When Business Kills Passion: Florencia Palmaz Questions the Soul of America’s Wine Country

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The connection begins with us being incredibly connected to land,

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and then it's one of those few beverages that we actually get to transfer that

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love and connection into a bottle. And then what you're

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talking about, that next challenge is how do we then

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confer that connection that's

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instilled in this bottle onto

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ultimately the guests who get to enjoy it?

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Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks

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with Paul Kaye. Hey,

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welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are, we are in studio today,

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beautiful Southern California, actually 102 today, about to

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have a conversation with Florence. Do you say Palmas?

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Uh, Florencia, yes. Or Flo if it's a, if it's a

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mouthful. I was thinking about the Madame Cathiard.

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Florencia Palmas of

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Palmas Vineyards. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Great to

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be here. It's already started as an incredible conversation, so I didn't really want to

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interrupt that thought, but just get the introduction on the

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books here. I'm going to read what

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ChatGPT wrote about you in 75 words. Can I do that?

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Sure. Are you sure? Yeah. Now

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I'm interested to know. Ooh, 75 words. It says, today on

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Wine Talks, we welcome Florencia Palmaz, whose journey from

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Argentina to Napa Valley connects family, food, and the willingness to

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challenge convention. After building a gourmet food business with her

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mother, Florencia brought her culinary instincts to Palma's

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vineyard, helping shape wines designed for the table. Her

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story explores what happens when specific innovation meets hospitality

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and why even the most sophisticated winery ultimately comes back to the people.

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Florencia, welcome to Wine Talks. You know, it's kind

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of, I don't know. I use it to write stuff because it is

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faster and easier, but then it doesn't sound like you. It

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doesn't feel like me. I gotta be honest with you. It sounds so much more

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sophisticated than how I feel.

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Well, that's interesting. Well, let's talk about that for a second. You are

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an immigrant from Argentina, and

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wine was not the trade in Argentina. But let's talk about the immigration. I

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mean, Napa, we were just talking about Napa and the history of Napa. so much

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about immigration. All of the great

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houses early on in Napa were from immigrants. Why do you

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think that happened? Why do you think we landed there? My father was

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an immigrant to America. What does that history tell us about

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Napa Valley? Oh, gosh,

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that's interesting. I think so many people,

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dating back to the 1800s to today, the people who come to

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Napa are passionate and risk-takers, right? Because this

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isn't a guaranteed success. It's farming.

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And my gut tells me that

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immigrants in general are extraordinarily energetic

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dreamers and risk-takers, right? Because they leave something that they

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know to go do something new and adventurous. So

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maybe there's a connection there. No, I think that's

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right on. And I just had this There was a post yesterday on

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LinkedIn from Monica Elling, whose father escaped Hungary, and she

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tells briefly the story of that. And my father

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ran from Cairo, Egypt. My grandparents ran from the genocide in Armenia.

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And I always, I'm almost a little jealous of that. I've been a little jealous

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of you, a little jealous of

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this jumping off point where you just decide, look, we've got to do

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something else. And we We have no idea what we're getting into. We're just going

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to do it and rely on our wits, I guess.

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And the risk tolerance is there. And I want that sort of

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part of the credo of somebody that comes to Napa Valley looking for a

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better life. I mean, look, I'm going to be

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totally honest. I came as a baby in arms, right? So to say that

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I'm an immigrant is a little bit like I don't have that

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extraordinary risk, right? I was 18 months old when I came to

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America. And so I was essentially the baby coming along with, I

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think, what was my parents' extraordinary

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adventure that they embarked on.

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But, you know, I have a lot of respect for what building a

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new business and even, you know, working in

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farming, whether you're the second generation or the third generation or the first, you're

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still dealing with risk. every single day, right? Where our

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farms are, you know, under

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risk of falling apart because Mother Nature

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takes a turn. And, you know, that becomes increasingly more adventurous every

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year as the weather becomes more erratic. And, you know, market

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conditions don't always align with what our farming conditions

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offer us. So, you know, we're taking the risk of needing to

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reinvent ourselves every generation.

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Well, I certainly, certainly, I

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don't think the general public understands that

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with wine and that A, it's really farming and B, if

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you do it right and make an honest glass of wine, you're completely at the

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whim of what nature gives you. But I wonder,

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let's go back to the immigration thing for a second. Yeah. When the Nazis came

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to Bordeaux and all the resistance started there,

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all these amazing stories. You might have read Wine and War.

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Yeah. And it seems to me that

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not unlike your parents coming from Argentina,

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that that sort of risk and

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background and experience shows up in the

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philosophy of what you put in the bottle. In other words, you don't

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taste this tannic structure because, you know, the Nazis came into

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Bordeaux, but It would seem to me that the history and the knowledge

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base and the experience and all the things that affected the psyche of that

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person making the wine would end up in that glass.

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That's an interesting thought. And for some reason, and

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I don't know why, but right as you were sort of talking about that, right,

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this is the idea of the Nazis coming and threatening a

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vintner in Bordeaux, right? I immediately felt

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and remembered the threat and

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the invasion of the fires of 2017,

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where something from the outside was coming in and was coming for me

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and for my family and what we did. I think that they

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probably— my immediate response was,

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nothing's going to take us out. This is our land and we're going to stay

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here and we're going to survive this. You

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immediately take on this this

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protection of my family, protection of my land, and

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protection of the ability to continue to do what we love. I'm sure

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that that same thing happened then. The stories

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that you mentioned were so well written about

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are the hiding of bottles behind false walls

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and the

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somewhat messy navigation of being able to continue to

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operate even though they were under an occupation. You know, we,

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you know, in a very different way, very simpler way, right? Just 10

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days. Right. It's a great analogy, really. Fighting,

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you know, we were— so we were just, you know, trying to protect our land

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and try to continue making wines while we're, you know, fighting fires. But, you

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know, that very much was my immediate response when that happened was,

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you know, how do I, A, protect my family, B, protect this land, and

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continue to be able to make wine, right? It was very simple.

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Because I didn't want to be interrupted because I love what I'm doing.

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I think that's always in the back of your mind, no matter what happens,

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that it could happen again. And so that changes the

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honesty and the humility that's in that glass of

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wine, even though it's harder to define structurally. I

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believe it's there and I believe it's felt. I have this romantic

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view of wine. We're going to get into your parents coming here. But

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the romantic view is, of course, that it is the only beverage that

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connects the human soul to the earth, and

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properly made and honest wine does that, and why it's completely different than any other

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beverage in the world. But then we have to sell it. So

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that's the irony of it all. It's not all about the romance. You've got

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to put something in the bottle people want to buy. I'll add to

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that. I do completely agree with you that there is something there in

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that connection, but the connection begins with us

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being incredibly connected to land. And then it's one of those few beverages that we

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actually get to transfer that love and connection into a bottle.

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And then what you're talking about, that next challenge is how do we then

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confer that connection that's instilled in

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this bottle onto ultimately

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the guests who get to enjoy it, right? And

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that's the communicating of our passions. That's the, you know, in the

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sharing of our stories. I mean, it's why sommeliers are such an important

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part of our industry. industry, you know, they are the person that

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connects oftentimes what we do to

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the person who ultimately gets to enjoy the bottle, right? They are our

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storytellers tableside. So let's talk about that.

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We're going to bounce around a little bit, but that's an important piece. The story

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is— I mean, it's all about the story. Everything in life's about the story.

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But yeah, there's a, there's a

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falseness about storytelling out there that

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I think the human people— I mean, people can, not the human, but the

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people can differentiate. And like, I was listening to this podcast,

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like I said, about Château Montelena. I mean, Jim Barrett's purpose of buying

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Château Montelena wasn't about winemaking, care less.

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It was an incentive put out by the Nixon administration to

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incent investment in America's agricultural

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infrastructure. I didn't know that. That's

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fascinating. However, you know, it

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quickly turned into a passion now, didn't it? Yeah. And all of a

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sudden, it took me 15 years of selling

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wine for it to hit me as to what I was providing people.

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And you said, you said it perfectly, the guest.

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if we looked at it as guests and it was hospitality, which it

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really is, maybe that story's a little more earnest. Maybe it's a little

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more humble. Maybe it's a little more honestly told

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rather than, we have a story too, kind of thing. It just shows

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up, right? Well, and there's so much, you know,

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as the wine industry becomes an industry and it has marketing

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gurus and it has, you know, PE firms running it and

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investment bankers, it stopped being about heartfelt

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stories that are personal and that are emotional, and it started becoming

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marketing strategies. Yes. And that's a real tragedy, right? Because

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this is really still very simple. I mean, I love what you say about Beaujolais.

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The truth of the matter is, you know, when we came to this valley, we

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didn't actually come with the intention of making wine. We didn't get it

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yet. Our real intention, my parents' intention,

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was to build a place to keep their family together. Right? To

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find a piece of land for all of us to work together. That was the

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intention. Wow. You know, wine was the vehicle for us to stay

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connected to each other. And it was a simple desire because

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my father spent so many years as he was, of course, traveling the

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world and trying to, you know, teach all the

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doctors around the world how to use the stent since he invented the stent.

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We never saw him as kids. Right? I mean, it was many years when, you

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know, when I was 6, 8, 10, 12, where people would ask him, where's your

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father? He'd be like, uh, Shanghai? No. India?

