Why Most Master Sommeliers Are Still Broke: Doug Frost Exposes Industry Secrets

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nobody in their right mind should ever presume they're going to get rich in the

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wine business because certainly, yeah, certainly as I told my business

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partner in the winery, it's like the only way you make a small fortune in

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the wine business is by beginning with a large one. You know, you know, you

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know the saying. And, and so you do it because you love it.

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

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Paul Kaye. Hey,

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

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Southern California, about to have a conversation with Doug Frost. subject

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introductions, easy for you to say, in just a moment. Hey, have a

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listen to Daniel Isis. Actually, it's Isis— actually, it's

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backwards. Isis Daniel. And so she comments on having a name like

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Isis through her adolescence, but Isis Daniel, she is

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the Millennial Somm. She's on her way to Paris to study for the

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WSET diploma accolade. And she is

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fascinating conversation, particularly when it comes to the subjects of

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women in wine and BIPOC or people of color in our industry, which is

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a big subject. So have a listen to that. But not why we're here today.

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We are here to have a conversation with, I don't know,

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one of 4 people in the country, Doug. Actually, you

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know, what's kind of sad is there were 4 of us, but

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the person who passed after

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me, in other words, the 3rd person, a

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wonderful guy named Gerard Bassay, he passed away a few years ago. So

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now there's just 3 of us in the world. one guy in Florida, me in

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Kansas City, you know where that happens, and then one guy in Hungary, for God's

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sakes. And I'm referring to, for the listeners,

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people that have a Master of Wine, which is an extraordinarily

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difficult credential or diploma out of London, and a

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Master Sommelier, which is from the Court of Sommeliers. This

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is, these are 2 of the highest accolades in our industry,

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and to have both, It's kind of nuts, really. So

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what, which one did you get first? Well,

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I finished the MS first, but I actually was taking them both at the

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same time, which was not the plan. I didn't have a plan, you know?

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I mean, of course, yeah, I live in Kansas City. I didn't have a plan.

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I was like, ooh, this is cool. We're drinking and reading my 2 favorite things,

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you know? And so I basically took them both at the same time.

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I finished the MS in '91,

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and I finished the MW in '93. So you said

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something interesting just then. You said around Kansas City, you know, it's not exactly the

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hotbed of wine in the country, but, you know, it's probably growing now,

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but, you know, it's about barbecues there. And were you an

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academic kid? Yeah, I think I was, even though I

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didn't do anything other than get a bachelor's. But yeah,

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I always really, really dug academia, so it was

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easy for me and fun for me to stick my head in a book. I

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remember when I was done with both of the programs, I still couldn't stop

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studying. It was like, no, this is, you know, this is manna to me. This

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is what I like. So yeah, yeah, I think I was,

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you know, a geek, always a geeky kid. Because, you know, my mother would be—

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my mother passed away a few years ago, but she would be completely

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flabbergasted that I have my head in a book

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these days and that I now am pursuing knowledge of this

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industry and parts of it. But it's more of a curiosity

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around the historical aspects of the

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different regions to understand, you know,

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why we're here at the day we are with the wines that are there. And

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it's just sort of an interesting thing. So it's really like history. And

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is that certainly raises the appreciation of what you have in the

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glass, is it not? Oh, absolutely. I think for me,

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I certainly have always enjoyed and must admit that

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I got into the MS and the MW programs because I wanted to

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teach more and I wanted to write more. And in, in teaching

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or writing, either one, you know, the whole idea is give somebody

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context. So it's not, this exists, therefore it's great. You know,

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that, that's of no use to anybody. Right. It's, this exists because of

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these other things. And if you like this, maybe these other things will, will

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intrigue you as well. You know, it's creating context helps us understand

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why things are the way they are and maybe, maybe figure out where they're gonna

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go next. That's, uh, we're gonna talk about that because

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I'm not sure we, that one's a tougher one, but

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You know, the Master Sommelier, since it was 1991, and I had Emmanuel

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Camigie in here, he's a really good friend of mine. Yeah. Man

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is great. I think he passed it in '96, but one of the

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comments he made a couple of times was, you know,

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there was less to learn then. And we, you know, South

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America was sort of happening and there's, it wasn't, you know,

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certainly had to learn Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Spain and Roberto Duero,

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et cetera. But has it changed for you?

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Have you seen this radical change in the volume of information needed

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to do this? Yeah, absolutely. There's no question about that. Manny's

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right. And, you know, the breadth of information that you're

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supposed to have command of now is far greater,

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really. On the other hand, I would certainly say

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that because there's such breadth, Now

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that the depth of knowledge that you had to have about the classic

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regions was, you know, it was

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unforgivable if you didn't have that. Whereas today,

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okay, maybe you don't have every single Premier Cru off the top

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of your head, you're probably gonna get through the exam anyway if you know most

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of them or can recognize them. But on the other hand, if you have zero

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information about Australia or whatever,

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then, then you're probably going to be in trouble. I still remember, I have to

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say, you know, that the Master Sommelier exam, it's a, it's a verbal

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exam. And, you know, my final, uh, exam, I'm, I'm going

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through the questions and you, you're not really counting the questions off, but you can

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kind of tell when you're getting near the end of the questions. And I remember

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thinking, we haven't even gotten to a question about Australia yet. Wow. And,

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uh, you know, I thought that was really weird because I'd studied my ass off

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on Australia, right? You know, and so I can tell it's one of the last

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questions when the question is name one

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winery in 3 different states in Australia.

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And I looked at the examiners because I thought I was

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about to say, yeah, I got it. You know, this is all you're going to

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ask me? FU in the state of FU, FU in the state of FU.

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You know, I was like, are you kidding me? This is it? And that

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was it. That was the only Australian. That was the only question. I was ready

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for soil types. I was ready for, you know, clones. I was

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ready for everything. But that's the nature of the MS, uh, uh, question

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is it's very randomized and you don't really know what's coming at you. And some

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of the questions are going to kick your butt. And some of the questions are

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going to be like, you got to be kidding me. Seriously? That's all you want?

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So that's the way it works. Your fellow Master SoMs would be very disappointed in

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that since they now have embarked on, uh, you know, a,

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an Australian import business. I made a note to talk about that. in a minute

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because it's so different than it was when I was, when things were around.

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Yeah. In fact, the question I asked them, I said, would it surprise you if

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I told you in 1998 or something around there, maybe a

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little earlier, that I split a full container,

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40-foot container of wine with Trader Joe's, and it

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was 375s of a late harvest Sémillon from Penfolds? Would that surprise you?

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They're like, yeah, hell yeah, that would surprise us. Who does that? But, you

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know, both of us sold it all. But anyway, so the Master Sommelier, and I

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remember at least the conversations I've had with Manny and a couple

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others, the Master Sommelier is a little

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larger net when it comes to beverages, service,

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hospitality, and the rest of what we do in this

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industry. Is that accurate? Yeah, I think so. I often

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kind of joke with people that when they're trying to figure out what's the difference

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between the Master Sommelier and the Master of Wine? I'm like, well,

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you know, the Master Sommelier is a billion miles wide,

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but only about 5 inches deep. And the Master of Wine is really,

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you know, not that wide, but a billion miles deep. So you

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really have to know more about each of the subjects in the MW.

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But I certainly remember a friend of mine who passed the MW the

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same time I did, Pieter Koff, a South African Master

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of Wine who said, Doug, I am now a Master of Wine? That's right. And

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I don't know the single vineyard names

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of Valtellina Superiore, and I

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don't give a damn if I ever know them. It's like, yeah, you're right. You

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know, you couldn't pass the MS without that stuff, but the MW, you don't have,

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you don't need to know that, but you do need to know, you know, vine

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diseases and how you're supposed to treat them and, you know, yada, yada, yada.

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He's a very good friend. Peter's great people. He's very good friend, but

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he'll also tell you, that he was

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sort of walked into it. You know, they, he says, I don't think

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I even took the test because I just, because I was a South African

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expert and I had earned that credential down there that, and I think it

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was 1991 or '93, right? You said, you said, yeah. Yeah. He passed in '93

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with me. Yeah. Yeah. He sort of sounded like,

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I'm not even sure, you know, what happened, but it did sound like that's the

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case. He was, he was well prepared, but he was a Cape

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Master, which is a different program, not to the same

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degree of the MW, but it's an exacting

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program. So he had gone through that and, and, you know, we

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both had to— it took both of us a couple of tries to get through

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there. So, you know, it's like, you know, it's interesting. He's been

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doing— he used to— he had Ferris Cable, you know, wholesale house. And yes,

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we did a lot of business together in the early days. I don't think he's

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doing much of it now, but, and he actually ended

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up getting Italian wines. I think one of the wines he was going to buy

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was a Montalcino, a Montepulciano. Anyway,

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he now is doing some video series with Pat Farrell. Oh,

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really? Cool. And an Asian group. And so I look, I

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see them, they sit around a room outside and they taste wine and they talk

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about it. And But I can't read the post

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because they're all in Chinese.

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That's, that's rough. Yeah. He,

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he always asked, he was always leaning on me, so to speak, to help him

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understand the DTC world, which I don't, I never understood it. It was

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35 years worth. So he was

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trying to leverage away, and I think, I think this Chinese group that he

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hooked up with, has helped that regard for him.

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But I don't think he's bringing— I don't think he's wholesaling much anymore.

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I honestly don't know. And I haven't seen Peter in a good

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year and a half or so, and I haven't seen Pat Farrell in probably,

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you know, pre-pandemic, the good doctor, you know,

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Farrell. Yeah, it's disappointing because we

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don't get together the way we used to back in the early days. All the

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MWs would get together once a year for The,

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basically what are called the seminars, the residential seminars. And we'd see

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everybody and we'd party like lords and have a great time and teach. And

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that just doesn't happen anymore. He and I were doing

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business together. We were attempting to, he actually had a

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product that I thought was really effective. It was called the Bev

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Wizard. Did you remember this? Oh, I remember the Bev Wizard. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

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Opposing magnets in this spout. And it,

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it worked as long as there was tannic acid or at least acid from

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barrel fermentation or whatever barrels are providing.

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It would smooth it out. And I took this thing to the local bar

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here and it was, they poured

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Barton's, you know, crap scotch, this place. Yeah.

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And I blinded all 3 bartenders with

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a a pour through the spout and one without it. And hands

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down, through the spout was smoother and easier. You actually

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turned a well whiskey into something palatable.

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And then I took it down to Laguna

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Beach because my wife's uncle was the inventor of the spoon

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straw and the Flexi Straw. Sure. Yeah. He's passed since, but he was an

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MIT master's in mechanical engineering. Brilliant guy.

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And I said, I've got this product. And I was trying to work with Patrick

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on marketing it and buying into it. I wanted to buy into it.

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And I'll tell you why it didn't happen. But so I go down to Laguna

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Beach and I take Art and we're sitting at the bar and I, there's a

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patron across the way. I go, hey, you want to taste some Jack Daniel's? They're

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like, yeah, sure. I go, come over. I did that 4 times in

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4 different bars. Every one of them chose what it was poured through

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Patrick's product. over the stock.

