Exploring Paso Robles: Rhone Varietals, Innovation, and Community with Jason Haas of Tablas Creek

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Reality is that what, 95% of wines get

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consumed within 48 hours of when they're purchased. So that

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is something that wine can do, but it isn't something which most people are doing

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with wine. Sit back and grab a glass.

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It's Wine Talks with Paul K.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And I am at an away game

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today. I'm down here, Mosa beach in our sort of portable studio. But to have

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a conversation with Jason Haas of Toddlers Creek Introductions in just a moment. Yes,

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I am the guy who sold 17 million

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bottles of wine in his career through the direct to consumer model as well as

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along the way, tasted 100,000 wines. But not why

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we're here. You have a conversation with Jason Haas, the second generation

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proprietor of Tablas Creek up in Paso Robles. Hey, welcome to

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the show. Thanks, Paul. Nice to be here. We've been talking

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about doing this for a long time.

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We've been at this for a long time. This is year 36 of Tubliss Creek

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and my 24th year out here. So, yeah, let's talk about. Wow.

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That, you know, I've got it. Let's start with that. That you're on the Adelaide

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side of Paso. For the listeners, there's sort of a cooler side toward the 101

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Freeway, and that's where you're at. Then there's sort of the warmer side, which

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is above Paso. You know, highway. Was that 37? Is that. No,

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43? 46. Yeah, Highway 46. Kind of warmer side.

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But two distinctly different parts of Paso Robles. But 24 years

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there. That has to be early on.

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Yeah. So when we started Tublis Creek, so it was started by my

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dad and by the Perrin brothers back in 1989. We

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were winery number 17 here in Paso. Wow.

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And we were the first winery to focus on roan varieties, which is kind of

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amazing now that it is kind of the epicenter of the California RN

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movement. But yeah, it was. It was early days for sure. And even when I

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moved out here in 2003, I mean,

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Paso as a wine region had started to develop. There were probably,

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I don't know, 75 wineries by that point. But

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it still hadn't really been discovered. And it's been super cool to be here

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for that process of discovery. You know, there's

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now there's 4,000 or maybe 5,000 wineries in

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California. And, you know, which doesn't. It's not a lot really, when you think about

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Bordeaux has like 10,000 winemaking chateau, you know, in this

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Much smaller area. But you know, it is growing and it's changed a lot. And

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I'm thinking about the days when you said the Rhone

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varietals. And for the listeners, that's the Syrah, the more veg, the, the,

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the Roussanne's, Marsans, things like Viennese.

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It wasn't always like that. And I remember there was quite a proliferation

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of Italian varietals. The Nebbiolo

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brothers, I mean Nebbiola from the Martin brothers was a

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very popular wine in the early 80s. How did that sort of change?

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Was it of, you know, natural selection that we

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found that Syrah and those grapes do really well on this side of Paso?

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Honestly, I think it's a super good spot for both, for really any of

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the kind of warmer climate, Mediterranean varieties. So I think it is a really good

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spot for Italian varieties, I think it's a really good spot for Spanish varieties.

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But I think some of it is that

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it takes someone to plant a flag and say we

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really believe that this is the right spot to do this particular thing. And

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because of who we are, because of the, the Perenn

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brothers, who of course have, have owned and run Chateau de Beaucastel and the rest

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of the things they do in the Rhone Valley for five generations now.

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The, the fact that they, and my dad, who was a pretty well known and

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respected American importer, the fact that they chose Paso

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to be the spot where they were going to, to plant their own project,

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I think that gave the region kind of some credibility for this

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particular category that other people have

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certainly have certainly followed on. And I

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mean the proof I think is in the wines that you taste out of here.

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And there are, there are so many great Rhone varieties, whites,

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reds, blends, varietals, higher acid, lower acid,

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different ways of putting it together. And they all do well in Passo. You know,

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I did that just struck a chord and I couldn't remember Chateau Bo

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Castell and has to be early on.

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I look going back a few years and I'm thinking I, when I

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was getting ready for this call, I kept thinking, I

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think this is Chateau book. I think this is a French influence on this product.

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But I couldn't put connect the dots, but I knew that at some

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point. Was it one of the early French infusions?

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Not infusions, but you know, transplants to California even

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because, you know, we're in Oregon and the Burgundians went to Oregon and some of

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the Bordelays went into Napa.

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Was this one of the Early French

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transplants into America, I think it was. Yeah, it really was.

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I mean, I. And I know that my dad and the parents were looking at

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Opus, and they were looking at Dominus. They were looking at these kind of

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French American hybrids in California,

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and that was. That was in their minds. And

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this. This all grew out of the trips that my dad and

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Jean Pierre Francois Perrin took around the United States to

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kind of establish Bocast and the rest of the wines in their portfolio.

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And every time they would go to California, they would leave, saying, yeah,

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California is great terroir, but why is nobody focusing on the grapes that are from

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the Mediterranean part of France? Like, it is a Mediterranean climate in California.

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Roussanne, Marsan, Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah. Like, those should do great

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if we can find the right soils and the right microclimate. And yet all

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of the models that they saw people looking at were. Were more continental

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models. They were looking to Bordeaux for their inspiration or maybe

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up in Sonoma, they were looking to Burgundy for their inspiration, but they weren't to

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the run. And. And they felt like that was a. That was an opportunity.

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It's interesting, early on, again,

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I got to stop saying that, because that makes me sound really old.

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You would go to the Lima Valley, and you would meet

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with the winemakers, and they would. They would say, hey, this is very

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Burgundian. And you would say, wow, this is very Bordeaux. And.

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And we don't hear that anymore. And I'm wondering if back in those days, you

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said, this is Ronesque Rhone style, when we all

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now have learned that California produces its own style, no matter what you plant,

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it takes on its own character. But I always thought it was interesting in those

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days, you would always say that this is very Burgundian, and you don't hear it

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much anymore. You don't hear it as much. And I think it does

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differ a little bit. Like, I know I go out and I show these

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wines around the country, and when I'm in California, I spend a lot more time

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talking about the grapes themselves, about Paso Robles,

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about the weather, about the climate. When I'm on the east coast, which is a

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little. Still a little more European focused, I do talk more about the

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Rhone and talk about Chateauneuf dupont and talk about that

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kind of stylistic inheritance that we have. But I. I just think it's a sign

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of the maturation of California that everybody doesn't need to

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cast themselves as a descendant

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of a. A European region. It's. I think it's established

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enough now that we can talk about the place and the grapes and the. And

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the practices. You know, it's kind of interesting, actually. I find that

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the sub Appalachian differences in Paso actually

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seem to be, to me anyway, a little more expressive than the sub

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Appalachian differences in Napa. In other words, yes, mountain fruit and that

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obviously distinctly different. But valley fruit in Napa, it's hard for

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me to find the differences, but clearly west side, east side

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Adelaide versus other parts of Paso, you do get a

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terroir difference that it's expressive. And I think that just comes from,

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you know, you know, obviously the soil and the. In the actual

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terroir, but it comes from, I think, a want of the winemakers

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in that area to. To have Paso be expressive to,

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you know, bring the world to Paso Robles, not just another wine

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district. Tongue in cheek, I'll say something like Temecula.

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You know, there's. There's like 13 or 20 wineries for sale in Temecula, but

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you're not buy a winery there. You're buying a destination for

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entertainment. Right. You're not buying this appellation of Temecula

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grapes. It's never really performed that. That way, which is fine. But

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Paso seems to want to do that.

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Yeah. And I think there's two pieces to that comment that,

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that I think are both right. But I've talked to and.

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And read enough conversations with Napa

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producers who have all basically said that if they had to go back

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and redo the Appalachians of Napa, they would differently. Because

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right now it's basically done in slices as you go from south

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to north, which includes both valley fruit and

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mountain fruit in each of those Appalachians. And that's probably not the best

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way to do it. The valley is going to have more in common with other

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valley locations, even if it's a little further up the valley or closer to the.

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To the bay than it is to the mountains that are on either side. And

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so when we got together as a community

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and drew the sub avas in Paso Robles in the late

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2000s, we had that as an example of

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kind of really maybe a description

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that was convenient at the time because it associated everything

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with towns that people knew but was perhaps not

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viticulturally as significant. So

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we made the decision early on that we were going to bring

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in scientists from UC Davis and from Cal Poly, and we were

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going to let them tell us where the lines were. The. The. The

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geographers and the geologists and the viticulturists from those

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Research universities, like they were going to tell us where the boundaries were between

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one growing region and another. And I think it was. It's

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fairly unusual to have a region get together and all

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agree to abide by what the scientists say and to

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draw all of the lines at once instead of having it

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come together piecemeal as there was a group of vintners who wanted

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to make a name for themselves and then they would get a single ava.

