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

0:00 We know ourselves and each other and our brand and what we stand for by now. That ultimately, at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and cents choices, but if you have the luxury of making a choice based on does this feel true to us? That's always going to prevail. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, beautiful Southern California, about to have a conversation with Stephen and Jennifer McPherson of the Promise Winery. Introductions in just a second. Yes, I am the guy that tasted 100,000 wine in his career and sold 17 million bottles all by myself. But now, while we're here, here to have a conversation with Stephen. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Call yourself co founders. I mean. Yeah, yeah, we really started it together and have been running it together. You know, we've stayed small over 20 years. It's. It's us and three employees. I can't believe it's from 20 years. And thank you for the visit there, by the way. It was pretty amazing perspective on the wine trade in Napa, which is in a little bit of turmoil right now with, you know, prices being. Trying to try to hold your prices, but.

1:15 But the industry sort of a dip. Yeah. And here's this full on, or I'm going to call it organic experience at the Promise Winery. You know, and everybody's gonna say, what's the promise mean? You know, that's certainly a question. And I understand that this was. Yeah. Tell me the story. You want to start with that? Yeah, go ahead, babe. Well, Steve was pretty successful in the entertainment business, but I could see that his spirit was dwindling and just being sucked dry. And every time we would go to Napa Valley, which was frequently, I would say at least three times a year, four times a year, he was a different person. He was more alive. He was. He was himself.

2:02 He was truly just connected. And I said, one day, one day, Steve, we need. This needs to be in our lives forever. So promise me you're going to pursue your real passion and you're not going to. You're going to keep dreaming and you're going to promise yourself and us that you're going to have this. We're going to do this. You're going to. You're going to figure out a way to. To keep this part of you. Forever. And he made that promise. Yeah, he made that promise on our wedding. Well, and it's, you know, we dated for almost four and a half years.

2:43 And, you know, I was. I was a type. A kind of competitive businessman. And I would. For years, I would say, honey, I looked at the strap planning sheet, this is a bad business. You know, you're making a product, you're putting it in the closet for three years. And she was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And it. It really. It took. It took all that time, I think, you know, for me to really see that she was right. And, you know, the Promise was really on the eve of our wedding, you know, that weekend. And we. We had no idea really what that meant. It's not like the promise was, listen, in 20 years, we want to have a winery that produces X. And, you know, but it was enough to push me over the edge to take that chance. And we just. That fall we got married in. In. In June, and that fall we bought some grapes from a friend of ours, and the rest is history. I mean, not only did you tell. You make a promise to your wife, but you told her she was right. Some of that. Yeah, exactly. Set the president. Yeah, yeah. Good way to start the marriage. Yeah, that is a good way. I mean, I'm still struggling with that 35 years later. It's an interesting.

3:58 It's an interesting perspective because it does take that long, and it is a difficult business, and it's very hard to make money. And not unlike owning an airplane is not a profitable thing generally, it's very hard to run a business like that. And wine is the same. So it does really just take an amazing amount of passion. And clearly, when we visit the Promise Winery, that's what's built into this, into the landscape of Napa Valley. But you can't do it without that, can you? No, you really can't. And I think we say now, 21 years into the business, it has not been easy. And I wouldn't change my perspective of this is a great business to make money at, but it's an amazing business if you love it.

4:45 And it makes us enormously fulfilled. And it's become life. Life's work for us to some extent. But that's, you know, I think there's so many. There's always a million reasons why not to pursue your dream or that harder road or that, you know, that kind of, you know, quest project that you might have. And I think, you know, that's who I was, you know, for four and a half years. And then once. But once you get into it, you know, if you face problems, you face drought, you face recession, you face. You Know, mountain lions eating your goats. You know, stuff. You get through it. You get through it.

5:26 Whereas, you know, if you don't love it, then, you know, dealing with, you know, something that is really problematic and challenging in a business, if you. If you're not invested and love that business, it's really hard. It's really hard to do. But every morning I walk on the beach. When I met Hermosa, we walk all the way to her Manhattan pier, come back, and it's, you know, three miles, and they go in the water. Promised myself I would do that. But the night before, we'd watch La La Land, which I think is a great movie. Great movie. Yeah. My wife loves musicals, so, you know, but really, I came away again, and I just love the end of it. And it's controversial, you know, people always argue about what. What it meant. But when you're chasing your dreams, you know, you. At any age, at any time in your life, if you have that chance. And I did this sort of Instagram thing. I said, you got to chase them. I'm chasing one right now. This podcast is a.

6:16 Chasing something to do with wine and tell the stories of the wine business. Because there's so many. Your story is one of them. The passion it takes to do this is purely required. And the question is, why? Not expecting an answer, necessarily, but why did you light up when you showed up in Napa Valley? And why did you notice that? And what. You know, what is it about wine that makes you do this? Is it some kind of connection to the earth, Some kind of soulful, you know, and there's maybe no answer. I think it's a. For me, it's a lot of things with my entire life put together. You know, I was fortunate when. When I was 10 years old, my dad became the headmaster of the American School of Paris. So it was life changing. We moved there, and I lived grade school and high school there. And he, you know, it was 1976, so it was just after the French tasting. My dad was taking classes at Spurrier's place. Really? Wow.