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No. Egypt? I don't know. It's been a couple weeks since I've seen him. Right?

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Because he was literally traveling the world trying to,

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you know, teach people how to use the stent in every single hospital in the

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world. We never saw him. So he had this strong

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desire to come back home and be home and

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building a business that was something that felt really

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grounded, like farming on a vineyard,

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was just this passion for him. And, you know,

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we all kind of followed along. Yeah, sounds great. Sounds like a lot of fun.

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But that's an interesting story. I mean, obviously

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inventing the stent is an incredible thing. I find it fascinating that an Argentinian, I

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guess, cardiologist at this point, invented this product that obviously was

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very successful and very important part of medical history.

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But, and traveled the world, was away from the family. But you still, you come

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to Napa, you weren't gonna make wines.

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And a lot of people that are

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successful in business that go to Napa do it because they want to

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buy this lifestyle. Yes. They build these magnanimous

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châteaux, some of them extraordinarily ugly.

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I heard that comment on another one

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of your podcasts and I couldn't stop laughing. I was like, wow, that is some

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real honesty. It's so true. But then, but then

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some catch on to this incredible product and some just

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continue to market this business and they realize it's really expensive to make.

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There's a lot of risk involved. The margins suck. And, you know, you

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need to be extraordinarily passionate to survive all that.

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particularly when I talk to our winemakers that are in different countries that are not

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so well established. But that

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wasn't the case here. I mean, you left Argentina for a

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better life. Yeah,

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we left for Argentina so my father could be a medical student all

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over again. He was already, you know, completed all of his training, was

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ready to go and be a doctor in La Plata. And it's

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It was actually my grandfather, my

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mother's father's death on the

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table of a triple dot bypass that my father

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was

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as a doctor viewing in the surgery room

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that really made an impact on him. Hmm. So

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he was very driven at the time to really

233
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find solutions to what was a very personal family

234
00:14:40,695 --> 00:14:43,729
problem, which was heart disease. My— both my— both my

235
00:14:44,147 --> 00:14:47,744
grandfathers, my father's father, and of course my mother's father

236
00:14:48,322 --> 00:14:52,063
died in their 40s of heart disease. And so for

237
00:14:52,143 --> 00:14:55,788
my father, it was a personal, personal drive to try and find

238
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solutions to that. Wow. How interesting.

239
00:14:59,561 --> 00:15:02,965
So he started a relationship with

240
00:15:03,897 --> 00:15:05,197
one of the first

241
00:15:09,184 --> 00:15:12,999
one of the first interventional radiologists here in the United States

242
00:15:12,999 --> 00:15:16,228
that was at UC Davis, actually was at Ann Arbor,

243
00:15:16,244 --> 00:15:20,040
Michigan when they started their conversations and basically a

244
00:15:20,104 --> 00:15:22,978
pen pal relationship with Dr. Stuart Reuter,

245
00:15:25,024 --> 00:15:28,473
who was bringing in some of the first angioplasty

246
00:15:29,214 --> 00:15:33,015
innovation. And then, you know, and there's just like, I'm repeating things

247
00:15:33,031 --> 00:15:36,716
that you can imagine are very well covered in— you

248
00:15:36,942 --> 00:15:40,679
can Google this and you can find amazing stories by my father himself

249
00:15:40,695 --> 00:15:44,186
telling how he came here and how his research went about.

250
00:15:45,909 --> 00:15:49,580
But it was actually Dr. Stuart Reuter who went from Ann

251
00:15:49,693 --> 00:15:53,333
Arbor, Michigan to UC Davis before we came to the US, but then had my

252
00:15:53,333 --> 00:15:55,713
father land here in California.

253
00:15:58,632 --> 00:16:02,088
It could have been Michigan. Just think of that. We could have been making wine

254
00:16:02,088 --> 00:16:04,575
in Michigan, but no, we're making wine in Napa Valley because we first came here.

255
00:16:06,915 --> 00:16:08,774
I came in a Wolverine and, uh, you know,

256
00:16:11,183 --> 00:16:14,966
actually there's a winery in, um, Kansas called

257
00:16:14,999 --> 00:16:18,096
Terra Vox. He's trying to bring back, um, indigenous

258
00:16:18,225 --> 00:16:21,753
Cal-American, though they're not Vitis

259
00:16:21,753 --> 00:16:25,444
vinifera, but they were grapes used, you know, pre— Sure. To make wine. And

260
00:16:25,864 --> 00:16:29,600
I don't know, man, talk about— Napa

261
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:33,447
seems to be much more suited for this job. So So

262
00:16:33,447 --> 00:16:36,166
that was one of the questions, I guess you just answered it, which is

263
00:16:37,574 --> 00:16:41,393
your father's path in the stent

264
00:16:41,781 --> 00:16:45,598
is a well-known, documented, obviously documented story amongst the

265
00:16:45,598 --> 00:16:46,702
medical profession.

266
00:16:48,486 --> 00:16:52,214
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's

267
00:16:52,423 --> 00:16:55,926
kind of an amazing and unique one because it's a rare

268
00:16:56,039 --> 00:16:59,848
example of a true academic working in the university

269
00:16:59,865 --> 00:17:02,945
hospital at the VA hospital. having a

270
00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:07,499
thought, a crystalline innovative thought, and

271
00:17:07,596 --> 00:17:11,260
then having an entire career in academia

272
00:17:11,712 --> 00:17:15,179
to develop it and bring it to

273
00:17:15,179 --> 00:17:18,898
fruition. It's very strange. I had Dr. Jan

274
00:17:18,930 --> 00:17:22,444
Krupp on the show recently who started Stagecoach Vineyards

275
00:17:23,266 --> 00:17:26,218
and what a revelation for him.

276
00:17:26,984 --> 00:17:30,664
And the question I asked him was, you

277
00:17:30,664 --> 00:17:34,442
know, what did your wife think when you started this scatterbrained idea to get into

278
00:17:34,442 --> 00:17:38,091
the wine business? He said, you mean my first wife? So that kind of

279
00:17:38,156 --> 00:17:41,879
answered that question. And then— But

280
00:17:41,928 --> 00:17:45,383
then the inventor of the Coravan, Mr. Lambrecht,

281
00:17:45,721 --> 00:17:48,993
Greg Lambrecht, was, you know, his—

282
00:17:50,243 --> 00:17:53,897
the technology used for the Coravan was a delivery system he created for

283
00:17:53,961 --> 00:17:57,524
cancer drugs. And got out of the medical

284
00:17:57,541 --> 00:18:01,355
profession. And as opposed to— I suppose there's

285
00:18:02,144 --> 00:18:05,574
this passion that must have been swelling up in your father to become a

286
00:18:05,622 --> 00:18:09,214
farmer. I mean, or besides just buying land

287
00:18:09,407 --> 00:18:13,067
to unite the family that you'd be— Well, I'm going to

288
00:18:13,179 --> 00:18:16,392
burst your bubble right there. It was actually my mother. Oh, well,

289
00:18:17,281 --> 00:18:21,031
I'm glad. We came to Napa

290
00:18:21,095 --> 00:18:24,798
mainly because Well, I'll take you back. So we come

291
00:18:25,122 --> 00:18:27,282
to the US in

292
00:18:27,590 --> 00:18:29,965
'78—

293
00:18:30,886 --> 00:18:34,666
sorry, '76. We come to the US in '76, and

294
00:18:34,763 --> 00:18:38,413
my parents are in the Bay Area,

295
00:18:39,350 --> 00:18:42,711
and on the weekends would drive around. And of course, we were just

296
00:18:42,711 --> 00:18:46,323
customers of, like we were talking about, the wine clubs of

297
00:18:46,371 --> 00:18:50,032
several wineries. We loved coming up to the Valley. I was a baby. My

298
00:18:50,032 --> 00:18:53,398
parents would come up to the valley and I was this

299
00:18:53,398 --> 00:18:57,101
tortured toddler kicking rocks in parking lots

300
00:18:57,149 --> 00:19:00,788
of Heitz Vineyard and whatnot.

301
00:19:01,413 --> 00:19:05,180
But so my mother used to always whine. She'd

302
00:19:05,180 --> 00:19:08,690
say, oh, I can't believe I married a doctor when I have to look at

303
00:19:08,690 --> 00:19:12,521
all these beautiful vineyards and all these wineries. Someday, if we ever do

304
00:19:12,617 --> 00:19:15,455
really well in life, I would love to come back to Napa Valley. So it

305
00:19:15,455 --> 00:19:18,837
was my mother's lifelong dream. to retire

306
00:19:19,526 --> 00:19:22,972
on a vineyard. You know, her family raised cattle in Argentina.