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Does is sort of a different process. But I, I do

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think that Paso. I mean, it. It really needed

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subdivision there. It was an enormous AVA with a lot of internal

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variation. It was 40 miles east to west. It's

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30 miles north to south. It ranges from 600ft

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elevation to 2400ft. It was 10 miles from the

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ocean all the way to 40 miles from the ocean. And there's five or six

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different major soil types there. There is enough

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climate variants that there are Winkler Scale 2, 3 and

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4, all inside Paso. So it's like there are. There are

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real reasons to subdivide it. So I think there's. It's possible to divide it in

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a way that. That, that separates meaningfully

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different areas from each other. But there was also the desire to do it in

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a way that was, was, was real. And

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I think that's important too. Do you think that there's been

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a settling of what somebody would expect a

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Paso, for instance, Cabernet would taste like? In other words, you have Austin Hope,

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you've got the Dow, and you've got all these major supermarket

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brands. And the reason I said this is we were just in New York,

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you know, where the edge of the world is. My daughter lives across the street

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in a town called Potsdam, New York. And

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it's quite troublesome to get to. You have to go through Montreal. Anyway,

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I went into the wine shop there. You know, there's not a lot of wine

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shops, but it was a more glorified liquor store that actually had a selection.

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And all of the Napa wines there, all of them were that

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now effusive, opulent fruit forward,

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you know, slightly sugared style. And so I, and I even I, you know,

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I had to choose something. My wife likes the Cabernet, so,

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you know, I thought, okay, I'll try a variety. And they were all the same

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in this certain sense. Is that, is that. Is there a style in passel that's

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landed at least on the Cabernet side? Or are we still sort of experimenting

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with finding, you know, appellated

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sub, sub, sub Appalachian character?

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I, I'M not, we're not a CAB producer. So I'm, I'm a little

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skeptical to wade too deep into this particular water. That was a very safe thing

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to say. I, I would say though, that Napa

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cast such a huge shadow over Cabernet from California.

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Yeah. That anybody who is doing a mass

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brand Cabernet is kind of going after that same Napa style because that's what

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people expect. So I don't know that I

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would particularly look to CAB for

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the clearest expression of the different Avas in Paso.

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I think that's much more likely to come through from smaller

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producers and from people who are focusing on Rhone

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varieties or on, on whites than it is for those who

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focus on Cabernet. It's, I mean, it's clear to me, at least stylistically,

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there's, that has not happened in the, the, the Rome varietals. You

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know, you don't, there's. I can't think of an overriding character that

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comes from that side of Paso that you would describe

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your, your Syrah versus the, your neighbor Syrah. They're,

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they're stylishly different. I do think there's a little bit on the

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Cabernet side where this. Well, let's face it,

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Austin Hope is. And I had Austin on the show. It was a great wine.

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I sold tons of it. Tons of.

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And so I have. You know, that's. Marketing is a very important part of our

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business. But I, I still, I think there is a stylistic

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position that they've taken and people look for that

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and that's good. The consumer has to drive this for us. Maybe we're wine

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geeks and we're trying to, you know, find the most expressive thing we can,

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but that doesn't necessarily sell. So. Right. And that you're.

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If you think of the really big CAD producers in Paso, the, the

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Austin Hopes and the Dows and the Justins and the J Lors, I mean, they

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are making something in a quantity that is distributed

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around the country and it needs to follow a style. It needs to be consistent

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from year to year. They're, they're, they're of a scale where that's,

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that's really important. There are no room

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producers who are 1:10 the size of those

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wineries. So like, in some ways we are

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liberated from having to follow

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a, follow a national style because none of us are big enough

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to have national distribution in chain retail

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anyway. Like, we tend to like even Tublas Creek. We're one of the larger

237
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grown producers or one, in fact, One of the largest grown producers in

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California and we only make about 30,000 cases of wine and we sell half

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of that direct to consumer. So it's, it's sort of a

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different business model and a different winemaking model because,

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because it can be, because it's just a, just a question of scale. You know,

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that's an interesting thought. When he said business model, I never used the term, but

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that's certainly what it is. And you know, there's

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this movement on, on LinkedIn and other parts of social

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and we have to be more innovative. And I'm this purist and I'm a traditionalist

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and maybe traditionalists are steeped in tradition. And so, you know,

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we're never going to break out of that. And I think wine has a position

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in the human, in human society and human soul

249
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in that it's, it connects people and it's in a different way than any,

250
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any other beverage can. And so I don't necessarily believe in this

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innovation stuff. However, I, I

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suppose it's innovative. If there's a style that's been landed on

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and we can get people to come to the store and buy those

254
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wines so that the industry, you know, flourishes. I suppose,

255
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you know, that definition is, is a valid one. I, I, I

256
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wrestle with that every day, trying to understand the people that are saying,

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well, we need to look at like for instance, I've had people on the show

258
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that think putting their wines in a voss bottle shaped

259
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375is innovation. And I, I, you know,

260
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that's not what we're selling. We're not selling packaging, we're selling what's inside the

261
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package. I don't tell that to the Provence rose producers. They're

262
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certainly selling a package. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. He

263
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said something really interesting. And I'm going to go back to the Armenian wine industry

264
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just because I know it well and it's, but not because it's Armenia. But I

265
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want to focus on a little bit because it is new.

266
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And so they're, they're going through the growing pains that maybe PASO did

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years and years ago. And one of them, when you said

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that you, you hired that there's, that you got together that

269
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it was rare for vintners to get together and do this. Now there's always

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been a culture of camaraderie, at least in the

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California side. Napa had its vendors association many, many years ago.

272
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But when I look at the Armenian market, maybe it's just because it's young.

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They would never do that. They could not get together,

274
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you know, and play as a team. You said that was unusual.

275
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Why do you. You know, what. What led you to that comment? Why would that

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be unusual? How do you know that's unusual? So, I mean, we hear

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that from lots of other regions that the. The kind of

278
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unity that there is within Paso, where if there's a.

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If there's a. An initiative that the Paso Robles Wine

280
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country alliance is putting on or an event that's happening,

281
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that they get almost 100 participation from Paso wineries,

282
00:17:33,500 --> 00:17:36,780
it's very different from Santa Barbara, very different from Monterey, very different from

283
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Sonoma, which is sort of fractured into its own sub EVAs.

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NAPA. NAPA has maybe a little more

285
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cohesion. They certainly do support the Napa Valley vintners well, and

286
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that's a very effective organization. But still, I think

287
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there are lots of producers there who are well enough

288
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established and have a waiting list for their waiting list and

289
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don't need to pour at things that promote the Napa brand.

290
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And Paso is a little different. Paso, I think. I think even the cult

291
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producers here, you think of the Saxons and the

292
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Lenny Colotos and the Denners and the bookers and the people who are

293
00:18:15,550 --> 00:18:19,310
almost entirely DTC and get very high scores and have waiting lists,

294
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they will still have a table at the Paso Robles Wine Festival. And they

295
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do it because they feel like it's a part

296
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of giving back to the region. And I do think that

297
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that's relatively unusual to have everybody on board

298
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behind this kind of shared push to

299
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get the region recognized better. They not essentially thought. I didn't think of that. But

300
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maybe it's that ruralness of Paso, that young. It's

301
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young still, you know, by means of wine districts. But

302
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:52,400
there's a. Is there a word called rurality?

303
00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:56,320
If not, there should be. I mean, and I think that's a part of it.

304
00:18:56,400 --> 00:19:00,160
And I'm not sure that it's the rural character as much as it is

305
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:03,640
the fact that there is very little in the way of absentee ownership here. So

306
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you. I mean, if you go up to Napa, lots of those wineries are owned

307
00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:10,740
by people who live elsewhere or they're owned by corporations. Santa

308
00:19:10,740 --> 00:19:14,260
Barbara, there's lots of wineries that are owned by people who live in la.

309
00:19:15,140 --> 00:19:18,780
If you go to Paso, almost all of the wineries are owned and

310
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run by families that live in Paso.

311
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And you. I think that changes the character. You see the other owners

312
00:19:26,580 --> 00:19:29,820
out at dinner. You go to the little League games and all of the Little

313
00:19:29,820 --> 00:19:33,540
league teams are sponsored by vineyards or wineries. Like it's great. It's a community,

314
00:19:34,100 --> 00:19:36,740
it's a residential community because of its

315
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geographic isolation in a way

316
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that most other California wine regions aren't.

317
00:19:45,060 --> 00:19:48,300
I would love, I love to see the little. I'm a

318
00:19:48,300 --> 00:19:51,940
grandfather of seven now, soon to be eight

319
00:19:51,940 --> 00:19:55,580
and my daughter was displaced by the Altadena fire.