7:15 Yeah. So wine became part of, you know, who we were. And they just love. Both my parents just loved France and Europe. So we never came back for visits until each. Each kid got one visit for college choices. But then secondarily, I was playing soccer in the French leagues and at school, and so I was never home for dinner. So my mom, at about age 13, was like, Listen, I'm not cooking two meals a day for the family, so let me show you how to cook Basic things. And I just fell in love with it. And ever Since I was 13, I've loved to cook. And you fantasize about being a chef and just love restaurants and all that. And so it kind of. You know, it. It kind of started back then, and then it's just. Just kind of continued to. To roll forward. I mean, I went to college and we only drank beer, but kind of immediately after college, when.

8:17 When I started to make just a little money, you know, started to collect a few bottles here and there, and it just became like a real. It was a passion, and it is a passion. And, you know, then when you get involved in it, you get even more deeply involved in it. Farmer. And you become, you know, a viticultural big purveyor. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's an interesting leap from, you know, an American lifestyle to living in Paris, and particularly 1976. I had Steven Spurrier on the show before he passed away, just before. Oh, cool. We met him once in Naples. Really nice guy. Then I went into Cob de Madeline in. In the District, and she goes, this is not the same one that you think it is. My God. I thought I was taking the history here, but know, culturally, wine was in the 70s, right. When this picture was taken in 1975, Jim Barrett used to come into the store. And in fact, when he won the judgment, he came in and said, you know, would you mind? He actually asked my father to carry the wines because everybody's asking for donations.

9:20 Like he said, just go down to PB Liquor. But. But what an amazing time for the wine trade. And is there a chasm between that lifestyle that you. That you witnessed in Paris and going to school in Paris to what you felt like you had experienced as an American kid? Like, did you before then? Yeah. Well, I mean, my dad, you know, he. He passed last fall. But we used to laugh, you know, before we went to France, wine was, you know, Lancers in the old. Yeah, we used car. Yeah, Lancers and Chianti in those big things because the kids liked it. But, you know, so, yeah, I mean, there was a giant difference between the two. And I. I look back and I think, boy, I, you know, would I have been that interested in wine had I never gone to France, but then moved to California and Napa? Was there? Probably not.

10:13 What about your experience with wine, Jennifer? Did you. So, interestingly, my. Sorry, mom. My mom was a horrible cook, but my dad was a great. Was a great chef and really passionate about cooking. First generation Italian. So every. Every Sunday, it was an occasion. And it was a time where we would all gather in the kitchen or we would at least kind of come together as a family. That was kind of short lived. But then later on in life I started working in restaurants. And wine was not a big thing in my life, my childhood, growing up at all. I do remember, you know, some, like, neighbors drinking box wines, etc.

11:02 And I remember certain, like I looking up to a certain neighbor, the fact that she had a Chablis. I was very interested, like, ooh, what's Chablis? Gallo, Chablis or regular? Probably Gallo. I mean, it's, you know, New Jersey. I'm not a lot longer though. But I remember when my dad came home, just like he would come home with records or he would come home with books, or he'd say, hey, need to watch this movie. He started coming home with wine. And, you know, when my dad did something, I just perked up a little bit. So that was my first interest. And then the restaurants, and then I finally got an upscale waitressing job where you got to, they, you know, got, gave you the chef's meal ahead of time and the wine pairings that went with it. So that was when I was a student at NYU and other jobs like. Which is a hotbed of food. Yeah. And I also, when I was pursuing a career in theater during my NYU days, I also temped at Goldman Sachs. And a lot of those, they're mostly gentlemen at the time, were all into wine.

12:14 And I remember helping plan trips for them. And just, I just, just these little pockets of interest all started coming together at once. And that was my early 20s. And it was just, it was, it was a curiosity, it was a, it was something that I wanted to learn more about. And so when Steve and I met in what was 2000, that was my mid, my mid to 20s, late 20s. We, I mean, he was more, you know, he's a little older than me, so he's, he's got a couple years ahead of experience. And so he, we, we started, you know, he started teaching me more and we were, we were tasting more together. And my love for wine grew with our relationship. But I almost, I almost killed the relationship early on because I went over to her apartment and there was a Wine Spectator on the coffee table and like a, you know, just an idiot guy. I go, like, whose is this? As if it couldn't possibly be hers. Oh. And she's like, it's mine.

13:25 Idiot, comma. Yeah. You know, it's a fascinating industry and sometimes it does Take that sort of time and many different inputs for it to come around. I did this for 15 years, probably, and I just. It was just a businessman. I just sold it, and I did the best I could at making margins and selling good things. Of course, that's how we stayed alive. But probably, like, 20 years ago, it hit me that there's something very unique and special about this brevage that. That can't be defined that way. It can only be defined in the passion you get when you talk to people that try to understand it, because we're never going to understand it.

14:07 So. Sorry, go ahead. We were recently in Burgundy, and we were meeting with this particular winemaker, and his young. His English was. Was great, actually. And by the third time he mentioned the word emotion, it just. The light bulb kind of went off, and I was like, of course. This. This is why we're all in this business. He kept saying, like, my wines express emotion. And I was thinking, well, all great wine, if you taste a great wine and everybody's great wine is different, but when you open it, when you taste it, you feel something. And we're in the business of feeling. We're striving to produce a product that. That excites people, that moves people, that awakens people, that brings joy and appreciation and connection. And how do you not want to be a part of that? It's such an undefinable piece of what wine is. All those wines behind you, all the wines my dad sold, it doesn't come from 19 crimes in apothec Red. And that's fine. We need those wines to get entry into the industry, so people do. But my. My typical premise is every generation at different points of the generation. The baby boomers were probably into wine before. The millennials are, though. My millennials at my home drink plenty,

15:38 and my depletion is much faster than I expected it to be. And. And then the Gen Z's, which is the huge topic of current marketing issues in the wine business, will be a little bit later. But I think the indefinable thing about what you just said is that will unite everybody. I was just at a tasting, you know, Duclo, which is a Christian Moex moex distributor in LA, and they have a lot of Bordeaux tastings. 12 people get invited every time. And he poured a bar sack. Chateau Coutet, this is only a couple weeks ago. And that was the word I used. I looked at the presenter, I said, this is the most emotional wine I've smelled in years. And who knows why he goes the previous. He completely agreed. He goes, the previous vintage was not like this. And then the guy next to me hits me with. He goes. He goes, right. You know, because whatever it was that just jumped out of the glass and made your brain go spinning in different directions was.