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And Patrick said, I can't tell you why it does this.

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He says it would cost me $100 grand to get it tested, so I don't

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bother. And the reason I didn't buy into

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it is because the patent wasn't around the

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process. It was around the device itself, which

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was really ugly. Yeah. And it came out about when the

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Venturi came out and the Venturi's a sleek, Glossy box. Yeah.

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It's very fancy looking. Yeah. It looks like a Lucite. Anyway.

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Yeah. So let's move to the Master of Wine. More

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academic, London-based. I don't, I forgot how old it is. I know

220
00:13:36,097 --> 00:13:39,628
Michael Broadbent, my good friend Bartholomew, his father was one. Yes.

221
00:13:39,708 --> 00:13:43,367
Yeah. What motivated that simultaneous with

222
00:13:43,399 --> 00:13:47,170
the Master Sommelier? The truth is, is I didn't even know what the Master

223
00:13:47,170 --> 00:13:50,973
Sommelier exam was when I was involved in the MW. And then I,

224
00:13:51,262 --> 00:13:54,693
Then I became the, the, uh, general sales manager for a statewide

225
00:13:54,709 --> 00:13:58,430
company, wholesale company in, in Missouri, and walked

226
00:13:58,462 --> 00:14:02,150
away from the MW. And then it disappeared from the US, and then it came

227
00:14:02,166 --> 00:14:05,871
back. And, and so Joel Butler and, um, Tim Hanai

228
00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:09,623
passed, and, you know, that shows up in The Spectator. I'm like, hey, I got

229
00:14:09,623 --> 00:14:13,472
my job, you know, back, uh, under control. I, I'm, I'm gonna

230
00:14:13,472 --> 00:14:16,775
do this again. So I reach out, I, I, uh, take the first

231
00:14:16,984 --> 00:14:20,607
exam. And it's actually a funny story

232
00:14:20,607 --> 00:14:24,406
because it was in the tasting exam was in San Francisco, and all

233
00:14:24,518 --> 00:14:27,323
I had to do was write this essay and they said, yeah, okay,

234
00:14:27,980 --> 00:14:31,570
you're allowed into the program. You're now going to come to San

235
00:14:31,570 --> 00:14:34,969
Francisco for a tasting exam. And I thought, I just wrote this essay.

236
00:14:35,337 --> 00:14:38,783
Can't, what are there's going to be a couple hundred people taking this tasting exam,

237
00:14:38,864 --> 00:14:42,614
right? So I go to this hotel where the tasting exam is,

238
00:14:42,727 --> 00:14:46,319
and I'm looking for a big ballroom where everybody's at. I can't find it.

239
00:14:46,818 --> 00:14:50,193
And then I find this little tiny, you know, conference room and I

240
00:14:50,659 --> 00:14:53,649
look at it and there's a waiter standing there. I said, is this where the

241
00:14:53,649 --> 00:14:57,473
Master of Wine tasting exam is? And he said, yeah, the wines are right

242
00:14:57,473 --> 00:14:59,104
under that table if you want to look at them.

243
00:15:01,635 --> 00:15:05,245
And what I can tell you is we have proof that I did

244
00:15:05,245 --> 00:15:08,743
not look. Those are the results of my exams. That's really

245
00:15:08,743 --> 00:15:12,482
funny. But I did not look. What an honorable guy.

246
00:15:12,901 --> 00:15:16,348
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, so, so I take that

247
00:15:16,348 --> 00:15:20,102
exam, I blow the tasting exam, and they say, well,

248
00:15:20,118 --> 00:15:23,568
we're going to start this thing called the residential seminar in 6 months. You should

249
00:15:23,568 --> 00:15:27,242
come out to California and you can do that. And then if you

250
00:15:27,258 --> 00:15:30,884
pass that, then you can take the final exam. And so I

251
00:15:30,884 --> 00:15:33,708
planned to do that. And then out of the clear blue, like a month later,

252
00:15:33,756 --> 00:15:37,527
a friend of mine says, hey, come up to Chicago. You can take this Master

253
00:15:37,527 --> 00:15:40,800
Sommelier exam. I'm like, what's that? You know? And he's like, well, it's in 2

254
00:15:40,832 --> 00:15:44,506
weeks. And it wasn't the Master Sommelier exam, it was the advanced exam. Yeah.

255
00:15:44,602 --> 00:15:47,872
And I said, well, that sounds like a good warmup. You know, I had no

256
00:15:47,888 --> 00:15:51,655
idea what I was in. That's so funny. I passed, but I'm

257
00:15:51,655 --> 00:15:54,684
sure I passed by the skin of my teeth. And at that point they were

258
00:15:54,684 --> 00:15:58,355
like, hey dude, you should take the master's in 6 months. I'm like, I, I

259
00:15:58,451 --> 00:16:02,121
just discovered this goddamn thing. I, I don't know what I'm doing. That is

260
00:16:02,218 --> 00:16:05,568
hilarious. No, you're actually better, you know, better off than you think you are. Come

261
00:16:05,664 --> 00:16:09,126
along. And, and, and, and so I just sort of fell into both of 'em,

262
00:16:09,527 --> 00:16:13,301
but I really felt like with the Master Sommelier, The same with the MW, but

263
00:16:13,301 --> 00:16:16,205
the, the MS, I kind of looked around the room and went, these are my

264
00:16:16,205 --> 00:16:20,044
people. I've been in the restaurant business since I was 14 years old washing dishes.

265
00:16:20,093 --> 00:16:23,479
Yeah. These are my people. I want to be part of this group. That's

266
00:16:23,479 --> 00:16:26,865
fascinating. Yeah, it was weird. That's really fascinating.

267
00:16:27,460 --> 00:16:31,228
And, and that, you know, they just showed up and then now

268
00:16:31,374 --> 00:16:34,867
had you, had you looked at the bottles and you answered the question in San

269
00:16:34,867 --> 00:16:38,107
Francisco and you said, yeah, this is a Cabernet. It's from, uh,

270
00:16:38,578 --> 00:16:42,229
it's from Oak Knoll. It's a 2000 and whatever vintage was going on

271
00:16:42,326 --> 00:16:45,889
then. It's, it's gonna be exported by this brand. It's got this much

272
00:16:45,889 --> 00:16:48,915
alcohol. And then you read off everything that's on the back label that it probably

273
00:16:49,044 --> 00:16:52,744
would've— Would've been a disaster the next

274
00:16:52,857 --> 00:16:56,331
go-round. Yeah. That's a little of a problem there. So I don't, do I see

275
00:16:56,331 --> 00:16:58,643
the diploma, WSET diploma on your

276
00:16:58,676 --> 00:17:02,475
horizon? No, no. I, I, you know,

277
00:17:02,637 --> 00:17:06,282
the, the WSET used to be a requisite for the MW. Yeah.

278
00:17:06,410 --> 00:17:10,049
Well, it actually still is. I'd have to say most everybody who does the MW

279
00:17:10,049 --> 00:17:13,816
has to do WSET first. So it, and I really

280
00:17:13,816 --> 00:17:17,183
do tell people that it's like, dude, if you're going to try to carve out

281
00:17:17,183 --> 00:17:20,758
the MW, you better do WSET first. It's a fantastic way to get ready.

282
00:17:21,751 --> 00:17:24,268
Let's go, let's go to the motivation of all this. Besides, you know, you didn't

283
00:17:24,300 --> 00:17:27,955
know, you sort of, sort of serendipitous approach to the

284
00:17:28,164 --> 00:17:31,947
SOM test, but the Master of Wine was thought through. But, you know, back

285
00:17:32,011 --> 00:17:35,826
in those days you got a Master of SOM, you had a 6-digit job in

286
00:17:35,939 --> 00:17:39,410
Vegas, you know, curating some giant restaurants list.

287
00:17:40,021 --> 00:17:42,549
Um, was this

288
00:17:43,724 --> 00:17:47,346
academic? Was it career boosting for you to try? Is that what you're

289
00:17:47,427 --> 00:17:51,164
looking for? Was it a lifestyle that maybe you thought you're gonna acquire

290
00:17:51,228 --> 00:17:55,078
by getting these degrees? I mean, what— it's not just— you

291
00:17:55,078 --> 00:17:57,702
don't just take tests like that for fun. I mean, come on. Yeah, no, I

292
00:17:57,750 --> 00:18:01,338
hear you. It was early days though, and I was the second

293
00:18:01,370 --> 00:18:05,108
person. Ron Wiegand, um, finished before me,

294
00:18:05,172 --> 00:18:08,657
2 years before me. So I was the second person to get both.

295
00:18:09,268 --> 00:18:13,010
And honestly, nobody even knew what they were then. You know, it was

296
00:18:13,010 --> 00:18:16,656
still pretty early days. So I half-jokingly tell

297
00:18:16,672 --> 00:18:19,161
people when they say, oh, did you get a lot of job offers? I'm like,

298
00:18:19,547 --> 00:18:23,225
actually, I had one job offer that was on the table when I finished the

299
00:18:23,321 --> 00:18:26,983
MW and I'd already finished the MS. And that guy literally said, I

300
00:18:27,095 --> 00:18:30,836
hope you don't think that now you're an MW, we're going to boost the offer.

301
00:18:30,884 --> 00:18:34,492
The offer stands as it is. And I was like, wow, they're good. No,

302
00:18:34,733 --> 00:18:38,550
then I'm staying where I'm at. No, I, it really was,

303
00:18:39,368 --> 00:18:43,201
I had hope and it did allow me to do a lot

304
00:18:43,297 --> 00:18:46,809
more writing. And that was really the goal. I literally was being

305
00:18:46,905 --> 00:18:50,690
treated by, in general, I was being treated by the,

306
00:18:51,636 --> 00:18:55,341
you know, sort of the world of wine publications as, who the hell are you?

307
00:18:55,726 --> 00:18:59,483
You live where? Yeah. And, and once I got MSMW, you know, all

308
00:18:59,531 --> 00:19:02,164
of a sudden it was like, oh, we'd love you to write an article for

309
00:19:02,164 --> 00:19:05,038
us. And, and that was the, that was the goal. And then of course, you

310
00:19:05,038 --> 00:19:08,699
know, one thing led to another and, and I, I went out on my

311
00:19:09,373 --> 00:19:13,210
own within a few years. But the truth of that is, is

312
00:19:13,322 --> 00:19:17,015
that I, most of my, not most, but I would say at least half my

313
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:20,820
income going back 25, 30 years ago when I finished both the

314
00:19:21,045 --> 00:19:23,963
exams, has been derived from spirits and cocktails.

315
00:19:24,781 --> 00:19:28,371
From that whole world, there's more money there really. And

316
00:19:28,547 --> 00:19:31,881
I've been involved in that world since I was a kid as well.

317
00:19:32,025 --> 00:19:35,808
So the wine side of things certainly paid some of

318
00:19:35,808 --> 00:19:39,382
the bills, but I was able to go off on my own, I would say

319
00:19:39,542 --> 00:19:43,068
more primarily due to being able to do

320
00:19:43,068 --> 00:19:46,290
teaching and create educational programs for distillers and

321
00:19:47,075 --> 00:19:50,569
wholesalers who wanted people to learn about spirits and cocktails as much.