320
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She was, they didn't lose their home, but it's being cleaned up as we speak

321
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and they're living with us. So I have a 7 year old grandson with us

322
00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:05,760
and I showed up to Lilyfield to just

323
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watch the thing. I coached Lily for years, I was president for years too

324
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and ended up coaching the team, you know, with, with the two

325
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managers. And I just thought what a great

326
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,479
image. You know, it's Archeron. Say

327
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:24,520
it's Tablet's Creek versus it is. There's, we, we

328
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,000
have great photographs of like Tablets Creek versus Torin and

329
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,320
Ducey, Vineyard versus Eberle. Like it's, I mean it's,

330
00:20:32,730 --> 00:20:35,530
it's, it's. Super cool because when I was in a little League, you know, a

331
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long time ago, we were the sponsored team that, you know, we were

332
00:20:38,970 --> 00:20:42,490
Woody's, a smorgasbord burger joint. Yeah, that's, that's how you represent

333
00:20:42,570 --> 00:20:44,730
yourself. So that's really cool,

334
00:20:46,250 --> 00:20:49,890
you know, and that's one of the reasons we talked briefly before we got on

335
00:20:49,890 --> 00:20:53,530
camera about why my wife and I ended up that we thought we'd retire there.

336
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And so I was up in 2002 or three or four and I

337
00:20:57,650 --> 00:21:01,490
bought 60 acres off of Martingale off Australia River Road. On the hot side

338
00:21:01,490 --> 00:21:04,870
is beautiful two tiered property. A

339
00:21:05,190 --> 00:21:08,950
functioning, beautiful 600 gallon per minute. Well on it, you know, so

340
00:21:08,950 --> 00:21:12,750
excuse me. And I had all the ambition

341
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in the world to, to go there and build a house up on the

342
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ridge and possibly accept one thing that happened

343
00:21:20,630 --> 00:21:24,230
and what had didn't happen, we ended up selling it was that

344
00:21:25,030 --> 00:21:28,750
the covenants on the property since it had gone bankrupt, this development had

345
00:21:28,750 --> 00:21:32,380
gone bankrupt were intact. And one of them was you could not plant

346
00:21:32,380 --> 00:21:35,620
vineyards until you had a functioning,

347
00:21:36,180 --> 00:21:39,980
you couldn't build a house, they had a functioning vineyard, irrigated vineyard, or

348
00:21:39,980 --> 00:21:43,660
you were studying horses, which is not something I'm

349
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familiar with. So, so we didn't do that. And

350
00:21:47,340 --> 00:21:50,580
then, you know, back then it was about 15,000 an acre to plant.

351
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And I'm like, wow, this is way more than I paid for the land.

352
00:21:55,380 --> 00:21:58,940
And it was also 2004 when that huge glut hit I think when

353
00:21:59,090 --> 00:22:02,530
Charles Shaw started actually because of all that extra juice and extra

354
00:22:02,530 --> 00:22:06,250
grapes, the guy behind me didn't even pick 60 acres

355
00:22:06,250 --> 00:22:09,770
as well. But the attraction, the point of this is the

356
00:22:09,770 --> 00:22:12,690
attraction was that rural cowboy. You know, you had a

357
00:22:13,170 --> 00:22:16,970
rodeo there still. You had a bowling alley, you know, a

358
00:22:16,970 --> 00:22:20,650
tin sided bowling alley. And that was just really cool. And it

359
00:22:20,650 --> 00:22:24,170
hasn't changed that much. I mean the restaurants have seemed to have improved a little

360
00:22:24,170 --> 00:22:27,990
bit. And there's less thrift shops and you know, less cowboy stores.

361
00:22:27,990 --> 00:22:31,710
But still carries that really cool vibe that I think

362
00:22:31,950 --> 00:22:35,670
is attractive. Yeah, it's still, I mean it's still a

363
00:22:35,670 --> 00:22:39,270
place where the cowboy hats that you see being worn out at restaurants and bars,

364
00:22:39,270 --> 00:22:43,110
they're not being worn ironically like these are, those are probably on actual cowboys.

365
00:22:43,110 --> 00:22:46,750
Like. So it, it, it's.

366
00:22:46,910 --> 00:22:50,350
I, I do think that there is this helpful

367
00:22:50,590 --> 00:22:53,810
overlay of. Of kind of

368
00:22:54,210 --> 00:22:57,970
investment and youth

369
00:22:58,370 --> 00:23:01,650
that the wine community has brought in. So

370
00:23:01,890 --> 00:23:05,530
there's definitely a lot of people who've moved here. Paso has grown

371
00:23:05,530 --> 00:23:08,930
in the 22 years I've been out here. 23 years I've been out here

372
00:23:09,730 --> 00:23:13,290
from about 25000 people to about 40000 people. Oh

373
00:23:13,290 --> 00:23:16,890
wow. And a lot of that has been brought in either directly by

374
00:23:16,890 --> 00:23:20,050
wine or indirectly by the businesses that, that

375
00:23:20,530 --> 00:23:24,250
are supported by wine. So the restaurants and the hotels and the

376
00:23:24,250 --> 00:23:27,890
shops and all of that because I mean I remember the first time I spent

377
00:23:27,890 --> 00:23:30,610
much time out here was, was in

378
00:23:30,770 --> 00:23:34,210
1995 and there was like

379
00:23:34,290 --> 00:23:38,090
30% vacancy in the storefronts downtown. It wasn't really

380
00:23:38,090 --> 00:23:41,770
a destination to dine or to shop. If you

381
00:23:41,770 --> 00:23:44,490
wanted a good meal, you went down to San Luis Obispo or you went over

382
00:23:44,490 --> 00:23:48,130
to the coast. And that's really changed. And that's because of wine.

383
00:23:48,860 --> 00:23:52,620
But it is still a rural area. Ranching is still a big deal.

384
00:23:53,980 --> 00:23:57,740
And a lot of the, a lot of the, the grape growers are

385
00:23:57,740 --> 00:24:01,100
former ranchers or, or current ranchers who have just dedicated

386
00:24:01,740 --> 00:24:05,500
like 100 acres to grow grapes in addition to the cattle ranching

387
00:24:05,500 --> 00:24:09,260
or the, the horse raising that they were already doing. So there's, there is

388
00:24:09,260 --> 00:24:12,380
sort of a real western vibe to the place that's authentic.

389
00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:16,540
The guy, the gentleman that owns Ancient Peaks was, he was a

390
00:24:16,700 --> 00:24:20,550
well digger. Like that's what he does, right? That's his. Forgot his name now.

391
00:24:20,710 --> 00:24:24,550
But interesting. It's an

392
00:24:24,550 --> 00:24:28,350
interesting progression of things that have happened. Let's talk about business a little bit. You

393
00:24:28,350 --> 00:24:32,070
said that half your. Well, I'M going to start with this, the Roan

394
00:24:32,150 --> 00:24:35,550
Ranger side of this, and we'll get into the DTC and all that, but the

395
00:24:35,550 --> 00:24:38,870
Roan Ranger side of this. I had a conversation going back to Armenia

396
00:24:39,510 --> 00:24:43,350
with Vahe Kushgari. Have you ever heard this name, huh? And

397
00:24:43,350 --> 00:24:46,920
so he said in my podcast, and I was out in Armenia, I shot this,

398
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,320
I had five, three days of a crew. It came out really cool. I was

399
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:54,000
really happy with the five interviews I did. But with him, he's

400
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,680
talking about before we got on camera, how

401
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:02,200
the group, I'm supposing your father would meet at his

402
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,320
restaurant in Berkeley. Code, the

403
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:09,240
code Divino. He goes, this, this is where it,

404
00:25:09,650 --> 00:25:13,450
where the ideas were blossomed from. Are you familiar with that story? So I

405
00:25:13,450 --> 00:25:15,810
had thought that the restaurant in Berkeley was called Laleem's.

406
00:25:17,170 --> 00:25:20,930
That I know was where the original Rhone Rangers group got together. And that

407
00:25:20,930 --> 00:25:24,730
was actually before Tablis Creek. That was, I think this was 86

408
00:25:24,730 --> 00:25:28,290
or 87. That was headed up by Steve

409
00:25:28,290 --> 00:25:31,890
Edmonds of Edmonds St. John, who was

410
00:25:32,370 --> 00:25:35,770
based in Berkeley there. But it had Randall Graham and it had Bob

411
00:25:35,770 --> 00:25:39,280
Lindquist and it had Fred Klein and it had. Those are the guys, Bill

412
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,680
Easton and like that original, that original group. And there were about a

413
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,960
dozen Roan kind of

414
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,440
enthusiasts who were making somehow Rhone

415
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,960
connected wines around California. So that was really the first

416
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,680
generation. And all of them were iconoclasts

417
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,480
and all of them were, they, they followed that like classic maxim

418
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,840
of they don't want to be a part of any club that would accept them.

419
00:26:04,120 --> 00:26:07,960
So the, they like, they never really organized themselves very well.