16:39 And that. That's the part that's really. Isn't that fantastic when you have that kind of a moment? It's the connect. Yeah, absolutely. And I. And how do we tell everybody about this? How do you guys go about with the promise, expressing that passion to the public? You know, I think it's a challenge. One of the reasons that, you know, we have stayed small and aren't in distribution is because ideally, we want to. Make some money because you can't do it the other way. We'd like the experience of introduction to promise to be the one that you had where you come and you spend, you know, a couple hours and you're really being introduced not only to the wine itself, but the story behind the wine. The why are you doing it? Who are the people behind it? And, you know, when you. When it's on a list at a restaurant or hotel or liquor store, you know, it's just. It's another bottle on the shelf. And so I think that it is a challenge. We talk about it all the time.

17:47 I think that, you know, my hope going back a little bit to this new generation, one of the things that I hear about them that I love is the idea that they really. They're interested in wine, but they want to know more than just like, oh, it's false scarcity, or it's the most expensive wine. They want us, like, who's behind the wine? Why is these people making the wine? You know, what's this grape? What does that mean? What is the story behind it? So, you know, I'm hopeful that that will actually lead to a deeper connection to win. I know everyone gets worried about kind of the sober, curious, you know, generation and. And all that. But.

18:29 But, yeah, I think that's. That's part of the challenge of how do you. How do you introduce and sell wine to people in a personal way and. And convey that connection? I would add to that that. Well, because our brand is so personal, we do kind of lead you to that emotional place with. With the names of our wines. You know, if you. That's true. And we did that very purposefully because we want to. We. We as a couple, always want to keep ourselves, remind ourselves of what we're here on this planet to do.

19:09 Experience, joy, live. Live a Life of gratitude. Have intention. Be in love. Yes. Share love. Give love. I mean, I always, you know, I always tell my kids, like, keep your heart open. It's just those are the, that's what we decided to name or to kind of announce each wine we have with an affirmation that we, we want it always share. You know, it's a. Your success at the entertainment industry, I think. How long were you? About 26, seven years. And you ran CBS or ABC?

19:50 ABC TV? Yeah. Okay, this is where Chapter got it wrong. I knew it was abc, but it says, I'm not kidding you, it says what lessons you learn at cbs. That's, that's funny. Yeah, because, you know, we were, we were Disneyland with the kids, my grandkids. And we went to the Goofy's kitchen and one of the chipmunks came over. You know, this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the names Chip and Dale. And so I asked Chap GT which one is Dale? Which one's Chip? And it was wrong. So it comes over and I said, hey, Chip. And he goes, no, I'm Dale. You know, you can't say anything. But he's like, no, no, no. But 25 years in an industry like that, that's so fast paced and so much pressure and so much going on that this must be an amazing departure from that. But did you bring, were there lessons to come over from corporate America into. Good question. Managing. Managing a winery.

20:41 I mean, to be honest, the first lesson was not a good lesson. I mean, it wasn't a good lesson about the entertainment business. To me, one of the biggest, just right up front differences about the industries is the wine industry is unbelievably collaborative and people are generally in it because they love it. The entertainment industry is unbelievably mean spirited, cutthroat. And there's a lot of people who don't love the industry. They're just feeding off of other people who, you know, are actors or directors. And, you know, there's eight layers of publicist and manager and agent and, you know, just taking money. And so for me, when we first, you know, started Promise, you know, people like Ann Colgan being, you know, unbelievably generous and nice and, you know, kind of helping us. Colonel Rumbauer, you know, it really was an awakening of like, oh, so you can, you can be in a business that is not about, you know, beating the other person. Yeah, that's interesting. That was, that was a huge difference. There's so much generosity of spirit in, in the Valley, especially in Napa Valley. It's so refreshing and it's. It's interesting. It's a great community. I wonder if. I wonder if that's because every product, the honest wines are so uniquely different

22:14 that the competition really is not about who makes the best wine. It's who's making the wine that expresses who they are, where they're from, and that you really don't butt heads. You might. You might. For the marketing dollar, if you're on the shelf at Ralph's, you know, you're. I don't know if you've been to Ralph's lately or Safeway, but there's a shelf talker and a thing on every single bottle. No way of understanding. A consumer has no chance. Yeah. To figure something out. But in this case, like, you know, airtime and. And Nielsen ratings, all the things that you chase, all the metrics you chase in entertainment, it's cutthroat. Yeah. I want to be a star. I'm gonna do everything I can to climb to the top. Performance. And there's. There isn't climbing to the top. It's also so much. I mean, the entertainment business is so much about the dollar. Yeah. I mean, you know, people are in it just because the money is there.

23:01 But I think you're right. I mean, wine. Everybody's wine is different. And, you know, I think everyone is in it for, you know, their own good reason. And, yeah, we. We've just been kind of so. So struck by not only the generosity of just in general, but, like, when bad things happen, when fires happen, when droughts happen, people literally giving, you know, fruit and giving barrels and giving winery space to other winemakers. And. And I think it goes around the world. We love to travel, and we go to wine regions whenever we can. And there.