322
00:19:51,259 --> 00:19:54,420
Seems to be the sign of the times. I mean, wine sales are slumping.

323
00:19:55,159 --> 00:19:58,031
There's, you know, they're pulling vines out all over the world because there's not enough

324
00:19:58,128 --> 00:20:01,963
buyers. You know, we'll talk about the generation gap when it comes

325
00:20:01,995 --> 00:20:05,735
to wine and appreciation. But on the spirit

326
00:20:05,751 --> 00:20:09,522
side, you know, I just, you were talking about hospitality. It

327
00:20:09,522 --> 00:20:12,652
sounded like you were in the restaurant business most of your career. Yeah. Yeah. One

328
00:20:12,652 --> 00:20:16,439
of the great restaurants in Pasadena, California here was the

329
00:20:16,439 --> 00:20:20,288
Raymond. And we had dinner with the owners a few weeks ago, a few months

330
00:20:20,288 --> 00:20:23,960
ago, and she's like, yeah, we're selling and we're going to, we're going to work

331
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:27,503
our RTD cocktails. And so they got out of the

332
00:20:27,503 --> 00:20:31,351
hospitality, that daily grind. And she's, you know, I don't know if she— I'm not

333
00:20:31,351 --> 00:20:35,199
sure she does have a daily grind now because that industry is, you know,

334
00:20:35,263 --> 00:20:38,951
pretty slammed. But what is it? What is that movement about? Do you know?

335
00:20:39,833 --> 00:20:42,286
Well, I think that there is just an inevitable

336
00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:47,066
evolution to, to how people view what's cool and

337
00:20:47,066 --> 00:20:50,807
what's not. And so, you know, there's no question that boomers

338
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,211
really adopted wine. And so

339
00:20:55,335 --> 00:20:59,092
in my view, there's no question that Gen Xers were like, hey, if you

340
00:20:59,092 --> 00:21:02,721
think wine is cool, then I can't. And so they kind of let it

341
00:21:02,785 --> 00:21:06,607
go by. And then we saw millennials sort of come back to

342
00:21:06,719 --> 00:21:09,995
it. But I think that what has

343
00:21:10,091 --> 00:21:13,769
happened is that we had a good 25-year run

344
00:21:14,202 --> 00:21:17,832
when wine either increased in volume or it

345
00:21:17,832 --> 00:21:21,574
certainly increased in value. That's to say people were willing to spend more and

346
00:21:21,574 --> 00:21:24,802
more money. And that's over. I think

347
00:21:25,027 --> 00:21:28,866
that the day that began its inevitable, you

348
00:21:28,898 --> 00:21:31,933
know, in my view, decline was the, you know,

349
00:21:31,949 --> 00:21:35,643
2008, the Great Recession started to

350
00:21:35,643 --> 00:21:39,418
really challenge people as to how much money are you willing to pay for a

351
00:21:39,418 --> 00:21:42,934
glass of wine? Mm-hmm. When you can buy a world-class beer for

352
00:21:43,271 --> 00:21:46,963
less money than a glass of decent wine, that you can

353
00:21:46,963 --> 00:21:50,270
buy a really great cocktail anywhere, you know, and

354
00:21:50,270 --> 00:21:53,561
you'll pay about the same as you do for a

355
00:21:53,561 --> 00:21:57,285
moderately priced glass of wine. And now we have new beverages.

356
00:21:57,397 --> 00:22:00,961
Now we have a whole, certainly a whole movement among Gen

357
00:22:01,089 --> 00:22:04,428
Zers of not drinking at all, of doing cannabis

358
00:22:04,541 --> 00:22:07,719
instead of alcohol. There's just so many other choices.

359
00:22:08,232 --> 00:22:11,807
That I think it was inevitable that at some point things

360
00:22:11,839 --> 00:22:15,542
started going the other way. But I feel like as an old

361
00:22:15,606 --> 00:22:19,149
person, you know, I feel like, yeah, everything's cyclical. It's

362
00:22:19,197 --> 00:22:23,028
okay. I, you know, I started a winery in 2017, one,

363
00:22:23,140 --> 00:22:26,154
because I'm stupid, you know, but— Well, we're going to get to that part too.

364
00:22:26,250 --> 00:22:28,879
Yeah, exactly. Because I'm incredibly stupid.

365
00:22:29,312 --> 00:22:33,015
But 2, because I really do think that

366
00:22:33,399 --> 00:22:37,102
there's always going to be room for good wine. And that's what moved me

367
00:22:37,311 --> 00:22:41,129
anyway. I wanted to participate in that. I've, I've participated in

368
00:22:41,885 --> 00:22:45,323
some winemaking projects in the past, but to have really

369
00:22:45,532 --> 00:22:49,180
complete control was a brand new thing for me. And

370
00:22:49,774 --> 00:22:53,438
to be able to do it in a fashion after what I wanted to

371
00:22:53,454 --> 00:22:57,294
do, that would be really cool. I have participated in

372
00:22:57,471 --> 00:23:01,183
distillation projects as well, but it doesn't sing to me the

373
00:23:01,183 --> 00:23:04,847
same way that wine does. I felt like a

374
00:23:04,879 --> 00:23:08,673
really Really get to do something that, if

375
00:23:08,689 --> 00:23:12,376
not moves me, you know, that's maybe a little strong, but it's really not

376
00:23:12,425 --> 00:23:16,264
strong. It feels right. I feel like I'm getting to do

377
00:23:16,264 --> 00:23:19,120
something. And now if we can, you know, if we can figure out how to

378
00:23:19,120 --> 00:23:22,725
steward the land appropriately, and that's really the

379
00:23:23,597 --> 00:23:27,116
struggle now, we own about 400 acres, is how are we

380
00:23:27,116 --> 00:23:30,928
stewarding this land? I feel like that's a good thing to

381
00:23:30,928 --> 00:23:34,179
do as well. And if I was just sitting in a, you know, distill—

382
00:23:34,596 --> 00:23:38,307
little distillation operation somewhere in downtown Kansas City, I don't

383
00:23:38,307 --> 00:23:42,081
think it would move me the same way. There's, that's a,

384
00:23:42,242 --> 00:23:45,117
that's a volume of what you just said. And it's so important. I mean, you

385
00:23:45,390 --> 00:23:49,133
touching on the stewardess, how much, how much under vine is this? We

386
00:23:49,133 --> 00:23:52,923
only have about 27 acres under vine. So there,

387
00:23:53,068 --> 00:23:56,602
I have this romantic notion about wine and I, and I didn't

388
00:23:56,762 --> 00:24:00,550
walk into the wine business with this romance. I walked

389
00:24:00,550 --> 00:24:03,240
into it because it was a business. It was my father's business.

390
00:24:04,030 --> 00:24:07,730
Yeah. The South African Wine of the Month Club in 1988 tendered

391
00:24:07,730 --> 00:24:11,490
an unsolicited offer and I was at corporate America and he says, you know, if

392
00:24:11,490 --> 00:24:15,090
you want this thing or you want to participate and you can't see

393
00:24:15,090 --> 00:24:18,870
behind me, but there's a picture. Let's see,

394
00:24:18,870 --> 00:24:22,670
where's my finger? There it is. 1975. This is, you can see

395
00:24:22,670 --> 00:24:26,510
me with my father. Oh, no way. That's you. Yeah. So

396
00:24:26,510 --> 00:24:29,979
we're standing at the first Wine of the Month Club display in a wine shop

397
00:24:29,979 --> 00:24:33,495
in Palos Verdes. But I don't, you know, I wasn't

398
00:24:33,495 --> 00:24:37,269
passionate for it, but I had this romantic notion with wine that

399
00:24:37,269 --> 00:24:40,962
all generations eventually when they have that glass of wine, and I

400
00:24:40,962 --> 00:24:43,563
hate the aha moment conversation, I don't want to have that, but

401
00:24:44,253 --> 00:24:47,738
it's when they recognize a

402
00:24:47,850 --> 00:24:51,495
properly, and I'm going to call them honest wine now, a humble wine

403
00:24:51,543 --> 00:24:54,546
that's not doctored up and it's not Cali Red from Snoop Dogg.

404
00:24:55,172 --> 00:24:58,528
That they get it. And so

405
00:24:58,704 --> 00:25:02,526
it's a beverage of the ages and it's why it's been around for 10,000

406
00:25:02,558 --> 00:25:06,315
years and, you know, it's still here. And yes, it's

407
00:25:06,315 --> 00:25:08,659
going to be susceptible to, you know,

408
00:25:09,783 --> 00:25:13,525
generational changes, but I don't think it ever really

409
00:25:13,717 --> 00:25:17,491
goes away in a huge fashion. It just, so right

410
00:25:17,491 --> 00:25:21,248
now it seems like packaging is sort of You know,

411
00:25:21,665 --> 00:25:25,214
the nuance. And I suppose when George Clooney

412
00:25:25,214 --> 00:25:28,634
sells his tequila for $1 billion, that

413
00:25:28,634 --> 00:25:31,749
excites people to do something similar. So now I'm seeing a lot of

414
00:25:32,263 --> 00:25:36,004
brands coming out that are canned, smaller versions,

415
00:25:36,116 --> 00:25:39,633
you know, 375s, 187s. And instead of

416
00:25:39,713 --> 00:25:43,310
what's in the bottle or the can being important, it's the packaging.

417
00:25:44,450 --> 00:25:48,156
And that's just going to fly by. I mean, Yeah, I have

418
00:25:48,173 --> 00:25:51,653
to agree with you, even though it is important. And there's no

419
00:25:51,669 --> 00:25:55,005
question. I mean, somebody was— I had a conversation with somebody today

420
00:25:55,454 --> 00:25:59,015
who has a paper bottle that, you know, they're promoting and

421
00:25:59,288 --> 00:26:02,495
he's like, you need to get on board. You should check this out. It's not

422
00:26:02,495 --> 00:26:05,767
for great wine, but it's for decent wine. And

423
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,264
it obviously the carbon footprint is much lighter

424
00:26:09,873 --> 00:26:12,953
and there's a lot of reasons to do it. There's a lot of reasons to

425
00:26:13,001 --> 00:26:16,369
look at these alternative packages. And I

426
00:26:16,917 --> 00:26:20,677
will continue to think that through. But I'm trying to make wines

427
00:26:20,693 --> 00:26:23,904
that age, that you're going to stick in the basement, and you're going to hang

428
00:26:24,001 --> 00:26:27,190
on to them for 5 to 10 years or whatever. And then hopefully you draw

429
00:26:27,255 --> 00:26:30,717
it out and you go, wow, this is not just still good, it's better than

430
00:26:30,717 --> 00:26:34,082
it was. It's more interesting than it was. And you can't do that in a

431
00:26:34,082 --> 00:26:37,714
paper bottle. You can't do that in a bag-in-box. You can't do that,

432
00:26:38,036 --> 00:26:41,667
you know, in a can. So if

433
00:26:41,667 --> 00:26:45,337
I'm trying to be in the beverage business, the just plain old

434
00:26:45,417 --> 00:26:48,771
beverage, lowercase b, business, then fine. You know,

435
00:26:48,867 --> 00:26:52,622
whatever packaging appeals to younger

436
00:26:52,622 --> 00:26:55,703
consumers is probably where I should be putting my head. But

437
00:26:56,249 --> 00:26:59,522
I'm just— I've decided that I don't want to grow so

438
00:26:59,859 --> 00:27:03,486
big. I mean, our winery will capacity, you know,

439
00:27:03,646 --> 00:27:07,128
its capacity maxes out at 10,000 cases,

440
00:27:07,482 --> 00:27:10,771
which is to me sort of the sweet spot. If you go above 10,000, Mm-hmm.