420
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,320
And then there was sort of a, a period where everyone just went and did

421
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,880
their own thing. And then in the late 90s, there was a

422
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,720
push led by John McCready of Sierra Vista Winery up

423
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,360
in the Sierra foothills to actually like put

424
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:26,000
together an incorporated organization which was called the Rhone

425
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,480
Rangers. And those originals did end up

426
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,640
joining and there's a lot of them are still, of course, around and making great

427
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,020
wines, which is, which is super cool. But that second

428
00:26:36,420 --> 00:26:40,020
wave included us and we've been

429
00:26:40,180 --> 00:26:43,380
pretty active in it ever since then. I've served on the board of that organization

430
00:26:43,380 --> 00:26:47,140
for almost 20 years. So I'm looking, I'm not looking

431
00:26:47,140 --> 00:26:50,660
at the camera at this moment because I am looking at Vaja's. You're right, it's

432
00:26:50,660 --> 00:26:54,420
La Liems and that was his restaurant. So cool. And

433
00:26:54,420 --> 00:26:58,100
he is, he's a winemaker in Armenia now and he makes, actually had

434
00:26:58,100 --> 00:27:01,420
made wine, Tuscany in Puglia and then he got the calling to go to his

435
00:27:01,420 --> 00:27:04,900
roots and he makes a great sparkling wine. That's very reasonable. She met a

436
00:27:04,900 --> 00:27:08,410
champagne called Kush. It's very popular in America actually.

437
00:27:08,570 --> 00:27:11,370
So yeah, that was really. He told me that. I go, that's really.

438
00:27:12,250 --> 00:27:15,370
Do you think there's value in this? And I mean this story.

439
00:27:16,810 --> 00:27:20,570
We're going to talk about business. The industry's in a sort

440
00:27:20,570 --> 00:27:23,370
of not, I'm not going to say it's a tailspin. I think that the naysayers

441
00:27:23,370 --> 00:27:26,570
and all that doom and gloom is a little over exaggerated.

442
00:27:27,210 --> 00:27:30,610
But you know, there is a consumption issue, there is a

443
00:27:30,610 --> 00:27:34,010
generational issue that we're trying to figure out. And I'm wondering

444
00:27:34,570 --> 00:27:37,770
this story, like no one would know this story. It's a cool story.

445
00:27:38,570 --> 00:27:42,418
Is, is that where we're headed? Because if you're 50

446
00:27:42,562 --> 00:27:45,930
DTC, that means 50 of yours, then is also

447
00:27:46,330 --> 00:27:50,049
either three tier or, you know, tasting room

448
00:27:50,049 --> 00:27:53,610
traffic. And I have this firm belief that

449
00:27:53,610 --> 00:27:57,410
wine is going back to earlier days, sometimes the 70s, where it's

450
00:27:57,410 --> 00:28:01,010
experiential, where you visited a winery and you remember that visit

451
00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:04,770
forever and you join the club if there was one. And then

452
00:28:04,770 --> 00:28:07,490
you, every time you get that box you think, oh, I remember that day we

453
00:28:07,490 --> 00:28:11,170
went to Toss Creek is a.

454
00:28:11,170 --> 00:28:14,050
Is Paso sensed some of this

455
00:28:14,530 --> 00:28:18,370
downturn. And two, how about TLAs Creek and what are you doing about it?

456
00:28:19,570 --> 00:28:23,170
Oh, lots of, lots of pieces to that question. So yes,

457
00:28:23,170 --> 00:28:26,450
Paso is not immune to the broader trends.

458
00:28:27,330 --> 00:28:31,170
I mean, Paso has seen, and I think

459
00:28:31,170 --> 00:28:34,130
this is true in general of wine in California saw

460
00:28:34,770 --> 00:28:37,810
whatever two generations of almost uninterrupted growth

461
00:28:38,850 --> 00:28:42,370
which then got a further infusion of

462
00:28:42,530 --> 00:28:46,330
energy in the aftermath of COVID when everybody was able

463
00:28:46,330 --> 00:28:49,130
to finally get back out. We saw we had the best years we've ever had

464
00:28:49,130 --> 00:28:52,970
in 21 and 22. And then if you look at

465
00:28:52,970 --> 00:28:56,530
the trend, it sort of is gradually sloping up and then it was flattening. And

466
00:28:56,530 --> 00:29:00,230
then you saw this huge spike right after Covid. Covid. And what you've seen is

467
00:29:00,230 --> 00:29:02,910
basically that spike correcting. So

468
00:29:04,190 --> 00:29:08,030
yeah, we saw traffic to Pasa Robles down a little bit in

469
00:29:08,030 --> 00:29:11,390
23 and 24. It seems like it stabilized in 25.

470
00:29:12,350 --> 00:29:16,190
I think we have, I recognize that

471
00:29:16,190 --> 00:29:19,230
that was likely to be the case. And so we have

472
00:29:19,630 --> 00:29:23,350
shifted some of our energy and our focus on

473
00:29:23,350 --> 00:29:26,870
our marketing towards the half that we sell

474
00:29:27,030 --> 00:29:30,630
in wholesale and export over the last couple of years. So we've been able to,

475
00:29:31,030 --> 00:29:34,830
to make up the declines in traffic to the tasting room,

476
00:29:34,830 --> 00:29:38,670
which haven't been. Hasn't been precipitous, but it's been off, like 4% each

477
00:29:38,670 --> 00:29:42,510
of the last two years. We've been able to

478
00:29:42,510 --> 00:29:45,830
make that up by working harder on the wholesale side of things. So that's one

479
00:29:45,830 --> 00:29:49,550
of the reasons why I really like the model that

480
00:29:49,550 --> 00:29:52,430
we have. So we don't have all of our eggs in a single basket. So

481
00:29:52,430 --> 00:29:55,590
if there's a. If there's a channel that is struggling,

482
00:29:56,940 --> 00:30:00,660
we don't have to feel like we're banging our head against a brick wall. We

483
00:30:00,660 --> 00:30:04,300
can shift the. The focus that we have towards one of the other

484
00:30:04,300 --> 00:30:08,140
channels that's. That's working a little better, offers a little more opportunity. But

485
00:30:08,140 --> 00:30:11,859
no, Paso is not immune to it. There's certainly plenty of. Plenty of

486
00:30:11,859 --> 00:30:15,660
wineries here who are seriously alarmed by

487
00:30:15,660 --> 00:30:18,500
the fact that they sell everything out of their tasting room, and their tasting room

488
00:30:18,500 --> 00:30:21,740
Traffic is off 15% compared to two years ago, and

489
00:30:22,380 --> 00:30:25,820
costs are up. It's. It is. It's a period of correction, for sure, in.

490
00:30:26,060 --> 00:30:29,740
In wine, but it's not. It's not a time where there aren't opportunities.

491
00:30:29,740 --> 00:30:33,020
Also, you know, part of it. I hate to say it this way, but part

492
00:30:33,020 --> 00:30:36,700
of it seems to be political as well. Now I'm

493
00:30:36,700 --> 00:30:40,180
talking from my dtc, which we were the oldest wine club service in

494
00:30:40,180 --> 00:30:43,580
America. You know, gone through all of the marketing methods and

495
00:30:43,580 --> 00:30:47,300
changes through the 35 years I did it, plus this 15 years my

496
00:30:47,300 --> 00:30:51,080
dad did, always started as a handshake in the early days, even

497
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,880
through 2007, I was doing trade shows where I shook the hand of that

498
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,640
customer, and that was a loyal customer that had a real conversation with me,

499
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,840
which would be sort of the equivalent to a tasting room conversation to join a

500
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,000
club, as long as they're enamored by the thought process.

501
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,400
But I started seeing our changes, and I

502
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,120
had to do marketing, increase the marketing costs, and I had to

503
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,920
change the cost basis of my cost of goods sold to stay,

504
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,360
to stay profitable and continue to try and grow

505
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,000
early, like 2015, I started to see a change. That's because I'm a

506
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,120
different world. I'm in a completely saturated

507
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,240
industry with every Internet company in the world trying to sell

508
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,240
wine. So I had a different set of pressures. But

509
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,240
2019 is where I. I thought 2019 was gonna be a miserable year.