23:42 There's a. There's a. A collaborative and camaraderie in Burgundy. There's one in Italy. There's, you know, it's true. Something very different. Completely true. I tell people that we did sell 17 million bottles of wine here, and we did taste 100,000 wines every Tuesday. We tasted wines forever. And that has. That credential, was great for consumerism, but it's the credential of this podcast that we tell the stories. And I bring these people on the show, like you, that when I travel to different parts of the wine region, how we are received, like in the vineyard with Monsieur Clouet at Chevalon. Yeah. I mean, that would have never happened because I was selling 20 wines out of the Wine of the month club. Right. But because I'm part of the process to tell the stories and.

24:30 And understand and show the public what's behind a good bottle of wine. It's become a different reception. Yeah. No, you're part of the love affair that we all have. Everybody, in their own way, has with this business. It's kind of interesting you're talking about the camaraderie, because if you listen to the old timers about the original Napa Valley Business association, you know, certainly there's camaraderie there. There's a woman named Joanne dupuis. She's probably 96 now. Incredible lady. She was. She was tapped by Spurrier to deliver the wines from Napa to. To Paris. There was no way to do that back then. It's still it, really. And so she put them in her suitcase because she's traveling. Oh, my God. Tennis thing that she was doing.

25:12 And she says it's very funny because this bottle of Freemark Abbey broke on the carousel, and there's this red wine dripping onto the. Onto the thing. But the reason I brought that up was that there is a camaraderie there. And I'm dealing a lot with the Armenian wine industry right now, which is. Which is an incredible story because it's 6,000. We know it's 6,000 years old, minimum, because they found the winery that's 6,000 years old. And so. But it got stalled by socialism and the ussr and so they're kind of like the newest, oldest wine region in the world. Right. Because now they finally have technology. They're making great wines, but they can't get along. And anybody sat there from the industry will. Will agree with me. So I'm not throwing anybody under the bus here. But they don't have that association. And they do look at it because we're Armenians and we're Middle Eastern merchants as competition. Interesting. I don't think it. I don't think it changes the industry until there's some kind of camaraderie. There's some kind of relationship built amongst them. To promote each other. Yeah. Because.

26:12 Well, to promote the region. Right. It's the same issue as it would be with Napa. You know, the wines are going to be different. So you're really not going head to head because. Yeah, going out to the world with a new region and a new grape that no one's ever heard of is not going to be easy on your own. Right. It's just not going to happen. Anyway, The. The. The mood, what you did and what we did at the Promise. Let's talk about the winery for a second, because you treated my wife and I with an incredible experience with Beth. Getting there was a fun drive. You know, it's not far from Silverado Trail. You just take a little trip up and you go into the mountains, and you end up in this really cool location with beautiful facility and hospitality. And so much, I think, of wine is moving back to what is the experiential part of it. And we talked about it a little bit. The Internet. It started with. I'll just give you a little history. The marketing of One Month Club started with a handshake at a show. My dad started this idea, and I took it over. We grew because we shook hands with everybody that walked up. Anybody that joined this club, I had shaken their hand.

27:16 There was no mail order. Then it was at a show. We went to the Taste of. You know, there was Festa Italia at 3rd Street Promenade. There was the Taste of the Garlic Festival. There was all these things going on. I did 75 shows a year. That's one and a half a weekend. Wow. So. But the point was, that was an experience for the people that shook our hands. Right. They met the guy. I had salespeople, too, but they did it. And then we got away from that with Groupon, started this whole trend of things and the cheapest thing you can find and, you know. Right. And. And we had people taking advantage of our offers started that way. And then the Internet came, and we. We were on 1997. We started. And that changed the way consumerism is. And I think. I think that there's been enough. Not deceit, but enough problems with the crap that's being sold on the Web and the clubs that offer six, you know, 12 bottles for $60 in free shipping. Right.

28:11 That the consumer's gotten tired and that we want to go back to that handshake and that experience and a person behind the product. Yeah. I think you're just. What you're saying is there's hundreds and thousands of ways you can buy any kind of product over the Internet. But I think you're onto something for us anyway, which is it takes away a lot of the experience of why we drink wine, which is to connect with people and to meet people and to build relationships. I remember Colonel Rumbauer said to me, you know, when people come to Napa, everyone can go into a tasting room and they go, this is 37 cabernet, and it's 12% this, and it's de stemmed and this. And he was like, introduce Yourself just say, hey, I'm Steve McPherson, and get talking. And, you know, you'll talk about the wine. That's the best part of the business. You know, I mean, like, you probably had that experience with Beth. It's like she's not in there selling wine. She's there to show you the place, show you the wines, hope you enjoy yourself and, you know, understand what they're about.

29:23 Do you think the trade self propagates the aristocracy of, you know, the perceived aristocracy of one by doing that, by. By going to a tasting room and have some person who's just learning talk about the bricks and the alcohol content and the. I mean, I. To me, it's off putting because I feel like we. We often say, like, when people come to promise, it's like, no snob zone. Like, you know, like, you know, and I think that, you know, Parker was great for people who were intimidated by wine. And, you know, okay, I feel better. It got a 92 or 93 or whatever, but I think it made people who don't have all the semantics of the sommelier and don't maybe have the knowledge, who cares?

