Visionary Disruption: How David Kong Is Redefining Wine Glassware for a New Generation

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I think the, the, the primary thing that we're trying to offer is

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that we're, we're, we're either a, um,

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the same quality of product at like half the price, or we're the same

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price and like way higher quality. Sit back and

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grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul

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Kaye. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks

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with Paul Kaye, and we are at an away game. I'm at in my old

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stomping grounds in Hermosa Beach, about to have a conversation with David Kong out in

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London right now. He is the founder of— now, do you go

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by GlassVin? What do you call it?

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GlassVin. GlassVin. Welcome to the

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show. Nice to— thanks for having

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me. The shortest introduction in

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history. We were just, you know, I didn't want

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to waste this great content. We're talking about glass, the glass industry off

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camera here. So we want to get back, jumping back into that. And we were

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talking about digital marketing and, and the DTC world and

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PR agencies and consultants. And, uh, one of the things

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I mentioned was that we, we had such a— I don't say— I won't say

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it was a difficult time, but I had trouble. Let's just start

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with this. I had trouble finding PR

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agents, digital marketeers, consultants on the,

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on the metric side that understood what

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beverage industry was like. And I'm going to say that glass vin is, you know,

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on the periphery of the beverage industry, even though it's not alcohol, but you

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certainly have to comply with and understand the beverage world. Have you had

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good luck with consultants and firms

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that understood what you're trying to do?

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I think our philosophy is to try to do as much

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in-house as opposed to Um, outside,

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uh, just, and that's also just because we want to keep prices

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as low as possible for the consumer. So like a lot

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of direct-to-consumer companies, they're, they're supposedly

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low cost because there aren't people like in the, you know, in the middle of

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the supply chain, same, same as us. But then, you know,

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they'll spend like 30% of their revenue on marketing. So that's—

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you know, that is like an implicit cost that you as a consumer is

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paying for. So, uh, so yeah, we, we, we

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intentionally try to spend as little money, like we, we really try to let the

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product do the marketing for us. Um, and

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I mean, obviously we spend money on ads and stuff like that, like to

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some degree, uh, but, but, but I

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think very, very in line with market norms and

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Um, you know, we don't have like people making crazy ads for us. We don't

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have like people on our Instagram account making,

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um, you know, content and like all that stuff. We kind of just

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try to keep it to the bare minimum. Um, try to keep

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it simple and just try to like let the product and the price, of course,

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uh, do the talking. Well, let's, uh, let's let the listeners and

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viewers know what the product is. Like, we should start with that, but, uh,

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Um, and what do you make? Wine glass company

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primarily. We also do cocktail glasses now. Um, we

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do like drinking glasses, whatever. So primarily a

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glassware company. Um, everything is hand-blown.

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Uh, so I, if you've ever, never used a hand-blown glass before, like you gotta

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go on my website and buy one and check it out and just see, compare

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it with what you're kind of used to. And, um, you know, most people

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who like wine will use one and then will never go back to like a

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normal wine glass. You know, being in this industry for so

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long and, and, and having seen so many different glass companies come and go, and

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not come and go, but just, uh, produce a philosophy

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and come up with, you know, their angle on it. And you sent a couple

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samples to my house and they're gorgeous. And I had this interesting,

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um, recollection actually, and that is

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this, this tactile feeling when you hold a glass of

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wine or hold a proper, you know, spirit in a properly

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proper serving glass, it does change the experience of what

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you're doing. Is it not part of the overall gratification

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when it comes to having the proper glass?

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Yeah, I would like, I would say it's second to the wine. I mean,

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I've, Like, I've never seen anyone drink like a, like a

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DRC out of a shitty glass. It's just something you probably

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don't want to do. I have stories for you.

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So I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure someone in Italy is doing it right now.

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But, um, no, I don't think you want to be, you know, spending $5,000

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on a DRC and then like having it out of like a

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$5, you know, whatever. I don't want to name names,

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but yeah, that's right. Yeah, we don't want to throw them all under the

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bus, but, you know, it is an interesting point. I, it, that's an interesting point

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that, you know, the famous movie Sideways where he is,

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you know, having a glass of Cheval Blanc, uh, you know, at the diner

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in a, in an amber tumbler reminded me of something. Years and

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years ago, I had a vendor that used to sell me wine. He sold gorgeous

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wines made by a master of wine, the first winemaking master of

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wine. up in Seattle or in Washington. And

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he would take me to his diner in my hometown and

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we would pour this gorgeous Columbia River, Columbia

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Valley, you know, Syrah. And he would, I never understood this.

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And I guess I always tell people, go ahead and put the same wine in

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a plastic tumbler or a plastic cup or even a paper cup and put

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it in a fine piece of glassware like yours.

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And are they different substances inside? No.

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But do they feel different? Absolutely.

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What you can't— you didn't start in this industry. I mean, first of all, getting

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into the alcoholic beverage industry is, you know, a

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little psychotic anyway, but you came out of investment banking

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or what were you doing before this? I worked at a hedge

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fund for 3 years. in New York City.

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And yeah, I mean, I don't know if I would personally like to get into

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the alcoholic beverage industry. That sounds like, it

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sounds like an order of magnitude harder than what I'm currently

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doing. So like, you know, thankfully glassware is like, you know,

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unregulated and at least from what I can tell right now,

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it seems underserved. Like it, like the alcoholic beverage industry seems

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somewhat like overserved in a way. Like, it's like, you know, like how

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many different brands are there in every category?

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And it just seems, and it

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also is having some like obviously secular problems,

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which isn't in itself an issue. Like obviously if the market for alcohol is

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declining, like the market for wine glasses should also be declining. But

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I don't know, it just seems like a very underserved industry. There's only

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a few big brands, really. There's only really one big brand,

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I would say, um, in, in wine glasses.

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And, you know, we're like 1/100th of their size.

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So there's a lot of market share to, to gain over time.

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Um, even if the market is kind of like going down. But yeah, I was

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in, uh, hedge funds, New York City, and I was drinking a lot of, uh,

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a lot of wine that I, I I, like, for the first time in my

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life was trying and it was, um, yeah, that's like

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when I first like noticed these glasses in New York City.

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It's, um, you know, even like, like by city, it's like

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New York City has like a lot of these restaurants have these nice glasses, but

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then if you go to, you start going to like tier 2 or tier 3

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cities, it's like, yeah, maybe like one restaurant. Like,

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like even today, I think in Toronto, like basically like

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like 10 restaurants have, yeah, 10 restaurants have nice glassware.

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And of those 10, maybe like 2, 2 have like hand-blown, um,

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glassware. So like Toronto's where I'm from, so that's why

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I'm making that, um, reference point. But was this, was this a, you're

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having wine and it sounds like you weren't a, a wine enthusiast necessarily

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prior to your career as a hedge fund manager, but you're having a

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glass of wine somewhere and it didn't feel right. It was, it didn't

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taste that good. It didn't, uh, What was it that said, you know what, I

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wonder if there's room? Because you're right, there is one major, major

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player who's prolifically social in this industry

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and will say he's a small company, which he's not. But,

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you know, what was the entrepreneurial spirit

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that jumped in and said, you know, I think I can do this better and

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cheaper? Yeah, it

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wasn't necessarily like, I mean, I wasn't

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that smart to be like, oh, like all these restaurants

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that currently are not on like

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hand-blown glasses, like they should get on hand-blown glass. Like I didn't, I wasn't

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even thinking about that. I was just mostly thinking

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about like how all the restaurants that have these nice,

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really nice hand-blown glasses that are like twice or 3 times the

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price of mine, like they could save a lot of money by going on to

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my stuff. So, you know, but like, yeah, in hindsight,

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that's actually not even the right— way to think about it. Like the right way

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to think about this is like all the people who are using clunky,

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thick wine glasses now have options like mine that are

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both nicer and like kind of comparable in

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price. Mm-hmm. Um, that market is way bigger

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than, you know, like the, I mean, New York, there's probably like 50 restaurants

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that can do hand-blown wine glasses, but then there's,

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you know, 500 restaurants that can do Like my wine glasses, which

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are also hand-blown, but they're like priced kind of like the machine-made glasses.

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So what do you, what do you pitch them? What are you telling them? Like

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you walk into a restaurant or if you're at somebody who's representing you,

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your wholesaler or whoever, I mean, what are you pitching?

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Yeah. Better, less expensive. I can increase the value of

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the experience. What? I mean, this is,

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I'll say 2 things. One is, um, like We're very rarely

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pitching, like we don't have a sales team.

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And again, this goes to like the fact that we're just like

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very cost focused. So like having people on the ground

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to like sell things is a cost. I mean,

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which isn't to say like, you know, if you email me, I'll sell you glasses,

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you know, but it's not like I'm on the ground and like trying to get

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these things. But most people who email us are already aware of who we are

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or at least has an idea and then we'll just send some samples so that

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Sales process is actually pretty simple. Well, let's go back

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to the benefit. What is the benefit to the restaurant?