510
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,650
And, you know, 2020 caught. You know,

511
00:31:45,810 --> 00:31:49,330
caught up pretty quickly. And then, of course, I could do no wrong for 12

512
00:31:49,330 --> 00:31:51,490
months. Yeah, there were a couple years where you didn't have to be. You didn't

513
00:31:51,490 --> 00:31:54,050
have to be great to be successful. And if you were great, like you were

514
00:31:54,050 --> 00:31:57,730
really successful. Yeah, well, the best part about it was during those years

515
00:31:57,730 --> 00:32:01,170
I, whatever I bought, they would sell. I mean, whatever I sold, whatever I bought

516
00:32:01,170 --> 00:32:04,850
would sell. And I could sell. I sold 140 balls 1 liter

517
00:32:04,850 --> 00:32:08,610
Caymus when I couldn't. I would not sell a bottle. Literally,

518
00:32:08,690 --> 00:32:12,450
if I did the same email post Covid, I would sell

519
00:32:12,450 --> 00:32:16,210
five bottles instead of 50. You know, at $140 now it's

520
00:32:16,210 --> 00:32:19,970
$90 even less. But I was, I was left

521
00:32:19,970 --> 00:32:23,770
when the guy bought the company. I had almost 3,000 bottles of some pretty

522
00:32:23,770 --> 00:32:26,010
premium stuff. So I got to keep it.

523
00:32:27,530 --> 00:32:31,290
So we're drinking silver lining right there. Yeah, we're drinking pretty well right now. But

524
00:32:32,170 --> 00:32:35,850
I'm just wondering if that, that because Napa's

525
00:32:35,850 --> 00:32:38,370
worst. This is the part of the political I was talking about because of the

526
00:32:38,370 --> 00:32:41,990
way California structures, labor laws and stuff I was

527
00:32:42,630 --> 00:32:45,990
had. Was told and corroborated by other people

528
00:32:46,630 --> 00:32:50,150
that the reason, part of the reason their taste room traffic is down like

529
00:32:50,150 --> 00:32:53,990
40% in some cases. I'm talking about serious wineries that have serious

530
00:32:54,310 --> 00:32:57,830
followings have seen a 40% drop in their

531
00:32:57,830 --> 00:33:01,590
traffic in the taste rooms because the hotels, like

532
00:33:01,590 --> 00:33:04,870
our regular hotel we stay at when we go to Napa is a thousand dollars,

533
00:33:05,030 --> 00:33:08,750
right? No, I'm not going to spend a thousand bucks. And, and, but they're

534
00:33:08,750 --> 00:33:12,030
running with like 30% occupancy and apparently it's because

535
00:33:12,830 --> 00:33:16,430
they can get a skeleton crew much cheaper than a full time

536
00:33:16,430 --> 00:33:20,230
crew and, and live with 30 occupancy and not have to pay

537
00:33:20,230 --> 00:33:24,030
all the extra costs to, to a full time crew. And I thought, well, that's

538
00:33:24,190 --> 00:33:27,990
really an interesting result of some of the movement that have

539
00:33:27,990 --> 00:33:30,830
been made here politically. And it's not a political show, but I'm just,

540
00:33:31,790 --> 00:33:35,600
you know, a winery that's. That survives like you said in Paso

541
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,440
on his taste room traffic and they're off 40%. That's pretty hard to overcome in

542
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,760
our industry. Yeah, it is for sure. And I, I think I'm

543
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,720
my, my feeling and I studied economics as an undergrad that if that is, if

544
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,800
there are hotels that are actually doing that, there are going to be other hotels

545
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,560
who are looking at that and be like, well, there's very little that's more fungible

546
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,680
than an unused hotel room night. Like, I mean

547
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,840
that is you, you never have a chance to get that money back. So I

548
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,470
would think that that will at least in the long run, push prices

549
00:34:04,470 --> 00:34:07,990
down. But Napa is a lot more dependent upon international

550
00:34:08,230 --> 00:34:11,750
travel, which is, which is definitely down than Paso Robles is. Most

551
00:34:11,750 --> 00:34:13,430
visitors to Paso are domestic.

552
00:34:15,350 --> 00:34:18,630
And it's a, it's a, it's a region which has seen the most,

553
00:34:19,990 --> 00:34:23,750
the, the most, the highest run up in prices, the most premium. Premiumization.

554
00:34:23,910 --> 00:34:27,750
Like there's sort of been a race to see who can have the, the most

555
00:34:27,750 --> 00:34:31,580
expensive wine. And I mean that, that, that limits and limits

556
00:34:31,580 --> 00:34:34,940
and limits your potential audience. And one of the things I love about Paso is

557
00:34:34,940 --> 00:34:38,780
that there are lots of great wines made in PASO in the whatever 20 to

558
00:34:38,780 --> 00:34:42,580
30 range. That's hard to find in Napa. It's

559
00:34:42,580 --> 00:34:45,060
hard to find in Sonoma. It's hard to find even in Santa Barbara. But it's

560
00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:48,900
one of the advantages I think that we have here in Paso is a little

561
00:34:49,300 --> 00:34:51,620
broader range and it's still affordable.

562
00:34:53,140 --> 00:34:56,800
And a bunch of new hotels too, which is nice. 3 hours from

563
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,200
LA. You can jump in and I have a trip planned.

564
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,960
Planning a trip to get back up there and do some podcasting, etc.

565
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,960
I will say I almost bought that bowling alley. I

566
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,400
don't think it's open right now, but. No, I wish you had bought the bowling

567
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:14,200
alley. I miss it. I'm a, I'm a bowling game

568
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,640
junkie. I don't bowl much. I don't, you know, the sport's fine,

569
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,560
but I'm a bowling game junkie. Video games, the old ball bowlers that we

570
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,960
as kids we would use at the bowling alleys. I have a video game, two

571
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,720
video games in my home. I just love the, the

572
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,640
fiberglass chairs and the long neck buds. I just think this

573
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,320
is so American. And I wish, I wish you would.

574
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,840
It's. I've talked to lots of people who, who miss it.

575
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,480
Building still there. I think it's still intact. You're just waiting for somebody to, who

576
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,240
wants to operate it so randomly. I was at an event a couple of years

577
00:35:47,240 --> 00:35:50,720
ago, ran to a guy I hadn't talked to for 20 years probably,

578
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,600
and we were just talking real estate. He goes, yeah, I almost bought a bowling

579
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,200
alley in Paso. Go. Hey, you're probably against

580
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,400
me. Son of a gun. So

581
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,200
pretty interesting. So tell me, you know, I use the word

582
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,920
innovation in this and we are in Bordeaux not too

583
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,480
long ago and we went to a couple Chateau, obviously Chateau Bayou.

584
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,680
And what she's done there, her name is Veronique Sanders Van Beek. She's done

585
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,920
an incredible job of producing

586
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:22,950
an end user experience in a winery that is just really

587
00:36:22,950 --> 00:36:26,790
cool to come To. And so that's, and I. You can call that

588
00:36:26,790 --> 00:36:30,310
experiential innovation. So innovation for the experience

589
00:36:30,470 --> 00:36:34,070
of the visitor. And Bordeaux is not known for that anyway. They've just barely coming

590
00:36:34,070 --> 00:36:37,830
around to having open tasting rooms. But what would that mean to you

591
00:36:37,910 --> 00:36:41,750
in your case? Would that be varietal experimentation,

592
00:36:42,150 --> 00:36:45,990
innovation? Would that be blend innovation? That be just, just stay

593
00:36:45,990 --> 00:36:49,630
on the course, I mean, as an innovation itself to staying the course and, and

594
00:36:49,630 --> 00:36:53,320
bringing the industry back to this sort of not mysterious

595
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,800
but, you know, intellectual business.

596
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,560
So I don't think it would just be staying the course. That's, that's,

597
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,560
I don't, I don't think that's enough suicide.

598
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,760
I mean, we, there are a few areas in which we feel like we

599
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,080
have a lot of opportunities to innovate. One of them is the

600
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,440
varietal piece of things. We've introduced

601
00:37:18,450 --> 00:37:21,490
nine different grape varieties to America.

602
00:37:22,370 --> 00:37:26,170
We just bottled the last of those and we now have the full collection of

603
00:37:26,170 --> 00:37:29,730
Chateauneuf du Pape grapes. So the last of those is Muscardin,

604
00:37:30,370 --> 00:37:33,810
which is a super rare grape in, even in Chateauneuf.

605
00:37:34,930 --> 00:37:37,930
But we've just put it into bottle on its own for the first time. We

606
00:37:37,930 --> 00:37:41,570
now have the whole collection bottled as individual varietal bottlings. And

607
00:37:41,810 --> 00:37:45,650
that's something that's really cool, we think is really cool. And some of the grapes,

608
00:37:45,650 --> 00:37:49,280
like I can, after tasting them and getting to know them, I can understand why

609
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,600
they're rare grapes. Like, they're probably not a flavor profile that

610
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,680
is going to have super wide appeal. But there are others that seem

611
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,960
to have become rare through no fault of their.