30:08 Did you enjoy it? You know, what wine do you like? It doesn't matter that it's so and so's pick. You know, it matters what you love. And so I love it when people come in and, you know, you'll have couples and, you know, one will like one of our wines and one will like another one. And I'm like, that's fantastic. Like, that's what the way it should be. You know, it's not that that one's the most expensive. So if you don't like that, then you're not knowledgeable. It's ridiculous. There's no right. Yeah, there's no right. You want people to say when they pour the wine at home, oh, this is the McPherson family's wine, and this is their thing, and they make their own prosciutto over there.

30:49 So let's talk about that. I mean, of all the experiences there, there is to have in wine. And I've always told as a consultant, when I talk to people like, you want people to sit at the dinner table and tell your story when they open the bottle, you don't want them talking about how they got it for five bucks on Groupon. That's not the story. Right? And so, man, going to. Going to the Promise, it's in a beautiful room, and then she brings out, you know, home cured prosciutto. I mean, that is a real organic approach to what she has to. Doing the hen house. Yeah. Right. And the, you can, I mean, she shows us how the eggs roll down the, you know, the astroturf there. Isn't that a great. That's like, that's a really cool thing. What spawned that part? Like, you could have opened a tasting room. You could have been weddings.

31:35 You, you're building the barn where you're going to put all kinds of cool venue type things. But what spawned this? Now she's laughing already. Well, I just think I'm just remembering when he came home and he's like, I bought a couple pigs. I was like, and where are we? You know, your marriage is pretty good though. That. Yeah. Survives that, right? Because I would say I bought a couple cars. That's what I actually always say. I'm like, well, it could be worse. He could be buying, you know, sports Ferraris and whatever. But no, my husband likes to foreign hogs. Well, you saw the designer pigs, the Burkle slicer in the, in the tasting room. Beautiful. I joke that that is my midlife crisis Porsche. Like, that's what I buy. I mean, probably costs about the same. Yeah. I love, I mean, I love all sorts of food. Yes. And I love, you know, I love the idea of artisans of any kind. If somebody makes the best butter in Vermont, great. Let's, you know, do that. If somebody makes the best, you know, prosciutto, like, I want to find out.

32:44 And you know, people say, well, how did you learn to do that? Because I, I'm obsessed with it. I love it. And I, you know, I literally research pigs. We originally had Asaba pigs, but we decided that the genetics just weren't the same. And then we got the Mangalitsas. And then I was lucky enough when a herd of Iberians went belly up. I was able to get, you know, two of those. But it's really just a passion. And you know, we, we do it with our, you know, our prosciutto, the, you know, the, the chickens. While our daughters will only let us use them on property for eggs. They're bluefoot chickens, the poulet breast from France. And they're the best chicken world for meat. And so we do, we have a partnership with the Montessori school, and so we do raise some of them there and you feed them corn and milk for the final three months of their lives. But it's all that stuff.

33:43 We have a partnership with the chocolatier that we make bean to bar chocolate. And I just love their passion about it. They make to me the best chocolate, you know, that I've ever tasted. And, and they make it in their own way. They, each chocolate has a little salt and cinnamon added and they have, they like a certain bean from Ecuador and those kind of food passions. You know, you're talking about your daughter in, you know, upstate New York, buying the vegetables from the farmer. I mean, you know, one of the, one of the toughest things, moving away from France and coming to the US and we went with our daughters later in life too. We, we took them when they were younger for a full school year.

34:29 But you know, in France, you know, there's the butcher and it's probably a third or fourth generation guy and there's a vegetable guy and there's the fish guy. It's a Whole Foods. It's. Yeah, it's not a Whole Foods and a huge mass, you know, Bristol Farms. And they're passionate about what they do. Right. I mean, I would go in, you know, one night thinking I'm going to get a hanger steak and the guy would be like, you're not getting that. Like, you know, that's not good today. And this is what you're getting. And you're like, okay, seems, seems like a good bet. There's, that's the interesting part. And clearly your European lifestyle has evolved and that explains a lot of what we saw at the Promise Winery because you are what you eat, eats, right? There's a professor of Yale names Paul Friedman. His, his lectures are about medieval servitude, okay. But his passion is the evolution of food in America.

35:28 Really. He's written two or three books. One of them is called the 10 Top Restaurants, the Influential restaurant in America. And they're nothing what you think they are. And the other one, I can't remember the name of it, but it's about how America, with the freeway system and the Howard Johnson's of the world have homogenized the regional foods. Like you can get Texas chili in New Hampshire and etc. Etc. And it sort of dumbed everything down. And I think that's changing. I think it's changing for the passion that you guys have to making sure people understand it. Having lived in France, you know, they protect their butter, they protect their cheese, obviously they protect their wine. And I think, I think we're learning that, you know, like my daughter's learning, you know, like I took the grandkids and we picked apples. I mean it was unbelievable.

36:12 What a, what an organic experience. I hope that we can figure out a way to have these small production Whatever it is, whether it's apples or pigs, that we can figure out how to keep the doors open and monetize it. Because, I mean, you. This is why we've grown to become a commercialized production facility, because it's really difficult financially to. To keep it going. Well, they say, you know, we butchered our farms. The. The book, the Third Plate, by Dan Barber, the chef of Blue Hill Farms. You know, when he wrote that book, actually, probably organic farming was difficult to feed the masses. It wasn't producing as much. But that's changed a lot. Right. And. And I think people like to go down the street to get their fresh bread. I think there's a cultural evolution. It's very slow. I mean, we only changed food in America in the 80s, you know, from. From frozen steak and, you know. Yeah. Oh, when we moved to France, cheese before, that was Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Right.