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What are they trying to do when they buy your glasses? I think the

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primary thing that we're trying to offer is that

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we're either the

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same quality of product at like half the price, or we're the same

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price and like way higher quality. So You know, if you're

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a restaurant and, you know, your, your average restaurant's what, like

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marking up these wines like 3x, 4x, 5x sometimes if we're talking

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about by the glass, right? Like the customer would

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like to receive something that's differentiated.

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Um, a lot of these wines you can just like buy off the, uh, off

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of, you know, Wine Searcher or something, you know, and it'll be like a third

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of the cost or a fifth of the cost. So I think restaurants understand this.

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I think consumers obviously understand this and restaurants also understand this.

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And so the restaurant needs to offer an experience that is

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differentiated from, you know, you drinking at

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home or, or even like from the restaurant down the street.

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So at least in places like New York City, where the

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standard is that like you're going to have a decent wine

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glass. I'm not saying everyone needs to have like, you know, hand-blown wine glasses or

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anything, but I think there is a standard in New York City that, you know,

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if you go there and order a nice bottle of wine that you'll get like

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some nice thing to drink it, drink it out of.

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Yeah, we're basically letting you offer that experience to your customer

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at a significantly lower price.

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So, you know, these are obviously glasses break over time, so it's

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just part of the annual budget and, you know, we help them reduce that budget.

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Certainly breaking, certainly that's part of the questions here about

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the breaking glass part, but I want to dig a little deeper into

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this. Philosophy because it's so important. And I— and

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if you, uh, visit Napa and you go see our friends, uh,

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Jean-Charles Boisset, and he's got a relationship with

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Baccarat and he's got a product line. And

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in an earlier question, I never got to finish it to what I

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wanted to get to, which is I get the obviously the tactile experience of wine,

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the, the, the way the glass— and if you talk to Max Rudel, he's going

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to talk about really easy to talk about, you know, how that glass was

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designed for that varietal, etc., etc. And the whole point

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being to raise the

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experience, right? And you mentioned Italy earlier, you know, sitting in a

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trattoria where they serve a, uh, you know, a local carafe wine in a,

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uh, an old-fashioned glass is a little bit

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different than what we're talking about. And so there's a reason that

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this works. And the question is,

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Well, let me, let me phrase it in an experience. I was in New York

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City and I was at a wine bar and I was tasting out of

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a $60 hand-blown glass.

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And so my first question as an industry person was, how the

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hell do you keep these in stock because they're so delicate?

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And then I thought, how is a restaurant even afford that

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versus a machine-blown glass? The flip

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side is like, if people have nice glasses, they will go to your

225
00:14:05,401 --> 00:14:09,078
place and you'll just make more money on selling more wine. And like I said,

226
00:14:09,672 --> 00:14:13,413
the markup on these things is pretty high. So you're actually, you're

227
00:14:13,429 --> 00:14:16,832
actually not saving any money by having bad— I mean, obviously I'm talking my book

228
00:14:16,832 --> 00:14:20,429
because I sell wine glasses, but I think you can pretty much see that if

229
00:14:20,429 --> 00:14:23,832
you have better wine glasses, you'll, um, you'll end up making more,

230
00:14:24,121 --> 00:14:27,942
more money in your wine program. Um, that's why like every legitimate

231
00:14:28,055 --> 00:14:31,305
New York City restaurant is using You know,

232
00:14:31,627 --> 00:14:35,322
like nice. I mean, by the way, like, like high-end Riedels are also

233
00:14:35,483 --> 00:14:39,082
like, I would categorize those as nice as well, you know? So like you're, you're,

234
00:14:39,098 --> 00:14:41,556
you're choosing between nice and nicer effectively.

235
00:14:43,982 --> 00:14:47,613
Obviously, like the trattorias in Italy and like, like

236
00:14:47,613 --> 00:14:51,180
that's, that's a different game. Like people are not necessarily going to buy

237
00:14:51,308 --> 00:14:55,100
nicer, higher-end wines at like, at places like that. If

238
00:14:55,164 --> 00:14:58,892
you give, give them a nicer glass, I'm talking about, I'm talking about

239
00:14:58,892 --> 00:15:02,550
places that are selling you know, $100, $200, $300

240
00:15:02,550 --> 00:15:06,310
bottles of wine, like as a, as a starting point up to, you know,

241
00:15:06,310 --> 00:15:10,070
$1,000 up to a couple thousand. Like, like one way for us to

242
00:15:10,070 --> 00:15:12,710
figure out if a restaurant is going to be a good client of ours is

243
00:15:12,710 --> 00:15:14,770
basically if they have any wines over $1,000.

244
00:15:16,270 --> 00:15:20,070
Um, that's for our higher end line. Um, obviously our lower end line

245
00:15:20,070 --> 00:15:23,910
is, is, is very affordable. Like we start at $10 a

246
00:15:23,910 --> 00:15:27,750
glass, you know, so it's, it's much more affordable. Like, That's

247
00:15:27,750 --> 00:15:31,550
like more like every, every high-end restaurant can, can probably afford our

248
00:15:31,550 --> 00:15:35,270
glass. But like the ones that are buying our high-end glasses, they're the ones that

249
00:15:35,270 --> 00:15:39,110
have like $1,000 bottles of wine. Um, and obviously if

250
00:15:39,110 --> 00:15:42,290
someone orders like a $1,000 bottle of wine, they're going to want something, um, a

251
00:15:42,290 --> 00:15:46,000
little nicer. So by the way, what webinar that you went to?

252
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:49,970
You're— I can't remember the name of it. My daughter was, uh, baking in, um,

253
00:15:49,970 --> 00:15:52,280
in New York. She worked for, um, uh,

254
00:15:54,174 --> 00:15:57,863
chef, uh, I can't remember his name. I'll remember in a second. But she was

255
00:15:57,863 --> 00:16:01,488
at the, the Ligon Restaurant, um, one of the

256
00:16:01,488 --> 00:16:05,305
Patina Group at that point. And then she went off and did Benno. She

257
00:16:05,305 --> 00:16:09,042
worked for Jonathan Benno. She, she's a French-trained baker

258
00:16:09,074 --> 00:16:12,923
and they were a Michelin star during that period, but then COVID hit and closed

259
00:16:12,923 --> 00:16:16,035
the restaurant. Yeah. And so I don't— but we were out there just hanging around.

260
00:16:17,189 --> 00:16:20,958
But so are, are your $10 glasses or, or that price range, are

261
00:16:20,958 --> 00:16:24,594
they hand-blown as well? Yeah, these, these are

262
00:16:24,594 --> 00:16:28,053
restaurant, these are restaurant prices that like in— yeah,

263
00:16:28,797 --> 00:16:31,221
wholesale prices. Yeah. So

264
00:16:32,999 --> 00:16:36,407
the reason I brought up Baccarat was, and I got an interesting answer

265
00:16:36,795 --> 00:16:40,331
from various people that are in this industry on this subject, because the Baccarat

266
00:16:40,331 --> 00:16:44,136
glass that JCB sells is this heavy-duty, you know,

267
00:16:44,297 --> 00:16:47,742
lead crust. I mean, it is a major glass. This is not this

268
00:16:47,823 --> 00:16:51,482
delicate And I'm wondering what your opinion of that, that

269
00:16:51,482 --> 00:16:54,998
tactile expression is. So it's a

270
00:16:54,998 --> 00:16:58,627
complete opposite of, of what you're

271
00:16:58,627 --> 00:17:02,368
selling, which is this delicate, and I, I get both sides, but I'm wondering,

272
00:17:02,866 --> 00:17:05,708
I haven't seen anybody other than, than

273
00:17:06,238 --> 00:17:08,775
JCB trying to promote the idea of this

274
00:17:09,610 --> 00:17:13,223
voluminous glass versus this delicate glass. Yeah.

275
00:17:14,010 --> 00:17:17,817
Well, JCB's, um, my, my client for my software company, so

276
00:17:18,379 --> 00:17:21,930
I can't, I can't like

277
00:17:22,331 --> 00:17:25,930
say too much. Um, but, but, but I, I don't, I don't

278
00:17:26,090 --> 00:17:29,609
think this is a common product.

279
00:17:30,187 --> 00:17:33,673
Okay. Now there's, but like, I'm going out, I'm on their website right now

280
00:17:34,284 --> 00:17:37,657
and I'm seeing they're selling it for, you know, 2 for

281
00:17:38,541 --> 00:17:42,219
$500, I think. Yeah. They're at $250s. Yeah. Yeah.

282
00:17:42,316 --> 00:17:45,238
So, so I guess the difference is you don't need to sell as many of

283
00:17:45,270 --> 00:17:48,995
these guys to, um, to make some money. So,

284
00:17:49,686 --> 00:17:52,929
um, I was trying to take the money outta the equation. I was sort of

285
00:17:52,929 --> 00:17:55,964
trying to, they are expensive and, and I had them in my wine shop when

286
00:17:55,980 --> 00:17:59,576
I had a wine shop and sold, uh, none of them. So

287
00:17:59,641 --> 00:18:03,350
what I, what I, what I was trying to

288
00:18:03,350 --> 00:18:06,995
get to is, and maybe there's no opinion of this, 'Cause I

289
00:18:07,107 --> 00:18:10,866
get, I get the sensory tactical part of tasting wine out of

290
00:18:10,898 --> 00:18:14,481
both styles. And I, and I, I'll say I prefer the delicate

291
00:18:14,915 --> 00:18:18,625
hand-blown style, uh, versus the, the, this voluminous

292
00:18:18,770 --> 00:18:22,208
heavy-duty glass. But I get it. I— his martini

293
00:18:22,208 --> 00:18:25,758
glasses are just as heavy and they, they're, they're fun to have a

294
00:18:25,774 --> 00:18:29,549
martini out of. But I just wondered what your, what your thought on that was.