612
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:04,000
The, the wine quality. Instead it was say, a susceptibility

613
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,560
to powdery mildew that led to getting pulled out in

614
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:11,040
France in a period where they couldn't deal with that and it never recovered, but

615
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:14,670
which makes amazing wines. And so we have

616
00:38:14,670 --> 00:38:18,350
some grape varieties that, that really nowhere in the

617
00:38:18,350 --> 00:38:22,030
world has the same diversity that we do. So I think

618
00:38:22,030 --> 00:38:25,590
that's one area where we innovate. The other is,

619
00:38:25,590 --> 00:38:28,870
or a second is on the farming side of things. We've been,

620
00:38:29,510 --> 00:38:33,150
we, we've been organic since we started. We've been biodynamic increasingly over the

621
00:38:33,150 --> 00:38:36,790
last 15 years and in 2020 became the first

622
00:38:37,190 --> 00:38:40,790
regenerative, organic, certified vineyard in the world. And

623
00:38:40,790 --> 00:38:44,510
so that is essentially an effort to create an

624
00:38:44,510 --> 00:38:48,270
ecosystem within our farm unit that doesn't require

625
00:38:48,270 --> 00:38:52,110
us to bring in inputs from the outside and produces fertility

626
00:38:52,110 --> 00:38:55,909
naturally, produces weed control naturally, produces pest control naturally. It

627
00:38:55,909 --> 00:38:59,550
includes a flock of 150 sheep that we use to graze the

628
00:38:59,550 --> 00:39:03,390
vineyard. It has insectaries, it has beehives, it

629
00:39:03,390 --> 00:39:06,870
has a couple hundred fruit trees interplanted. We're doing a lot of

630
00:39:06,870 --> 00:39:10,670
experiments with COVID cropping, permanent cover, so

631
00:39:10,670 --> 00:39:13,790
I think works. We're, we're doing a lot of innovation in that way, which first

632
00:39:13,790 --> 00:39:17,630
of all provides a very, a great growing

633
00:39:17,630 --> 00:39:21,430
environment to make really healthy and resilient and long lived and

634
00:39:21,430 --> 00:39:25,030
characterful grapevines. But there's also a lot to see

635
00:39:25,110 --> 00:39:28,670
if somebody comes to visit. People kind of understand the

636
00:39:28,670 --> 00:39:32,150
idea of this, of this integrated ecology

637
00:39:33,190 --> 00:39:36,750
and it's a, it's a fascinating thing to take people to see. And then

638
00:39:36,830 --> 00:39:40,110
finally, the third area where I feel like we try to do a lot of

639
00:39:40,110 --> 00:39:43,390
innovation is on the packaging side

640
00:39:44,030 --> 00:39:47,750
where we did an internal audit and then we followed it up with an actual

641
00:39:47,750 --> 00:39:51,430
greenhouse gas audit. And a lot of people are surprised to learn that

642
00:39:51,430 --> 00:39:55,070
the glass bottle accounts for half the carbon footprint of the average

643
00:39:55,070 --> 00:39:58,470
winery around the world. And so we've moved to

644
00:39:58,470 --> 00:40:02,030
lightweight glass, which we're using in different ways.

645
00:40:02,030 --> 00:40:05,630
We've moved to pouring most of our tasting room wines and

646
00:40:05,790 --> 00:40:09,610
some of the wines we sell out in wholes into reusable stainless steel kegs.

647
00:40:09,930 --> 00:40:13,650
We've started selling wine premium

648
00:40:13,650 --> 00:40:17,050
wine in boxes. We've done the three liter

649
00:40:17,130 --> 00:40:20,890
boxes of wine of our patenta

650
00:40:20,890 --> 00:40:24,130
tables tier and we're expanding into a few estate wines in the last few years

651
00:40:24,130 --> 00:40:27,930
and that's been a big success. So I feel like there's, there's sort

652
00:40:27,930 --> 00:40:31,490
of three different ways that we think of, of our own, like what

653
00:40:31,490 --> 00:40:35,290
frontiers can we push? And we've been, I feel like, rewarded

654
00:40:35,290 --> 00:40:38,770
by pretty good attention and good response from consumers on all three.

655
00:40:39,490 --> 00:40:43,210
That reminded me of a cartoon I just saw which was a guy with

656
00:40:43,210 --> 00:40:46,850
his glass and he was putting it under the spigot of a box of wine.

657
00:40:47,250 --> 00:40:50,930
And the woman says, no, that's not the refrigerator, that's, that's the box wine.

658
00:40:50,930 --> 00:40:54,730
I saw that too. Well,

659
00:40:54,730 --> 00:40:58,530
you know that. And I look those issues, I think, I personally think

660
00:40:58,530 --> 00:41:02,050
some of those are just fringe issues. I had one winemaker tell me, you know

661
00:41:02,050 --> 00:41:05,530
what glass is recycled sand. I'm like,

662
00:41:05,690 --> 00:41:09,450
it's a pretty good point. Because what you're

663
00:41:09,450 --> 00:41:11,530
explaining is innovation.

664
00:41:13,290 --> 00:41:17,010
Because the idea for me, and I'm working on

665
00:41:17,010 --> 00:41:20,010
a show for this and why I went to Armenia, which is

666
00:41:20,890 --> 00:41:24,010
not what's in the bottle, which is the part that

667
00:41:25,050 --> 00:41:28,730
is intimidating for people, at least the way the industry talks about

668
00:41:28,730 --> 00:41:32,490
it. And Assam might talk about it and sometimes I find tasting room people

669
00:41:32,810 --> 00:41:36,430
are a little overboard with that stuff to, to deliberately intimidate a

670
00:41:36,430 --> 00:41:38,990
guest that you don't know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about.

671
00:41:38,990 --> 00:41:42,230
I've seen it happen many times. Yeah, it's. That's super unhelpful. Yes,

672
00:41:42,470 --> 00:41:46,190
it's. It's why it's in the bottle. The. The

673
00:41:46,190 --> 00:41:49,950
story behind why it's in the bottle. Well, for you, for instance, you brought up

674
00:41:49,950 --> 00:41:53,350
these rare. We wanted to show the world these rare

675
00:41:53,830 --> 00:41:57,350
roan varietals that you don't see in America ever. I mean, it's probably like, you

676
00:41:57,350 --> 00:42:01,030
know, 0.00% planted of this particular varietal in

677
00:42:01,110 --> 00:42:04,910
America only. I mean, and even in many cases around the world. I mean,

678
00:42:04,910 --> 00:42:08,730
we plant grapes that we're excited about, is called Picardon, and

679
00:42:08,730 --> 00:42:12,210
that's a. That's a white grape, a high acid kind of lemony

680
00:42:12,370 --> 00:42:15,730
white grape that is super delicious

681
00:42:16,050 --> 00:42:19,890
but was susceptible to powdery mildew and so almost went extinct in France, we planted

682
00:42:19,890 --> 00:42:23,730
half an acre at Tabless Creek and increased the world's total Picardin footprint by

683
00:42:23,730 --> 00:42:27,450
40%. So. So it's not just that we're breaking new

684
00:42:27,450 --> 00:42:30,770
ground for California. In some cases, we're putting things into bottle that haven't gone into

685
00:42:30,770 --> 00:42:34,600
bottle on their own anywhere in the world in 100 years. Yeah.

686
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:38,440
So that's okay. But that's really cool. And it's really cool. Innovation.

687
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,200
Is that innovation for the broad market? I don't think so. And it doesn't have

688
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,560
to be. I'm not saying, I'm not being critical of that. I'm just saying that's

689
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,400
innovation in our trade that is going to bring a

690
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,160
lot of people to the table that understand what you're saying. Like, wow, I got

691
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,680
to taste this. Like, me versus

692
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,520
putting it in a can. And like, for instance, I noticed at this local market

693
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,840
here in, in Southern California, Hermosa beach, that the can section

694
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,820
has gone from like four gondolas down like a half a gondol.

695
00:43:07,300 --> 00:43:11,140
And it's telling me that, yeah, I mean, can't wine in a can. Okay.

696
00:43:11,220 --> 00:43:14,540
For certain occasions, I would never take it in my golf bag. I don't drink

697
00:43:14,540 --> 00:43:18,220
wine on the golf course. But. But it didn't sound like

698
00:43:18,220 --> 00:43:21,740
that. That's really, you know, the primary focus of

699
00:43:21,740 --> 00:43:25,580
innovation that we need to be taking. We need to be looking at what

700
00:43:25,580 --> 00:43:29,420
you're doing in order to stimulate the curiosity. Because

701
00:43:29,420 --> 00:43:33,070
I don't think wine will ever, ever be out of that realm.

702
00:43:33,070 --> 00:43:36,910
As the intellectual part of a meal and the curiosity as

703
00:43:36,910 --> 00:43:40,550
to why it's in the bottle. I mean, I, I don't

704
00:43:40,550 --> 00:43:44,350
disagree with that, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive either. I think

705
00:43:44,350 --> 00:43:47,950
that there is room to innovate with

706
00:43:47,950 --> 00:43:51,630
what's in the bottle, but I also think that there is room to innovate

707
00:43:51,630 --> 00:43:54,390
in how it is packaged and how it's presented to people.