37:19 So great. So now you have a list of customers. Right. They're members. You join the Promise. Yeah. Is not open to the public, generally. Correct. Maybe by appointment, if somebody wants to do it. But. And then how does. So they visit, they make an appointment, they come see Beth, They. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, we're not open to the public, and so they have to know somebody, you know, know a friend or be a friend. And we, you know, we only see one party at a time because we really want that experience to be, you know, personal. And we. We try not to see, you know, parties over 8 or 10 because want, you know, it to be intimate and. And be a certain kind of experience. Are there plans for weddings, engagements? You know, No, I. I think we do. You know, people do get engaged there sometimes, and there's. There's a lot of people who.

38:19 Who will buy the wine for a wedding or for an engagement or to give as a gift. And that's great. That's, you know, that's become part of what Promise is and. And what the story is. But, yeah, it's. It. It's a. It's a really personal experience, and I think that's becoming much more important to people out there in wine. Clearly, the picture of my dad, actually, this patch, this is Les Amie Divines. It was. It was an organization. I've talked about this on the show before, but it's an organization in America. It was 150 chapters. You had to have a wine shop to own a chapter, but it was about the experience. So my dad would put on dinners at Marineland, and they go down there, and the women would Wear their minks. And this is a big event. Robert Mondavi would speak. Balzer, all the famous critics would speak. And it wasn't about the aristocracy of the wine. It was just the experience of wine. And I think what you're doing is critical to the industry to grow and get away from.

39:21 I think all this non alk stuff and lox stuff and White Claw and all those competitive. There's always been competitive beverages to the wine trade. They've just evolved a lot more now, though. Yeah, there are a few more now. But I've had people sit there and try to tell me that they have this brilliant idea to put wine in a 375 with a, you know, a Voss bottle like thing. Right. Like, that's. That's not. What possible marketing angle can you take with the beverage that's six. At least 6,000 years old and change it. It's the same beverage as it was when Noah landed his ark on the. Yeah. Mount Ara. Yeah. Right. It may taste a little better than. That, but no, I think all those gimmicks are just that they're gimmicks. They'll come and go. Yeah. I mean, White Zinn was a mistake. Yeah. Right. We still get people who think they don't like rose because of White Symphony. You know, they think that's what rose is meant to be. So that's an evolution, I guess, of generations we have to suffer through.

40:16 I spent 25 years here with my wife. I worked 10 years at the one month I made more money when she wasn't around. But she's a licensed cpa and all of a sudden I had to follow the rules to this day. You guys worked together before you joined together in this. No, no, we didn't. You got up, went to work every day and. Yeah, yeah, was. She was very separate. She was slinging hash of the restaurants. Yeah. She has another career. I. I briefly thought maybe I wanted to work in the entertainment industry, but I. I jumped ship on that pretty early on and I went back and got my master's in psychology. Oh, wow. So I practice psychotherapy still, currently. Yes.

40:59 And so is there a lesson to learn working together or. Because you still have sort of separate. You have your own career that takes time away from the wine together because my wife and I would sit next to each other. I finally learned I should not put a window between our offices. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting the. The place where. Because, you know, we. We live in Los Angeles for the most part. We have lived in Napa as well, but for our children's education. Live in Los Angeles. And that. That gives a little bit separation because I. I do spend more time. We have some more space. Yeah, that's good. But I mean, you know, in la, the only place that it really caused a problem is that our kids at some points have said, honestly, can we not talk about business, like at dinner? You know, because if you mentioned. Yeah, if you guys talk about the wine industry, we're. We're getting up and having dinner in the other room. Okay. That's really funny. Yeah. My kids haven't gotten there yet. Maybe because I'm the guy. I have the purse strings when it comes to the bottle of wine, so they don't get cut off. But they're still, you know, they're 17 and 19, almost 18 and 20 now. They're just. And they're, by the way, their palates are great. They're an incredible cooks. They love to cook. Yeah. And I think they're. They're just coming around to enjoying wine. But, you know, they've seen.

42:22 They've seen how bumpy a road it can be. And, you know, I think at some point, one frustrated moment, one child said to one water tank, why can't you have a normal job like everybody else's parents? Yeah, that's really funny. A normal job. Yeah. Like, what is that exactly nowadays? Yeah. Well, if you look, you can't see this picture, but the. The actual beer box was behind this display. And that was the first display of the wines of the month. So that's where I spent most of my time when I worked at the pharmacy in the wine shops was in that beer box. And then. But, you know, it's interesting because maybe, maybe it is.

43:03 Maybe the timing of what you're doing, it coincides with the sort of the timing of when my dad started in the 70s and wine became popular in American culture. And now the experience coming back to wine is what we need to show the public. And that's what you guys are putting together. Ear. Lips to God's ears, to everybody. I mean, wine has gotten. I don't understand, you know, now they're trying to medically substantiate why it's bad for you. The media has kind of seemed. Seems to want to go after it a little bit. That's true. I don't know why that is. And the teetotalers, the pro neo prohibitionists are back.

43:43 Yeah. Rather than talk about the beauty and the history and all the benefits which there are, those studies being Done. But the media doesn't seem to want to talk about that angle anymore. Well, the media has changed so much. I mean the media is now there is no news, it's all entertainment. It's all driven by clicks and, and so, you know, being negative unfortunately sells. And so I think people find things to go after and, and find, you know, it's, you're going to get a lot more clicks with nobody's drinking wine ever again. Then, hey, here's a really cool region, Armenia, that's just starting out and it's been around for 6,000 years. I mean it just unfortunately it doesn't get the same amount of attention. But I think it should, I think all these things should.

