Passion It Is. Or How To Start A Wine Distributor When No One Knows Your Name

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Armenia has the benefit of having a really rich

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set of story pieces, you know, content pieces

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that we get to work with, both from the ancient history of it and

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how the geopolitical evolution of Armenia as an independent

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republic has now led to this renaissance of winemaking. And that is

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now being brought forward by mainly diaspora

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Armenians, which are, you know, Armenians coming from other parts of the world,

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but committing their time and energy and moving

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their families to Armenia to be a part of this movement.

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Those are beautiful stories, and those are actually representative

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of the way Armenians operate

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broadly. Sit back and grab a glass. It's

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Wine Talks with Paul Kay.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today about

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to have a conversation with Zach Arman, president and chief bottle washer of

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Storica wines here in America. Introductions in

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just a minute. Hey, have a listen to the Cheval Blanc interview I

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did a couple months ago with Monsieur Clouet, the director,

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which they do in Bordeaux, the directors of the winery, the winemaker. Incredibly

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philosophical conversation about winemaking in that part of the world as

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well, not just up the road in cognac. We had a

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conversation with Delimont, and this is a boutique cognac house. And

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since we're going to talk about Armenian wines today and Armenian brandy, this is

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the traditional cognac part of the world, which makes brandy. Have a listen to

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that. Hey, give us a review. If you don't have something good to say, don't

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say it at all. But if you have something nice to say, this is what

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keeps our egos going in the podcasting world. And please subscribe on

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your way out. But now, while we're here, here to talk to Zach,

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an old friend. We've had a lot of conversations in the wine world, but welcome

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to the show. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for having me. And it's great to

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join your show after all these years. Well, thank you. Of fun work together. It's

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an amazing. Dozens of people will hear this.

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So we're where. But you came out. Did you come out just to

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hang out and, you know, see what's going on or you were doing a little

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work before we got started? You know, the clock's still ticking back there. What?

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Yeah, no, this is. I actually was doing something for my day

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job. Soroka has. Has never really been

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my. My job. It's been a passion and it's been a side project

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now for six years. But I have always

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had a day job, which I've tried to balance,

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and I've done a so, so job. But I'm lucky to have a really great

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team of people at Storica who really do all the hard work. I am, I

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am certainly the chief bottle washer officer, as you named me in

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the intro. So I'm going to read from your. Cheerleader as, I mean, look,

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we all. Know that bottle washer part. I just went and got a glass of

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water. I'm going to read from your October

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22 to October 2022 overview of Storka. It looks like a

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fundraising document. Yeah. But you talk about Armenian wine and, and Storka

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is the Armenian wine importer and distributor. Right. So let's get that on the table.

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But Armenian wine is gaining momentum. Armenia is becoming a

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resident wine region and we have positioned Storka Wines to become the market's

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leader in the U.S. i mean, this is a tall order. And we talked about

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this early on when you started doing this, but what was that vision

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for? What was the passion about? And, you know, what keeps you

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going? Yeah. Did you have your head examined? I

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probably should have before I started this company. Now, this was a

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passion that I, I thought of or I, I really met the

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right people to think of back in 2017. So I've been going to

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Armenia pretty often over the last 15 or

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16 years. My father, Garo, started a charity that's based in

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armenia back in 2002 called the children of Armenia Fund,

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which has a lot of work in rural communities of Armenia. And so that

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being being close to the charity since it was founded,

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me and my family would go to Armenia every year pretty regularly, sometimes twice

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a year. And so it gave me the chance to create a network in

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Armenia. And what I wound up doing

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back in 2017 was meeting Vahe and Amy Kushkarian, who

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I know you know well, Paul. And you've spent a lot of time with Vahe.

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Yes, good friend. And they, I met them on

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a, on a friendly basis, not, not with any

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belief that I would start a business around, around wine. But I,

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I did notice on that trip in 2017 that there was a pretty

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rapid ascent and a rapid presence rather of, of

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Armenian wine in Yerevan, whereas I hadn't noticed that in prior years.

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And it was really interesting to me that, that this was happening so

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quickly. And when I started asking around, you know, what, what is it all of

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a sudden that's making Armenian wine a thing, I realized very quickly that

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it was really a renaissance or a resurgence. It wasn't something new

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and rediscovery of our ancient

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tradition in winemaking. That, that dates back over 6,000

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years to, to the Adeni 1 cave which was,

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which was excavated back in 2011 and 2012.