708
00:43:55,430 --> 00:43:58,870
And, and the idea that like, you can only do one or you do one,

709
00:43:58,870 --> 00:44:01,350
that means you can't do another is for me, that I don't think that's, of

710
00:44:01,350 --> 00:44:05,060
course, I don't think that's accurate. It. Well, I did have one woman who's,

711
00:44:05,300 --> 00:44:09,060
that's another. You know, sometimes I see these things, I go, dude,

712
00:44:09,380 --> 00:44:13,180
you're, you're crazy. But who knows? You know, I've been

713
00:44:13,180 --> 00:44:16,980
wrong on many occasions, so I don't take a position anymore. But she says,

714
00:44:16,980 --> 00:44:20,660
oh, for sure, Chateau Lafite's going to be in a can one day.

715
00:44:21,620 --> 00:44:25,260
I'm like, that's probably not going to happen. No, I mean, you have to understand

716
00:44:25,260 --> 00:44:27,900
the limits of your package. I mean, same thing. We're not going to put our

717
00:44:27,900 --> 00:44:30,900
esprita tablets in a box. Like the, the,

718
00:44:31,620 --> 00:44:35,080
the, the thing about glass bo and, and

719
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:38,800
corks or different sorts of closures are that

720
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,560
they are really good at protecting a wine long term from

721
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:46,320
incursion of oxygen. And one of the great things about great wines is that they

722
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:50,080
age and they change and they evolve and they, they sort of are this

723
00:44:50,319 --> 00:44:54,000
time capsule that you can share with other people and

724
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:57,680
enjoy and it brings you back to a, a, a, a different year and a

725
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:01,420
different place. And that's not, not something which you're going

726
00:45:01,420 --> 00:45:04,140
to get in a can. It's not something that you're going to get in a

727
00:45:04,140 --> 00:45:07,860
box. It's the root part of wine, though. I

728
00:45:07,860 --> 00:45:11,100
think that that expression, that one woman put it to me, I've said this a

729
00:45:11,100 --> 00:45:13,980
thousand times in the show. What other product can you take halfway around the world,

730
00:45:13,980 --> 00:45:16,499
plop it on the table and just say who we are and when we were.

731
00:45:16,820 --> 00:45:20,580
And how does that ever change the personality of a wine and the

732
00:45:20,580 --> 00:45:24,100
cultural value of a glass of wine? How can that ever change? Yep.

733
00:45:24,180 --> 00:45:27,860
No, I think that is one of the amazing things about wine. But the reality

734
00:45:27,860 --> 00:45:31,340
is that what 95% of wines get

735
00:45:31,340 --> 00:45:34,860
consumed within 48 hours of when they're purchased. So

736
00:45:35,020 --> 00:45:38,820
that is, that is something that wine can do, but it isn't something which most

737
00:45:38,820 --> 00:45:42,540
people are doing with wine or which most wines will do. So I

738
00:45:42,540 --> 00:45:45,660
think there are, people have to understand the right,

739
00:45:47,100 --> 00:45:50,780
the right sorts of wines that they're, they're looking at innovating with

740
00:45:50,780 --> 00:45:54,510
in packaging. And it's not going to be the, the great wines

741
00:45:54,510 --> 00:45:57,990
of the world, the collectible things that people are going to want to use as

742
00:45:57,990 --> 00:46:01,310
those time capsules. But there's, again, there's room for, there's room for both in my

743
00:46:01,310 --> 00:46:05,030
opinion. So I don't know if there's, there's certainly no

744
00:46:05,030 --> 00:46:08,430
answer to the question. And I, and you've been around long enough to see the,

745
00:46:08,430 --> 00:46:11,990
the cycles. My dad's shop, we had Bartles and James and

746
00:46:11,990 --> 00:46:15,350
Lancers and Matuse and Boone's Farm and all the rest of it. And those things

747
00:46:15,350 --> 00:46:18,950
are all gone. Then we had Barbels and James Spritzers and then those are gone.

748
00:46:18,950 --> 00:46:22,360
And, and so there's going to be certain market driven

749
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:26,120
dynamics to the industry. But I don't, I just have this, I

750
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,600
guess this romantic belief that the

751
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,640
core value and the core reason for that

752
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,120
glass of wine will never change. And

753
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,960
you know, it's kind of interesting for me because that took me a long time

754
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,000
to figure that out. I mean, I did this, you know, I was a businessman.

755
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,240
I came from corporate America. Then I went into the smallest company I'd ever want

756
00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:49,720
to try and work for. And then my dad was going to, to sell the

757
00:46:49,720 --> 00:46:52,440
Wine of the Month Club to the South African Wine of the Month Club, which

758
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,680
is still around, and I went to work for him. And so for me it

759
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:59,240
was business. I was a direct marketer. I knew how to mail a million pieces

760
00:46:59,240 --> 00:47:02,680
of mail a year. And I did that for probably 15 years before I

761
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,480
realized what I was selling to, who

762
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,080
I was selling it and why I was selling it and that, that,

763
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:13,760
that ethereal value of a glass of wine. Did you, did, did

764
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:17,090
that happen to you? Did you, you come into the business as a second

765
00:47:17,090 --> 00:47:20,450
generation? Were you always going to be in the business or were you thinking, ah,

766
00:47:21,170 --> 00:47:24,130
I want to be a, an economist. An economist.

767
00:47:25,570 --> 00:47:29,130
So I did think in the long run I would end up in, in

768
00:47:29,130 --> 00:47:32,530
wine. But I also didn't see myself

769
00:47:32,770 --> 00:47:36,570
on the import side of things, which is what my dad was doing when I

770
00:47:36,570 --> 00:47:40,250
was, when I was growing up. I didn't see myself buying and selling other people's

771
00:47:40,250 --> 00:47:43,510
wines. Name of that company, sorry,

772
00:47:43,670 --> 00:47:47,510
Vineyard Brands. Oh, oh, yes,

773
00:47:47,990 --> 00:47:51,830
that hoss. Yeah. My dad was Robert Haas, who

774
00:47:51,830 --> 00:47:55,150
Bear. Is one of my favorite guys, the first I ever met in my life

775
00:47:55,150 --> 00:47:58,630
in the wine business. My dad took me to Hubert's table. He was pouring ports

776
00:47:58,630 --> 00:48:02,390
at the time, Hubert Favre. And now

777
00:48:02,390 --> 00:48:05,950
I remember. Wow. So, yeah, that was my dad, that

778
00:48:05,950 --> 00:48:09,670
vineyard brands. Yeah. So I didn't see my brother had followed my

779
00:48:09,670 --> 00:48:13,510
dad into that, that side of his career, and I didn't see myself

780
00:48:13,510 --> 00:48:16,070
doing that. But I loved wine people and I got really

781
00:48:16,950 --> 00:48:20,790
excited. I got to spend a summer living with the parents

782
00:48:21,350 --> 00:48:24,390
when I was in high school, and I thought I was being sent there to

783
00:48:24,390 --> 00:48:27,110
work on my French. I, I think my dad might have had some deeper

784
00:48:27,670 --> 00:48:31,510
ambitions there. But, like,

785
00:48:31,830 --> 00:48:35,470
seeing the way, like that their family interacted around the

786
00:48:35,470 --> 00:48:37,750
table, like everybody involved in the family business,

787
00:48:39,670 --> 00:48:43,390
arguing about wines, talking about their excitement with

788
00:48:43,390 --> 00:48:47,070
the discoveries that they had made. Some people focusing on

789
00:48:47,070 --> 00:48:50,870
vineyard, some people focusing on winemaking, some people focusing on business, some people focusing

790
00:48:50,870 --> 00:48:54,630
on marketing. Like, I felt like that was a world

791
00:48:54,710 --> 00:48:57,750
that I could sink my teeth into.

792
00:48:58,710 --> 00:49:02,070
But I didn't want to go straight into a family business. Right out of school,

793
00:49:02,230 --> 00:49:05,700
I, I, I got a master's degree in archeology.

794
00:49:05,940 --> 00:49:09,580
I taught for a couple of years. Then I got recruited

795
00:49:09,580 --> 00:49:13,380
to join a tech company. So I worked in tech for four years during

796
00:49:13,380 --> 00:49:17,060
the kind of height of the tech bubble, late 90s, early 2000s.