44:42 So we have to find a bridge and an invitation and some kind of way to include the TikTok generation and into enjoying wine. Well, it's a, it's damned if you do and damn if you don't when it comes to social. Because if you don't do it then you, you look this. Not square but not contemporary. Exactly. Where else do you mark. There's no such thing as, as Larry Tate PR anymore. Right. You know, that doesn't exist. You can't go into a PR to say and what the PR agency is going to do today is. Right. Go to the web and go to the social. That is what it is. Right. But I think, I think philosophically you just have to stay the course. And I tell this to a lot of miners I speak with, it'll ebb and flow. And if you're not true to what you are and what you're doing, then all you're doing is cheating yourself and you're not going to be able to control what the market does for you anyway. So you might as well just stay true to your story and, and represent what you are.

45:38 And I think that honesty. Yeah, in all products. Right, exactly. All passion comes out. When you talk about the health benefits. I mean that book right there, that's the Morally Safer's, you know, the result of the morally safers. 199060 minute display of the Mediterranean lifestyle, which includes a heavy steady diet of wine is part of it. It's certainly not the criminal part of somebody's lifestyle. I forget the new. There's a, there's, there have been a few of them and there's one that's like just published within the last year or two as well. So it, there are, it's kind of. Like if you don't, if you, you know, where history repeats itself and sometimes we don't learn the lessons. And I'm going to talk about climate change for a second. Not a political show. But, you know, I had somebody criticize my show because I said that, well, Paul should be talking about policies.

46:30 But, you know, there's been Paul's your show. You could talk about whatever the hell. You want to talk about. That's true. But, you know, I don't want to ruffle any feathers when it comes to that. I'll have to ruffle wine feathers. You're gonna ruffle somebody's. Yeah, but you know, there was a cold snap for 15 years in the late 1700s. You know, champagne suffered drastically for it. And that's, you know, that's just the way it goes. It happens. Before I was reading about Barcelona, there was, oh, there's a new book out from the Cladstrups who wrote Wine and War. If you haven't read that book, you must read it. And then they also wrote Champagne Charlie. And then they just. She just released a book called Eugenie, which is the story of Napoleon III's wife when they created the 1855 classification. Got it. And the clad strips are brilliant people. They live in Paris, they're Americans. So I was reading that book and they were talking about in Barcelona because she was princess or the family was from Barcelona, that there was massive drought and then massive flooding, destroying like. Sounds familiar, you know? Yeah, it sounds very familiar. Right? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That was like 18 something. Yeah, yeah. So just. It ebbs and flows. But so I'm going to do. So we're almost out of time. It's unbelievable. That's like one of the fastest. Yeah, no, it's been great. This is a, this is fun. Since we're talking about the health benefits, this is a book by Dr. Murray,

48:01 who is a French doctor in the 70s. He was an MD as well as a homeopathic doctor. And this is Wine is the best medicine. Now, the answer to the question I'm going to ask you is going to be a French district or a French varietal. Yeah, but. And by the way, if I ask give you three answers, only 33% of the people get it right. But it's kind of like the Master of Wine and Master Psalm test in that the answer is important, but we kind of want to know what you're thinking to get to that answer. Got it. Okay. So. So don't be embarrassed. No, no. So there's. I'll give you an ailment and I'll give you three potential cures or at least symptom relievers for that. So we could do. Let's just say we have a fever. We could have a grave or a dry champagne or a coat de bone to handle our fever. What do you think it is and why you think it is? I'll accept two different answers from two different people. A champagne.

49:09 A what kind of champagne? A dry champagne. Dry champagne. Cote de Bonne Burgundy. As you know, essentially the first place I go is. Is. Is the alcohol content. And whether you want. You want to have more alcohol for a fever or you want to have less alcohol for a fever. But that's. That's only one element. Certainly. I think just my. My. My gut is champagne. Because I find champagne to be the most festive of what you've. You know, what you've given me in terms of the choices and kind of uplifting in that sense.

49:52 And it is lower alcohol. So maybe if that is. If that is a way to go. But, yeah, I think I would go champ. A nice, like, blanc de blanc. I mean, what occasion doesn't improve with. Yeah, well, I think that's the answer to all of them. Right. To help you. At least you feel better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's a dosage with this. So you're right. You're part of the 33. Oh, my God. And almost the. The reason is because these wines contain, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person. Phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating. Sulfur in sulfate of potassium form, whose detoxifying action on the body has been established. Huh. That's really interesting.

50:34 What do you think the dose would be? It might be enough. In my room, two bottles. And call me in the morning. I split the difference. There's a bottle a day. Honey, we got to switch doctors. He's got some YouTube stuff you can find. But you speak French, obviously, so it's got. It's in French. Yeah. I bought both versions. This and the French version. That's. I found this, My dad's library. That's fun. So I want to touch on one thing. Sure. Before we go, that you said, which I think is so important and so dead on. It's about staying honest to what you're doing. If you're chasing the buck, you know, and for me, personally. So if you're chasing the buck in the entertainment industry, because that's seductive, it doesn't matter how successful you are. It won't be fulfilling. I mean, you hear all these stories about these really bitter and disgruntled and unfulfilled people. Who are unbelievably successful in the entertainment industry. And it's true. And I believe that I'm happier now. I mean, I made a lot of money, I was successful, I had power. But I'm so much more fulfilled holding a bottle of my wine than being able to take credit for some piece of work, because it's honestly what I love to do. And we put our heart into every bottle every year. We're trying to

52:05 make a better wine. We're learning something more about agriculture, we're learning something more about viticulture. We're learning something more about winemaking technology. And, you know, just having fun doing it. Yeah, it just. I really, you know, my dad had a simple piece of advice which is really hard to follow, which is find out what you love and then find out how to make money at it, because he was a realist. But I think what you said is so important for people. And I, you know, you see the Internet, I think one of the things that the Internet has done for. For the younger generation is this idea that, like, you can be a billionaire.