441
00:27:10,996 --> 00:27:14,368
You're trying to be all things to everybody. If you're below 10,000, you can kind

442
00:27:14,368 --> 00:27:17,675
of just do what you think you're supposed to do, do it well, and you

443
00:27:17,675 --> 00:27:21,015
should be okay. That's the part that bugs—

444
00:27:21,288 --> 00:27:24,259
bothers me. And I entertain these conversations. I want to hear what they're thinking, but

445
00:27:24,259 --> 00:27:27,165
they have no passion for the product. They have passion to

446
00:27:28,273 --> 00:27:32,078
hopefully develop the product, put on the shelf, steal some

447
00:27:32,367 --> 00:27:35,948
shelf space from some big brand and have Constellation come buy you because

448
00:27:36,542 --> 00:27:40,291
they're just probably taking their space. And that's not, you know, that's not the

449
00:27:40,291 --> 00:27:43,977
wine. You just described the life cycle of 98%

450
00:27:43,977 --> 00:27:47,598
of the products out there. Exactly. So,

451
00:27:48,639 --> 00:27:52,469
you know, this carbon footprint thing too, I say it bothers me. I understand it.

452
00:27:52,565 --> 00:27:56,138
I agree environmentally we have

453
00:27:56,170 --> 00:27:59,936
responsibility. And certainly your, the comment you make of stewarding the land

454
00:27:59,936 --> 00:28:03,045
is a very important one. And I think most winemakers throughout the world, as you

455
00:28:03,045 --> 00:28:06,892
studied, would tell you that you're just passing through this and it's the next

456
00:28:06,892 --> 00:28:10,660
generations after you that we're going to reap the benefits that you

457
00:28:10,660 --> 00:28:13,226
do. And then the ones after them are going to reap their benefits. That's just

458
00:28:13,226 --> 00:28:16,818
the way the industry is. But I had a conversation with

459
00:28:18,132 --> 00:28:21,740
a Cornell food professor,

460
00:28:22,686 --> 00:28:26,310
lack of a better word. He is a consultant for

461
00:28:26,310 --> 00:28:29,917
canned wines and his job is to maximize the

462
00:28:29,917 --> 00:28:33,470
value of that food-grade lining That goes in the cans.

463
00:28:35,676 --> 00:28:38,855
And he was telling me that, you know, right now it's looking like 6 months.

464
00:28:38,919 --> 00:28:41,611
Now I have a, I think I got it from Peter. I think I got

465
00:28:41,611 --> 00:28:45,438
this, I did get it from Peter about 15 years ago.

466
00:28:45,534 --> 00:28:47,752
I got a Merlot in a 500 ml

467
00:28:49,633 --> 00:28:53,483
from South Africa. I'm pretty sure Peter gave it to me. And

468
00:28:53,597 --> 00:28:57,379
the food-grade lining has separated from the plastic. Right.

469
00:28:57,428 --> 00:29:01,112
And it looks disgusting. Oh yeah. And this

470
00:29:01,112 --> 00:29:04,077
Cornell guy's saying, yeah, right now we're looking at 6 months. You know, this is,

471
00:29:04,126 --> 00:29:06,994
it's just, you know, 6 months is the thing we're trying to push into 2

472
00:29:07,011 --> 00:29:10,593
years. Doesn't that just in its own definition tell you

473
00:29:11,839 --> 00:29:15,385
how gross that is? Yeah.

474
00:29:16,048 --> 00:29:19,593
I mean, I applaud the effort because the vast

475
00:29:19,593 --> 00:29:23,332
majority of wine is consumed, as they say, whatever that number

476
00:29:23,332 --> 00:29:27,104
is, we always— 24 months around 98% of all wines are consumed within

477
00:29:27,186 --> 00:29:31,023
48 hours of purchase or whatever the hell it is. So, Good on

478
00:29:31,055 --> 00:29:34,764
you. Go for it. Do some packaging that takes up less

479
00:29:35,294 --> 00:29:39,019
carbon and takes up less energy and all of that,

480
00:29:39,630 --> 00:29:42,728
and hopefully doesn't take up as much space in a landfill.

481
00:29:43,403 --> 00:29:46,518
But if you're going to make a wine to age, like you said,

482
00:29:46,614 --> 00:29:50,420
we're still told don't presume that

483
00:29:50,468 --> 00:29:53,791
wine's going to be good 9 months from now. Yeah, it's

484
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,533
impossible. I just, it

485
00:29:57,533 --> 00:30:00,888
scares me that they're in the lab somewhere, you know, manipulating

486
00:30:00,921 --> 00:30:04,581
plastics. And he was telling me there are epoxies, there were some words he was

487
00:30:04,630 --> 00:30:08,258
using that kind of confounded me. That's

488
00:30:08,387 --> 00:30:11,727
the, you know, that's the basis of the coating.

489
00:30:12,642 --> 00:30:16,431
Yeah. Yeah. But I also understand, you

490
00:30:16,431 --> 00:30:20,124
know, times are different, times have changed. And so my romantic

491
00:30:20,172 --> 00:30:23,769
view of wine you know, may not survive that, but

492
00:30:24,427 --> 00:30:28,120
I'll make you laugh. One of the women that came in here

493
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,524
who's got a product in cans, I said, well, do you think

494
00:30:32,231 --> 00:30:34,607
Lafite's going to get in a can one day? She says, absolutely.

495
00:30:35,844 --> 00:30:38,670
I'm like, it's like

496
00:30:39,071 --> 00:30:42,909
someday being in 350 years. Yeah, right. When there's no

497
00:30:42,909 --> 00:30:46,746
more glass. I thought that was really hilarious. Would

498
00:30:46,746 --> 00:30:50,503
you recommend this path to your colleagues

499
00:30:50,535 --> 00:30:53,810
that are in the hospitality world, that are restaurateurs, that

500
00:30:53,810 --> 00:30:57,503
are working the line in the kitchen, you know, and they want to learn about

501
00:30:57,503 --> 00:31:01,003
wine? Would you recommend the same path today? I'm not sure I

502
00:31:01,051 --> 00:31:04,391
would. I think that, and I've said it all along

503
00:31:05,129 --> 00:31:08,934
throughout this process as I've taught and examined, I've said, look,

504
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,659
you know, don't do this because you think you're going to get the brass ring.

505
00:31:13,092 --> 00:31:16,557
Because as I say, I got zero interest from

506
00:31:16,605 --> 00:31:20,440
anybody after I, I passed both exams. Um, and

507
00:31:20,552 --> 00:31:24,402
it's very, you know, different today. But I also have to admit that the, the

508
00:31:24,402 --> 00:31:28,204
heyday for the Master Sommelier was probably 10 years ago, uh, right when

509
00:31:28,236 --> 00:31:31,509
the, you know, the SOM movie came out. Everybody got into that and people really

510
00:31:31,541 --> 00:31:34,797
talked about it. And, and there were a lot of people who found jobs because

511
00:31:34,846 --> 00:31:38,680
of that. But you're supposed to work where it, you know, at

512
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,019
a place that values you and you value it and

513
00:31:42,516 --> 00:31:46,306
where it's a fascination for you. You know, and that's

514
00:31:46,306 --> 00:31:49,902
been how it has been for me. I love the hell out of this. I'm

515
00:31:49,918 --> 00:31:53,611
having a great time. Nobody in their right mind should ever

516
00:31:53,836 --> 00:31:57,528
presume they're going to get rich in the wine business because— No. Certainly, yeah, certainly

517
00:31:57,528 --> 00:32:01,093
as I told my business partner in the winery, it's like the only way you

518
00:32:01,093 --> 00:32:04,256
make a small fortune in the wine business is by beginning with a large one.

519
00:32:04,352 --> 00:32:08,105
You know, you know. You know the saying? And so you do it

520
00:32:08,121 --> 00:32:11,888
because you love it. And so you do the, to me, you do the

521
00:32:11,888 --> 00:32:15,623
exams because you love that process and you want to be part of that

522
00:32:15,671 --> 00:32:19,278
process. Yeah. Because you love that group of people and you want to hang out

523
00:32:19,418 --> 00:32:22,901
with those, you know, like-minded souls. But if you think you're going to get a

524
00:32:23,366 --> 00:32:26,459
big fat paycheck at the end of it, I really do think those days have

525
00:32:26,492 --> 00:32:30,275
passed. That's a really, really good point. And the passion has

526
00:32:30,275 --> 00:32:33,801
to drive you to it and Get you through it because you actually,

527
00:32:33,947 --> 00:32:36,596
probably now it's probably hard to motivate

528
00:32:37,194 --> 00:32:40,166
thinking that you're going to get a 6-digit job when you

529
00:32:40,390 --> 00:32:44,239
graduate through all the work it takes to get it

530
00:32:44,239 --> 00:32:47,668
done. That's a lot of work. Yeah. I had Michael, I had

531
00:32:47,846 --> 00:32:51,465
an author in here. He wrote the book I

532
00:32:51,577 --> 00:32:54,385
Drink and Know Things. It's a 52-week

533
00:32:55,692 --> 00:32:58,936
travel through the world of wine and every week you taste something new on your

534
00:32:58,984 --> 00:33:02,734
own with this book. And I think he was on, either he failed out of

535
00:33:02,734 --> 00:33:06,342
the Master of Wine or he's still got like 1 or 2 tests left. He

536
00:33:06,342 --> 00:33:09,148
passed with Vanessa. He started with Vanessa Conlon

537
00:33:09,894 --> 00:33:13,316
and, you know, she's obviously passed, but he's having a struggle with it. But he's

538
00:33:13,316 --> 00:33:14,370
written some books.

539
00:33:17,618 --> 00:33:19,975
I had another point that I wanted to make on that, but I don't remember

540
00:33:19,975 --> 00:33:23,817
what it was. We were taught, you said, well, I know what it was.