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And while many countries claim to be the first region

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or country to have produced wine, the fact is that

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Armenia was the first country where a,

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a facility for winemaking was ever discovered. There were seeds

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discovered in China and Georgia that were wine grape

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seeds. And there was clearly some ad hoc production

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being done of wine per those discoveries. But there was no

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facility that was clearly being used to produce

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wine at some, in some scaled fashion before the irony one cave was

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discovered. So Armenia has been the birthplace or one of the birthplaces of

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wine. And when I discovered in this 2017 trip that I took was

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that now as Armenia has become an independent Republic

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from the 90s and, and has rediscovered many of its

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old industries, wine being one of them,

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that really over the last seven or eight years has there been

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enough of a, of a infrastructure built in the

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country to produce wine so that people like me who are visiting the country

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notice that all of a sudden there is some really high quality wine. I'm going

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to stop there for a second. Coming out, what you said just now is like

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the whole thing in a nutshell is. No, it's important stuff. I'm trying to bury

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the lead. But there's a but. There's a but. There's

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something very important that's buried in what you just said because all those are important

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facts. And this is a very tough industry, as we've discovered, trying to bring

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wine, not only wine to America and then compete

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against, you know, the traditional regions of the world and America, California wine

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too. But buried in what you said, you

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were there 2017. Had you been there prior to 2017? Oh, yeah,

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every year since really 2005, 2006. So you, you've seen a

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rad change in, I mean we were there in 2007,

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wouldn't drink the wine, wouldn't really consume anything. No. And then the

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food was all kebab and vegetables wherever way it went. And all of a sudden

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now we were there last year, you know, 2024, twice.

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And it's like I tell people, it's like

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Paris, except for the architecture and the sort of the culture. But as far as

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how you feel walking around, the restaurant selections, the

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wine selections, the ambiance, the safety factor, you feel

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good? Oh yeah. Walk around, very safe country, very safe

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place. You've seen how slow wine is

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to, to get traction, to establish

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yourself, to build a brand. And I'm trying to understand

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how did we get. So how did the

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acceleration of the worldwide recognition of Armenian wine happen so

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fast? You're talking about 27:17 Stork has a lot to do with this story,

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but it's also part of a bigger picture. Yeah, because that doesn't

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happen. Yeah, it's a good question. And we've, we've explored this question

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because we want to build our business around

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value proposition. Right. Not to use cliche management terminology,

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but, you know, we, we've sat there and said, okay, what is it that needs

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to be the calling cards or messages that we send to the

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consumer to get them to want to try the wine? And,

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and those relate to what you're talking about, which is why there has been actually

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a pretty rapid ascent of these wines. One of the reasons is

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because they're just sort of the raw material of the terroir of

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Armenia. The, the, the land, the soil, the, the

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vines themselves. The, the fact that many of these vines are being produced at

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extremely high elevation, which is always a good thing for, for high

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quality winemaking wines are more complex as they

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are exposed to, to rapid fluctuations in climate,

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because that, that causes the plant to exude

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various different defense mechanisms and nutrients, and those wind

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up showing in the complexity of the flavor and the aroma of the

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wine. Right. So that's just a pure function of Armenia's land

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and soil and climate. But somebody has to get that into the bottle.

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Someone has somebody to buy it and taste it. That's right. So that's the second

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piece. So there's the raw material, then there's the, there's the craftsman. Right. There are

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these winemakers who have come to Armenia, and

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while they've adopted some of our ancient traditions, their

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winemaking style is very modern and is very akin to the winemaking

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styles of California and France and Italy. And

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that's unique to these sort of, I'll call them niche

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regions like Georgia and Greece and Moldova,

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where they have not really changed much about their

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winemaking production style from what was done

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many generations ago. The benefit of the new age Armenian

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winemaker is they were able to see, you know, what does the Western palate want?