52:47 Okay, well, yeah, but if you're a billionaire because you're making, you know, something that's hurting humanity, like, or is controversially, you know, that's never going to be fulfilling no matter how many G5s you buy. That's just. That's right. That's really interesting thought. I can use two examples, which I won't say publicly popped in my head as soon as you said that. Yeah. But I think staying the course on what you believe is only thing you can do in any business. And it's hard. It's hard to do because you're in the influences to go other directions and to change the narrative is too easy. Yeah. It's too easy to chase. Chase a dollar and not. Yeah. You know, a lot has to do with. Especially younger kids who see Internet influencers, you know, who knows if those stories are real about what they do and how much they make. But if you chase being an influencer and not chase what you're influencing. Yeah.

53:44 It's. It's empty. And I can tell you this with this podcast. I love doing it. I love processing it. I love putting it together, hearing the stories, love telling the stories. And not that I didn't love what I did at the wine trade, but there were so many moving parts to selling a bottle of wine. And like, my last full year, which was 2022, I sent 33 million emails. Oh, my God. Wow. And that would. That would only produce Enough sales that maybe selling 10 years earlier, a million emails would have produced twice as much, if not more sales than that because of the way it's been diluted. 33 million. 33 million. Which means I had to produce at least 300 pieces of content, 300 graphics, 300 promotion codes, 300 angles.

54:29 How do you. How do you create 300 different ways to sell? Right. You know, the Bordeaux group or the Chianti group. I would have the Napa Valley Cabernet. You know, just whatever I could muster up to get catch people's attention. Yeah. And that ended up being 33 million emails. Wow. So that part of it was hard. The passion that drove it was really, truly finding interesting wines that people could experiment with and understand. Yeah. And that started to change, too, because my competitors who came into the marketplace like naked wines and wink and all these guys were buying this crap from 50 Cent. A liter wines from who knows where. Yeah. Garbage punches landing in. In New Jersey, bottling it in a billion brands and shipping it out as something different. And it wasn't. And I was not being forced to, but they were coming through my door now, like in the old days. I just got off the show with August Sebastiani, and I'm talking to him. I slapped myself on the head.

55:30 I said, oh, my God. I did a wine. I did two big slugs of their wine. A Cabernet Franc and a Merlot. And I told him. I said, there was this crazy label that you guys found in the back of your warehouse. And there was like, I bought like, seven or 800 cases of each. He goes, yeah, that was my sister. She was three years old, and she had drawn on the whiteboard. And we took a picture of it and became the label. We never sold the wine, but the wine was great. And so I go, that's the stuff. Why? The Month Club used to find interesting little things when it came. Bulk juice from Europe. Yeah. And those. That's what I was getting for the price I could pay. That's when the passion died. Yeah. You know, you get away from what you love. You get away from what you love. But the premise is still real. The guy that bought it, they're already selling it. It's only been two years.

56:16 Yeah. And it's not because they're making too much money. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, no, it's a. It's. It's tough. Yeah, it's tough. But you guys, so much fun to have a chance to hear your story, and I'm sure we'll do it again. One day. Because there's so much more to talk about. Yeah. And, you know, as you. As it progresses that you talked about, there's new influences. And one of the things I do want to talk about, maybe it'll just take five minutes, which is like, what is that? Like, you have to make a lot of decisions when you do this. When it comes to packaging experience, Beth, who knows what comes on your plate? There must be some overriding philosophy that you have the back of your head, like, default to, like, okay, I'm not sure what to do here, but because we represent an expression of time and place or whatever, this is what we're going to do.

57:04 Is it a conscious thing? Well, that's a good word to use. Is it a conscious thing? Because I was going to say it's. At the end of the day, it's trusting our guts and what feels right. You know, we've definitely kissed a couple frogs that we wish we didn't kiss. That's a good expression. But I think we know ourselves and each other and our brand and what we stand for by now. That the, the. Ultimately, at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and cents choices, but. But if you have the luxury of making a choice based on does this feel true to us? That's always going to prevail. Yeah. And we, you know, I. I think we. We have always gone with, you know, we're very meticulous, and we take. I mean, we had the wine, our first bottles of wine, you know, our 47 cases in that it was literally in the barrel for almost two and a half years before we knew what the label would be. We knew it was going to be called Promise, but we didn't know it was going to be my wedding ring, which is what the circle represents.

58:19 But the other thing I would say is people. It really, you know, as she said, we. We've kissed a few frogs, but it's really about people. And, you know, I. I've been successful in Wall street, in entertainment, in wine, when I'm in business with great people. And I think, you know, after 21 years, I feel like, you know, we have an amazing small team of people that we truly consider family. And it's not a. It's not a, you know, a cliche that we say that. I mean, Beth has to tell our story, and when you are entrusting somebody to tell your story, that's a. That's a really personal and powerful thing. And she does it so well, and we trust her to do that. And our winemaker is a good friend and somebody who is an educator, and we, we chose him partly because of that. He makes world class wine. But we want to learn, we want to talk, we want to walk the vineyards, we want to sit there in the dirt and, and, and spend time. And so it's a. I, I think if you get in business with great people, you know, that's a big step. Well, thanks again for being on the show, and we hope to see each other soon. Thank you so much, Paul. This is amazing. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.