307
00:19:23,453 --> 00:19:26,788
She knew and always was very connected to sort of

308
00:19:27,541 --> 00:19:31,276
that idea of that a family farm can really

309
00:19:31,308 --> 00:19:35,139
unify a family for many generations. So that's where

310
00:19:35,139 --> 00:19:38,329
that— that's where the seed was literally planted

311
00:19:39,243 --> 00:19:42,978
via mom. And she's the one who found the estate many

312
00:19:43,010 --> 00:19:46,827
years later. as my father was

313
00:19:48,047 --> 00:19:51,689
really dealing with, I would say, sort of a dark period in

314
00:19:51,753 --> 00:19:55,539
his career when there was a lot of patent lawsuits

315
00:19:55,588 --> 00:19:59,214
going on and there was a huge sort of series of years where

316
00:19:59,214 --> 00:20:03,016
he was really just defending his work rather than working

317
00:20:03,225 --> 00:20:06,867
on his work. Wow. That's when

318
00:20:06,915 --> 00:20:10,717
she actually found the property and said, time for us to make a change, time

319
00:20:10,765 --> 00:20:14,581
for us to build something beautiful. And she's

320
00:20:14,581 --> 00:20:17,795
the one who really pitched it to the family and saying, hey,

321
00:20:17,972 --> 00:20:21,668
let's rebuild an abandoned winery. And

322
00:20:21,668 --> 00:20:25,226
that's what we started to do. I know of La Plata

323
00:20:25,452 --> 00:20:29,275
Vineyards or La Plata as a brand, but where's La Plata in the

324
00:20:29,826 --> 00:20:33,342
geography of Argentina? La Plata

325
00:20:34,775 --> 00:20:38,528
is just outside of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires obviously is the capital

326
00:20:38,625 --> 00:20:42,217
right there, and then La Plata is just south,

327
00:20:43,409 --> 00:20:46,982
East of Buenos Aires on the river. And

328
00:20:46,982 --> 00:20:50,555
it's actually the capital of the— it's sort of the academic

329
00:20:50,685 --> 00:20:54,068
capital of the country. So it's where the big university is

330
00:20:54,165 --> 00:20:57,668
located. It's the capital of the province of

331
00:20:57,668 --> 00:21:00,555
Buenos Aires. So it's sort of the small town next to the big town.

332
00:21:02,527 --> 00:21:06,008
And is it a wine district by itself? No, it's really

333
00:21:06,008 --> 00:21:09,731
just a— it's a college town, really, more than anything. a town.

334
00:21:09,867 --> 00:21:13,681
It's a pretty big city, but it was always considered

335
00:21:13,713 --> 00:21:17,145
the little sister to Buenos Aires. And then just outside of

336
00:21:17,178 --> 00:21:20,384
that is already quite a bit of

337
00:21:20,706 --> 00:21:24,232
great Pampas rangelands. So it's really much more cattle being

338
00:21:24,264 --> 00:21:28,064
raised just outside of La

339
00:21:28,129 --> 00:21:31,723
Plata. That's really the beginning of the high grass and really

340
00:21:31,755 --> 00:21:35,436
great cattle ranging. The wine, the real wine

341
00:21:35,549 --> 00:21:39,085
country of Argentina is much more up in the hills around Mendoza. Mendoza.

342
00:21:40,712 --> 00:21:44,322
The Pyrenees. Calafate. But it is, it is a— I just

343
00:21:44,467 --> 00:21:48,109
brought it up here on the map. It is across the way from Uruguay,

344
00:21:48,238 --> 00:21:51,687
which in the same sort of terroir and, um, and

345
00:21:51,784 --> 00:21:55,282
weather growing, uh, Tannat and things.

346
00:21:56,036 --> 00:21:59,293
It's interesting that it didn't take. But of course, was wine

347
00:22:00,352 --> 00:22:02,968
when you grew up— well, you were 18 months, but when your parents were there,

348
00:22:04,299 --> 00:22:07,878
you know, Mount— uh, Argentinian wines, at least here at the Wine of the Month

349
00:22:07,910 --> 00:22:11,327
Club, my dad did a Chilean wine like in 1979 or something.

350
00:22:12,050 --> 00:22:15,848
mean, it wasn't really a worldwide stage for Argentinian wine

351
00:22:16,220 --> 00:22:19,800
in those days. Certainly beef,

352
00:22:20,237 --> 00:22:22,792
you know, Argentinian beef is well known worldwide.

353
00:22:25,070 --> 00:22:27,429
So there was no affinity for wine when they were there?

354
00:22:29,643 --> 00:22:33,083
You know, no, not really. Honestly, my parents,

355
00:22:33,501 --> 00:22:37,278
they drank wine casually at the table. My grandparents were not

356
00:22:37,278 --> 00:22:41,018
necessarily wine collectors in the

357
00:22:41,018 --> 00:22:44,729
classic sense. And in my

358
00:22:44,745 --> 00:22:48,537
mind, the region around— the reason why the agriculture

359
00:22:48,537 --> 00:22:52,204
surrounding Buenos Aires and La Plata in that part of Argentina is

360
00:22:52,300 --> 00:22:55,236
not necessarily wine-centric is it also has a lot of summer rain.

361
00:22:57,510 --> 00:23:01,291
So, you know, Napa, Bordeaux, we're talking about areas that

362
00:23:01,324 --> 00:23:04,849
are actually fairly arid during the summer. That really gives the grapes a chance

363
00:23:05,114 --> 00:23:08,942
to grow in the right conditions for winemaking. I would

364
00:23:09,054 --> 00:23:12,782
definitely struggle to imagine

365
00:23:12,910 --> 00:23:16,542
making great wine in an area that

366
00:23:16,927 --> 00:23:18,355
has that much summer rain.

367
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,650
But it wasn't part of the family dinner table. Yeah, you were actually

368
00:23:24,666 --> 00:23:28,445
asking more about the family dinner table dynamic. In

369
00:23:28,445 --> 00:23:31,861
Argentina, it's You know, of course it's all about the beef. I would say that,

370
00:23:31,925 --> 00:23:35,477
you know, asados, and when I say

371
00:23:35,477 --> 00:23:39,253
that, I mean that in the asado is almost a cultural event,

372
00:23:39,736 --> 00:23:43,320
not a meal. That there are these long,

373
00:23:44,075 --> 00:23:47,739
multi-course lingering tables

374
00:23:48,177 --> 00:23:51,546
where you, you know, you're grilling several different pieces

375
00:23:54,074 --> 00:23:57,594
of cuts of meat and you have sort of these waves of

376
00:23:57,661 --> 00:23:59,572
dinner and it's sort of series of salads and, you know, grilled sausage.

377
00:24:01,736 --> 00:24:04,850
And then another salad. Okay. I just, it's already

378
00:24:04,882 --> 00:24:08,718
like lunch. Sorry. Well,

379
00:24:09,199 --> 00:24:12,955
and, and, and that's the cultural piece that I think

380
00:24:12,971 --> 00:24:16,261
that we really like. That's, that's actually one of the sort of

381
00:24:16,261 --> 00:24:19,695
identifiers to us is this idea that these long

382
00:24:19,728 --> 00:24:23,194
meandering meals are, are so

383
00:24:23,194 --> 00:24:26,870
central to our relationship in the family. It's really what

384
00:24:26,870 --> 00:24:30,514
binds us. It's what binds us to each other. It's what binds us to

385
00:24:30,514 --> 00:24:34,211
our guests. You know, we're always trying to recreate those table

386
00:24:34,211 --> 00:24:37,405
experiences. And for me, wine is actually one of those wonderful

387
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,673
mechanisms to extend a meal, right? A

388
00:24:41,705 --> 00:24:44,829
wonderful way to really sort of make the

389
00:24:44,829 --> 00:24:47,543
experience around a table feel more

390
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,930
connected. It's clearly, and

391
00:24:52,107 --> 00:24:55,767
it's really interesting to me, particularly with my circle of friends,

392
00:24:56,256 --> 00:24:59,930
obviously I'm in the wine trade. They like wine. They have little cellars. They

393
00:24:59,930 --> 00:25:02,267
don't know what they're buying, but I try to help them.

394
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,836
But I find this ironic in that so much of the culture of

395
00:25:07,853 --> 00:25:11,283
wine people, the average

396
00:25:11,412 --> 00:25:15,262
American anyway, would say, I don't understand wine. I don't know

397
00:25:15,262 --> 00:25:18,532
what I'm talking about. I don't like the wine list. And that's true. It's intimidating.

398
00:25:18,661 --> 00:25:22,231
Some somms make it intimidating on purpose. But at the same time,

399
00:25:23,033 --> 00:25:26,857
Those dinners that you have with friends and family,

400
00:25:27,130 --> 00:25:30,584
and you open a bottle of wine, so much of the conversation goes back to

401
00:25:30,584 --> 00:25:33,187
that. And it's not intimidating.