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They want clean, cleanly made wine with a complexity

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and flavor and aroma with just quality and

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new technology. And that's what the Armenian winemakers did. They brought in

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consultants from all these well known regions. Many of them taught

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themselves in a lot of ways how to make modern wine. And so you have

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this really beautiful blend of an ancient tradition of

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wine and, and those ancient vines

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and, and lands that are in Armenia with a very modern

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and western oriented style of winemaking. And that combo

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makes for a really great product. Well, I went to a tasting, a

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biodynamic tasting not too long ago and I went to the Georgian table

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and there were two completely styles of wine. There was that

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old school, musty, you know, stinky shoe type

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wine, which is the traditional wine. Yeah. And then there was the modern

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take on wine, which, you know, in my opinion that, that is just the

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cyclical part of wine. It's a consumer product. It's always been driven by consumerism

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and so whatever the public wants. But it's, it's not the

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romantic side of wine. Right. Romantic side of wine is what you're talking about,

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which is balancing what the soil's giving us, what

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the vine's giving us and that the winemaker is maximizing the value of

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that, of that expression. Right. And that's what comes out. And here's an

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example. Right. Your, our mutual friend

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Josh called me the other day and he says, you know, my friends

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are just drinking Silver Oak and cus and Josh and all this stuff from

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the supermarkets. I want to move on. And I went to a dinner the other

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night with my boss and, and he chose a wine and I was interested to

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know what that was about. And I'm thinking that's the kind of client.

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Yeah. That has a curiosity to what's

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going on out there. How are you finding these people? Well, that's what we figured

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out with Storica. We, you know, you aspire to sell a lot of

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wine and you aspire to sell wine into high quality

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locations. Right. Which you know, we can rattle off any one of

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these places you'd want to see your wine. You want to see it in a

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Whole Foods, you want to see it in a major restaurant group like major food

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group. Right. That's what you aspire to in, in hypothetical

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terms, but in practical terms there are, there's a customer set

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that's looking for the kind of wine that Armenia, that Armenia offers and there'

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also geographies and markets that are looking for that and that's not

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necessarily the, the major markets. The LA is the New Yorks of the

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world, the Miamis of the world. It's some of these second tier markets where we're

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seeing a lot of success. Peri. Urban locations around

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Boston, not necessarily in Boston, but some of the towns and cities around it.

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We're in places like, like Nashville, Tennessee,

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Birmingham, Alabama, Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, Nashville would be a natural place

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for Armenian wine. Of course. Country bars, you wouldn't think so. Right.

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But in these places you do have high quality restaurants

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that are, you know, that's true. Attended by people

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who want to experience something that is high quality. They're more willing

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to try something new because they have less of a, I'll

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call, preconceived notion about what regions produce

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good wine versus not, which you typically get, I'll say, in more

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of the snobby markets around the country. So while in

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the beginning of our efforts at Storico were, hey, we just got to be in

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the big major markets and we got to fight to get placements at the

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best restaurants, we've realized that's not really the answer. The answer is

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don't, don't pigeonhole into, into the major markets. Look at all

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the markets. There's plenty of people in, in, in markets like,

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you know, Birmingham and Omaha and we're around

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Raleigh, Durham in North Carolina. These are large population centers

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and we were able to create footholds because for some reason the consumers

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in those places are wanting something different and they don't

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have this belief system that only French, Italian

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and California. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. Well, of course

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there's Lincoln, Nebraska, the phenom Armenian basketball star ain or

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something. Yeah, maybe we could do an NL deal with him. Once he's 21, then

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we can, then we can contact him. So how many states are you in now?

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We sold wine. Actually checked this today. We sold wine in 26 states in

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2024. That's amazing. Now you're talking about 2017 and you

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got organized and, and, and funded the company in 2019.

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20. 2020 was really that, that is an. Amazing

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ascent to be into, especially as a side hustle, so to

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speak. Thank you. To get into that many states with the logistic

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issues, as I've always said that they never repealed Prohibition, they just broke it

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up into 50 different pieces. That's very true. From our, I mean really,

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that's quite phenomenal. Well, I got lucky. We got lucky as a

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company. So I, I'm not a wine person and I'm not a, I'm

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not a CPG person. I've never lived in this

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industry. What kind of person are you? That's why you're here.

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It's very philosophical. I started my career in finance, so I worked

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on Wall street for six years at Goldman Sachs. So

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one of the evil empires. Yeah, right. But it was a great experience because it

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taught me how to think about a business from

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Its real sort of most important component parts. You

241
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know, what's a profit and loss statement, What's a balance sheet, What's a cash flow

242
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statement? How do you think about those financial

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components of a business? In any business that you're looking to form, it doesn't

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matter what industry you're in, you need to worry about are you generating revenue

245
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and do you have enough cash to grow that revenue base and are you

246
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losing too much money because of your expenses? That applies to

247
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anything. So I got those sort of building blocks while I was on Wall

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street and then I went and did my MBA at MIT Sloan up in the

249
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Boston area, which got me a lot of exposure to the,

250
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the tech and innovation industries. You know, Boston's very,

251
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very well known for computer science and for biotechnology and

252
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then and the life sciences. And so while at Sloan, I got

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very into sustainability and low carbon

254
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economy, AKA agriculture and energy systems.