541
00:33:25,005 --> 00:33:27,631
The comment you made about making $1 million in the wine business to start with

542
00:33:27,631 --> 00:33:31,220
a billion. I had the, I've had 2

543
00:33:31,220 --> 00:33:34,820
wonderful quotes about what I've done in my career. One was from Buddy

544
00:33:34,820 --> 00:33:36,080
Hackett. Oh,

545
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,840
nice. And we were at a

546
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,400
golf tournament. He was sitting at my table and he saw my sticker and it

547
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,160
said Wine of the Month. He goes, Wine of the Month? I want to go

548
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,860
to Miami. So, you know, it's

549
00:33:49,860 --> 00:33:52,820
a corny joke, but it's from Buddy Hackett. So you got it. But it came

550
00:33:52,820 --> 00:33:55,820
from Buddy Hackett. Yeah. So come on. You know. The other was I had Kevin

551
00:33:55,820 --> 00:33:58,180
O'Leary on the show, you know, the famed Shark Tank guy. And he said the

552
00:33:58,180 --> 00:34:01,825
same thing you did. You know, it's very hard. But then on the flip side,

553
00:34:04,032 --> 00:34:07,523
the winemaker for the basketball players, Yao

554
00:34:08,089 --> 00:34:11,144
Ming, when he first started in Napa,

555
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:16,140
Hinman, Hinman, Hinman. Anyway, he says, you know,

556
00:34:17,334 --> 00:34:20,544
I've been to the most amazing places in the world. I've eaten the most amazing

557
00:34:20,576 --> 00:34:24,288
food, drink the most amazing wine, and meet the most amazing people. I

558
00:34:24,288 --> 00:34:27,841
don't make that much money doing this, but man, that's not a bad way to

559
00:34:27,841 --> 00:34:31,648
hustle a lifestyle, right? Oh, it's absolutely true. I often

560
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,614
will use the Son House quote, the famous blues singer who said, I've never

561
00:34:35,614 --> 00:34:38,279
been a rich man, but I spent more money than a rich man ever had.

562
00:34:38,424 --> 00:34:41,234
Yeah, that's a good— I like that. Yeah, that's the way it is in the

563
00:34:41,234 --> 00:34:45,071
wine business. You eat, drink, you know, you eat and drink well. You're

564
00:34:45,071 --> 00:34:48,748
not taking a lot of money home, but that's okay. You're living good. It's funny,

565
00:34:49,422 --> 00:34:52,457
when I sold the company, it was only been a few months. The guy bought

566
00:34:52,457 --> 00:34:55,990
all of my subscription wines, things that I

567
00:34:55,990 --> 00:34:59,827
paid $3.17 for up to maybe $12

568
00:35:00,823 --> 00:35:04,483
and wanted nothing of the stuff I collected during COVID Because

569
00:35:04,516 --> 00:35:07,502
during COVID they bought anything I told them to.

570
00:35:08,433 --> 00:35:12,223
Wow. Yeah. Nothing was off limits. And so I started collecting some

571
00:35:12,223 --> 00:35:16,044
Grand Cru and Premier Cru and some, you know, exclusive Napa and

572
00:35:16,397 --> 00:35:19,641
he wanted nothing of it. So actually my wife came, they just

573
00:35:19,689 --> 00:35:23,220
finished our sort of ad hoc cellar we're building in our

574
00:35:23,220 --> 00:35:27,060
kitchen that's going to hold about 2,000 bottles. Right on. That I

575
00:35:27,060 --> 00:35:30,800
get to enjoy. I guess it, I guess that, you know, I guess you could

576
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,280
say it would've, I could've gotten the cash if the guy wanted it, but all

577
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,800
right. So I didn't get the cash. I got the wine. I'm happy with that.

578
00:35:36,940 --> 00:35:40,580
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's these days it's harder to find the wines. So

579
00:35:40,580 --> 00:35:44,260
you said something funny, but it's not funny, but it

580
00:35:44,260 --> 00:35:47,934
is a question I had written down. You said, you know, how incredibly

581
00:35:47,934 --> 00:35:51,549
stupid I was to start a winery. Hey,

582
00:35:52,031 --> 00:35:55,695
you're from Kansas, so how'd you end up in Walla Walla? And then,

583
00:35:56,209 --> 00:35:59,824
you know, you know what headwinds you were going to have. You

584
00:35:59,824 --> 00:36:03,616
studied it and you still did it. Yeah, no, that's

585
00:36:03,616 --> 00:36:07,199
certainly true. I think I saw that this was

586
00:36:07,311 --> 00:36:10,043
kind of the one and only chance if I was ever going to do that,

587
00:36:10,428 --> 00:36:14,155
this is when I do it. And I wanted to have that

588
00:36:14,155 --> 00:36:17,768
experience. I wanted to be able to learn from that

589
00:36:17,768 --> 00:36:21,494
experience, and I've really enjoyed it. Even though my wife keeps saying, are you having

590
00:36:21,510 --> 00:36:25,220
fun? I'm like, what's fun about fighting Mother Nature?

591
00:36:25,300 --> 00:36:28,833
You know, it's like, no, fun is the wrong word, but I

592
00:36:28,897 --> 00:36:31,964
wouldn't not do it. It's not like joining the high school football team. You know,

593
00:36:32,045 --> 00:36:35,449
this is different. Yeah. Yeah. It's,

594
00:36:35,818 --> 00:36:39,191
but it's certainly true that I actually still live in Kansas City.

595
00:36:39,592 --> 00:36:43,415
And I travel back and forth between Kansas City and Walla Walla, but I

596
00:36:43,511 --> 00:36:47,173
have a team there. You know, there's winemaker there, there's a general manager there,

597
00:36:47,221 --> 00:36:50,594
there's a winery that's almost done there, you know, la la la.

598
00:36:51,478 --> 00:36:55,140
There's people to keep pushing the rock uphill. It happened really

599
00:36:55,172 --> 00:36:59,011
because it was kind of an accident. A friend of mine who used to work

600
00:36:59,011 --> 00:37:02,849
for me, he owns a small portion of a wine brand and

601
00:37:03,026 --> 00:37:06,703
he tried to draw me in on that. And then that kind fell apart. And

602
00:37:06,799 --> 00:37:10,441
one of the patriarchs of the Walla Walla wine industry is a wonderful man

603
00:37:10,441 --> 00:37:14,276
named Norm McKibbin, who owns Pepper Bridge and Amavi and a bunch

604
00:37:14,276 --> 00:37:18,031
of different projects up there, who literally just called me up out of the clear

605
00:37:18,031 --> 00:37:21,689
blue and said, you know, you got a raw deal. You should have been in

606
00:37:21,801 --> 00:37:24,272
on that deal. Why don't you come up here and take a look at some

607
00:37:24,304 --> 00:37:27,834
on my land and pick something out? And I was like,

608
00:37:28,155 --> 00:37:31,733
what, really? And I have one business partner who'd been

609
00:37:31,829 --> 00:37:34,927
chomping at the bit to do a project somewhere. Of course, he was looking at

610
00:37:34,975 --> 00:37:38,106
Napa and I was like, you couldn't put a gun to my head and make

611
00:37:38,106 --> 00:37:41,221
me go to Napa. Those are not my style of wines. I had nothing against

612
00:37:41,221 --> 00:37:44,866
them, but they're not what I want to drink. And I've always said, you

613
00:37:44,866 --> 00:37:48,703
know, this to my business partner, look, we better like the

614
00:37:48,703 --> 00:37:52,332
wines we make because we may have to drink them all. So, you

615
00:37:52,332 --> 00:37:55,800
know, it's like, and I knew I could go to Walla Walla

616
00:37:55,929 --> 00:37:59,525
and make a style of wine that I thought was valuable. Yeah.

617
00:37:59,702 --> 00:38:03,435
and that wasn't necessarily being made at that time. And, and so

618
00:38:03,467 --> 00:38:06,832
then it was, it was okay, you know, to me it's like, yeah, I'm gonna

619
00:38:06,832 --> 00:38:10,566
put the— really, if you will, my last big project. This is

620
00:38:10,598 --> 00:38:14,380
my last big project. Well, congratulations.

621
00:38:14,444 --> 00:38:17,681
I, I think it's great. I love, uh, you know, it's entrepreneurial

622
00:38:17,969 --> 00:38:21,414
and you already knew the headwinds. So, and I think

623
00:38:21,414 --> 00:38:24,331
choosing an area like Walla Walla where you're going to get structure and you're going

624
00:38:24,331 --> 00:38:27,973
to get terroir and you're going to get things that separate the wines from

625
00:38:27,973 --> 00:38:31,490
others. And I think Washington's one of the great districts. So it was

626
00:38:31,763 --> 00:38:34,831
interesting because I was speaking to your Master Somm

627
00:38:35,217 --> 00:38:38,606
colleagues and they're trying to educate the American palate on

628
00:38:38,751 --> 00:38:42,493
Australian wines. And we've seen, you've seen for sure the ebb and flow

629
00:38:42,509 --> 00:38:46,316
of Australian wines have come to America. Oh yeah. But

630
00:38:46,380 --> 00:38:50,042
one of my greatest recollections, it's not, it's not the aha moment,

631
00:38:50,235 --> 00:38:53,496
but it is a moment where I can still taste the wine. It was probably

632
00:38:53,528 --> 00:38:57,313
15 years ago. was this Riddick Vineyards, I think is it, one of

633
00:38:57,361 --> 00:39:01,016
the Bolles Valley Cabernet. And I just, I still taste it. Oh yeah.

634
00:39:01,064 --> 00:39:04,655
You know, and your comment about Napa is, it's sort of,

635
00:39:05,569 --> 00:39:09,401
it's accurate. It's depressing a

636
00:39:09,417 --> 00:39:13,232
little bit because it has the potential to produce some

637
00:39:13,232 --> 00:39:17,080
pretty interesting things if you let it. And we've unfortunately landed

638
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,591
on a style that the consumer wants and You know, that's

639
00:39:20,688 --> 00:39:24,172
what's driving it. Yeah, I think you're right about that.

640
00:39:24,461 --> 00:39:28,138
And nothing against it. I really do think that every,

641
00:39:29,294 --> 00:39:33,115
you know, a well-executed style of wine will find

642
00:39:34,111 --> 00:39:37,900
its audience. And Napa has clearly found their audience.

643
00:39:37,964 --> 00:39:41,545
And, but the sad truth, of course, is that their audience is

644
00:39:41,657 --> 00:39:45,431
aging. It's aging out really. And so there's a,

645
00:39:46,875 --> 00:39:49,907
If nothing else, the style of the wines that we're trying to make are lower

646
00:39:49,907 --> 00:39:53,228
in alcohol. The highest alcohol wine we've made was

647
00:39:53,356 --> 00:39:56,902
14.2, and that was kind of a one-off. You know what? It's not like I

648
00:39:56,902 --> 00:40:00,656
have a particular number I'm going for. Right. It's

649
00:40:00,672 --> 00:40:04,202
more a matter of I just, I grew up or not grew up. I learned

650
00:40:04,202 --> 00:40:07,427
about wine drinking, European wines or

651
00:40:08,036 --> 00:40:11,389
California wines, including Napa wines from the '70s. And those wines

652
00:40:11,502 --> 00:40:15,272
typically weren't high in alcohol, and they feel better on my palate.

653
00:40:15,385 --> 00:40:18,718
So really, I feel like

654
00:40:19,511 --> 00:40:23,350
that's part of what other generations are demanding. They're saying,

655
00:40:23,446 --> 00:40:27,136
you know, show us lower alcohol wines, show us less— they call them, of

656
00:40:27,168 --> 00:40:30,734
course, manipulated wines. And I think that's a bullshit term, really. Yeah.