295
00:18:29,614 --> 00:18:32,987
But we don't need to dig too deep into that. I wonder,

296
00:18:33,774 --> 00:18:37,612
um, When you're out there, what, what stages,

297
00:18:38,431 --> 00:18:42,236
and have you helped restaurants move the needle on their

298
00:18:42,284 --> 00:18:45,752
wine program because of your glasses? In other words, you, you probably walk into a

299
00:18:45,752 --> 00:18:48,899
restaurant, somebody walks into a restaurant, somebody calls you and says, I need to order

300
00:18:48,899 --> 00:18:52,704
some glasses. And you probably have a variety of levels of,

301
00:18:53,202 --> 00:18:56,654
of awareness of how important this kind of tactile

302
00:18:56,670 --> 00:19:00,202
representation is to drink wine. So you see a

303
00:19:00,283 --> 00:19:03,894
variety of people like, why aren't you doing this yet? Or I see what you're

304
00:19:03,894 --> 00:19:07,420
doing, but here we can improve it. I think, I think like, I think the

305
00:19:07,500 --> 00:19:11,236
people who are buying our glasses are already like, they've already, they already understand

306
00:19:11,268 --> 00:19:15,099
this. Um, and it's probably because all their peers are doing it and it's, it's,

307
00:19:15,115 --> 00:19:18,257
it's very much like a, if everyone else is doing it, you kind of have

308
00:19:18,257 --> 00:19:21,928
to do it too. Otherwise you become the restaurant that's just

309
00:19:21,992 --> 00:19:25,519
not as, um, just, just, just isn't at that level,

310
00:19:25,535 --> 00:19:28,485
unfortunately. So I think people who come to us are already

311
00:19:29,542 --> 00:19:33,276
They already know. And then it's really just choosing between us and,

312
00:19:33,549 --> 00:19:36,898
you know, like a couple of the other people who also offer this kind of

313
00:19:36,898 --> 00:19:40,439
stuff. So, yeah, I don't know if I'm like

314
00:19:40,439 --> 00:19:44,285
leading the change or whatever. Like in many ways, I think

315
00:19:44,285 --> 00:19:47,458
the change is already happening and

316
00:19:47,795 --> 00:19:51,641
we're just here to try to like, you know, make sure our customers know what

317
00:19:51,641 --> 00:19:55,393
they're doing and have the— get the right pricing and,

318
00:19:55,890 --> 00:19:59,728
um, are able to sustain sustainably do this. Um,

319
00:20:00,001 --> 00:20:03,838
and also just provide like good customer service over time as they, you

320
00:20:03,838 --> 00:20:06,600
know, navigate the transition to like lighter,

321
00:20:07,451 --> 00:20:11,000
um, lighter kind of glassware. Also, like there is some

322
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,810
labor component to this. Like you need to know how to take care of them,

323
00:20:13,826 --> 00:20:16,636
how to wash them, stuff like that. But, you know, that's why like in New

324
00:20:16,636 --> 00:20:19,879
York City, it's great because all the servers or all the

325
00:20:20,282 --> 00:20:23,930
busboys and whatever that have been in New York City, they already know how to

326
00:20:23,930 --> 00:20:27,123
deal with this stuff, so they don't need to do much more in terms of

327
00:20:27,237 --> 00:20:30,584
training and things like that.

328
00:20:30,664 --> 00:20:34,182
So I mean, over time— go ahead.

329
00:20:35,213 --> 00:20:38,828
Sorry to interrupt you. I get it

330
00:20:38,942 --> 00:20:42,720
personally. I get a kick out of it to a certain extent

331
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:46,568
where I'm with friends or whatever and we

332
00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:50,439
pour some nice wines in a nice glass and that expression

333
00:20:50,439 --> 00:20:54,148
on their face, uh, changes. And I'm wondering, you, you're

334
00:20:54,148 --> 00:20:57,809
talking about this sort of movement. This is— is this a movement in

335
00:20:58,002 --> 00:21:01,791
the wine trade too, that people are realizing that it's

336
00:21:02,096 --> 00:21:05,918
important to have this kind of experience so that they can raise their level of

337
00:21:06,271 --> 00:21:09,563
wine service? Because that is suffering in restaurants. I was talking to a

338
00:21:09,563 --> 00:21:13,127
restaurateur here in LA, uh, not too long ago. He says his bottle

339
00:21:13,127 --> 00:21:16,915
sales are down 40%. And let me just hedge that. And I said,

340
00:21:17,252 --> 00:21:20,364
well, how about your servers? And he goes, well, they don't know shit.

341
00:21:21,519 --> 00:21:25,209
And I thought, well, maybe that's your problem. You know, maybe your servers don't

342
00:21:25,209 --> 00:21:28,948
understand what you're selling. And now we add this glassware to it, which

343
00:21:29,060 --> 00:21:32,814
could, could be, could bolster sales because of the quality of the

344
00:21:32,814 --> 00:21:36,648
experience. But are you seeing this idea? Because I

345
00:21:36,664 --> 00:21:40,050
haven't gotten to the point where I even know how your

346
00:21:40,050 --> 00:21:43,579
customers find out about you because you're doing it social, but you don't have a

347
00:21:43,579 --> 00:21:47,104
sales force. How's that happening first? And then

348
00:21:47,948 --> 00:21:51,483
do you see this as a movement in restaurant touring and hospitality in

349
00:21:51,516 --> 00:21:54,893
general? Yeah, so

350
00:21:55,247 --> 00:21:58,821
first of all, LA is definitely its own market. Like my friend

351
00:21:59,030 --> 00:22:02,862
sells caviar and a lot of caviar in LA that's

352
00:22:02,862 --> 00:22:06,580
also been quite weak. So I think that's like its own market. I think

353
00:22:06,661 --> 00:22:10,438
East Coast is actually doing quite well. I

354
00:22:10,663 --> 00:22:14,510
mean, I don't know. I don't know if wine sales are up or

355
00:22:14,510 --> 00:22:18,294
down or whatever, but like, I think overall, like it's going pretty well.

356
00:22:18,358 --> 00:22:21,852
Also, obviously wine is like, at least in restaurants, like wine is a very

357
00:22:21,884 --> 00:22:25,427
premium product. And obviously we have a bit of a K-shaped

358
00:22:25,716 --> 00:22:29,547
economy right now. So I think people who like to drink wine

359
00:22:29,643 --> 00:22:33,411
are probably drinking more wine and drinking more expensive wine. And

360
00:22:33,411 --> 00:22:37,066
then, and that's like the market that we are predominantly playing in.

361
00:22:37,194 --> 00:22:40,240
So, so I haven't seen like a general economic

362
00:22:40,881 --> 00:22:44,167
countrywide. I haven't seen much of an economic issue.

363
00:22:44,793 --> 00:22:47,838
Um, but yeah, in terms of just,

364
00:22:49,041 --> 00:22:52,744
uh, like this, this trend is like, I think, I kind of

365
00:22:52,824 --> 00:22:56,591
think this started in like, like 10 years ago or maybe like

366
00:22:56,591 --> 00:23:00,438
15 years ago, this concept of light wine glasses. So

367
00:23:00,438 --> 00:23:04,065
you're mentioning like sideways, like Yeah, we could exclude this stuff in, in

368
00:23:04,129 --> 00:23:07,677
the, in that time period. Cause like, I don't even know what kind of stuff

369
00:23:07,967 --> 00:23:11,322
these people were using. Um, no, I think we have to like credit

370
00:23:11,676 --> 00:23:15,015
the, like, like Zalto definitely started this trend of

371
00:23:15,690 --> 00:23:19,463
really light, um, really nice wine glasses. And I think

372
00:23:19,463 --> 00:23:23,301
their company opened in like the 2000s. Um, and I don't think it

373
00:23:23,301 --> 00:23:26,046
really got to the US until probably like the 2010s.

374
00:23:26,849 --> 00:23:30,585
So. So yeah, this is definitely a new, like, this is

375
00:23:30,778 --> 00:23:34,433
definitely totally a new trend. The stuff that you're talking about with the Baccarat and

376
00:23:34,609 --> 00:23:37,751
all that stuff like that, that I wouldn't be surprised if that is actually what,

377
00:23:37,976 --> 00:23:41,326
what used to be like, kind of like the high quality

378
00:23:41,743 --> 00:23:45,478
kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, like over time, obviously, like we then

379
00:23:45,606 --> 00:23:49,149
like Riedel came in with all their different wine glasses and the idea of like

380
00:23:49,213 --> 00:23:52,788
varietally specific wine glasses. I think that was like a trend for a while. And

381
00:23:52,820 --> 00:23:56,460
then. I think like Zalto came in with like these ultralight kind of

382
00:23:56,460 --> 00:23:58,758
stuff, and now that's— I think that's kind of the trend now.