255
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So my agriculture lean kind of got me into.

256
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How do I look at Armenia as a place that I always wanted to try

257
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to find a way to make an impact, just given the background that I

258
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grew up with Coaf with a charity that my father

259
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founded. I took a agriculturally focused lens to

260
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where can I help make an impact in Armenia? And so I spent some

261
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time looking at can we make higher value

262
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commodities or higher value products out of some of the commodities that are being produced

263
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in Armenia? Berries, let's say, being turned into

264
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jams and other and other processed foods. And so that got

265
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me sort of close to the wine world. It didn't get

266
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me into it until I made this, this trip in 2017. But when I

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went in 2017 and I got a chance to meet Vahe and Amy and they

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explained to me this sort of renaissance that was occurring in

269
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wine, I was, I had a little bit of that

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predisposition to wanting to do something to impact Armenia in

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a, in an industry that was akin to agriculture, which

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wine obviously straddles agriculture, it straddles manufacturing and

273
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it straddles tourism, which is one of the big

274
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things or cases for why countries want to drive

275
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economic development in wine. Because it touches those three core areas of

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economic development and most other products or industries don't touch all

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three. They'll touch one or two of those. So that got me

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compelled to do something. And that something certainly was not

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storica in the first instance. It was more of, hey, this wine's

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good. Are you guys selling it in the U.S. well, not really. We're kind of

281
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like Baja was self importing and calling buddies of his from his days as a

282
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distributor in the 90s to try to help him out. And it was a very

283
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passive, small, ad hoc effort, I would say. And so

284
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I said, okay, well, I don't know the first thing about importing wine or selling

285
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wine, but I know this is a good product, it has a great story and

286
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it could really impact Armenia in a lot of valuable ways. So

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let's figure out what that can be. And I wound up spending the next six

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months just bothering and pestering Vi and Amy on zoom

289
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calls, just, you know, keeping them up till 11:12pm

290
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their time and, you know, sitting in a conference room in my

291
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old job in Boston, just peppering them with questions.

292
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You know, Vahe came here

293
00:17:52,059 --> 00:17:55,742
years ago, I forgot why. And I did a

294
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podcast with him and he walked in and I looked at him and he looked

295
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at me and he says, we know each other. And when he was

296
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running the restaurant in Berkeley, he needed Gallo Chardonnay,

297
00:18:06,894 --> 00:18:10,654
the Sonoma, Gallo Sonoma, for a wedding, for his niece's wedding. It was

298
00:18:10,662 --> 00:18:13,230
in la and he didn't know where to get it. And however he got my

299
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name, I have no idea. I don't even know why I had the wine in

300
00:18:16,006 --> 00:18:19,758
stock. And we became, I bought it from him, we did business

301
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together. I'm like, what? That is wild. And he, I

302
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think I tell people this all the time. I think he's one of those brilliant

303
00:18:25,882 --> 00:18:29,546
winemakers in the world. Not philosophically

304
00:18:29,738 --> 00:18:33,434
grounded. The experience, it all adds up to like one of

305
00:18:33,442 --> 00:18:37,114
the, one of the great conversations. And you saw the footage we just shot

306
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is, it's just compelling to listen to what he does. And so you're learning

307
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from one of the best. But you know, this. There's a big difference

308
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between, you know, MIT business school,

309
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where you learn, you know, academically, what, what's right and then

310
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hit the streets in a heavily controlled environment with a heavily

311
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controlled product. Did that surprise

312
00:18:59,332 --> 00:19:02,692
you? Like when you got, got your, put your toe in the water, you went,

313
00:19:02,716 --> 00:19:06,276
oh my God. I didn't realize this is what it's about. I didn't

314
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realize how hard it would be to get

315
00:19:09,900 --> 00:19:13,668
us based consumers to embrace wine. I didn't

316
00:19:13,684 --> 00:19:17,360
realize how long it would take, you know, that this wine in any,

317
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,136
with any region is really a 15, 20 year sort

318
00:19:21,168 --> 00:19:25,008
of buildup phase. It doesn't matter how good the product is, it doesn't

319
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matter how interesting the story is. And I just assumed, okay,

320
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the product is good enough, it's at a good enough price point to where

321
00:19:32,568 --> 00:19:36,256
we should get it out into as into as many hands and mouths as.