657
00:40:30,815 --> 00:40:34,598
It's just that they're no longer impressed by a lot of oak,

658
00:40:34,662 --> 00:40:38,039
a lot of alcohol, a lot of extract. They want wines that have a little

659
00:40:38,039 --> 00:40:41,420
more charm and elegance to them, or at least that's what I'm hoping they want.

660
00:40:42,510 --> 00:40:45,443
You know, it's funny, you jogged a thought and you're talking about Manny

661
00:40:45,795 --> 00:40:49,593
Khomijian and he was up at Darrell Corti's place.

662
00:40:49,721 --> 00:40:53,263
This is years ago. And Darrell opens an Armenian wine, which is my heritage.

663
00:40:53,791 --> 00:40:57,573
And Emmanuel says, oh, you know, now not

664
00:40:57,573 --> 00:41:00,730
only do I need to learn about them as a master sommelier, this is my

665
00:41:00,762 --> 00:41:04,048
curiosity. I got to compete against You know,

666
00:41:04,529 --> 00:41:08,169
because those, they're coming online. Yeah. Where do you think

667
00:41:08,233 --> 00:41:11,280
Walla Walla, you know, Washington wines have been around forever.

668
00:41:11,921 --> 00:41:15,240
I've never seen them really ebb around here.

669
00:41:15,930 --> 00:41:19,265
You know, and, and I always consider my Tuesday tasting in

670
00:41:19,361 --> 00:41:22,953
35 years of virtually every Tuesday, sort of a litmus

671
00:41:22,985 --> 00:41:26,561
test of what's going on in the industry. But where do you, where do you

672
00:41:26,577 --> 00:41:30,409
think Walla Walla or the Washington wine scene sits in its, its sort of its

673
00:41:30,842 --> 00:41:34,600
What's the word? Timeline. Yeah.

674
00:41:34,681 --> 00:41:38,375
Well, it's possible, I think, and not an exaggeration to say that

675
00:41:38,712 --> 00:41:42,503
there's something of an inflection point happening right now. And that's to say Château

676
00:41:42,551 --> 00:41:46,278
Ste. Michelle, which was the stand-in for Washington wines, even

677
00:41:46,278 --> 00:41:49,876
though I'm sure 98% of the people buying Ste. Michelle

678
00:41:49,876 --> 00:41:53,714
wines had no idea the wines were from Washington. But nonetheless, that's,

679
00:41:53,795 --> 00:41:57,376
you know, that's what people thought of when they thought of Washington wine. And

680
00:41:57,905 --> 00:42:01,499
now St. Michelle has been bought by a

681
00:42:01,900 --> 00:42:04,484
venture capital group and they've

682
00:42:05,190 --> 00:42:08,912
withdrawn from almost half of their contracts.

683
00:42:08,976 --> 00:42:11,864
Their numbers are way, way down. They've been selling off

684
00:42:12,971 --> 00:42:16,052
contracts, selling off wine, selling, giving up on

685
00:42:16,437 --> 00:42:20,256
contracts. And I think that it's a moment in which

686
00:42:20,849 --> 00:42:24,492
the Washington wine industry has an opportunity to redefine

687
00:42:24,540 --> 00:42:28,314
itself. And there's a whole bunch of little guys like me

688
00:42:28,780 --> 00:42:32,524
who are super excited about that because land is still affordable there.

689
00:42:33,118 --> 00:42:36,187
I could, you know, that's really, if you will, one of the reasons I went

690
00:42:36,187 --> 00:42:39,946
to Walla Walla is because I could afford the damn land. And we

691
00:42:39,946 --> 00:42:43,593
have a chance, I think, to do something really interesting, make wines of our own

692
00:42:43,657 --> 00:42:47,433
style and get out from under St. Michelle's shadow, even though

693
00:42:47,979 --> 00:42:51,529
the next 2 or 3 years I'm sure will be painful for a lot of

694
00:42:51,529 --> 00:42:55,297
growers. And just like, as you said early on, it's happening

695
00:42:55,297 --> 00:42:58,936
around the world where people are grubbing up vines and realizing that we've

696
00:42:58,968 --> 00:43:02,142
overplanted. That's going to happen in Washington as well.

697
00:43:02,976 --> 00:43:06,630
Just like it's happening worldwide. And so there's pain to come,

698
00:43:06,999 --> 00:43:10,830
but I honestly think that we're at a, in a place where we

699
00:43:10,846 --> 00:43:14,613
get to redefine ourselves. And that hardly ever happens. You're not

700
00:43:14,613 --> 00:43:17,931
going to ever see, or at least in our lifetimes, Napa will never be able

701
00:43:17,931 --> 00:43:21,681
to redefine itself. But we get— well, there are some burgeoning brands like

702
00:43:21,729 --> 00:43:25,319
Charles Smith has made, raised some popularity. Yeah. I think Charles

703
00:43:25,431 --> 00:43:29,229
Buehler too is, you know, there's, there seems to be activity and that's

704
00:43:29,421 --> 00:43:32,626
prominently Washington on the label that, that's where it's from. So,

705
00:43:33,347 --> 00:43:36,937
and it does, I mean, some of the complexity and the structure of the wines

706
00:43:37,594 --> 00:43:40,686
from those various appellations in Washington are fabulous

707
00:43:41,455 --> 00:43:44,805
if you're seeking those things. Right. And I, yeah. You know, it's an interesting point

708
00:43:44,805 --> 00:43:48,384
you make because Wine's agricultural. And I, I mean, you're a farmer now.

709
00:43:48,593 --> 00:43:52,126
Guess what? You went from Kansas City, now you're a farmer. That's right.

710
00:43:52,672 --> 00:43:56,382
I guess Kansas has farms too, right? But, oh yeah. You

711
00:43:56,478 --> 00:43:59,850
know, people look at it as a romantic, I've got a brand, I've got this

712
00:43:59,915 --> 00:44:03,351
big chateau in Napa. And then they realize, oh, I'm really a farmer

713
00:44:03,528 --> 00:44:06,691
and it's really hard to make a buck in this business. And so the passion

714
00:44:06,691 --> 00:44:10,080
sort of wanes from that. But at the flip side,

715
00:44:10,995 --> 00:44:14,416
my company existed because Agriculture is

716
00:44:15,268 --> 00:44:18,385
not a specific science and you always overproduce.

717
00:44:18,545 --> 00:44:21,180
Yeah. And, you know, or if you do produce it, you don't know what to

718
00:44:21,180 --> 00:44:23,606
do with it once you make it. So we gotta sell it somewhere and you

719
00:44:23,606 --> 00:44:26,514
put it in the open market and sell the juice and whatever. And we, we

720
00:44:26,514 --> 00:44:30,273
survived on these, on, on this concept.

721
00:44:30,900 --> 00:44:34,723
So, well, you had the connections to do so and that's, that's

722
00:44:34,772 --> 00:44:38,515
certainly what it comes to. That took time. Somebody, yeah, somebody who knows what's going

723
00:44:38,611 --> 00:44:42,159
on can spot the, the trends and then has the connections to take, you know,

724
00:44:42,399 --> 00:44:45,769
to act upon it. So do you have a direct-to-consumer program at

725
00:44:46,715 --> 00:44:50,358
Echolands? Yeah. You know, like everybody else, we have a wine club.

726
00:44:50,422 --> 00:44:53,903
We certainly are just about done

727
00:44:54,112 --> 00:44:57,899
building a winery that we believe will draw a lot

728
00:44:57,899 --> 00:45:01,749
of people there because for whatever reason, it

729
00:45:01,749 --> 00:45:05,231
seems that wine clubs only prosper when people go to the

730
00:45:05,263 --> 00:45:09,034
winery visit and say, I want to be a member of this club. We

731
00:45:09,178 --> 00:45:12,948
opened our doors, or I should say the first wine we made came online March

732
00:45:12,948 --> 00:45:16,558
of 2020. How's my timing? You know,

733
00:45:16,750 --> 00:45:20,504
it's like, you know, we couldn't start a winery or couldn't

734
00:45:20,504 --> 00:45:23,793
start a— You didn't have a website yet. So yeah. Oh, it was, I mean,

735
00:45:23,809 --> 00:45:27,611
it was like, holy shit. But nonetheless, you know, we weathered

736
00:45:27,643 --> 00:45:31,317
that and now we have what really will be, at

737
00:45:31,317 --> 00:45:34,878
least for a time, this incredible this

738
00:45:34,943 --> 00:45:38,183
incredible facility that's going to draw people to it.

739
00:45:39,258 --> 00:45:42,387
And so we're going to, you know, we're going to be the shiny object for

740
00:45:42,387 --> 00:45:45,258
a while, and we have to make those

741
00:45:45,675 --> 00:45:48,980
relationships, you know, create relationships with the people who show up there.

742
00:45:49,221 --> 00:45:52,847
Because I still live in the world— I had this argument with a

743
00:45:52,911 --> 00:45:56,472
guy who visited not too long ago, is a retailer in

744
00:45:56,521 --> 00:45:59,264
Seattle, and he was just like, you're talking about selling one bottle at a time.

745
00:45:59,585 --> 00:46:03,309
I'm talking about selling cases at a time. And I said, well, I'm not, I'm

746
00:46:03,422 --> 00:46:06,504
never going to talk about that because that's not the business I want to be

747
00:46:06,537 --> 00:46:09,892
in. I've been in that business. I was a wholesaler for, you know, 15 years.

748
00:46:10,968 --> 00:46:14,549
And what I love is the one bottle at a time business. That's really

749
00:46:14,661 --> 00:46:18,370
fun. And so that's what we have to do. And to your

750
00:46:18,434 --> 00:46:22,079
point, we've got to develop direct-to-consumer, but based on that

751
00:46:22,127 --> 00:46:25,869
relationship that we're going to bring, you know, send you 6 bottles, not 6 cases.

752
00:46:26,382 --> 00:46:29,445
Well, you know how experiential wine is and that's,

753
00:46:30,648 --> 00:46:34,159
so what you don't, what the mistake you don't want to make is that

754
00:46:34,464 --> 00:46:37,671
you've got this person that's raised their hand, that's shown up at your winery or

755
00:46:37,671 --> 00:46:41,054
that's gone to your website and said, yeah, I'm not just a prospect anymore. I'm

756
00:46:41,054 --> 00:46:44,743
a suspect for a sale and you let it go. And

757
00:46:44,743 --> 00:46:47,645
so I'm teaching my young niece who

758
00:46:48,896 --> 00:46:52,392
wants to sell salad dressing and she's showed me her website. I go, where's your

759
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:56,130
email collection? I mean, if somebody has gone to your site and they've raised their

760
00:46:56,130 --> 00:46:59,565
hands effectively to say, hey, I'm interested to see what you have, and you let

761
00:46:59,565 --> 00:47:02,694
'em get off the site without an email address. Oh, wow. You let them into

762
00:47:02,694 --> 00:47:06,482
your tasting room without asking for, why don't you join the club? Because every

763
00:47:06,482 --> 00:47:10,318
time, here's the difference between what your club could have been or can be and

764
00:47:10,414 --> 00:47:13,864
what I just got out of. And I

765
00:47:13,864 --> 00:47:16,721
think the sales in general

766
00:47:17,620 --> 00:47:21,455
wine clubs other than winery ones, have suffered through post-COVID

767
00:47:21,487 --> 00:47:25,320
because of this concept. And that is every time somebody

768
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,914
opens your bottle of wine after they join the club goes back to that

769
00:47:28,946 --> 00:47:32,587
day that they stood there with Doug Frost and tasted wine. That's just what

770
00:47:32,619 --> 00:47:36,469
happens. It's like, it's like the most obvious

771
00:47:36,469 --> 00:47:40,303
thing that's happened in my career is people go to Europe and then

772
00:47:40,335 --> 00:47:43,270
they text me pictures of the wine they're drinking. I'm like, why are you, first

773
00:47:43,270 --> 00:47:47,120
of all, aren't you on vacation? Why are you, why are you sending me pictures?