383
00:24:00,499 --> 00:24:04,104
It's just interesting because the wine industry is very slow,

384
00:24:04,524 --> 00:24:08,210
you know. It's just, it in itself, it's once a year, right? You

385
00:24:08,468 --> 00:24:10,810
have one harvest a year and you get to have a vintage, and then you,

386
00:24:11,212 --> 00:24:14,884
you do nothing for 9 months, and then you, you pick again. It—

387
00:24:15,899 --> 00:24:19,394
and I think there's a, there's a marketing issue with that. People

388
00:24:20,296 --> 00:24:23,919
are all over LinkedIn and all the pundits are saying, you know, we have to

389
00:24:23,919 --> 00:24:27,382
react quicker and we need, you know, we're behind the 8-ball when it comes to

390
00:24:27,430 --> 00:24:31,213
marketing merchandising. And I think that's just inherent to the product

391
00:24:31,935 --> 00:24:35,670
being that it's such a slow-moving needle to make changes.

392
00:24:36,343 --> 00:24:40,126
And so I could take this conversation a lot of directions because

393
00:24:40,126 --> 00:24:43,765
everybody's talking about you need to react to the marketplace, you need to have cans,

394
00:24:43,797 --> 00:24:46,760
you need to have it back in the box. And so certainly there's general

395
00:24:47,278 --> 00:24:51,101
direction that some of the naysayers of the industry are

396
00:24:51,101 --> 00:24:54,751
talking about is changing, you know, being more innovative. And

397
00:24:56,054 --> 00:24:59,029
I, I don't, I don't think I'd take a can of wine and pour it

398
00:24:59,029 --> 00:25:02,568
into a, a glass vin glass. That

399
00:25:02,970 --> 00:25:06,414
defeats the whole purpose. I, I don't know. It doesn't make any sense to me.

400
00:25:07,299 --> 00:25:11,017
But here you are with this amazing product.

401
00:25:12,201 --> 00:25:15,873
at the higher end of the marketplace and you're growing.

402
00:25:16,908 --> 00:25:20,499
And so that tells me a positive part of this industry, which is people are

403
00:25:21,032 --> 00:25:24,358
still and will always want the

404
00:25:24,406 --> 00:25:27,974
experience of an honest wine and now

405
00:25:28,343 --> 00:25:29,612
in an honest glass.

406
00:25:32,060 --> 00:25:35,631
Yeah. Like I think the canned wine is

407
00:25:35,907 --> 00:25:39,714
to try to, again, it's like the K-shaped economy, right? Like I think I think

408
00:25:39,714 --> 00:25:43,440
in general, the wine consumption is obviously down, um,

409
00:25:44,596 --> 00:25:48,306
you know, for, for lots of different reasons, but, but I think like high-end

410
00:25:48,306 --> 00:25:52,080
wine is still doing quite well. And then, and then I

411
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:55,533
think, you know, like beer is doing okay. So, so you want to like,

412
00:25:56,015 --> 00:25:59,854
you basically want to make wine as much like RDT is ready to drink is

413
00:25:59,950 --> 00:26:03,660
doing really well. So you kind of want to make

414
00:26:03,708 --> 00:26:07,016
wine as close to You either want to

415
00:26:07,016 --> 00:26:10,629
premiumize your wine or you want to make it feel like,

416
00:26:11,095 --> 00:26:14,804
you know, a Moscow Mule out of a can. Right. So I understand

417
00:26:14,804 --> 00:26:17,565
both strategies. Obviously we're, we're not

418
00:26:18,497 --> 00:26:21,644
like, by definition, if it's in a can, you don't need me. But, um,

419
00:26:22,190 --> 00:26:25,931
but yeah, like, yeah, we're, we're, we're obviously on

420
00:26:25,963 --> 00:26:29,736
the, we're, we're, we're on the premiumization side

421
00:26:29,736 --> 00:26:33,470
of the industry for sure. Well, you know, years ago I did a,

422
00:26:33,470 --> 00:26:37,090
um, I did a special in the summertime on canned wines. I

423
00:26:37,090 --> 00:26:40,890
probably tasted 100, maybe 150 different canned wines, and all

424
00:26:40,890 --> 00:26:43,860
of them at that time, which you're talking about just post-COVID,

425
00:26:45,010 --> 00:26:47,850
were basically what you'd expect them to be. Eh, put it in a can, you

426
00:26:47,850 --> 00:26:50,310
know, we're not going to bottle this one, we'll put it in a can. And

427
00:26:50,310 --> 00:26:54,110
they tasted like that, and they had a purpose, I suppose. But then

428
00:26:54,110 --> 00:26:57,910
I did find some varietals. I found appellated

429
00:26:57,910 --> 00:27:01,310
wines. I found a really nice Monterey Pinot Noir in a can, and it sort

430
00:27:01,310 --> 00:27:05,017
of changed my viewpoint a little

431
00:27:05,049 --> 00:27:08,151
bit in that I, you could find decent wines in a can.

432
00:27:09,308 --> 00:27:13,155
But then I had a conversation with a Cornell food

433
00:27:13,155 --> 00:27:16,869
scientist who was working on a food-grade lining for wine

434
00:27:16,902 --> 00:27:20,438
that could last 24 months. And I thought how disgusting that we had to

435
00:27:20,617 --> 00:27:24,120
have that conversation. But it was interesting to me that,

436
00:27:26,321 --> 00:27:28,523
that I guess we're talking about 2 different parts of the market, right? We're talking

437
00:27:28,523 --> 00:27:32,200
about this the part of the market that my dad dealt

438
00:27:32,232 --> 00:27:35,925
with in the '70s, which is the white Zinfandel drinkers, bringing them to the

439
00:27:35,925 --> 00:27:39,666
table, and then the part of the market that you're dealing with primarily, which is

440
00:27:40,405 --> 00:27:43,921
high-end wines, high-end service, good

441
00:27:43,937 --> 00:27:47,710
hospitality, and raising the bar for

442
00:27:47,710 --> 00:27:51,339
people to experience that, but keeping the costs down and

443
00:27:51,339 --> 00:27:54,839
doing that. And so how do restaurants find you in the first place?

444
00:27:56,094 --> 00:27:59,939
Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to answer that question. It's all word of mouth. I

445
00:27:59,939 --> 00:28:03,670
mean, we do run ads. I think we run like, I don't know, like

446
00:28:03,735 --> 00:28:07,469
5 to 10% of our revenue on ad spend

447
00:28:07,469 --> 00:28:11,074
or whatever. So pretty standard marketing expense on that

448
00:28:11,074 --> 00:28:14,591
front. But a lot of it is just word of mouth.

449
00:28:16,300 --> 00:28:19,815
You know, people like to, some liés like to drink wine together.

450
00:28:20,863 --> 00:28:24,656
So if one person discovers a glass that they like,

451
00:28:24,672 --> 00:28:27,224
they'll tell other people about the glass.

452
00:28:28,644 --> 00:28:32,077
So, so yeah, I mean, it's, it's actually, it's funny. There's a lot of

453
00:28:32,077 --> 00:28:35,736
startups in this industry. Uh, even Zalto was a startup

454
00:28:35,736 --> 00:28:39,312
not only like 20 years ago, right? Mm-hmm. So,

455
00:28:39,522 --> 00:28:42,789
so it is an, it is an industry where you can kind of like

456
00:28:43,906 --> 00:28:46,878
get into it and, you know, change people's opinions

457
00:28:47,226 --> 00:28:49,260
and just kind of grow through this

458
00:28:51,770 --> 00:28:55,446
groundswell kind of effect. I wonder if you see what I

459
00:28:55,446 --> 00:28:59,171
just saw, and I've talked about this before on my— on the show

460
00:28:59,236 --> 00:29:02,777
with some other restaurateurs and wine folk,

461
00:29:03,195 --> 00:29:06,938
and that is the presentation at

462
00:29:07,035 --> 00:29:10,491
tableside. Now, the example I give is we were in

463
00:29:10,606 --> 00:29:13,827
Palermo and this, I think he was Siberian,

464
00:29:15,268 --> 00:29:19,019
Or Serbian. And I was so intrigued,

465
00:29:19,083 --> 00:29:22,722
and I ordered a Super Tuscan. Wasn't an extraordinarily expensive

466
00:29:22,770 --> 00:29:25,639
one, but didn't matter to him. He was so

467
00:29:26,537 --> 00:29:30,336
enamored with the concept of wine service for himself as

468
00:29:30,401 --> 00:29:34,248
a career that he just made you feel like this was the best thing in

469
00:29:34,248 --> 00:29:37,839
the world. I just watched him off, you know, he wasn't even near our table.

470
00:29:37,919 --> 00:29:41,109
I just watched him prepare to decant this wine.