322
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As possible. Quickly. And I just thought, okay, as long as we get it out

323
00:19:39,736 --> 00:19:42,752
there and we spend enough money to get it out there, we'll get a good

324
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enough conversion rate to, to build a great business, which sounds really nice

325
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:50,200
in theory. You forgot to say the margins suck. The margins are terrible.

326
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You. The cash flow is awful. I've had to continue

327
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to lean on my very generous and very patient

328
00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:01,128
investors to fund the business. Those

329
00:20:01,184 --> 00:20:05,032
parts I didn't think would be as painful. I had

330
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a guess they'd be painful. But the parts that I really didn't appreciate until the

331
00:20:08,896 --> 00:20:12,638
last couple of years was this just really is a slow burn, like

332
00:20:12,694 --> 00:20:15,918
wine is a slow burn. It just takes time to get people

333
00:20:15,974 --> 00:20:19,822
comfortable, to get people's light bulbs to turn on, so

334
00:20:19,846 --> 00:20:23,582
to speak. But it's coming. It's coming and we know that the

335
00:20:23,606 --> 00:20:27,310
product is going to have a place. And any wine region

336
00:20:27,350 --> 00:20:31,102
that has a place in the US Market does carve out a really nice

337
00:20:31,246 --> 00:20:34,302
size market because it is. So this is such a big industry here. You know,

338
00:20:34,326 --> 00:20:38,126
you talk about regions like Georgia, which no one really thinks

339
00:20:38,158 --> 00:20:41,802
of as a. As a presence here. It's. It does 1012 million in

340
00:20:41,826 --> 00:20:45,354
sales annually. In the US and it's not, you know, of all the years that

341
00:20:45,362 --> 00:20:48,874
we tasted wines here, there's only one Georgian specific

342
00:20:49,002 --> 00:20:52,030
importer. Brilliant guy,

343
00:20:52,610 --> 00:20:56,362
Stetson. Greece is like that too. There's one dominant order

344
00:20:56,546 --> 00:21:00,170
and Greece is embraced by dynamic and organic wines. And they're

345
00:21:00,250 --> 00:21:03,530
very good. That's a whole. It's very interesting the way you're positioning this

346
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because in the old days, you know, there were two wines,

347
00:21:07,286 --> 00:21:10,998
Butari, Namiya and a couple other Greek wines. That was it. They all broad market

348
00:21:11,054 --> 00:21:14,566
stuff, all brought in by this big. By the big houses. And now there's

349
00:21:14,598 --> 00:21:18,326
some boutique things. And I'm wondering. That's because consumerism's

350
00:21:18,358 --> 00:21:22,198
changing. Because fighting that same consumerism that is trying to

351
00:21:22,334 --> 00:21:26,102
find interesting things like from Storica is the

352
00:21:26,126 --> 00:21:29,782
supermarket shelf. Yeah. With Josh and Apothec Red. And all

353
00:21:29,806 --> 00:21:33,216
those things taste the same that are on that shelf. Even like the big brands

354
00:21:33,248 --> 00:21:36,944
now from Napa have that same sort of character. And so

355
00:21:36,952 --> 00:21:40,592
you're trying to find a very nuanced thing. And I think,

356
00:21:40,696 --> 00:21:44,540
I think it's getting that way. Yeah. Here's why I say that

357
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,900
the consumer, the drinking public is

358
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:53,860
barraged now with everything. Right. Internet

359
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,968
emails, you know, Google Ads, Facebook ads, they're

360
00:21:57,984 --> 00:22:01,426
all getting hammered by wine information flow. Right.