402
00:25:34,263 --> 00:25:37,959
Yeah. Just a conversation. And you could spout

403
00:25:37,959 --> 00:25:41,509
off all the knowledge you know about that wine. But in that environment,

404
00:25:41,670 --> 00:25:45,397
it doesn't come off as this intimidating subject, and people are interested. I just

405
00:25:45,429 --> 00:25:49,060
find that fascinating. But in an open public environment, they

406
00:25:49,141 --> 00:25:52,798
get intimidated by the glass of wine. But it always—

407
00:25:52,974 --> 00:25:56,470
I think about Downton Abbey. You ever watch that show? Yeah,

408
00:25:57,256 --> 00:26:01,073
of course. When it was time to find

409
00:26:01,073 --> 00:26:04,826
the wine for dinner, it was such a ceremony. And

410
00:26:04,858 --> 00:26:08,627
not the intimidating ceremony that you sometimes get pretentious

411
00:26:08,627 --> 00:26:12,252
about, but just this reverence to make sure

412
00:26:12,877 --> 00:26:15,844
that the wine was poured properly and it was there proper and it was the

413
00:26:15,844 --> 00:26:19,485
right wine for what they're doing. And that speaks— To

414
00:26:19,533 --> 00:26:22,871
so much more. Let's get to that. You know what it's speaking to is this

415
00:26:22,919 --> 00:26:26,642
exactly what we were talking about earlier. It speaks to— so

416
00:26:26,899 --> 00:26:30,284
that collection of wines that that estate had, or that

417
00:26:30,284 --> 00:26:33,927
anyone's home will have, is the collection of

418
00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:37,826
future moments to honor your guests with. That's a

419
00:26:37,826 --> 00:26:41,389
good way to put it. And those bottles reflect their

420
00:26:41,597 --> 00:26:45,433
values and what they're wanting to honor guests.

421
00:26:45,529 --> 00:26:48,867
Like, what's that value that you want to confer onto your guests?

422
00:26:49,364 --> 00:26:52,767
Is it a strong message of sustainability, then they're going to

423
00:26:52,832 --> 00:26:56,396
collect wines that reflect that ideal. Or

424
00:26:57,889 --> 00:27:01,677
is it a value of tradition or tradition

425
00:27:01,742 --> 00:27:05,290
to a certain place? They're going to collect those wines. So that then

426
00:27:05,434 --> 00:27:09,078
when that special guest comes to their table, you're

427
00:27:09,110 --> 00:27:12,899
telling in your 30 seconds or 2 minutes the

428
00:27:12,899 --> 00:27:16,303
story of why you're going to open this bottle and you're going to have all

429
00:27:16,351 --> 00:27:20,112
this ceremony around it. So that you can really Have

430
00:27:20,112 --> 00:27:23,933
your guests understand how much you're honoring them. That's what the— that's

431
00:27:23,933 --> 00:27:27,706
how I feel like it's— that's what the whole purpose of a collection is.

432
00:27:28,470 --> 00:27:32,117
That was well articulated. I've never thought of it that way.

433
00:27:32,375 --> 00:27:35,847
And I just finished, you know, when I sold the Wine of the Month Club

434
00:27:35,847 --> 00:27:39,306
in 2023, and it wasn't because I was making too much money,

435
00:27:41,110 --> 00:27:44,710
the buyers who only bought my inventory that dealt with my daily

436
00:27:44,742 --> 00:27:47,822
sales, which is retailed at $15 to $25.

437
00:27:48,892 --> 00:27:52,672
But during COVID I'd collected this amazing stuff, classified growths

438
00:27:52,672 --> 00:27:55,765
and burgundies and things, because I was selling everything people—

439
00:27:56,281 --> 00:28:00,115
anything I told people to buy during COVID they bought. And

440
00:28:00,147 --> 00:28:03,167
so all of a sudden, I had 2,500 bottles or so of some really nice

441
00:28:03,167 --> 00:28:06,884
stuff, and they wanted nothing of it. Yeah.

442
00:28:06,933 --> 00:28:10,618
So my wife's— my wife's an accountant. She had just as soon preferred the cash.

443
00:28:11,350 --> 00:28:15,170
But they didn't want to buy it. So now I have this

444
00:28:15,170 --> 00:28:18,630
amazing collection. I had to build a small cellar at home to accommodate it.

445
00:28:19,050 --> 00:28:22,610
But you're right, that's exactly how it feels. Like, I have

446
00:28:22,610 --> 00:28:26,250
dinner, even if it's my son-in-law's or my daughter's, I'll go into that

447
00:28:26,250 --> 00:28:29,890
cellar and I'll look around and I'll sort of come up with a decision. And

448
00:28:29,890 --> 00:28:33,610
that decision is based on a lot of variables. What we're having for dinner,

449
00:28:33,610 --> 00:28:36,950
who's invited, you know, what statements I want to make.

450
00:28:37,570 --> 00:28:41,012
It's a pretty interesting thought. Really interesting. Go back to the last one.

451
00:28:41,060 --> 00:28:44,343
Sometimes it's so simple. You don't have to know anything about the wine, and maybe

452
00:28:44,359 --> 00:28:48,030
you're just trying to honor a date and time, right? These bottles are

453
00:28:48,224 --> 00:28:52,018
the pin cushion, are the pushpins of our memories in our

454
00:28:52,018 --> 00:28:55,634
lives, right? Whether it's the year of a child's

455
00:28:55,634 --> 00:28:59,104
birth, or the year of a graduation, or the year of a marriage,

456
00:28:59,554 --> 00:29:02,753
right? Those vintages oftentimes,

457
00:29:04,537 --> 00:29:06,241
just on the very surface level, right?

458
00:29:07,709 --> 00:29:11,373
the year on the bottle can commemorate a year

459
00:29:11,438 --> 00:29:15,070
that is special to someone. There is, to me, one of my biggest

460
00:29:15,070 --> 00:29:18,901
joys in this industry that I never anticipated was getting text messages

461
00:29:19,013 --> 00:29:22,838
from customers saying, with a picture

462
00:29:22,854 --> 00:29:26,650
of a bottle in a special place, saying, celebrating my 5th anniversary. Thank you

463
00:29:26,650 --> 00:29:29,889
so much for remembering when we came to visit you. That is like

464
00:29:30,276 --> 00:29:33,676
instant joy for me. It's like, oh, I get to be part of that.

465
00:29:34,452 --> 00:29:36,778
that couple's celebration. You did it.

466
00:29:38,046 --> 00:29:41,752
Exactly. That's— and that's the whole purpose. Like, for me, that's why we do

467
00:29:41,752 --> 00:29:45,137
this. Um, what the sommeliers aren't getting when,

468
00:29:45,586 --> 00:29:49,324
when it, when it's coming off in, in a pretentious way,

469
00:29:49,533 --> 00:29:53,319
right, like you're saying, in that restaurant setting, it's because they're forgetting what

470
00:29:53,319 --> 00:29:57,105
they're trying to do is give context to that couple or those guests,

471
00:29:58,196 --> 00:30:00,201
what they're trying to commemorate.

472
00:30:03,180 --> 00:30:06,937
Make the bottle the pin cushion into that meal so

473
00:30:06,937 --> 00:30:10,645
that that moment, that dinner, can be extra special. That's all we're trying to

474
00:30:10,645 --> 00:30:13,985
do. The way you do that, which is

475
00:30:14,663 --> 00:30:18,438
lost in a lot of senses— a lot of

476
00:30:18,567 --> 00:30:22,387
talk of this on LinkedIn about salesmanship, and

477
00:30:22,499 --> 00:30:26,301
the old methods don't work anymore. And it's not true, because true salesmanship back

478
00:30:26,366 --> 00:30:29,795
in the day— and I sold a lot of stuff in my career— was understanding

479
00:30:29,892 --> 00:30:33,601
who the client was and what their needs were. And you only get that by

480
00:30:33,601 --> 00:30:37,133
asking open-ended questions to understand what their thoughts are.

481
00:30:37,615 --> 00:30:40,907
And that'll help guide any SOM to, you know, a proper

482
00:30:40,907 --> 00:30:44,198
selection. Not only make the selection right,

483
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,522
'cause any selection they make at that point, if they've done this right, will be

484
00:30:47,554 --> 00:30:51,199
right for them. Yeah. It's making that client feel

485
00:30:51,327 --> 00:30:55,162
like they care. Absolutely. Not saying

486
00:30:55,259 --> 00:30:58,128
this is our special wine of the day, or this is what we have on

487
00:30:58,224 --> 00:31:02,071
tap, so to speak. But what do you do? What do

488
00:31:02,071 --> 00:31:04,796
you usually drink? What are we having tonight? What can we do? What do you—

489
00:31:05,213 --> 00:31:09,061
are you interested in experimenting? All the different open-ended questions that could lead to

490
00:31:09,061 --> 00:31:12,186
a decision that makes the client feel like

491
00:31:12,603 --> 00:31:16,258
somebody cared about what I'm doing. It was listening to me,

492
00:31:16,515 --> 00:31:20,282
right? Why I'm here. Yeah. My most, you know, as you can imagine, in the

493
00:31:20,442 --> 00:31:23,888
career of wine, I've sold, I've

494
00:31:24,049 --> 00:31:27,160
presented a lot of vintage wines. Which isn't a lot of bottles, to a lot

495
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:30,994
of sommeliers and a lot of wine buyers. And I've listened and heard

496
00:31:31,090 --> 00:31:34,410
their responses and critiques on my wine or, you know,

497
00:31:34,876 --> 00:31:38,309
are there— and the most sophisticated buyers I know,

498
00:31:38,645 --> 00:31:42,415
right? Whether it be a wine shop buyer or a sommelier, is the one who

499
00:31:42,415 --> 00:31:46,105
tastes the wine. And rather than saying, I like it, right?