774
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,729
You got something better to do. Your wife is sitting there, your husband, right?

775
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,030
Anyway, and I get them the wine, same vintage, whatever it is. Let's say they're

776
00:47:54,030 --> 00:47:57,350
sitting in front of the Parthenon and they're having the house wine and they, and

777
00:47:57,350 --> 00:48:01,090
they, I'm able to get it. Yeah. They invariably will tell you it doesn't

778
00:48:01,090 --> 00:48:04,810
taste the same. Oh, I know. That's so true. Yeah. And it's because

779
00:48:04,810 --> 00:48:07,750
you're not, you know, the kids are pulling on your shirttails. They want to go

780
00:48:07,750 --> 00:48:11,080
to school. You got to make lunch. Whatever's going on in your life is not

781
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,510
sitting in front of the Parthenon with the, you know, your best pizza you've ever

782
00:48:14,510 --> 00:48:17,975
had. Not that experience any longer. Yeah. And I think what you're doing with, when

783
00:48:17,975 --> 00:48:21,727
you do that in the winery, it's so important. And I was going through my

784
00:48:21,727 --> 00:48:25,512
dad's effects and I found the document that he transferred to me

785
00:48:25,512 --> 00:48:28,975
when I bought the company, which had the financials and stuff. But it had, here

786
00:48:29,039 --> 00:48:32,134
are the, here's your competition. This is 1970,

787
00:48:32,487 --> 00:48:36,287
1988. If you imagine there was only maybe 6

788
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:40,168
wineries in Napa that had clubs and it was like

789
00:48:40,248 --> 00:48:44,080
Inglenook, you know, Mondavi, you know, just the name. Yeah. basic ones.

790
00:48:44,497 --> 00:48:48,279
Yeah. Yeah. And you're going to skip the wholesale, you're a wholesaler, you're going to

791
00:48:48,279 --> 00:48:51,836
skip all those margins, go right to, right to, you know, retail.

792
00:48:52,221 --> 00:48:56,019
Exactly. And they're glad to do it. Hell yes. Because

793
00:48:56,035 --> 00:48:59,208
you showed them something, you showed them something cool. I think that's

794
00:48:59,512 --> 00:49:03,182
incredible. And I think that's the survival of, well, when we were going to

795
00:49:03,182 --> 00:49:06,675
Napa in February of 19— of '20, and I got,

796
00:49:07,012 --> 00:49:10,491
I had a meeting with Sarah Clearman of the Napa Valley Register.

797
00:49:11,117 --> 00:49:14,713
And I thought she was going to write this glowing article about the guy that's

798
00:49:14,713 --> 00:49:17,281
been doing this the longest. And no, it had nothing to do with what she

799
00:49:17,362 --> 00:49:20,877
wanted from me. She was, they knew COVID was coming

800
00:49:21,471 --> 00:49:24,954
and she was trying to figure out from a direct-to-consumer standpoint, how are these small

801
00:49:25,163 --> 00:49:28,101
wineries going to get through this when they don't have,

802
00:49:29,562 --> 00:49:33,334
you know, e-commerce presence? Right. Well, and that's it, you know,

803
00:49:33,350 --> 00:49:36,689
and that's how people got through. And those that had

804
00:49:37,283 --> 00:49:40,929
an e-commerce platform and had developed a strong base,

805
00:49:41,844 --> 00:49:45,587
they were fine. And those of us who were just getting started, well,

806
00:49:45,876 --> 00:49:49,233
we had, you know, one hand, if not both hands tied behind our backs. Yeah,

807
00:49:49,249 --> 00:49:52,252
right. We figured it out. You know, we got through it. It was just

808
00:49:52,943 --> 00:49:56,701
one, again, make sure that when somebody visits your site, you create a

809
00:49:56,701 --> 00:50:00,299
relationship with them. You don't just, you know, put some pictures up and

810
00:50:00,411 --> 00:50:03,206
hope they'll buy wine. Well, at least you weren't

811
00:50:04,410 --> 00:50:08,230
80%, you know, on-premise. And, you

812
00:50:08,230 --> 00:50:11,923
know, we're counting on those sales to pay the bills. Oh yeah. No, I, I,

813
00:50:12,115 --> 00:50:15,631
it really was funny because I, that was the idea. I'm, I have all these,

814
00:50:15,743 --> 00:50:19,404
because of my background in the sommelier world, have all these relationships in

815
00:50:19,436 --> 00:50:23,208
restaurants. I was like, we're gonna focus on the restaurant business. That's, that's

816
00:50:23,353 --> 00:50:27,158
really where the keys are. And it's like, good luck on that. Yeah. So,

817
00:50:27,206 --> 00:50:30,994
well, so many distributors, wholesalers came out of COVID saying, we

818
00:50:30,994 --> 00:50:34,543
gotta start DTC, we gotta start DTC. Oh yeah. And it's, it's

819
00:50:34,993 --> 00:50:38,720
way less aligned with their model than a winery's model

820
00:50:38,768 --> 00:50:42,399
would be. I mean, being a wholesaler and trying to sell DTC is like 2

821
00:50:42,399 --> 00:50:45,451
completely different things. There's no way you can, you can bite that off.

822
00:50:46,094 --> 00:50:49,034
Correct. So when you're a

823
00:50:49,050 --> 00:50:52,841
wholesaler, the, we're almost done. It is unbelievable already. It's

824
00:50:52,841 --> 00:50:56,022
50 minutes, but you did it for 15 years.

825
00:50:56,520 --> 00:51:00,022
Yes. What was interesting during COVID is, is

826
00:51:00,456 --> 00:51:03,631
When, when, when that 80% of the business was gone,

827
00:51:04,801 --> 00:51:08,649
I mean, I had chemists show up here. Oh, I know. You could get

828
00:51:08,649 --> 00:51:12,498
anything for a time. You know, you really could. And I'm like, you never

829
00:51:12,498 --> 00:51:15,961
came here before. Exactly. How come I'm

830
00:51:15,961 --> 00:51:19,472
important today? Yeah, exactly. Oh, it was really funny.

831
00:51:20,338 --> 00:51:24,154
All of a sudden, what years were you wholesaling? So I

832
00:51:24,283 --> 00:51:27,586
started wholesaling in 1981 and did that until

833
00:51:27,586 --> 00:51:31,231
'96. So I actually got my, you know, got those,

834
00:51:31,664 --> 00:51:35,423
finished those exams while I was being a wholesaler. Let's touch on that just

835
00:51:35,423 --> 00:51:39,263
for a sec before we get off. Huge consolidations in

836
00:51:39,311 --> 00:51:43,118
LA. The small importers are gone. Is it like that in the

837
00:51:43,118 --> 00:51:46,748
Midwest where you still have a plethora of small guys that are bringing in

838
00:51:46,748 --> 00:51:50,540
interesting things, or are they sort of consolidating under Southern and RNDC and

839
00:51:50,540 --> 00:51:54,202
stuff? It's actually— things are, I think, better than,

840
00:51:54,459 --> 00:51:57,880
than we often admit they are, you know,

841
00:51:57,928 --> 00:52:01,605
there's that ebb and flow, you know. Yeah, guys get gobbled

842
00:52:01,605 --> 00:52:05,041
up and then more new guys get spewed out, or, or, you know, more guys

843
00:52:05,154 --> 00:52:08,686
get angry at what's going on at Southern or RNDC or

844
00:52:08,686 --> 00:52:12,363
Breakthrough or what have you, and, and so they start their own thing. And, and

845
00:52:12,443 --> 00:52:16,217
so it's a constant ebb and flow for me. It's, it's funny, I, I do

846
00:52:16,217 --> 00:52:19,974
think, you know, when you look at the retail side, that's where it really

847
00:52:20,006 --> 00:52:23,634
feels constricted. You know, that the big

848
00:52:23,682 --> 00:52:26,956
box stores, they're buying from 2, 3 guys

849
00:52:27,469 --> 00:52:31,000
and that's it. And I don't, you know, I worry about where that's going to

850
00:52:31,064 --> 00:52:34,226
go, but I think wineries have to make their own way.

851
00:52:34,852 --> 00:52:38,463
And because the big wholesalers, there's no

852
00:52:38,527 --> 00:52:42,314
way a big wholesaler can give a damn about me unless they

853
00:52:42,314 --> 00:52:45,572
have some small division, which I'm playing around. I'm in

854
00:52:46,006 --> 00:52:49,640
with Southern in New York and Florida. Because those are big markets and because

855
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:53,100
they're working with these little tiny divisions that I know people

856
00:52:53,100 --> 00:52:56,820
there. And it's almost like an experiment that I know is gonna go bad at

857
00:52:56,820 --> 00:53:00,600
some point. They've taken care of me so far. But in most markets, I'm with

858
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,760
little guys. I think you're, you're, I think, you know, like first of all, you

859
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:07,320
should always test anyway, whether you're testing, you know, an adverti— an ad

860
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:11,120
on social networking. Yeah. Or testing how you're distributing your wines. I think you want

861
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:14,920
to maximize that value. But what's happening in LA, the books are

862
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,624
so big now that you can't get any traction. Right. And, and what's,

863
00:53:18,688 --> 00:53:22,198
what's different than the old days and probably even when you were around is

864
00:53:22,855 --> 00:53:26,526
you were sort of a brand builder as a wholesaler. You could,

865
00:53:26,718 --> 00:53:30,277
you could talk about that. Yeah. Now, you know, Sutter's not going to build a

866
00:53:30,325 --> 00:53:33,033
brand for you. You know, you got to help them build the brand. They just

867
00:53:33,033 --> 00:53:36,015
want to, they want to deliver it for you. That's basically, I'm going to get

868
00:53:36,015 --> 00:53:39,589
a book here. Yeah, no, you're, you're 100% right on that. You

869
00:53:39,621 --> 00:53:43,356
really are. I mean, that's just how it is now. Brand building does

870
00:53:43,452 --> 00:53:46,642
not happen in a wholesale operation. No, it's just the way it is.