361
00:22:01,578 --> 00:22:04,962
And, and I Think what's going on is, and you're talking about

362
00:22:05,146 --> 00:22:08,930
tourism, experiential side of wine is

363
00:22:08,970 --> 00:22:12,786
going to come back. And the picture behind you, my father was a president

364
00:22:12,858 --> 00:22:16,546
of his local or chapter of what they called Les Amie Devin and

365
00:22:16,618 --> 00:22:20,434
these people would come together, taste wines, do the tastings. And that

366
00:22:20,442 --> 00:22:24,130
is the slow part of this. Yeah, it is. And that's the exciting part for

367
00:22:24,170 --> 00:22:27,826
what we're doing. And, and that's where we've gotten a lot of interest

368
00:22:27,898 --> 00:22:31,598
from development organizations like US ID who have a very large

369
00:22:31,654 --> 00:22:35,070
presence in Armenia. The go, the Ministry of Tourism and

370
00:22:35,110 --> 00:22:38,894
Economy of the government of Armenia. They want to use wine as a

371
00:22:38,902 --> 00:22:42,494
conduit to stimulate tourism. And they, they see what you're saying, which is that

372
00:22:42,582 --> 00:22:45,822
if we can get people to come to Armenia, not only are they going to

373
00:22:45,846 --> 00:22:49,294
have a beautiful experience with our culture, but they're going to part of that's going

374
00:22:49,302 --> 00:22:52,622
to be them embracing and understanding our wines and then they're going to go home

375
00:22:52,726 --> 00:22:55,582
and they're going to talk about it and they're going to consume our wines. And

376
00:22:55,606 --> 00:22:59,302
obviously for Storica, that's, that's our selfish business intent is to

377
00:22:59,326 --> 00:23:03,126
get more people to go and experience the wine regions in Armenia

378
00:23:03,158 --> 00:23:06,806
and then come home and drink the wine and tell their friends. So we're actually

379
00:23:06,878 --> 00:23:10,470
working on some really fun and exciting programs with the support of

380
00:23:10,510 --> 00:23:14,038
USAID and the government of Armenia to bring more

381
00:23:14,094 --> 00:23:17,750
people specifically to do wine tourism in Armenia. Define

382
00:23:17,830 --> 00:23:21,638
usaid. Man, I can't believe

383
00:23:21,694 --> 00:23:25,054
I'm saying this, but I actually don't have the acronym in my

384
00:23:25,062 --> 00:23:28,670
head. They are an economic development organization.

385
00:23:28,830 --> 00:23:32,350
So it's US taxpayer dollars that are being spent

386
00:23:32,510 --> 00:23:36,254
to develop economies and industry in, in various

387
00:23:36,302 --> 00:23:40,014
countries around the world. Very specific to what you're doing. Right. Their mandate

388
00:23:40,062 --> 00:23:43,422
in Armenia is to stimulate the, the growth sectors of

389
00:23:43,446 --> 00:23:46,330
Armenia's economy. Wine being one of those. So

390
00:23:46,870 --> 00:23:50,660
they've approached us. We've actually been working with them informally

391
00:23:50,740 --> 00:23:54,452
and formally for the last couple years. They've helped support some of

392
00:23:54,476 --> 00:23:58,116
our wine influencer trips to Armenia. So we've been sending

393
00:23:58,148 --> 00:24:01,460
groups of, of us based wine critics,

394
00:24:01,540 --> 00:24:05,284
writers, bloggers, sommeliers, some of the, some of the

395
00:24:05,292 --> 00:24:08,932
large distributors who we work with. We've sent some of their salespeople over to

396
00:24:08,956 --> 00:24:12,500
visit the region to meet with our winemakers, to meet with

397
00:24:12,540 --> 00:24:16,004
potential new wineries that we may work with. And so we've

398
00:24:16,052 --> 00:24:19,780
split some of the costs of that with usaid. And then now

399
00:24:19,820 --> 00:24:23,544
we're working on a larger, a larger set of, of marketing and sales

400
00:24:23,592 --> 00:24:27,192
efforts to mimic what a lot of other regions do. Country of

401
00:24:27,216 --> 00:24:30,744
Georgia spends over $1 million a year on just

402
00:24:30,832 --> 00:24:34,536
marketing their wines. In the US so that's a very important part.

403
00:24:34,688 --> 00:24:38,312
That was the next question was, does the Armenian government care? And

404
00:24:38,336 --> 00:24:41,860
we, and that's a whole different political discussion which we won't have here.

405
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,960
But have they helped? And then I'll tell you a story about some of these

406
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,340
local organizations. They definitely care.