797
00:49:19,060 --> 00:49:22,300
And that was sort of where I got a chance to learn a lot about

798
00:49:22,300 --> 00:49:25,740
business because I joined this little tech startup where I was the seventh

799
00:49:25,740 --> 00:49:29,180
employee. And by the time I left four years later, we had 80 employees and

800
00:49:29,180 --> 00:49:32,940
offices in six cities. And I'd gotten a chance to manage people and manage

801
00:49:32,940 --> 00:49:36,280
projects and write and teach and market and, and make mistakes

802
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,200
and learn from those mistakes. So when I

803
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:43,960
did rejoin, whatever, when I did join Tublas Greek, rejoined the

804
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:47,720
family family business, I was 29. And I'd had a

805
00:49:47,720 --> 00:49:51,280
little bit of life experience and some business experience, which I think was really

806
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:54,720
important because I used the

807
00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:58,280
lessons from that, that, the experience of

808
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:01,880
seeing that tech company grow and eventually go bankrupt. Like,

809
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:06,040
I use those lessons maybe not every

810
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,760
day, but definitely every week. Sure. And I'm grateful to have

811
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,440
had that kind of outside experience. I can't tell you when

812
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:17,200
I, I had a small software company as well, the five of us. I

813
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:20,040
left, I tell a story frequently, and then we're going to be, we're out of

814
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,800
time here. But I left that office probably four times

815
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,160
in the four years we were together looking for some check,

816
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,240
either deposit or a payment on an installed piece of software

817
00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:35,220
to make payroll. And I would never trade that experience

818
00:50:35,620 --> 00:50:39,300
for anything, nor would I trade my corporate America sales Training for anything.

819
00:50:39,940 --> 00:50:43,660
And it all has its merit. And

820
00:50:43,660 --> 00:50:46,380
then you land in the wine business and you realize none of it applies to

821
00:50:46,380 --> 00:50:50,140
anything. It applies to this little

822
00:50:50,140 --> 00:50:53,780
slice of what we do. Anyway, it's been a

823
00:50:53,780 --> 00:50:57,620
huge pleasure. Just your last comment triggered a bunch of questions. We don't

824
00:50:57,620 --> 00:51:01,340
have time for them. But. But I will be up one day soon and love

825
00:51:01,340 --> 00:51:05,100
to visit Tablis Creek and sit down and do it again. I

826
00:51:05,100 --> 00:51:08,540
would love to. And if I can give a little plug. One of the things

827
00:51:08,700 --> 00:51:11,660
we were talking about earlier was

828
00:51:12,300 --> 00:51:15,900
the ways in which wine can be marketed together.

829
00:51:15,980 --> 00:51:19,740
One of the initiatives that we've just started is something

830
00:51:19,740 --> 00:51:23,020
which is called the Wine Atlas Collective, where

831
00:51:23,580 --> 00:51:27,370
we've gotten together with seven other wineries,

832
00:51:27,370 --> 00:51:31,050
each from different regions, wine regions around California and around the United States

833
00:51:31,130 --> 00:51:34,810
to do this kind of shared wine club experience

834
00:51:34,970 --> 00:51:38,610
where people are a member of one, they're a member of all of

835
00:51:38,610 --> 00:51:42,370
them. And I think this is something which

836
00:51:42,370 --> 00:51:46,050
when it was originally pitched to me by Janie Hook of

837
00:51:46,050 --> 00:51:49,450
Brooks Winery up in Oregon,

838
00:51:49,770 --> 00:51:53,330
that seemed to me to be like a real leap

839
00:51:53,410 --> 00:51:56,370
forward, something that I had not heard about people doing before.

840
00:51:57,330 --> 00:52:01,010
A way of, I mean you think of like the airlines that

841
00:52:01,010 --> 00:52:04,650
have the alliances that allow, that encourage people to, to stay

842
00:52:04,650 --> 00:52:08,370
within that network to get benefits. And I think it's

843
00:52:08,370 --> 00:52:12,210
something which we're going to be, we're going to be building

844
00:52:12,210 --> 00:52:15,850
on and I think you're also going to be seeing more of it to

845
00:52:15,850 --> 00:52:19,090
help kind of bring people from a related.

846
00:52:20,090 --> 00:52:22,810
Like we know that they have interest, they're interested in wine clubs, they're interested in

847
00:52:22,810 --> 00:52:25,930
wine, they're just from other parts of the country to share

848
00:52:26,170 --> 00:52:29,770
benefits and share members around. So that's something

849
00:52:29,850 --> 00:52:33,650
I think that's brilliant. And I don't know if I just heard this, I'll

850
00:52:33,650 --> 00:52:37,210
dovetail off of something real fast here. But certainly

851
00:52:38,490 --> 00:52:42,330
it sort of that idea supports the. Let me back

852
00:52:42,330 --> 00:52:46,130
up. The idea that a winery had its own wine club was a very specific

853
00:52:46,130 --> 00:52:49,890
and important reason and that is I get to experience Tablis

854
00:52:49,890 --> 00:52:52,640
Creek every time I get my box, which is, is, which is I think the

855
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:56,400
foundation of wine clubs. When my Wine of the month club in 1988,

856
00:52:56,400 --> 00:53:00,120
there were only five winery based wine clubs and they were the main brands like,

857
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:03,880
like Sebastiani and Engelook and those are the only guys that had

858
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:07,120
clubs. So the idea of direct the consumer wasn't even really. My dad kind of

859
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:10,920
invented it. But now I think that's a really valid and

860
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:14,520
really smart because not that the reason

861
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,960
you joined Tablets Creek Wine Club doesn't exist still.

862
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:22,170
But. But there is also a movement of. I'm

863
00:53:22,170 --> 00:53:26,010
not sure this. Well, I'll reserve my thoughts for some other

864
00:53:26,010 --> 00:53:29,130
time but you're able to get on a website

865
00:53:29,610 --> 00:53:33,050
with the. And hand off the shopping cart to a friend

866
00:53:33,530 --> 00:53:37,210
and let them load it up as well and put a ship different shipping

867
00:53:37,210 --> 00:53:40,970
address and however you check out with those versions there's two or

868
00:53:40,970 --> 00:53:44,530
three of these pieces of software out there that are bolt ons to Shopify right

869
00:53:44,530 --> 00:53:48,140
now that I wasn't sure the

870
00:53:48,140 --> 00:53:51,940
incremental value of that. But I can see with their. Your idea that

871
00:53:51,940 --> 00:53:55,660
if it's across platforms and across wineries and I can put a half a

872
00:53:55,660 --> 00:53:58,380
box of Tablas Creek and a half a box of something else from a different

873
00:53:58,380 --> 00:54:01,900
part of California. I think that's got a lot of teeth.

874
00:54:03,180 --> 00:54:06,980
Yeah. So it's, it's just getting off the ground at the moment. It's.

875
00:54:06,980 --> 00:54:10,700
It's really just if you are in an area you get

876
00:54:10,700 --> 00:54:14,540
treated as a member when you go to visit one of the other wineries in

877
00:54:14,540 --> 00:54:17,960
the collective. And then we're going to be rolling out the E commerce side of

878
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,640
things this, this fall. So that's coming. But for now

879
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:25,280
it's. It's a sort of a built in referral network with. With

880
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:29,120
perks. No, I like it. And there's a huge eotourism movement

881
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,600
right now. Like we. I took my big

882
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:36,240
mouth. You know, we've been to Monaco Grand Prix for three times.

883
00:54:36,240 --> 00:54:39,680
It's just one of the greatest experiences you could ever have. And it is not

884
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,000
as expensive as it sounds because the entertainment value is off the charts.

885
00:54:43,930 --> 00:54:47,130
So it was a once in a lifetime thing. I've done three times already. So

886
00:54:47,130 --> 00:54:50,730
the last time, the last time we went out, which was May 2024,

887
00:54:50,890 --> 00:54:54,130
I told a bunch of friends because they'd all said no. They're like no, we're

888
00:54:54,130 --> 00:54:56,610
not going to go, it's too expensive. I'm like okay, great. So I'll ask you

889
00:54:56,610 --> 00:55:00,330
anyway and you won't go. Well, I'm sorry. Five other couples

890
00:55:00,330 --> 00:55:03,890
said yes. So all of a sudden I was. And I wanted to go touring.

891
00:55:03,890 --> 00:55:06,250
I wanted to go to Piemonte, I wanted to go to Bordeaux, I want to

892
00:55:06,250 --> 00:55:09,790
go to Paris, I wanted to do my wine thing. So I was

893
00:55:09,790 --> 00:55:13,430
towing around 10 other people besides my wife and I and

894
00:55:14,950 --> 00:55:18,670
I realized when we were done this was a pure, you know, tourist thing

895
00:55:18,670 --> 00:55:22,430
that. And they were flabbergasted and had so

896
00:55:22,430 --> 00:55:26,190
much fun doing it. And so I can see now this. That the value of

897
00:55:26,190 --> 00:55:29,990
this idea, like, it's like a reciprocal country club,

898
00:55:29,990 --> 00:55:33,310
right? If I play. If I go on the lakeside, I can go play whatever

899
00:55:33,310 --> 00:55:37,110
in Florida if I want. Exactly. Really Cool. All right. We'll leave it

900
00:55:37,110 --> 00:55:39,190
at that and we'll get together next time.