500
00:31:46,666 --> 00:31:50,436
The really sophisticated ones are the ones who say, I have a

501
00:31:50,436 --> 00:31:54,253
regular who comes in every month. and always drinks these

502
00:31:54,365 --> 00:31:58,068
wines. Your wine would be a perfect thing for me to

503
00:31:59,174 --> 00:32:02,989
present to them. You've got their— your palate, this style

504
00:32:03,358 --> 00:32:06,468
is right in line with such and such particular

505
00:32:06,468 --> 00:32:10,074
customer's palate. So that's sophisticated,

506
00:32:10,155 --> 00:32:13,136
right? To not know whether you like it, but to know whether your

507
00:32:13,601 --> 00:32:17,015
customers will like it. Which means they've been paying attention.

508
00:32:17,849 --> 00:32:21,664
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That they're not just standing around saying, this is

509
00:32:21,696 --> 00:32:25,244
delicious. I like this, I like that. You know, just throwing out their opinions.

510
00:32:25,712 --> 00:32:29,198
Now, you know, there was— I don't know if I— if you— the podcast you

511
00:32:29,198 --> 00:32:32,974
listen to, I talked about the Palermo sommelier who—

512
00:32:33,377 --> 00:32:36,283
we were at a seaside restaurant in Palermo, and the guy, I think the guy

513
00:32:36,283 --> 00:32:39,469
was Croatian, but that part of the country, that part of the world.

514
00:32:40,646 --> 00:32:44,013
And I was— I wish I got a video. I just got one photograph. This

515
00:32:44,159 --> 00:32:47,963
guy was so passionate

516
00:32:47,963 --> 00:32:51,386
about making sure that you— Now, he made a recommendation

517
00:32:52,032 --> 00:32:55,723
And I had already— I already knew what my crowd was, what my group

518
00:32:55,787 --> 00:32:59,574
likes. And so I ordered a Super Tuscan. It didn't matter to him. He

519
00:32:59,639 --> 00:33:03,185
made me feel like I had ordered the King's Ransom. It was

520
00:33:03,185 --> 00:33:06,925
amazing. And I watched this guy. I even went to him afterwards and I gave

521
00:33:06,925 --> 00:33:10,616
him a €60 tip besides the table tip and said,

522
00:33:11,354 --> 00:33:15,189
watching you relish in presenting wine was

523
00:33:15,286 --> 00:33:17,741
one of the greatest experiences I've had in this industry, and I've been doing it

524
00:33:17,741 --> 00:33:21,463
for 35 years. And, and I thought— and then I went to a

525
00:33:21,704 --> 00:33:25,554
steakhouse in Beverly Hills 2 weeks later and had the

526
00:33:25,554 --> 00:33:28,506
most annoying conversation with the somm

527
00:33:29,565 --> 00:33:32,308
because it was all about what he's drank and what he's been and what tastings

528
00:33:32,308 --> 00:33:35,421
he went to. And, you know, everything—

529
00:33:35,982 --> 00:33:39,159
About him. It was, it was about him instead of about the guests.

530
00:33:39,688 --> 00:33:43,507
So tell me where— let's, let's talk business a little bit. Where are your wines

531
00:33:43,683 --> 00:33:47,373
at? Are you using the 3 tiers? Are you all DTC? What's

532
00:33:47,373 --> 00:33:51,013
your typical You know, gosh,

533
00:33:52,103 --> 00:33:55,854
it's— okay, let me see. Let me start

534
00:33:55,886 --> 00:33:59,493
by saying my intention all along was to try and be

535
00:33:59,718 --> 00:34:03,149
as balanced as possible and have as many,

536
00:34:04,367 --> 00:34:07,910
as much of the wine distributed in equal parts, both, you know,

537
00:34:07,990 --> 00:34:11,693
whether it be direct-to-consumer or via

538
00:34:11,693 --> 00:34:15,461
the 3-tier system. And then even within the 3-tier system, try and have a

539
00:34:15,525 --> 00:34:19,117
balanced selection between on-premise and off-premise. and

540
00:34:19,213 --> 00:34:22,940
even export. And that was actually taught to me by

541
00:34:23,695 --> 00:34:27,374
sort of the previous generation

542
00:34:27,470 --> 00:34:31,197
who had told me, watch out, this industry has channel

543
00:34:31,197 --> 00:34:35,021
swings. And if you don't have a very balanced

544
00:34:35,358 --> 00:34:38,459
portfolio of customers,

545
00:34:39,359 --> 00:34:42,877
you'll get hurt when

546
00:34:43,134 --> 00:34:46,875
tourism is down in Napa, or you'll get hurt when— there's a war

547
00:34:46,923 --> 00:34:50,511
in another country and they don't want to buy American

548
00:34:50,511 --> 00:34:54,212
wines anymore. That was incredibly great advice that I

549
00:34:55,013 --> 00:34:58,313
sort of live by even more so today than ever.

550
00:34:59,259 --> 00:35:02,623
But, you know, the reality is the trend in the

551
00:35:02,623 --> 00:35:06,276
last, let's say, 15 years has been

552
00:35:06,372 --> 00:35:10,121
so much growth, almost uncontrollable growth in

553
00:35:10,153 --> 00:35:13,020
the tourism here and locally in Napa, that

554
00:35:13,357 --> 00:35:16,929
DTC, direct-to-consumer, ended up being a big channel for us.

555
00:35:17,683 --> 00:35:21,404
I've enjoyed it. I'm not going to lie. It's been great because we all

556
00:35:21,452 --> 00:35:25,222
know that that's where wineries get to keep

557
00:35:25,222 --> 00:35:29,071
their margin. Where the margins are. It's where the margin is, but

558
00:35:29,136 --> 00:35:32,568
it's unsustainable because here we are, we're looking at a moment in which

559
00:35:33,001 --> 00:35:35,937
the tourism and the visitorship is down in

560
00:35:36,306 --> 00:35:40,011
Napa. And so the pendulum is swinging. And so now

561
00:35:40,139 --> 00:35:43,796
everyone is scared for the future. And we've seen a lot of wineries

562
00:35:43,893 --> 00:35:47,502
hurt when they got to too concentrated in direct-to-consumer.

563
00:35:49,437 --> 00:35:52,606
So my intention is always to try and be as balanced as possible. It doesn't

564
00:35:52,622 --> 00:35:56,308
always happen. And, you know, and

565
00:35:56,406 --> 00:36:00,079
we, you know, we want to keep, we want to, we want to keep all

566
00:36:00,273 --> 00:36:03,729
3 channels as open and as

567
00:36:04,148 --> 00:36:07,580
available as possible. So, you know, that's my

568
00:36:07,612 --> 00:36:10,173
intention at least. Well, it's a, you know, I used to say here it was

569
00:36:10,206 --> 00:36:13,328
a 3-legged stool. In fact, if you— this

570
00:36:13,682 --> 00:36:15,256
painting is my father in

571
00:36:15,288 --> 00:36:18,903
1975. Oh, how cool.

572
00:36:20,414 --> 00:36:22,925
In fact, when you talked about, you know, you got dragged around as a young

573
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,757
person in Napa, I'll never forget 1974,

574
00:36:27,052 --> 00:36:30,900
uh, he went up and he borrowed a station wagon when the windows didn't

575
00:36:30,916 --> 00:36:34,345
work and it was 100 degrees, and we collected all these,

576
00:36:35,086 --> 00:36:38,666
uh, wine antiques of fruit presses and All kinds of stuff. They're out

577
00:36:39,595 --> 00:36:42,432
in the front of this building right now because I'm never going to move them

578
00:36:42,497 --> 00:36:46,023
again. I've been moving them for 40 years. And so,

579
00:36:46,327 --> 00:36:49,950
and so, but I thank him for putting me in this industry.

580
00:36:50,014 --> 00:36:53,765
So I have to, I had to kind of remember the, the camaraderie that we

581
00:36:53,765 --> 00:36:57,612
had doing it. But, um, yes, the industry's

582
00:36:57,612 --> 00:37:01,026
suffering right now, and I just— there's no

583
00:37:01,074 --> 00:37:04,808
answer to this, and you get a lot of pontification about what's going on.

584
00:37:06,043 --> 00:37:09,298
And so much of it takes me back to what you already said, which is

585
00:37:09,411 --> 00:37:13,035
this experiential part of wine is so important that you— that your

586
00:37:13,035 --> 00:37:16,515
cellar's full of memories that you can present to friends and

587
00:37:16,531 --> 00:37:20,044
family when you pour a glass of wine, and there's meaning behind each

588
00:37:20,156 --> 00:37:23,925
bottle. That's not necessarily the case when you walk into the supermarket and you

589
00:37:23,925 --> 00:37:27,774
see rows and rows of shelf talkers and Josh and Apothic Red and all the

590
00:37:27,774 --> 00:37:31,479
rest of these things that taste like sugar water, you know. So

591
00:37:31,705 --> 00:37:35,376
I guess that's the business side of things, but your side is

592
00:37:35,554 --> 00:37:38,597
really important. Our 3-legged stool here was

593
00:37:39,676 --> 00:37:43,432
bottle sales, membership sales, and gift sales. And in your

594
00:37:43,528 --> 00:37:46,527
case, it's on-premise, off-premise, and DTC.

595
00:37:47,656 --> 00:37:49,610
And you tried to balance that. Now, had you

596
00:37:51,858 --> 00:37:55,626
predicted COVID, you know, you would have put more time in the DTC before

597
00:37:55,658 --> 00:37:58,804
it, you know, before it started, and you would have, you know, maximized that value,

598
00:37:58,820 --> 00:38:02,100
and you would have realized that on-premise plummeted.