407
00:24:49,750 --> 00:24:53,342
They, you know, the government of Armenia has a lot of other things that they

408
00:24:53,366 --> 00:24:56,654
have to prioritize spending their time and money and resources

409
00:24:56,702 --> 00:25:00,494
on. Unfortunately, hopefully one day they won't

410
00:25:00,542 --> 00:25:04,382
have as many existential things they have to worry about and they can spend more

411
00:25:04,406 --> 00:25:07,630
time and energy on wine. But right now, you know, this is really not their

412
00:25:07,670 --> 00:25:10,878
priority. So while they care, there's not a whole lot they can

413
00:25:10,934 --> 00:25:14,398
do, both monetarily and

414
00:25:14,534 --> 00:25:18,286
otherwise, to support what we're doing here. And the burden

415
00:25:18,318 --> 00:25:21,770
has fell on Storica to do a of the things that have otherwise been

416
00:25:21,810 --> 00:25:25,098
done by governmental agencies in other

417
00:25:25,234 --> 00:25:28,910
niche regions like Georgia, like Austria, like Greece.

418
00:25:29,650 --> 00:25:33,322
You know, it's something that, you know, we'd like, we'd of course like to see

419
00:25:33,346 --> 00:25:36,970
change. We'd like to see more of an investment made from the Armenian government and

420
00:25:37,010 --> 00:25:40,778
from other organizations in promoting Armenian wine in the US

421
00:25:40,914 --> 00:25:44,522
but for now we've got to do it because we're, we're the ones who are

422
00:25:44,546 --> 00:25:48,154
leading the charge of bringing these wines to the United States. It's kind of

423
00:25:48,162 --> 00:25:51,832
interesting. I had a Washington state winemaker in here

424
00:25:51,856 --> 00:25:55,432
who's also part of the commission of the Columbia Valley, I think it

425
00:25:55,456 --> 00:25:58,872
was, and this might be a radical

426
00:25:58,936 --> 00:26:02,552
idea. Well, it's going to be for the Armenian winemakers. But

427
00:26:02,576 --> 00:26:05,540
what, what they do and many other

428
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,024
groups, regional groups, because I've been to many

429
00:26:10,112 --> 00:26:13,960
regional tastings, Paso Robles, you know, Santa Ynez, whatever, they get together

430
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:17,334
as a co op, so to speak, put together these events and that's how you

431
00:26:17,342 --> 00:26:20,198
get the word out what you're talking about. But what these guys do, they tax

432
00:26:20,254 --> 00:26:24,038
each other. Yeah, that's what they do in Austria. They pay a tax

433
00:26:24,094 --> 00:26:27,878
based on sales. Okay. So these guys pay it on tonnage

434
00:26:28,054 --> 00:26:31,398
and then. But they all get together as the winemakers and

435
00:26:31,454 --> 00:26:35,142
proprietors and decide how to promote. Yeah. The

436
00:26:35,166 --> 00:26:38,246
region. That's great. But what would happen in Armenia if you try to tax somebody?

437
00:26:38,278 --> 00:26:41,846
Oh man. Putting a lot of people at one decision making table doesn't

438
00:26:41,878 --> 00:26:45,704
typically go well with Armenians. So that may be tough. So Miriam put it the

439
00:26:45,712 --> 00:26:49,512
best way. We're not team players, but I think this is important. This

440
00:26:49,536 --> 00:26:53,368
is very important in our trade. So much of the industry

441
00:26:53,424 --> 00:26:57,192
is required to have that team mentality to share

442
00:26:57,296 --> 00:27:00,904
what you're going through, particularly when there's a. To say a disaster

443
00:27:00,952 --> 00:27:04,584
like Phylloxer or something comes through that, you know, if you're not cohesive and

444
00:27:04,672 --> 00:27:08,504
making decisions together, it's going to be rather fragmented and difficult to do.

445
00:27:08,592 --> 00:27:12,120
Yeah. And we've actually, I mean, we've seen our winemakers who we work

446
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,890
with be a lot more cooperative and collaborative than

447
00:27:15,930 --> 00:27:19,698
maybe we had expected, which is nice. We'd

448
00:27:19,714 --> 00:27:23,138
like to see more of that. But, but, but they all do

449
00:27:23,194 --> 00:27:26,770
care. And a lot of these, A lot of the winemakers of Armenia come

450
00:27:26,810 --> 00:27:29,970
from professional backgrounds where this is not their

451
00:27:30,010 --> 00:27:33,794
livelihood. This is something that they had a passion to do. And there's a

452
00:27:33,802 --> 00:27:37,346
lot of really amazing stories that we're hoping to tell,

453
00:27:37,498 --> 00:27:41,106
both through some of the marketing work we do, but also through the. The trips

454
00:27:41,138 --> 00:27:43,474
that we send people on. And Paul, you went and you met with some of

455
00:27:43,482 --> 00:27:47,262
our winemaker, heard some of their stories, but they're all really beautiful stories.

