If you're chasing
821
00:51:12,980 --> 00:51:16,820
the buck, you know, and for me, personally. So if you're chasing
822
00:51:16,820 --> 00:51:20,260
the buck in the entertainment industry, because that's seductive,
823
00:51:21,130 --> 00:51:24,850
it doesn't matter how successful you are. It won't
824
00:51:24,850 --> 00:51:28,410
be fulfilling. I mean, you hear all these stories about these
825
00:51:28,490 --> 00:51:31,890
really bitter and disgruntled and
826
00:51:31,890 --> 00:51:35,330
unfulfilled people. Who are unbelievably successful in the
827
00:51:35,330 --> 00:51:38,810
entertainment industry. And it's true. And I believe that
828
00:51:38,890 --> 00:51:42,730
I'm happier now. I mean, I made a
829
00:51:42,730 --> 00:51:46,540
lot of money, I was successful, I had power. But
830
00:51:46,540 --> 00:51:49,900
I'm so much more fulfilled holding a bottle of my
831
00:51:49,900 --> 00:51:53,700
wine than being able to take credit for
832
00:51:53,700 --> 00:51:57,380
some piece of work, because it's
833
00:51:57,380 --> 00:52:01,180
honestly what I love to do. And we put
834
00:52:01,180 --> 00:52:04,420
our heart into every bottle every year. We're trying to
835
00:52:05,060 --> 00:52:08,420
make a better wine. We're learning something more about
836
00:52:08,500 --> 00:52:12,340
agriculture, we're learning something more about viticulture. We're learning
837
00:52:12,340 --> 00:52:15,240
something more about winemaking technology.
838
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,720
And, you know, just having fun doing it. Yeah, it just.
839
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:24,040
I really, you know, my dad had a simple piece of advice which is really
840
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:27,640
hard to follow, which is find out what you love and then find out how
841
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:31,320
to make money at it, because he was a realist. But
842
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,320
I think what you said is so important for people. And
843
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,520
I, you know, you see the Internet, I think one of the things that
844
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:43,040
the Internet has done for. For the
845
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:46,840
younger generation is this idea that, like, you can be a billionaire.
846
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:51,080
Okay, well, yeah, but if you're a billionaire because you're making,
847
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:55,400
you know, something that's hurting humanity, like, or
848
00:52:55,720 --> 00:52:59,480
is controversially, you know, that's never
849
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:03,280
going to be fulfilling no matter how many G5s you buy. That's
850
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:07,080
just. That's right. That's really interesting thought. I can use two examples, which
851
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:10,430
I won't say publicly popped in my head as soon as you said that.
852
00:53:10,740 --> 00:53:13,540
Yeah. But I think staying the course on what you believe is
853
00:53:14,580 --> 00:53:18,140
only thing you can do in any business. And it's hard. It's hard to do
854
00:53:18,140 --> 00:53:21,980
because you're in the influences to go other directions and to change
855
00:53:21,980 --> 00:53:25,740
the narrative is too easy. Yeah. It's too easy to chase. Chase
856
00:53:25,740 --> 00:53:29,380
a dollar and not. Yeah. You know, a lot has to do with. Especially
857
00:53:29,540 --> 00:53:31,780
younger kids who see Internet
858
00:53:33,060 --> 00:53:36,880
influencers, you know, who knows if those stories are real about
859
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:40,680
what they do and how much they make. But if you chase being an influencer
860
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:44,040
and not chase what you're influencing. Yeah.
861
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:47,960
It's. It's empty. And I can tell you this with this podcast.