599
00:38:02,935 --> 00:38:06,417
And so how do you protect yourself from that? I don't know. You just— it's

600
00:38:06,786 --> 00:38:10,493
prognostication, I guess, as to what you want. But— Yeah, I think,

601
00:38:10,654 --> 00:38:14,425
look, it's impossible to reflect back on what I should— what we

602
00:38:14,425 --> 00:38:18,116
should have done, right? All I can say is that the day

603
00:38:18,758 --> 00:38:22,417
that the announcement came that we had to shut down our tasting room,

604
00:38:22,834 --> 00:38:26,445
right? Which was for us a significant piece of our business.

605
00:38:27,891 --> 00:38:31,441
I remember reading the notice that was brought to us, right? You must close your

606
00:38:31,441 --> 00:38:35,023
doors and the whole thing. What really

607
00:38:35,055 --> 00:38:38,814
struck me as brutal was, but

608
00:38:38,814 --> 00:38:42,203
you're allowed to keep your farming operation. So I was like, oh great, so

609
00:38:42,268 --> 00:38:45,914
half my company can still come to work, but the other half is immediately

610
00:38:45,914 --> 00:38:49,143
fired? And the half that wants to work here? How totally unfair!

611
00:38:49,834 --> 00:38:52,404
The first thing I did was I popped up out of this chair, I went

612
00:38:52,404 --> 00:38:56,079
straight back to the tasting room, and I said, Okay guys, this to the, to

613
00:38:56,079 --> 00:38:59,511
the tasting room team, right? Which is an entire culinary team. You can imagine

614
00:38:59,864 --> 00:39:03,712
it's everyone who takes care of the tasting, the hospitality area, the

615
00:39:03,712 --> 00:39:07,047
serving, the kitchen, the— and then of course the

616
00:39:07,079 --> 00:39:10,318
ambassadors themselves and the concierge team. And I said, all of you,

617
00:39:10,992 --> 00:39:13,990
we're going to work really hard to keep you employed. It's like, I don't know

618
00:39:14,055 --> 00:39:17,422
what happens next, but we're going to, we're going to do this. It can't be

619
00:39:17,422 --> 00:39:20,597
that I can keep the vineyard team here and I can keep the winery team,

620
00:39:20,629 --> 00:39:23,195
but I can't keep you here. So we're going to come up with a way

621
00:39:23,661 --> 00:39:27,447
right now to keep you all going. And that's what

622
00:39:27,447 --> 00:39:30,415
we did. I mean, we actually, we were lucky that,

623
00:39:31,233 --> 00:39:34,731
it sounds sort of archaic today. Here we are doing an interview on a Zoom

624
00:39:34,731 --> 00:39:37,891
call. We happened to be early adopters of, at the time, this

625
00:39:38,822 --> 00:39:42,512
video conferencing system because we have several

626
00:39:42,528 --> 00:39:46,121
other businesses. And so we were video conferencing with our other

627
00:39:46,121 --> 00:39:49,892
companies. And so we happened to have video conferencing systems in our offices. And

628
00:39:49,892 --> 00:39:53,099
immediately I said, all right, everybody, go home with the

629
00:39:53,179 --> 00:39:56,915
IP-based telephone and go home with a video conferencing camera.

630
00:39:57,187 --> 00:40:00,185
We're going to start doing virtual tastings. Wow.

631
00:40:01,516 --> 00:40:05,348
And we immediately did that. You know, we turned on overnight really

632
00:40:05,380 --> 00:40:09,147
enthusiastically and passionately. We did a WineStream,

633
00:40:09,372 --> 00:40:13,075
which we called it the WineStream, which was our little weekly wine show where

634
00:40:13,139 --> 00:40:16,747
we were, you know, sort of inviting our customers to come and

635
00:40:16,747 --> 00:40:20,129
join us and, you know, literally just put on a silly little talk show.

636
00:40:21,493 --> 00:40:25,026
and talk about and interview sommeliers who were suddenly

637
00:40:25,026 --> 00:40:28,849
closed down and like, hey, tell me about your experiences. We talked

638
00:40:29,026 --> 00:40:32,816
to climatologists to talk about weather. We just like, whatever strange

639
00:40:32,816 --> 00:40:35,948
subject we wanted to come up with, we would talk about it for an hour

640
00:40:35,948 --> 00:40:39,466
once a week. But then what we were also doing on the back end, which

641
00:40:39,466 --> 00:40:42,453
was what was very, for us, very meaningful, was to say, how can I keep

642
00:40:42,469 --> 00:40:46,147
my sales team running? And that was with, you know,

643
00:40:46,308 --> 00:40:50,124
intense virtual connections with our customers.

644
00:40:50,252 --> 00:40:53,858
It's like, you all have come to visit us previously in the past, you're stuck

645
00:40:53,858 --> 00:40:57,655
in your houses, hey, we can ship you wine. And so that's

646
00:40:57,655 --> 00:41:01,501
what we did. I mean, and I feel really lucky that while so many

647
00:41:01,533 --> 00:41:05,107
people were really suffering during COVID

648
00:41:05,443 --> 00:41:08,424
I was at least able to keep my hospitality

649
00:41:08,488 --> 00:41:12,173
team employed. That's great.

650
00:41:12,334 --> 00:41:15,621
And with something to do. Right? And, you know, to this day I still have

651
00:41:15,621 --> 00:41:18,284
customers come to me and say, thank you so much for what you did during

652
00:41:18,348 --> 00:41:22,054
COVID You were a bright spot. And it's like, okay, well,

653
00:41:22,134 --> 00:41:25,503
you know, seems a little tight to say that. That was pretty— A

654
00:41:25,663 --> 00:41:29,481
winery is a bright spot. But it turned out, you know—

655
00:41:29,481 --> 00:41:32,850
It was very resourceful. I mean, we did it too, but we were only

656
00:41:32,882 --> 00:41:36,283
DTC. So, I mean, that was, that was fun. We had a lot of fun

657
00:41:36,395 --> 00:41:39,780
doing it. And sales were up by, you know, 30%.

658
00:41:40,502 --> 00:41:44,257
You know, actually, I saw this, this in my— at

659
00:41:44,257 --> 00:41:48,076
least in my sales graph, the slippage from about

660
00:41:48,141 --> 00:41:51,687
2016 and heading into '19 was not—

661
00:41:52,297 --> 00:41:56,132
'19 was not a great year. And then COVID hit and it's like,

662
00:41:56,148 --> 00:41:59,310
wow, we could do no wrong. And then it started to tail off

663
00:41:59,598 --> 00:42:03,016
immediately. Literally the day after the lockdown was lifted,

664
00:42:03,610 --> 00:42:07,365
you know, we just— sales went back down to 2019 and before. So

665
00:42:09,699 --> 00:42:12,147
That part of the industry was suffering from different problems.

666
00:42:13,710 --> 00:42:17,136
But so you, I don't remember that they locked down the

667
00:42:17,524 --> 00:42:19,997
tasting rooms. And I remember somehow

668
00:42:20,870 --> 00:42:24,662
Newsom, once he started lockdown, that he released

669
00:42:24,759 --> 00:42:28,122
or relieved, I guess maybe that's what you're talking about, was the winery operations because

670
00:42:28,122 --> 00:42:31,827
of Plumpjack and all these other investments. And

671
00:42:31,843 --> 00:42:35,446
I thought, oh, 'cause I was getting ready to turn my retail store

672
00:42:35,657 --> 00:42:39,426
into like an Italian deli. And I called some purveyors I

673
00:42:39,426 --> 00:42:42,916
know here and I put pastas and stuff so I could keep the doors open,

674
00:42:43,125 --> 00:42:46,052
make it a market. And then I didn't need to because

675
00:42:47,210 --> 00:42:49,922
I thought they relieved some of those sanctions against the wineries.

676
00:42:52,037 --> 00:42:55,831
Months later. It felt like every single week of COVID we

677
00:42:55,831 --> 00:42:59,439
had a whole new existential shift because

678
00:42:59,954 --> 00:43:03,304
for good or bad, the California government was

679
00:43:03,497 --> 00:43:07,206
changing their mind on how to manage COVID every week, it felt like. So from

680
00:43:07,206 --> 00:43:10,583
one day we were shut down. So then,

681
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:14,595
you know, so then the next, the next week it was, okay, you can have

682
00:43:14,627 --> 00:43:17,195
these people here, but you can't have these people here, and they must be this

683
00:43:17,195 --> 00:43:20,983
many feet apart. And then later on it was, okay, fine, we'll let

684
00:43:21,031 --> 00:43:23,567
you do tastings, but you have to do the tastings outdoors. Well, they tell us

685
00:43:23,615 --> 00:43:26,890
that in the middle of winter when it's freezing cold outside. But yeah, well, thanks

686
00:43:26,890 --> 00:43:29,570
for nothing. Really super.