471
00:29:41,783 --> 00:29:45,493
And I thought this was the most inspirational service of wine I've ever

472
00:29:45,493 --> 00:29:48,978
seen. And the way he presented the glassware, the way he put on the table,

473
00:29:49,027 --> 00:29:52,688
the way he asked me to taste, the whole thing. Maybe it was a

474
00:29:52,688 --> 00:29:56,527
month later, I was in Beverly Hills at a very famous restaurant having

475
00:29:56,784 --> 00:30:00,494
a meal, and the somm was the exact opposite. He was the guy

476
00:30:00,735 --> 00:30:04,429
that's killing this stuff, that's making people feel like they don't

477
00:30:04,429 --> 00:30:07,802
know what they're doing and intimidating them at the table and talking about who he

478
00:30:07,962 --> 00:30:11,656
drinks, you know, what he drinks and who he drinks with. And do you

479
00:30:11,656 --> 00:30:15,029
see a variety of hospitality levels or you, we're not that

480
00:30:15,029 --> 00:30:18,256
granular with what you're doing, but I'm assuming you would see some

481
00:30:19,188 --> 00:30:22,946
level of service that's commensurate with what you're trying

482
00:30:23,042 --> 00:30:26,382
to sell. Yeah, I mean, it's, it, I mean,

483
00:30:27,057 --> 00:30:30,654
yeah, like I think that in anything there's people who do things quite well and

484
00:30:30,654 --> 00:30:34,332
then there's people who don't do it as well. And, you know, we all, I

485
00:30:34,332 --> 00:30:38,090
mean, I'm a believer in market economics, so You know, like,

486
00:30:38,941 --> 00:30:42,634
like ideally the ones that do it well make a

487
00:30:42,634 --> 00:30:46,391
lot of money and they can open second, third, fourth, like Carbone has

488
00:30:46,423 --> 00:30:50,261
like 50 locations now, you know, because they're doing it well. And then the

489
00:30:50,277 --> 00:30:53,568
ones that don't do it well, you know, it just, it's,

490
00:30:54,034 --> 00:30:57,293
it's, it's a lot. I mean, you know, restaurants close quite

491
00:30:57,743 --> 00:31:01,291
frequently. Unfortunately, some of our clients do,

492
00:31:03,107 --> 00:31:06,865
close prematurely. Uh, it could— it totally could also be,

493
00:31:07,156 --> 00:31:10,979
uh, for other reasons too, uh, not just because of some of the stuff we're

494
00:31:10,979 --> 00:31:14,812
talking about. But, uh, but yeah, I mean,

495
00:31:14,908 --> 00:31:18,676
it is just life. I think— well, I mean, everybody knows

496
00:31:18,772 --> 00:31:21,494
most— most any startup is usually

497
00:31:21,591 --> 00:31:25,413
undercapitalized, never gives it a chance in the first place. And I've

498
00:31:25,413 --> 00:31:28,365
seen it dozens and dozens of times in our trade.

499
00:31:29,427 --> 00:31:32,414
One of the most common mistakes people make, and I'm going to open a bar

500
00:31:33,056 --> 00:31:36,878
and a casual neighborhood bar and all the doctors

501
00:31:36,974 --> 00:31:39,414
and attorneys are going to come visit this and we're not going to worry about

502
00:31:39,623 --> 00:31:43,059
the seedy crowd. And that just, that never works. I've seen that fail many times.

503
00:31:43,975 --> 00:31:47,523
Well, I'm just down the street, a stone's throw from where I'm sitting today. There's

504
00:31:47,571 --> 00:31:51,328
a very prolific restaurant lifestyle. It goes

505
00:31:51,425 --> 00:31:55,150
late. There's everything from diners to surf Surf

506
00:31:55,198 --> 00:31:58,761
Haven Food, and, and now just opening, uh, was a

507
00:31:58,825 --> 00:32:02,644
brand new wine bar. Uh, the gentleman is 20 years

508
00:32:02,676 --> 00:32:06,287
in corporate liquor and wine. The wife was a

509
00:32:06,528 --> 00:32:09,786
PR, um, and marketing manager for a winery,

510
00:32:10,380 --> 00:32:13,830
and they decided to open a wine bar. It's been open now 3 weeks.

511
00:32:14,697 --> 00:32:17,778
What would you— if you're, if you're walking in there with your

512
00:32:18,228 --> 00:32:22,000
glass line, what would you be telling these people about what you

513
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,800
think that level of hospitality should be and what,

514
00:32:26,447 --> 00:32:28,695
how your glassware is going to bring it to the table?

515
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,438
Yeah. So, uh, yeah, first of all, if they're already open, then, then, then

516
00:32:34,438 --> 00:32:37,854
it's, it's not, then we'll be able to talk to them in like

517
00:32:38,405 --> 00:32:41,365
2 years or something. But, um, uh,

518
00:32:42,781 --> 00:32:46,503
I don't want to pretend to be an expert. Um, well, cause yeah,

519
00:32:46,519 --> 00:32:50,103
like it's all, they've already bought all their glasses, so they're, They're, they're

520
00:32:50,103 --> 00:32:53,440
actually right at the point where they don't need glasses for the longest amount of

521
00:32:53,456 --> 00:32:57,241
time, because really what you want to do when you open a restaurant is

522
00:32:57,241 --> 00:33:01,059
you want to put as much of your recurring expenses

523
00:33:01,235 --> 00:33:04,219
in the opening budget as possible, because that can be

524
00:33:04,219 --> 00:33:07,908
financed, that can be billed to the

525
00:33:08,293 --> 00:33:11,935
real estate, the person you're leasing from.

526
00:33:12,384 --> 00:33:16,073
You know, there's lots of things you can do with opening expenses that you can't

527
00:33:16,073 --> 00:33:19,430
do with Recurring expenses. So

528
00:33:19,961 --> 00:33:23,736
people often overpurchase wine glasses at the start when they

529
00:33:23,736 --> 00:33:27,529
open a restaurant. And so they'll have, you know, glasses that are

530
00:33:27,577 --> 00:33:30,755
lasting for quite a, quite a long time. Now,

531
00:33:31,869 --> 00:33:34,224
yeah, I don't want to, like, I don't want to step outside of my

532
00:33:35,741 --> 00:33:39,537
area of knowledge. Like, I really don't want to pretend to be like a hospitality

533
00:33:39,553 --> 00:33:42,970
expert. I probably have very little

534
00:33:43,185 --> 00:33:46,438
that I can offer. Uh, in terms of advice for

535
00:33:46,951 --> 00:33:50,656
opening a restaurant and, um, things like that,

536
00:33:51,201 --> 00:33:54,921
uh, what I really try to do is service my customers' needs. So

537
00:33:55,451 --> 00:33:58,882
if my customer comes to me and says, hey, like we're opening these

538
00:33:58,914 --> 00:34:02,410
restaurants, we're currently like, we, we would have used these glasses,

539
00:34:02,763 --> 00:34:06,275
but we think they're, you know, too expensive or they're too

540
00:34:06,275 --> 00:34:10,011
delicate. Do you have something that like, like, is there something you

541
00:34:10,011 --> 00:34:13,751
can help us with? You know, that's where I can be

542
00:34:13,751 --> 00:34:17,526
helpful is I can be like, yeah, like probably we

543
00:34:17,526 --> 00:34:21,237
can get the price down or no, like that's probably the right price for

544
00:34:21,237 --> 00:34:24,996
those things. Like we probably can't help you there. You know, like that's the

545
00:34:25,060 --> 00:34:28,755
kind of partner that I want to be as opposed to like, you know,

546
00:34:28,771 --> 00:34:32,337
like actually giving them much on the hospitality thing because I

547
00:34:32,626 --> 00:34:36,288
actually have no expertise there. Well, I, yeah, I suppose

548
00:34:36,561 --> 00:34:38,778
that makes sense, but there must be some kind of

549
00:34:40,537 --> 00:34:44,361
I mean, education. These people, this guy sold liquor. I mean,

550
00:34:44,377 --> 00:34:47,816
and that's the cutthroat business of the world is be out trying

551
00:34:47,849 --> 00:34:51,583
to outsell your competitor for the well, you know, pour

552
00:34:51,712 --> 00:34:55,544
of vodka. And now we're into this hospitality world. And

553
00:34:55,979 --> 00:34:58,526
I was, my point was sort of leaning towards

554
00:35:00,420 --> 00:35:04,030
the benefit that you would want to explain to them about having

555
00:35:04,063 --> 00:35:07,624
proper glassware. And I was just there the other night. I don't remember I'm pretty

556
00:35:07,624 --> 00:35:11,157
sure it's, it's the Bormioli Crescendo style

557
00:35:11,157 --> 00:35:14,352
glass, rather hardy, but, you know, elegant,

558
00:35:14,368 --> 00:35:17,226
semi-elegant in its shape, but, but certainly,

559
00:35:18,382 --> 00:35:21,112
uh, hardy in its, in its, um, uh,

560
00:35:21,818 --> 00:35:25,608
breakage. Are yours lead crystal? No,

561
00:35:25,768 --> 00:35:29,574
no, lead-free crystal. I'm pretty sure most, most of it's

562
00:35:29,686 --> 00:35:32,961
lead-free at this point. Yeah. Titanium or Something like

563
00:35:33,700 --> 00:35:37,487
that. But that's still a reality. I mean, we break glasses

564
00:35:37,487 --> 00:35:41,210
at our home all the time. In fact, I did a demonstration for my

565
00:35:41,403 --> 00:35:45,206
son-in-law when he— my daughter lives with us now

566
00:35:45,270 --> 00:35:48,785
because of the fires in Southern California. And I said, well, we were— it was

567
00:35:48,801 --> 00:35:51,898
like one of the first nights they were living there over a year ago. I'll

568
00:35:51,914 --> 00:35:54,931
throw that in there. And I said, watch these glasses. And I tipped it over

569
00:35:54,931 --> 00:35:57,997
because they're supposed to survive a tip and they just shattered all over the place.