862
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:52,279
I love doing it. I love processing it. I love putting it together,
863
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:56,160
hearing the stories, love telling the stories. And not that I didn't love
864
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,640
what I did at the wine trade, but there were so many moving parts
865
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,900
to selling a bottle of wine. And like, my last full
866
00:54:03,900 --> 00:54:07,180
year, which was 2022, I sent 33 million
867
00:54:07,180 --> 00:54:11,020
emails. Oh, my God. Wow. And that would. That would only produce Enough
868
00:54:11,020 --> 00:54:14,820
sales that maybe selling 10 years earlier, a million emails would have produced
869
00:54:14,820 --> 00:54:17,979
twice as much, if not more sales than that because of the way it's been
870
00:54:17,979 --> 00:54:21,660
diluted. 33 million. 33 million. Which means I had to
871
00:54:21,660 --> 00:54:25,380
produce at least 300 pieces of content, 300
872
00:54:25,380 --> 00:54:29,140
graphics, 300 promotion codes, 300 angles.
873
00:54:29,140 --> 00:54:32,500
How do you. How do you create 300 different ways to sell? Right.
874
00:54:33,660 --> 00:54:37,300
You know, the Bordeaux group or the Chianti group. I would have the Napa Valley
875
00:54:37,300 --> 00:54:41,060
Cabernet. You know, just whatever I could muster up to get catch people's
876
00:54:41,060 --> 00:54:44,780
attention. Yeah. And that ended up being 33 million emails. Wow.
877
00:54:45,100 --> 00:54:48,819
So that part of it was hard. The
878
00:54:48,819 --> 00:54:52,460
passion that drove it was really, truly finding
879
00:54:52,540 --> 00:54:56,340
interesting wines that people could experiment with and understand. Yeah. And that
880
00:54:56,340 --> 00:54:58,060
started to change, too, because
881
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:03,920
my competitors who came into the marketplace like naked wines and wink
882
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:07,600
and all these guys were buying this crap from 50 Cent. A liter
883
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:11,040
wines from who knows where. Yeah. Garbage punches
884
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:15,040
landing in. In New Jersey,
885
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:18,880
bottling it in a billion brands and shipping it out as something different. And it
886
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,720
wasn't. And I was not being forced to, but they were coming through my door
887
00:55:22,720 --> 00:55:26,410
now, like in the old days. I just got off the show with August
888
00:55:26,410 --> 00:55:30,170
Sebastiani, and I'm talking to him. I slapped myself on the head.
889
00:55:30,170 --> 00:55:33,610
I said, oh, my God. I did a wine. I did two big slugs of
890
00:55:33,610 --> 00:55:37,330
their wine. A Cabernet Franc and a Merlot. And I told him. I said,
891
00:55:37,570 --> 00:55:41,130
there was this crazy label that you guys found in the back of your
892
00:55:41,130 --> 00:55:44,650
warehouse. And there was like, I bought like, seven or 800 cases of each. He
893
00:55:44,650 --> 00:55:47,930
goes, yeah, that was my sister. She was three years old, and she had drawn
894
00:55:47,930 --> 00:55:50,970
on the whiteboard. And we took a picture of it and became the label. We
895
00:55:50,970 --> 00:55:54,610
never sold the wine, but the wine was great. And so I
896
00:55:54,610 --> 00:55:58,330
go, that's the stuff. Why? The Month Club used to find interesting little things
897
00:55:59,050 --> 00:56:02,770
when it came. Bulk juice from Europe. Yeah. And those. That's what I was
898
00:56:02,770 --> 00:56:06,170
getting for the price I could pay. That's when the passion died.
899
00:56:06,250 --> 00:56:09,970
Yeah. You know, you get away from what you love. You
900
00:56:09,970 --> 00:56:13,570
get away from what you love. But the premise is still real. The guy that
901
00:56:13,570 --> 00:56:16,650
bought it, they're already selling it. It's only been two years.
902
00:56:16,970 --> 00:56:20,590
Yeah. And it's not because they're making too much money. Yeah. Right.
903
00:56:20,910 --> 00:56:24,750
So, yeah, no, it's a. It's. It's tough. Yeah, it's
904
00:56:24,750 --> 00:56:28,350
tough. But you guys, so much fun to have a chance to hear your
905
00:56:28,350 --> 00:56:31,270
story, and I'm sure we'll do it again. One day. Because there's so much more
906
00:56:31,270 --> 00:56:34,590
to talk about. Yeah. And, you know, as you. As it progresses that you talked
907
00:56:34,590 --> 00:56:37,870
about, there's new influences. And one of the things I do want to talk about,
908
00:56:38,270 --> 00:56:40,670
maybe it'll just take five minutes, which is like, what is that?