687
00:43:30,597 --> 00:43:34,369
So, you know, we were every single week having to reinvent how are

688
00:43:34,369 --> 00:43:37,850
we going to operate. But for me, the guiding

689
00:43:38,604 --> 00:43:42,197
force was, how do I keep my team employed? How do

690
00:43:43,272 --> 00:43:47,090
I keep them occupied and keep their lives as normal as

691
00:43:47,186 --> 00:43:50,603
possible in the midst of this crisis? Actually, yesterday I was playing with the

692
00:43:51,276 --> 00:43:55,094
in-house forehead thermometer that we used. Every employee

693
00:43:55,126 --> 00:43:58,687
walked into the building, we took their— Yes. Everybody was

694
00:43:58,687 --> 00:44:01,687
panicking, but it was fine.

695
00:44:03,244 --> 00:44:06,538
What is your then position today? I had this

696
00:44:06,538 --> 00:44:09,801
conversation with a large, not a large one, but a winery

697
00:44:11,022 --> 00:44:14,555
in the Stag's Leap District. And they're

698
00:44:14,571 --> 00:44:17,446
almost all entirely DTC and they are

699
00:44:17,608 --> 00:44:21,455
sort of a club and it's working right now. Yeah.

700
00:44:21,701 --> 00:44:24,315
Which is fascinating in the world of wine that something's working.

701
00:44:26,586 --> 00:44:30,261
But their tasting room manager was telling us her opinion of what was

702
00:44:30,310 --> 00:44:34,129
happening in the Valley. And that was, The rest, the hotels

703
00:44:34,225 --> 00:44:37,936
are running at 30% occupancy and they prefer, and they're leaving the

704
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,758
prices high. I mean, staying at the Yonfield Estate is

705
00:44:41,855 --> 00:44:45,646
like $1,000 a night, you know, for something because they

706
00:44:45,662 --> 00:44:49,388
were getting, their costs were lower having a skeleton crew at 30%, still

707
00:44:49,420 --> 00:44:53,067
getting full margin on the rooms. But you

708
00:44:53,195 --> 00:44:57,034
know, the pull-through impact of that is, you know, Violet Gurgich

709
00:44:57,034 --> 00:44:59,444
was telling me that, you know, their tasting room traffic is off 30%.

710
00:45:01,064 --> 00:45:04,542
So has that moved the needle? Has the movement—

711
00:45:05,312 --> 00:45:08,886
now, easy for me to say. Has the needle moved on

712
00:45:08,918 --> 00:45:12,750
that in the last, let's say, 12 months where tourism is

713
00:45:13,327 --> 00:45:16,853
swinging the other way, or is it still pretty depressed? You know,

714
00:45:17,334 --> 00:45:20,829
so I get— what I'm amazed to hear is

715
00:45:20,957 --> 00:45:24,516
that from all my colleagues in the industry, every single one has a very

716
00:45:24,612 --> 00:45:28,171
unique and very dramatic response to this question, which is making it—

717
00:45:28,171 --> 00:45:31,617
it's like feeding the narrative. Yeah.

718
00:45:31,810 --> 00:45:35,102
It's like the favorite question to be asked right now in the industry is, you

719
00:45:35,102 --> 00:45:37,584
know, how are you surviving? It makes it so much more dramatic.

720
00:45:39,562 --> 00:45:42,993
So I agree with you that there's a lot of people that are reporting huge

721
00:45:43,186 --> 00:45:47,019
slipping of their traffic, right? You also

722
00:45:47,036 --> 00:45:50,562
have a lot of reports of, you know, sort of these

723
00:45:50,594 --> 00:45:54,168
hospital, you know, are the hotels hurting us or helping us by not

724
00:45:54,281 --> 00:45:58,032
lowering their rates? Or are they— I don't wanna

725
00:45:58,081 --> 00:46:01,873
hold a big opinion on it. Like, I can't, I'm not informed enough on the

726
00:46:01,873 --> 00:46:05,568
Valley's issues, right, to be able to hold a big opinion on that. But I

727
00:46:05,568 --> 00:46:09,390
can tell you here, I've been really fortunate in which my net

728
00:46:09,583 --> 00:46:13,180
traffic isn't that different. So, yeah, we've been very

729
00:46:13,437 --> 00:46:16,666
fortunate that the net

730
00:46:16,666 --> 00:46:20,119
traffic hasn't slipped that much. Primarily, I

731
00:46:20,119 --> 00:46:23,877
think the main reason is that we've always been a very special

732
00:46:23,877 --> 00:46:27,474
place for people to come to. So, you know, While there's fewer people

733
00:46:27,506 --> 00:46:30,043
coming to the Valley, they're still coming to see us.

734
00:46:31,424 --> 00:46:35,214
We've taken tremendous lengths to make

735
00:46:35,214 --> 00:46:38,296
sure that the hospitality here has always been

736
00:46:38,987 --> 00:46:42,792
very special, very unique, very connected to individuals. You know, we don't do

737
00:46:43,386 --> 00:46:47,112
advertising or we don't do big marketing campaigns. What we make sure to

738
00:46:47,112 --> 00:46:50,676
do is personally, one-on-one, connect to each and every customer we have.

739
00:46:51,350 --> 00:46:55,146
So when they come to visit, it's almost like they, oh, we've got to

740
00:46:55,146 --> 00:46:58,684
go visit our friends down at Paul Masson. And

741
00:46:58,765 --> 00:47:02,347
we've been successful that way. It's an

742
00:47:02,347 --> 00:47:05,953
interesting thought. And we haven't even

743
00:47:05,986 --> 00:47:08,156
talked about your hospitality experience with your mother,

744
00:47:10,139 --> 00:47:13,498
but we're going back to that idea of the cellar and the story behind every

745
00:47:13,580 --> 00:47:17,429
bottle. And I can't tell you how many times I would buy

746
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,375
wine for client of mine who went to Italy and

747
00:47:21,375 --> 00:47:24,563
sat at the— in front of the Colosseum and had a glass of wine and

748
00:47:24,563 --> 00:47:28,250
wanted me to get that wine and would tell me that didn't taste the same

749
00:47:28,250 --> 00:47:30,726
once I got it, even though it was the same vintage in the same vineyard.

750
00:47:31,378 --> 00:47:34,311
And that's because the experience of it all changes,

751
00:47:35,875 --> 00:47:39,150
changes. It's just part of— Yeah. It's part of the wine thing. And so doing

752
00:47:39,150 --> 00:47:42,151
it that way is the right way to do it, to,

753
00:47:43,829 --> 00:47:47,485
to prolong the, the value of, of an honest glass of

754
00:47:47,485 --> 00:47:51,207
wine. And I think that, I think the consumers, and the point I'm getting to

755
00:47:51,207 --> 00:47:54,720
is there's so much chatter

756
00:47:54,720 --> 00:47:57,881
about AI and automatic buying

757
00:47:59,129 --> 00:48:02,798
and that this

758
00:48:03,007 --> 00:48:06,763
romantic side of wine isn't going to change. It hasn't changed in 6,000 years

759
00:48:06,796 --> 00:48:09,601
plus. Yeah. It's always going to be that way

760
00:48:10,487 --> 00:48:14,300
because that's what it means. And we can apply all the marketing techniques and

761
00:48:14,300 --> 00:48:18,083
we have Gen Zers creating their brands with the crown cap and special

762
00:48:18,083 --> 00:48:21,930
label. It's irrelevant when it comes down to the things that you're

763
00:48:21,930 --> 00:48:25,697
making. Well, and you know what? You have to remember there's,

764
00:48:25,938 --> 00:48:29,577
there's basic biology behind it, too. Your

765
00:48:29,721 --> 00:48:33,055
ability to smell and taste first and

766
00:48:33,151 --> 00:48:36,838
foremost goes to your emotion center. Then it is logically

767
00:48:36,838 --> 00:48:39,168
interpreted. So we feel what we

768
00:48:39,168 --> 00:48:42,913
taste before we think about it

769
00:48:42,962 --> 00:48:46,706
logically. It's not like color, where, you know,

770
00:48:46,835 --> 00:48:50,361
your eyes and even your sense of touch and your sense of hearing,

771
00:48:51,263 --> 00:48:55,110
for the most part, goes straight to logic. You can describe what you see and

772
00:48:55,142 --> 00:48:58,945
feel very well, but you can't necessarily

773
00:48:58,945 --> 00:49:02,773
describe what you smell and taste verbally. Interesting

774
00:49:02,773 --> 00:49:06,600
point. But you feel it first, right? Because it's first going to

775
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:09,843
your— it first goes to your amygdala. You know, but my—

776
00:49:10,389 --> 00:49:13,523
you can imagine my father being a scientist, like, we love to look at things

777
00:49:13,523 --> 00:49:16,752
in the basic science, like, distill it all down. Let's find the source of why,

778
00:49:17,540 --> 00:49:21,203
and then let's innovate from there. So with that understanding

779
00:49:21,396 --> 00:49:24,964
of saying that our sense of taste and connection is emotional

780
00:49:25,012 --> 00:49:28,772
first and foremost, you can see that history of the

781
00:49:28,772 --> 00:49:31,552
traditions of hospitality are rooted in

782
00:49:32,098 --> 00:49:34,941
framing that emotional connection,

783
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,833
right? And this isn't dishonest. You still have to make a great bottle of

784
00:49:39,929 --> 00:49:43,714
wine. You still have to deliver something that is, you know,

785
00:49:44,019 --> 00:49:47,740
as flawless as it gets, or as, you know, as authentic

786
00:49:47,965 --> 00:49:51,814
a blend as possible. But making sure that it is then delivered in

787
00:49:51,814 --> 00:49:55,583
a way that connects someone in a positive light, that's what we're

788
00:49:55,599 --> 00:49:59,400
doing, right? Mm-hmm. And it starts with everything we do, from making

789
00:49:59,432 --> 00:50:02,720
sure that the flowers don't have strange smells that are coming up out of the

790
00:50:02,720 --> 00:50:06,381
tasting room, Making sure that our ambassadors

791
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:08,809
are speaking to the

792
00:50:08,906 --> 00:50:12,659
wine without conferring a lot

793
00:50:12,659 --> 00:50:16,444
of bias. You don't want someone standing

794
00:50:16,444 --> 00:50:20,245
in front of you swirling a glass saying apricots

795
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:24,382
and melons or nectarines as they're sipping a glass of

796
00:50:24,479 --> 00:50:27,763
white wine in front of a customer, because that's the first thing that's like, oops,

797
00:50:28,216 --> 00:50:31,886
bias. Right? Bias kicks right in. You don't smell that. I didn't taste that. And

798
00:50:31,886 --> 00:50:35,548
they go, there must be something wrong with me. Yeah, exactly.