570
00:35:58,510 --> 00:36:02,260
So. Yeah. Yeah.

571
00:36:02,452 --> 00:36:05,609
It's just the fact of glassware. Like, I don't think anyone's invented

572
00:36:06,282 --> 00:36:10,047
a glass that doesn't break. So, uh, and they could be like totally

573
00:36:10,592 --> 00:36:14,309
like really thick, clunky glasses. Um, and they'll still break, you

574
00:36:14,309 --> 00:36:18,139
know? Um, I don't know if there's that big of a relationship between how

575
00:36:18,139 --> 00:36:21,904
thin a glass is and how, how easy it breaks, at least

576
00:36:21,904 --> 00:36:25,509
at the bowl, at the bowl area. Whereas like, obviously the stem, the thinner

577
00:36:25,509 --> 00:36:29,198
it'll break more, but, um. Yeah. Yeah. So, I

578
00:36:29,246 --> 00:36:32,967
mean, yeah, so everyone has a budget. Everyone knows roughly how many

579
00:36:32,967 --> 00:36:36,428
glasses that they're going to break in a year. Actually, the more glasses you break,

580
00:36:36,460 --> 00:36:39,492
the better, because that probably means you're selling way more wine.

581
00:36:40,506 --> 00:36:44,208
It's really concerning if a client doesn't come back within a year and

582
00:36:44,208 --> 00:36:47,324
say, hey, we need more glasses. Like,

583
00:36:47,730 --> 00:36:51,297
I'm very concerned about your business if you're not coming back and buying more

584
00:36:51,297 --> 00:36:55,050
glasses. That's an interesting thought. What surprised you when you started out? Here you are,

585
00:36:55,147 --> 00:36:58,846
hedge fund, hedge fund, in hedge fund finance. You know, not product

586
00:36:58,846 --> 00:37:02,688
related, not industry related. And all of a sudden you bite

587
00:37:02,688 --> 00:37:06,143
this off. Was there some headwind that you didn't

588
00:37:06,159 --> 00:37:09,612
expect or, or you, you know, had it thought through and

589
00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:13,457
got to where you wanted to be, maybe even faster than you expected?

590
00:37:17,087 --> 00:37:20,674
I mean, obviously, like, I've definitely made a lot of

591
00:37:20,947 --> 00:37:24,243
mistakes building this, but no, No,

592
00:37:24,484 --> 00:37:28,273
like no fatal mistakes, you know, like everything we were able

593
00:37:28,273 --> 00:37:31,966
to easily just recover from. And, um,

594
00:37:32,736 --> 00:37:36,381
at least so far, just, it's been pretty, pretty smooth sailing. Like

595
00:37:36,590 --> 00:37:40,315
it, it just seemed like we had the right product at the right time. We,

596
00:37:40,379 --> 00:37:43,703
we had it right in front of this like COVID, uh,

597
00:37:44,377 --> 00:37:48,102
plus Ukraine war kind of thing, which dried up the supply from Europe. And

598
00:37:48,102 --> 00:37:51,698
so we were, You were with like this, the market

599
00:37:51,698 --> 00:37:54,746
just like went out of stock and we were there with, with all of our

600
00:37:54,746 --> 00:37:58,502
glasses. So, um, you know, I mean, so yeah, like

601
00:37:58,502 --> 00:38:02,208
2020, we started selling. We, we just kind of took off right

602
00:38:02,208 --> 00:38:05,707
from nothing, just word of mouth. Um, 2021

603
00:38:06,461 --> 00:38:10,152
just wasn't just an amazing year because it was like your second year. So

604
00:38:10,152 --> 00:38:13,522
like, you know, it's just all, it's just like you went from zero to like,

605
00:38:14,228 --> 00:38:17,630
you know, something. And then 2022, you had the market dry up. So our

606
00:38:17,871 --> 00:38:20,101
sales went up like 2, 3x just from that.

607
00:38:21,688 --> 00:38:24,821
And then it's just, it just kept on going. Like, like every,

608
00:38:25,487 --> 00:38:29,026
every year it just goes up more and more. And I think a lot of

609
00:38:29,059 --> 00:38:32,418
that is because like more,

610
00:38:32,935 --> 00:38:36,727
more states too, like before it was like a lot of New

611
00:38:36,727 --> 00:38:40,075
York and then maybe like LA, like you were saying.

612
00:38:41,210 --> 00:38:44,664
But, but like, I think more and more people are, are signing up to this

613
00:38:44,777 --> 00:38:48,088
idea of like nice kind of glassware. So yeah, we're, I think

614
00:38:48,088 --> 00:38:51,860
we're right, right place, right time. Um, you know, I think

615
00:38:51,860 --> 00:38:55,006
we're the, the only real American, um,

616
00:38:55,616 --> 00:38:59,323
wine glass company. Uh, everyone, everyone we

617
00:38:59,323 --> 00:39:03,159
compete against is in Europe and it's like, what's the better market? You think,

618
00:39:03,191 --> 00:39:06,096
is it going to be America? Is it going to be Europe? Right. But then,

619
00:39:06,690 --> 00:39:10,365
um, there was no real American company. All these people have importers

620
00:39:10,462 --> 00:39:14,071
and distributors. You know, like, no one's really

621
00:39:14,328 --> 00:39:18,124
like 2 feet into this market. And so if you

622
00:39:18,124 --> 00:39:21,631
want like a company that's going to do what you need them to do and

623
00:39:21,744 --> 00:39:25,553
like service you and make sure that everything works out well, like, I don't

624
00:39:25,553 --> 00:39:27,118
know how many options you really have.

625
00:39:29,265 --> 00:39:32,761
So yeah, I'm really happy about that. I have another company,

626
00:39:33,116 --> 00:39:36,724
which is like a software company where I think the mistake we made on that

627
00:39:36,724 --> 00:39:40,074
one Um, because that one hasn't been growing as fast as

628
00:39:40,570 --> 00:39:43,711
my glassware company. The mistake I made there was like,

629
00:39:44,368 --> 00:39:47,220
it was just like the market was too small, I think. Like the nice thing

630
00:39:47,236 --> 00:39:50,825
about glassware is like, like I said, the biggest

631
00:39:50,825 --> 00:39:54,222
company in this space is like, I don't know, $300 million of revenue. So,

632
00:39:55,584 --> 00:39:58,869
so like even if I get 10% of that, that's like $30 million revenue. That's

633
00:39:58,869 --> 00:40:02,618
like a nice amount of revenue. Yeah. Um, whereas like the other

634
00:40:02,618 --> 00:40:05,921
one, like the biggest company in space probably was like I don't know, like $2

635
00:40:05,985 --> 00:40:09,519
million of revenue or something, you know? So it wasn't,

636
00:40:09,904 --> 00:40:13,518
I couldn't like, I just like, I wasn't in like the market

637
00:40:13,518 --> 00:40:16,874
wasn't big enough. Um, and there was like a lot of competition.

638
00:40:17,693 --> 00:40:21,467
Um, whereas like Glassware just seems like the market is huge and then there isn't,

639
00:40:21,949 --> 00:40:25,258
at least to my knowledge so far, there isn't like

640
00:40:25,900 --> 00:40:29,080
too much, um, um, rabid competition.

641
00:40:29,819 --> 00:40:33,390
You know, it's interesting. It's really interesting. Because I— you're in

642
00:40:33,406 --> 00:40:36,603
London right now, correct? Mhm.

643
00:40:37,012 --> 00:40:39,088
There's, um, I had, uh, Greg Lambrecht.

644
00:40:42,587 --> 00:40:45,652
Oh, he's a big glassman lover.