909
00:56:42,270 --> 00:56:45,240
Like, you have to make a lot of decisions when you do this. When it
910
00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:48,600
comes to packaging experience, Beth,
911
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:52,520
who knows what comes on your plate? There must be some overriding
912
00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:56,160
philosophy that you have the back of your head, like, default to,
913
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,400
like, okay, I'm not sure what to do here, but because we represent
914
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:04,600
an expression of time and place or whatever, this is what we're going to do.
915
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:08,280
Is it a conscious thing? Well, that's a good
916
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,420
word to use. Is it a conscious thing? Because I was going to say it's.
917
00:57:13,420 --> 00:57:16,860
At the end of the day, it's trusting our guts and
918
00:57:17,820 --> 00:57:21,260
what feels right. You know, we've
919
00:57:21,260 --> 00:57:25,100
definitely kissed a couple frogs that we
920
00:57:25,340 --> 00:57:29,099
wish we didn't kiss. That's a good expression.
921
00:57:29,100 --> 00:57:32,620
But I think
922
00:57:33,260 --> 00:57:37,100
we know ourselves and each other
923
00:57:37,500 --> 00:57:41,210
and our brand and what we stand for by now. That the,
924
00:57:41,210 --> 00:57:44,530
the. Ultimately, at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and
925
00:57:44,530 --> 00:57:48,330
cents choices, but. But if you have the luxury of making a choice
926
00:57:49,050 --> 00:57:52,810
based on does this feel true to us? That's always
927
00:57:52,810 --> 00:57:56,570
going to prevail. Yeah. And we, you know,
928
00:57:56,570 --> 00:58:00,370
I. I think we. We have always gone with, you
929
00:58:00,370 --> 00:58:03,970
know, we're very meticulous, and we take. I mean, we had the
930
00:58:03,970 --> 00:58:07,320
wine, our first bottles of wine, you know, our
931
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:11,120
47 cases in that it was literally in the barrel for almost
932
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:14,040
two and a half years before we knew what the label would be. We knew
933
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:16,040
it was going to be called Promise, but we didn't know it was going to
934
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:19,640
be my wedding ring, which is what the circle represents.
935
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:23,400
But the other thing I would say is people. It really,
936
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:27,200
you know, as she said, we. We've kissed a few frogs, but it's really about
937
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:30,440
people. And, you know, I. I've been
938
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:34,000
successful in Wall street, in entertainment,
939
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,680
in wine, when I'm in business with
940
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:41,400
great people. And I think, you know, after
941
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,800
21 years, I feel like, you know, we have an amazing
942
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:48,000
small team of people that we truly consider
943
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:52,440
family. And it's not a. It's not a, you know, a cliche
944
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,840
that we say that. I mean, Beth has to tell our story,
945
00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:00,330
and when you are entrusting somebody to tell your story,
946
00:59:00,810 --> 00:59:04,570
that's a. That's a really personal and powerful thing. And she does it
947
00:59:04,570 --> 00:59:08,330
so well, and we trust her to do that. And our
948
00:59:08,330 --> 00:59:11,850
winemaker is a good friend and somebody who is an
949
00:59:11,850 --> 00:59:15,610
educator, and we, we chose him partly because of that. He
950
00:59:15,610 --> 00:59:19,330
makes world class wine. But we want to learn, we want to talk, we
951
00:59:19,330 --> 00:59:22,650
want to walk the vineyards, we want to sit there in the dirt and, and,
952
00:59:22,650 --> 00:59:26,340
and spend time. And so it's a. I, I think if
953
00:59:26,340 --> 00:59:30,060
you get in business with great people, you know, that's a
954
00:59:30,060 --> 00:59:33,780
big step. Well, thanks again for being on the show, and we hope to see
955
00:59:33,780 --> 00:59:37,380
each other soon. Thank you so much, Paul. This is amazing. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.