799
00:50:35,613 --> 00:50:39,386
It's really, that's really a bad strategy, right? But talking

800
00:50:39,435 --> 00:50:42,802
about, you know, what

801
00:50:42,802 --> 00:50:46,294
the context of how the wines are made or where they're

802
00:50:46,294 --> 00:50:49,636
made, or, you know, what's the philosophy around

803
00:50:50,391 --> 00:50:54,230
the occasion that this wine is blended for, that's, those are the

804
00:50:54,246 --> 00:50:57,779
discussions you want to have. Since you can really frame a customer's

805
00:50:57,812 --> 00:51:01,598
mind around a wine. It's,

806
00:51:01,759 --> 00:51:04,890
uh, it's hard to define the, that

807
00:51:06,536 --> 00:51:10,312
ethereal feeling. And it's funny, my wife smells much more than I

808
00:51:10,392 --> 00:51:14,184
do. I mean, I, my, my, my palate

809
00:51:14,184 --> 00:51:18,009
is really good at structure and the, you know, the balance and

810
00:51:18,652 --> 00:51:22,272
acid and fruit and things. It's lousy at fruit impressions.

811
00:51:23,807 --> 00:51:26,796
And even with the size of my nose, my wife still detects stuff that I

812
00:51:26,796 --> 00:51:30,361
don't detect. I'm the exact same way.

813
00:51:30,753 --> 00:51:33,034
I'm the first to confess I'm not a supertaster.

814
00:51:34,570 --> 00:51:37,801
You know, what I am is a very emotionally intuitive person though.

815
00:51:38,395 --> 00:51:42,012
So when I see someone coming up the stairs and they look,

816
00:51:42,543 --> 00:51:46,077
you know, haggard, dehydrated, you know, they just, they

817
00:51:46,174 --> 00:51:49,289
haven't been having a good day. I want to stop everything to make

818
00:51:49,289 --> 00:51:53,059
sure that we get them to a place

819
00:51:53,059 --> 00:51:55,738
where they can then be relaxed

820
00:51:56,668 --> 00:52:00,246
and really hear and enjoy themselves for an afternoon.

821
00:52:00,759 --> 00:52:04,593
Where is the winery? Our winery is down in

822
00:52:04,625 --> 00:52:08,475
Napa, in the Coombsville region. We're actually just about 10 minutes away from

823
00:52:08,475 --> 00:52:11,908
downtown, just up against the Vaca Range, which is that

824
00:52:11,908 --> 00:52:14,731
hillside as you're driving up and down the valley.

825
00:52:16,044 --> 00:52:19,632
Yep. The southeast side of Napa. Our winery is

826
00:52:19,729 --> 00:52:23,301
literally dug into the mountain of the Vaca Range. So

827
00:52:23,365 --> 00:52:27,110
we're just on the base of Mount George, and it's an underground

828
00:52:27,384 --> 00:52:28,765
wine cave system

829
00:52:30,902 --> 00:52:34,520
developed first. The big intention was so that we could be a gravity flow

830
00:52:34,536 --> 00:52:36,026
winery. My father

831
00:52:37,047 --> 00:52:40,287
had a deep

832
00:52:40,287 --> 00:52:42,150
passion for when we decided

833
00:52:42,150 --> 00:52:45,677
it's build a winery, he wanted to understand the basic science around

834
00:52:46,094 --> 00:52:49,686
wine structure and wine ageability. You know, what can we do as

835
00:52:49,798 --> 00:52:53,614
we're building a winery to really make sure that we're ensuring

836
00:52:53,711 --> 00:52:56,870
that we're not compromising, you know, we're maximizing the quality and not

837
00:52:56,934 --> 00:53:00,317
compromising the fruit that's coming in the door by making, you know,

838
00:53:00,606 --> 00:53:03,989
gross mistakes in how we make the wine. And at the

839
00:53:03,989 --> 00:53:07,629
time, there was a lot of understanding of how

840
00:53:07,854 --> 00:53:11,466
tannins were getting beaten up and bruised and

841
00:53:11,594 --> 00:53:15,049
air, you know, wines being inadvertently aerated early in their

842
00:53:15,049 --> 00:53:18,841
development because they would be pumped from location to

843
00:53:18,841 --> 00:53:21,894
location in a vertical above-ground winery.

844
00:53:22,939 --> 00:53:26,779
So, you know, he sort of took the stance that, well,

845
00:53:26,795 --> 00:53:30,169
we've got an entire mountainside that we've got up against, let's use it to our

846
00:53:30,169 --> 00:53:33,672
advantage and let's place the entire operation inside the cave.

847
00:53:34,106 --> 00:53:37,686
Wow, how interesting. Honestly,

848
00:53:37,782 --> 00:53:41,568
hospitality was the last thing we thought about. We didn't

849
00:53:41,568 --> 00:53:45,242
even, you know, DTC wasn't a big deal in the

850
00:53:45,258 --> 00:53:48,692
1990s. Yeah, there were some customers coming to visit wineries, but it was an

851
00:53:48,692 --> 00:53:52,446
afterthought. And for us, the wine, the tasting

852
00:53:52,478 --> 00:53:56,008
room, and all of that was an afterthought that we sort of said, oh,

853
00:53:57,035 --> 00:54:00,356
maybe someone's gonna wanna come and visit us. Okay, we'll put one, we'll put like

854
00:54:00,420 --> 00:54:04,266
one little dining room. tasting room set aside that someone could come and

855
00:54:04,266 --> 00:54:08,080
taste in. And, you know, that of course, that it became

856
00:54:08,176 --> 00:54:11,525
this activity that is really central to our

857
00:54:11,541 --> 00:54:14,569
experience. And a lot of our customers, of course, want to come because

858
00:54:15,242 --> 00:54:18,494
we never realized it was going to become such an oddity that everyone was going

859
00:54:18,527 --> 00:54:21,555
to want to come and see this crazy thing. So—

860
00:54:22,292 --> 00:54:24,840
Well, you know, they found that

861
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:28,317
6,000-year-old winery in Armenia. It's

862
00:54:28,365 --> 00:54:31,848
gravity flow. How about that? Confirmation.

863
00:54:31,976 --> 00:54:35,492
Yes. Fly out there and take a look. It's been an honor having you on

864
00:54:35,525 --> 00:54:39,298
the show. We're already at an hour and that's 15 minutes longer than we

865
00:54:39,298 --> 00:54:42,911
were supposed to go. And I hope we have a chance to tilt a glass

866
00:54:42,911 --> 00:54:46,748
together next time we're up. Absolutely. Please. It would be an

867
00:54:46,748 --> 00:54:50,489
honor. Come and visit. We'd love to. Love to sit and I want to, I'd

868
00:54:50,602 --> 00:54:54,359
love to hear all your stories. Thank you. We're going to be— Learn all about

869
00:54:54,359 --> 00:54:57,621
it. We're supposed to be up in September, but that wasn't going to work. But

870
00:54:57,621 --> 00:55:01,140
I'm trying to— my daughter was displaced by the

871
00:55:01,140 --> 00:55:04,970
fires here in Southern California. She didn't lose her house, but it's uninhabitable

872
00:55:05,018 --> 00:55:08,599
still. And so they've been living with us with the 3 grandkids.

873
00:55:09,925 --> 00:55:13,656
Nice. Yes, it has been very nice. Once I put my head in the

874
00:55:13,656 --> 00:55:14,245
right spot.

875
00:55:17,700 --> 00:55:21,462
Hey, we all live on the farm together. So I say nice because it can

876
00:55:21,462 --> 00:55:25,282
be an incredible experience. So I'm A

877
00:55:25,458 --> 00:55:28,977
silver lining. We'll bring them all up. Would love to have them, have you all

878
00:55:28,977 --> 00:55:32,591
come, and, and, uh, we would, you know, be—

879
00:55:32,672 --> 00:55:36,270
you'd be lovely. We'll look forward to it. Awesome. Cheers.

880
00:55:37,250 --> 00:55:37,556
Cheers.