645
00:40:46,399 --> 00:40:50,080
Yes. And he was talking on the show about there

646
00:40:50,129 --> 00:40:53,818
isn't a restaurant that opens or around London that doesn't

647
00:40:53,818 --> 00:40:57,430
use Coravin for buy-the-glass programs where they can elevate the level of

648
00:40:57,732 --> 00:41:00,735
wine that they serve on a per-glass basis

649
00:41:01,425 --> 00:41:05,119
because, because of the Coravin. And I, and that's, that's

650
00:41:05,119 --> 00:41:08,571
definitely trendy, not trendy in that a temporary trend, but trendy in

651
00:41:08,876 --> 00:41:12,408
an area of, of wine service that hadn't been explored

652
00:41:12,408 --> 00:41:16,246
before. And maybe that's one of the movements that's going on,

653
00:41:16,262 --> 00:41:19,939
which is a chance to taste Opus or Lafite

654
00:41:20,549 --> 00:41:24,176
in a glass without having to buy a bottle. And then now

655
00:41:24,449 --> 00:41:28,121
you add a reasonably cost hand-blown

656
00:41:28,715 --> 00:41:32,131
crystal glass, and that experience is

657
00:41:32,468 --> 00:41:36,012
magnified by doing that. And I think that's, and I think that has a lot

658
00:41:36,012 --> 00:41:39,700
to do with the post-COVID level of consumption. You know,

659
00:41:39,765 --> 00:41:43,485
COVID for the wine business, mine in particular, was extraordinary, like

660
00:41:43,533 --> 00:41:47,318
30 to 40% growth in sales. But that quickly dwindled as

661
00:41:47,318 --> 00:41:50,802
soon as COVID was over. Like, in other words, I didn't sell my company because

662
00:41:50,802 --> 00:41:54,144
I was making too much money. And then here,

663
00:41:54,369 --> 00:41:57,647
the rebound in your case, it was that was

664
00:41:57,744 --> 00:42:01,247
growth, which was really interesting to me. Almost the opposite of what

665
00:42:01,536 --> 00:42:05,039
the sales volume of wine was, but the presentation of

666
00:42:05,135 --> 00:42:08,783
wine and the hospitality of wine was growing for you. I think that's really

667
00:42:08,783 --> 00:42:12,189
incredible. Yeah. Well, the thing that COVID did was

668
00:42:12,526 --> 00:42:16,075
it a lot of

669
00:42:16,075 --> 00:42:19,909
restaurants unfortunately had to close down. And

670
00:42:19,989 --> 00:42:23,342
then when they reopened, they need new glassware. So,

671
00:42:23,871 --> 00:42:27,640
so that was probably a, that probably helped us

672
00:42:27,865 --> 00:42:31,683
in our early stages. Then again, like my revenue back then was like less than

673
00:42:31,683 --> 00:42:35,356
$1 million. So it's easier to grow when you, you know, have, you

674
00:42:35,356 --> 00:42:39,062
know, $100,000 of revenue. Yeah, right.

675
00:42:39,110 --> 00:42:42,736
So yeah, I don't know how to quantify that exactly, but yeah, No, overall

676
00:42:42,864 --> 00:42:46,624
COVID was very, very helpful to us because people bought a

677
00:42:46,624 --> 00:42:50,335
lot of glassware for their homes. They stopped spending money at restaurants and they

678
00:42:50,431 --> 00:42:53,435
started buying glasses for their homes. And,

679
00:42:54,528 --> 00:42:58,095
you know, so we, we just got really, we got, we sold a lot of

680
00:42:58,111 --> 00:43:01,661
glasses to people during COVID And then when the

681
00:43:01,661 --> 00:43:05,260
restaurants came back, that was also a tailwind. So, but

682
00:43:05,260 --> 00:43:08,698
yeah, I, again, at the start of your company, everything feels like a tailwind because

683
00:43:09,676 --> 00:43:13,410
you know, nothing is happening. But yeah, no, Greg and I are,

684
00:43:13,923 --> 00:43:16,471
I think we're, we talked a lot.

685
00:43:17,304 --> 00:43:20,141
He's a big fan of Glassfin. I'm a big fan of Coravin.

686
00:43:21,295 --> 00:43:24,932
I actually named my company because Coravin. No Glassfin?

687
00:43:24,996 --> 00:43:28,282
Yeah, basically. Well, I was trying to find like a

688
00:43:28,346 --> 00:43:32,031
3-syllable word like Coravin more than Glassfin. I

689
00:43:32,031 --> 00:43:34,467
couldn't find one. So I just settled with Glassfin.

690
00:43:36,010 --> 00:43:39,596
And yeah, we're gonna do like, they, they're gonna have a new thing. I mean,

691
00:43:39,644 --> 00:43:43,344
I, I don't wanna put the cart before the horse, but like we're planning

692
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,858
some, some fun partnerships 'cause I think we're pretty

693
00:43:46,922 --> 00:43:50,653
complementary kind of products. So. Yeah, that's smart. Last,

694
00:43:50,814 --> 00:43:54,354
last question 'cause we're almost outta time here. And that is this movement. When I

695
00:43:54,354 --> 00:43:57,331
was at the Fancy Food Festival a few years ago in Vegas,

696
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,840
the, the, the leading theme for beverage was

697
00:44:02,936 --> 00:44:06,208
non-alc. And I had a young man stop me with a glass of

698
00:44:06,801 --> 00:44:10,361
Prosecco, rosé Prosecco, that actually was palatable.

699
00:44:11,355 --> 00:44:15,060
Uh, he came on the show. Um, but a lot of the distilled spirit,

700
00:44:15,605 --> 00:44:18,876
uh, vendors were selling non-alc. And

701
00:44:19,614 --> 00:44:23,062
you're, you're too young to know about the Scarsdale Diet from the '70s and '80s,

702
00:44:23,078 --> 00:44:26,654
but the Scarsdale Diet was this famous diet, and he had the Scarsdale

703
00:44:26,750 --> 00:44:30,538
Cocktail. And what it was is a highball with ice, sparkling water and

704
00:44:30,619 --> 00:44:34,148
a lime slice on the edge, and it would make people think you're

705
00:44:34,148 --> 00:44:37,902
having a gin and tonic. And so I

706
00:44:37,918 --> 00:44:41,478
don't understand the non-alc movement, maybe because I'm too old, but

707
00:44:43,088 --> 00:44:46,633
it seems to me that this Prosecco

708
00:44:47,102 --> 00:44:50,932
vendor had your glasses at a restaurant, that that experience for even a

709
00:44:50,980 --> 00:44:54,019
non-alc drinker would be a positive experience.

710
00:44:54,782 --> 00:44:58,478
And so how has the non-alch movement been in regards to

711
00:44:58,478 --> 00:45:01,837
what you're doing? And have you heard any rumors inside the

712
00:45:01,837 --> 00:45:04,823
restaurants about, you know, service of non-alch

713
00:45:06,044 --> 00:45:07,575
or low-alch even?

714
00:45:09,674 --> 00:45:12,683
So from a business perspective, it's pretty good

715
00:45:13,444 --> 00:45:17,100
for the restaurants because you can basically sell like

716
00:45:17,408 --> 00:45:21,212
the thing that costs you like almost nothing for like pretty much the same

717
00:45:21,244 --> 00:45:25,046
price as, uh, you know, like a non-alcohol

718
00:45:25,046 --> 00:45:28,190
cocktail in most of these places pretty much costs the same as an

719
00:45:29,089 --> 00:45:32,843
alcoholic cocktail. So for them, I think it's a pretty good

720
00:45:33,019 --> 00:45:36,533
business. Um, I don't think the volumes are really

721
00:45:37,110 --> 00:45:40,800
there, uh, to, to make it a big part of the business,

722
00:45:40,816 --> 00:45:44,458
but, you know, maybe it's like 10% of the bev-alc sales.

723
00:45:44,506 --> 00:45:47,641
And so maybe it's— You know, maybe it's a little bit

724
00:45:47,985 --> 00:45:51,633
accretive to margins. Like, I'm not sure. In terms of how that

725
00:45:51,633 --> 00:45:54,853
affects us, like, I mean, yeah,

726
00:45:54,998 --> 00:45:58,781
our cocktail glasses are often used in

727
00:45:58,781 --> 00:46:02,203
these products. And I think it is another way

728
00:46:02,397 --> 00:46:05,700
to premiumize the product. Like, if you have

729
00:46:07,189 --> 00:46:10,355
this non-alcoholic wine, you know, like,

730
00:46:11,867 --> 00:46:14,715
it's probably not going to taste that good because it's

731
00:46:14,715 --> 00:46:18,310
non-alcoholic wine. Um, I haven't had one

732
00:46:18,310 --> 00:46:21,813
yet. Uh, and it's probably from like a brand you haven't heard of.

733
00:46:21,861 --> 00:46:25,138
So, but if you put it into a nice wine glass, you know, that can

734
00:46:25,138 --> 00:46:28,898
make people have better, a better impression of it. So

735
00:46:29,541 --> 00:46:32,513
yeah, like our products are definitely used in non-alc kind of stuff.

736
00:46:33,236 --> 00:46:36,385
Um, there's, there's actually one big chain that I think like

737
00:46:37,012 --> 00:46:40,530
for, cause I think they need a different glass for the non-alcs so that

738
00:46:40,627 --> 00:46:44,015
people, people can tell like the servers can tell. So they've

739
00:46:44,015 --> 00:46:47,449
specifically brought our stuff in for their non-alcohol stuff.

740
00:46:48,010 --> 00:46:50,610
Um, and they're a huge chain. So it's like having a small part of a

741
00:46:50,754 --> 00:46:54,412
big chain's business is, is, is still lucrative. Um,

742
00:46:55,632 --> 00:46:59,338
but it's brilliant. Small right now. It's definitely growing fast, but

743
00:46:59,338 --> 00:47:02,563
it's too small to matter. Uh, so far, I think.