871
00:53:47,973 --> 00:53:50,667
All right, we're going to wrap this up. It's already 52 minutes. It's been a

872
00:53:50,667 --> 00:53:53,891
fabulous conversation. I know we can do it again and still keep talking, but

873
00:53:54,195 --> 00:53:57,627
since you're as educated as you are, then,

874
00:53:57,964 --> 00:54:01,749
and I usually save this only for French people, but,

875
00:54:02,871 --> 00:54:06,431
and I had Arthur Delon in today

876
00:54:07,185 --> 00:54:10,970
whose grandmother, you know, is the Comtesse de Lalonde, the

877
00:54:11,034 --> 00:54:14,640
Pichon. Yeah. Unbelievable,

878
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:18,460
unbelievable conversation. But, you know, I have to tell you this story just

879
00:54:18,460 --> 00:54:21,480
because you're in the wine trade. My dad took us to Vinexpo in

880
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,000
1993. Okay, cool. And I was young to the industry. I didn't know what I

881
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,640
was doing. I didn't even know where I was. I was in Puyacourt, Château

882
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:31,420
Belgrave, Henry Vandervoort, who used to own— I remember

883
00:54:31,420 --> 00:54:35,260
I used to, I used to buy wines from Henry. You're kidding. No,

884
00:54:35,260 --> 00:54:38,586
I got stories about him. I got One story in particular.

885
00:54:38,971 --> 00:54:42,744
He was fantastic. Henry was great. You know, he taught me a very solid

886
00:54:42,744 --> 00:54:45,955
lesson that I've used many times. And he, I was a young punk and so

887
00:54:46,116 --> 00:54:48,636
I, he wanted to sell me his Li Puyi

888
00:54:49,567 --> 00:54:53,340
Chinese vinted, you know, Chinese food. And I didn't

889
00:54:53,340 --> 00:54:56,663
return the call. And he finally called my dad and they both, they spoke French.

890
00:54:56,728 --> 00:55:00,260
I speak French. And so he says in French, he says, you know, the

891
00:55:00,324 --> 00:55:03,551
courtesy from your son, the courtesy of a response.

892
00:55:04,594 --> 00:55:07,965
And I've used that so many times in my career, not against somebody, but tell

893
00:55:07,965 --> 00:55:11,560
'em, look, just the courtesy of a response. Exactly. Just be

894
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:15,396
polite. You know, if nothing, be polite. Yeah. So Henri

895
00:55:15,428 --> 00:55:18,975
takes us to his Château Belgrave Vandervoort, and we cross the street from the

896
00:55:19,184 --> 00:55:22,939
Longueville, and he goes, we're going to go to dinner. So my mom and dad,

897
00:55:22,971 --> 00:55:26,342
my wife and I, we go to dinner across the way, and we're at now

898
00:55:27,144 --> 00:55:30,836
Pichon Lalonde, and there's this elegant woman. She's wearing a

899
00:55:31,077 --> 00:55:34,871
white dress, eyelid thing. probably in her 60s. Henry's in his probably

900
00:55:34,871 --> 00:55:38,536
early 70s. And we have a nice dinner. I don't, I have no idea

901
00:55:38,666 --> 00:55:42,455
where I'm at. I'm reading, um, and

902
00:55:42,455 --> 00:55:46,154
this is '93, so about 2, 6 months ago, maybe a year ago, I'm

903
00:55:46,154 --> 00:55:49,870
reading Wine and War from the Cladstrups. Oh, sure. Yeah.

904
00:55:49,966 --> 00:55:53,806
Yeah. I remember the book. Sure. And they're talking about, um,

905
00:55:54,484 --> 00:55:58,275
May Hélène Longchamp. She is the Comtesse. She was there

906
00:55:58,275 --> 00:56:01,171
when the Germans came in, shot up the paintings

907
00:56:02,068 --> 00:56:05,786
and left their tar, you know, on the floor and the Oriental

908
00:56:05,994 --> 00:56:09,775
rugs, the Asian Persian rugs. Well, this is Arthur's grandmother.

909
00:56:10,977 --> 00:56:13,829
Wow. And so I woke up literally,

910
00:56:14,742 --> 00:56:18,427
Doug, about, I don't know, maybe 2 months ago. I woke up,

911
00:56:18,732 --> 00:56:21,632
I must have been dreaming or something, and I go, holy shit,

912
00:56:22,898 --> 00:56:26,599
I had dinner with this woman. Right. And I called the

913
00:56:26,599 --> 00:56:30,365
Cladstrops. They live in Paris. I said, I'm reading your book and I realized I

914
00:56:30,365 --> 00:56:34,052
had dinner with this woman. You know, I feel like I'm part of the history.

915
00:56:34,197 --> 00:56:36,473
That just, I, we only met and we talked. I didn't even know if I

916
00:56:36,473 --> 00:56:40,304
spoke with her, you know, but, but because of Henry's relationship and apparently

917
00:56:40,849 --> 00:56:44,328
the, his rep at the time was Alain Rivière,

918
00:56:45,659 --> 00:56:49,394
who now is with Escalon. Oh, really? Okay. And so

919
00:56:49,426 --> 00:56:51,943
I emailed him. I said, Alain, do you remember this trip? He goes, yeah. I

920
00:56:51,943 --> 00:56:55,791
said, was that, was that May Alain? Lan Xiang? He goes, yeah, that's who

921
00:56:55,791 --> 00:56:58,966
that was. He goes, like Henry's little girlfriend. I'm like, oh my God.

922
00:56:59,559 --> 00:57:02,782
Anyway, I don't wanna bore you with my story. Just

923
00:57:02,847 --> 00:57:06,407
anyway, here, this is the book. It's called Wine Is the Best Medicine.

924
00:57:07,016 --> 00:57:10,817
Oh wow. It's by Dr. Maury, who was an MD in France. He

925
00:57:10,849 --> 00:57:14,601
was also a homeopathic doctor, and he wrote a book on the various

926
00:57:14,681 --> 00:57:18,033
ailments, human ailments, and what French wine

927
00:57:18,466 --> 00:57:21,995
would symptomatically relieve your problem. And/or maybe even cure it.

928
00:57:23,103 --> 00:57:26,941
So it's things like allergies, anemia. And, and the

929
00:57:26,957 --> 00:57:30,730
answer, the reason I asked this question is for fun. I think I'm running about

930
00:57:30,730 --> 00:57:34,230
33% right answers. So right along, you know, random sampling,

931
00:57:34,744 --> 00:57:38,550
but one, I'll give you 3 choices. Okay. But it's, it's kind of like,

932
00:57:38,630 --> 00:57:41,970
all right, I'm gonna give you the, the disease, I'm gonna give you 3 choices

933
00:57:41,970 --> 00:57:45,615
of wine. And it's more like, okay, why did you choose that answer? Right? Sure.

934
00:57:45,679 --> 00:57:49,321
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna go with a fever.

935
00:57:50,235 --> 00:57:53,540
And if you have a fever, according to Dr. Murray, and we're also gonna go

936
00:57:53,540 --> 00:57:57,037
with the dosage on this. Ah, okay. You could have a Grave,

937
00:57:58,015 --> 00:58:01,721
you could have a dry champagne, or you could have a Côte de Beaune. One

938
00:58:01,721 --> 00:58:04,288
of those 3 will help you with your fever.

939
00:58:05,635 --> 00:58:09,309
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to, to, and I assume it's Grave Rouge,

940
00:58:09,357 --> 00:58:13,127
not Grave Blanc. Yes. Okay. So I'm gonna go with the, the, the Côte de

941
00:58:13,127 --> 00:58:16,945
Beaune. I'm just

942
00:58:16,945 --> 00:58:20,764
trying to imagine that the world of wine

943
00:58:20,812 --> 00:58:24,631
and medicine goes back centuries, and I'm just imagining

944
00:58:24,744 --> 00:58:28,579
that because you have a fever, you need something from the

945
00:58:28,611 --> 00:58:32,173
earth. You need something earthy to help ground you and bring

946
00:58:32,285 --> 00:58:35,847
that fever, that temperature down. If you have something higher in alcohol

947
00:58:36,297 --> 00:58:39,891
like Grav, it's going to be higher in

948
00:58:39,891 --> 00:58:43,013
alcohol than a Pinot Noir would be. So that wouldn't work for you. It's going

949
00:58:43,110 --> 00:58:46,518
to elevate your alcohol and to excite the

950
00:58:46,518 --> 00:58:50,233
blood as champagne is supposed to do. And again, I think that's probably

951
00:58:50,233 --> 00:58:54,046
kind of bogus, but that's its, you know, that's its, you know—

952
00:58:54,046 --> 00:58:57,439
That's a fascinating analysis. Probably the most

953
00:58:57,666 --> 00:59:01,435
thoughtful one I've ever had. Well, you know, it's fun. It's a fun game to

954
00:59:01,451 --> 00:59:04,854
play. And you know that I think Louis

955
00:59:04,854 --> 00:59:06,999
XV or one of the, one of the Louis,

956
00:59:08,885 --> 00:59:12,111
has, they've credited the curing of a disease. I think it was a

957
00:59:12,111 --> 00:59:14,758
Gevrey-Chambertin or something. Oh, really? That he drank.

958
00:59:15,225 --> 00:59:19,011
And they say it cured him, but unfortunately that was the

959
00:59:19,011 --> 00:59:22,459
wrong answer. Oh, okay. The answer was the dry champagne,

960
00:59:23,060 --> 00:59:25,858
but maybe you'll get the dosage right. So the answer was dry champagne. Here's what

961
00:59:25,858 --> 00:59:29,449
it says. Why? Because these

962
00:59:29,562 --> 00:59:33,170
wines contain, among other things, 2 important elements for a feverish person.

963
00:59:34,050 --> 00:59:37,640
phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating, and sulfur in itself, in

964
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:41,220
itself. I'm sorry, eminently stimulating. And there's sulfur in its

965
00:59:41,220 --> 00:59:44,890
sulfate of potassium form, which is detoxifying.

966
00:59:45,900 --> 00:59:49,559
Interesting. So, okay. That's, that's his analysis. But there's

967
00:59:49,559 --> 00:59:53,060
a dosage that goes with this, and I think the Taittingers would be very happy

968
00:59:53,060 --> 00:59:55,900
to hear this. So what do you think? How much of that champagne should you

969
00:59:55,900 --> 00:59:59,540
have a day? Apparently you're supposed to drink a bottle. That's exactly

970
00:59:59,540 --> 01:00:03,380
right. See, you're good. You got it. So maybe it didn't cure

971
01:00:03,380 --> 01:00:06,943
you, but you sure feel better when you're done with it. Damn

972
01:00:06,943 --> 01:00:10,012
straight. You know, why stop there? Exactly.

973
01:00:10,188 --> 01:00:13,932
It's been a pleasure, Doug. I hope we can do it again. Well,

974
01:00:13,948 --> 01:00:17,740
thanks, Paul. No, it's absolutely been a pleasure and we'll have to exchange

975
01:00:17,869 --> 01:00:21,628
Henry Vandiver stories. I've got one in particular. Love to do it.

976
01:00:21,725 --> 01:00:25,131
And maybe we'll, maybe we'll do it over a barbecue in Kansas one day. There

977
01:00:25,131 --> 01:00:25,340
you go.