744
00:47:03,269 --> 00:47:07,040
Well, you know, we, I guess one of the litmus tests about whether successful or

745
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,831
not would be, you know, how many do you see on a wine list? I

746
00:47:09,831 --> 00:47:13,309
haven't seen very few. There's a new restaurant

747
00:47:13,632 --> 00:47:16,358
here in Hermosa that's really, really good and they have White One.

748
00:47:18,230 --> 00:47:21,797
Like, why wouldn't you just drink sparkling apple juice? I mean, who cares if it's,

749
00:47:22,024 --> 00:47:25,874
you know, that's my opinion. But I did notice at Whole Foods not too

750
00:47:25,874 --> 00:47:29,627
long ago that there was a fake bourbon, you know, non-alcoholic bourbon,

751
00:47:30,047 --> 00:47:33,429
and it was like $32 a bottle, which you can buy a bottle of Templeton

752
00:47:33,429 --> 00:47:36,906
Rye for that. And I thought that, I don't know.

753
00:47:37,886 --> 00:47:39,905
Whatever. I'm just an old guy, so what am I going to do about it?

754
00:47:40,290 --> 00:47:44,071
We were in the liquor business. We had a store, so I understand it. But

755
00:47:44,135 --> 00:47:47,965
that's an interesting story. I will say that like I've had some

756
00:47:48,077 --> 00:47:51,651
very good non-alcoholic beer before actually.

757
00:47:51,699 --> 00:47:53,686
So, you know, like

758
00:47:53,830 --> 00:47:57,387
if I pay the same

759
00:47:57,387 --> 00:48:00,928
amount and get something that tastes like pretty much the

760
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,697
same and my liver doesn't go as bad, like I kind of, I

761
00:48:04,730 --> 00:48:08,470
would probably do that. So it just has to taste good. I think

762
00:48:08,470 --> 00:48:12,275
the issue is they haven't figured out how to make non-alcoholic wine taste.

763
00:48:12,745 --> 00:48:16,500
As Jancis Robinson said, who's also in the wine glass business

764
00:48:16,565 --> 00:48:19,362
and her glass is cool too,

765
00:48:21,566 --> 00:48:24,898
she said something like, I've never had a glass of wine, a

766
00:48:24,898 --> 00:48:28,649
non-alcoholic wine that's better than sparkling water. So yeah, if

767
00:48:28,665 --> 00:48:32,245
that's, if you're, if you're not as good as sparkling water, then Then, then,

768
00:48:32,374 --> 00:48:36,031
then you have a problem. Well, I've had, I've had the luxury

769
00:48:36,128 --> 00:48:39,833
of, uh, which is kind of interesting. I've had 2 really interesting, um,

770
00:48:40,716 --> 00:48:44,486
experiences in my career. A lot of them, of course, but

771
00:48:44,486 --> 00:48:48,127
one was I got to taste, uh, the

772
00:48:48,159 --> 00:48:51,657
same wine, the same Chardonnay in a can,

773
00:48:52,266 --> 00:48:56,084
bottled as a canned wine. And I also tasted it out of the bottle side

774
00:48:56,116 --> 00:48:59,871
by side, same vintage, same vineyard, same you know, just same stainless steel

775
00:48:59,871 --> 00:49:03,627
tank. And that showed, showed something that was different. And not too long

776
00:49:03,643 --> 00:49:06,597
ago, I got the taste of Pinot Noir from Monterey County

777
00:49:07,175 --> 00:49:10,802
that was vinted in the bottle for sale in

778
00:49:10,802 --> 00:49:14,590
regular wine shops and its non-alch counterpart. So

779
00:49:14,590 --> 00:49:18,202
same grapes, same vineyard, same process. You know, they made, they make the wine and

780
00:49:18,202 --> 00:49:21,685
they dealcoholize it and they put stuff back. One of the things that's interesting is

781
00:49:21,782 --> 00:49:25,506
the side note is that if you dealcoholize a wine, you end up

782
00:49:25,554 --> 00:49:29,310
removing not just the 14% alcohol, but another 16% of

783
00:49:29,727 --> 00:49:33,482
of character. And then you have to add something back because you can't live with

784
00:49:33,514 --> 00:49:37,268
30% discounted of what you grew. And so what do you

785
00:49:37,268 --> 00:49:40,895
add back? You know, water, flavoring agents, whatever. And I think that's,

786
00:49:41,135 --> 00:49:44,665
you know, part of the— where part of the problem is. But I've never

787
00:49:44,665 --> 00:49:48,404
tasted one that I would enjoy to drink, um,

788
00:49:49,062 --> 00:49:52,560
not despite the, the potential

789
00:49:52,608 --> 00:49:56,363
benefit, you know, the potential— I think the way you make non-alcoholic

790
00:49:56,363 --> 00:49:59,605
wine is just you got to start from scratch. Like the ones that are

791
00:50:00,215 --> 00:50:03,650
decent, I think are like tea-based. Um,

792
00:50:04,068 --> 00:50:07,680
and yeah, like tea, tea and coffee are so, to me,

793
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:11,211
like so, so similar in terms of taste profile to wine that,

794
00:50:12,254 --> 00:50:16,027
um, yeah, like I think you can kind of do it. Um,

795
00:50:16,107 --> 00:50:19,879
also like beer, like Cantillon, for example, like in many ways

796
00:50:19,879 --> 00:50:23,539
Cantillon is like a low alcoholic, low alk wine. Like it kind of

797
00:50:23,539 --> 00:50:27,168
tastes like wine, but it's like. a third of the alcohol. So

798
00:50:28,469 --> 00:50:32,162
I think that's the direction you have to go. If you just de-alcoholize wine, I

799
00:50:32,162 --> 00:50:35,518
don't, that doesn't seem to work from, from what I can tell. What I didn't

800
00:50:35,710 --> 00:50:38,649
understand was when I was at Whole Foods the other day and I was tasting

801
00:50:38,681 --> 00:50:42,422
the non-alcohol Corona, that they had the stanchions up and it

802
00:50:42,454 --> 00:50:45,537
said you must be 21 to taste. I thought, well,

803
00:50:45,906 --> 00:50:49,728
it's not alcohol. Why do I have to do this? This has

804
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:53,677
been a fascinating conversation. I wish you all the luck in, in, in In this

805
00:50:53,677 --> 00:50:57,031
product. It's beautiful. And thank you for the samples. Uh, I'm gonna share them.

806
00:50:57,689 --> 00:51:01,428
We are building in our home in Arcadia a

807
00:51:01,556 --> 00:51:05,391
new French-themed bar, and we

808
00:51:05,391 --> 00:51:09,066
will bring in some glass vin to stock the bar and

809
00:51:09,322 --> 00:51:12,676
raise the level of experience when people come to our home. Fortunately,

810
00:51:13,430 --> 00:51:16,880
unfortunately, my kids moved back for a little while, but when they move back out,

811
00:51:17,586 --> 00:51:20,731
that will free up the space to make this little bistro that we have planned.

812
00:51:21,437 --> 00:51:24,166
And, uh, we'll look forward to having your glasses there to do that.

813
00:51:25,530 --> 00:51:28,547
Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Are you ever in LA or?

814
00:51:29,703 --> 00:51:33,507
Yeah. Yeah. I was just there, um, a, a few

815
00:51:33,571 --> 00:51:36,829
months ago. Uh, there's also like La Paulette and La Fête

816
00:51:37,246 --> 00:51:40,857
LA often. Um, so yeah, I mean,

817
00:51:41,098 --> 00:51:44,902
obviously huge wine scene. It's probably our second biggest market after New York City. So

818
00:51:46,073 --> 00:51:48,994
lots and lots, lots. They just did the Michelin Guide in LA too. And we

819
00:51:48,994 --> 00:51:52,561
were like, that's right. We're like in half of them.

820
00:51:53,079 --> 00:51:56,281
Uh, we're in half of the new entrants, something like that. Yeah, it was— That's

821
00:51:56,394 --> 00:52:00,049
amazing. Congratulations. That's huge. So yeah, I gotta

822
00:52:00,049 --> 00:52:03,620
contact and, uh, congratulate the ones that, that

823
00:52:03,669 --> 00:52:06,315
got in. We're supposed to go to

824
00:52:08,326 --> 00:52:12,137
Gwen Steakhouse. Is that what it's called? Gwen? Oh

825
00:52:12,154 --> 00:52:15,932
yeah, yeah, yeah. I, well, I have some relationship

826
00:52:15,932 --> 00:52:18,734
with them. I forget what it is exactly. I don't think they, Are my

827
00:52:19,768 --> 00:52:23,031
customers out there? Well, then I'll bring it up because Assam invited us, so we'll,

828
00:52:23,063 --> 00:52:26,766
um, we'll bring that up. But a real pleasure,

829
00:52:26,782 --> 00:52:30,388
David. Thank you for the insights of what you're doing, and congratulations on the success.

830
00:52:30,518 --> 00:52:34,123
And, uh, it looks like you're on the right trajectory in this crazy

831
00:52:34,156 --> 00:52:36,141
industry, and, uh, we need you.

832
00:52:40,431 --> 00:52:42,702
Cheers. Awesome. Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it.