456
00:27:47,326 --> 00:27:50,622
The. The walks of life they've come from, where they've always had this

457
00:27:50,646 --> 00:27:54,270
affinity for their culture of Armenia and the wine,

458
00:27:54,430 --> 00:27:57,742
and, and now they're. They're leading this sort of

459
00:27:57,766 --> 00:28:01,550
renaissance. And we're hoping to be able to. To tell more of those

460
00:28:01,590 --> 00:28:04,798
as we get more people to rally around these

461
00:28:04,854 --> 00:28:08,542
wines. But we're seeing that. We're seeing. We're seeing

462
00:28:08,606 --> 00:28:12,196
more cooperation, more our efforts. I mean, I've

463
00:28:12,228 --> 00:28:15,828
always, because I'm passionate about this as an Armenian, this is not about,

464
00:28:15,964 --> 00:28:18,756
you know, let me find the one brand that's going to be a money maker

465
00:28:18,788 --> 00:28:22,516
and then let me just sell that brand. I wish we could import

466
00:28:22,588 --> 00:28:25,972
every single brand that exists now. There's a limit to how much we can do,

467
00:28:25,996 --> 00:28:29,764
but we've always tried to find ways to bring more wines here, to

468
00:28:29,772 --> 00:28:33,428
give more wines a chance. We actually just added three brands to our portfolio

469
00:28:33,604 --> 00:28:37,332
that we brought over a couple pallets of each one basically, like, look,

470
00:28:37,356 --> 00:28:41,204
we're going to test these out, we're going to funnel these through our distribution infrastructure,

471
00:28:41,252 --> 00:28:45,078
and we'll see what really takes hold. Not a great business

472
00:28:45,134 --> 00:28:48,886
decision, but I've always had part of our mission be, it doesn't

473
00:28:48,918 --> 00:28:52,054
matter if this is good business. We need to get as many wines from Armenia

474
00:28:52,102 --> 00:28:55,302
to the US as we can, as quickly as we can, because we don't know

475
00:28:55,326 --> 00:28:58,518
which ones are going to match certain taste profiles of the US

476
00:28:58,574 --> 00:29:02,070
consumer. And it's just good. It's good for Armenia to have

477
00:29:02,190 --> 00:29:05,942
multiple brands and multiple winemakers represented in

478
00:29:05,966 --> 00:29:09,660
this market. You know, it's. People have sat in that same chair

479
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,872
and variety of outlooks on this

480
00:29:13,896 --> 00:29:16,580
industry, and it's obvious

481
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,992
what side of the fence you're on. You're on the passionate side of this and

482
00:29:21,016 --> 00:29:24,144
in for the long haul. There are people have sat there that have come up

483
00:29:24,152 --> 00:29:27,920
with some novel idea like a can or something or a 375

484
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,424
bottle of wine like that. So revolutionary, but clearly

485
00:29:31,472 --> 00:29:35,162
hoping to gain some kind of market share

486
00:29:35,266 --> 00:29:39,002
and sell it off and make their billion dollars move on and that. And I

487
00:29:39,026 --> 00:29:42,810
guess that's fine because that's capitalism. But wine, it's

488
00:29:42,890 --> 00:29:46,426
pretty hard to play that game. And I think you've noticed

489
00:29:46,458 --> 00:29:49,722
already in the short time you've done this and the headwinds you've had, that it

490
00:29:49,746 --> 00:29:53,386
takes only passion to see through all this passion.

491
00:29:53,418 --> 00:29:57,258
And you gotta be willing to admit when you've made

492
00:29:57,314 --> 00:30:00,150
a mistake and pivot quickly. So we.

493
00:30:00,910 --> 00:30:04,582
About a year and a half ago, we were 18 people. We were burning, I

494
00:30:04,606 --> 00:30:07,590
won't say the dollar amount because it's pretty embarrassing. We were burning a lot of

495
00:30:07,630 --> 00:30:11,302
money on a monthly basis. And while I, of

496
00:30:11,326 --> 00:30:14,886
course, wanted to continue to try to do everything we could to stimulate

497
00:30:14,998 --> 00:30:18,822
interest in the wines, I had to make a tough decision to let

498
00:30:18,846 --> 00:30:22,422
go of some people and to really trim down our expenses because it was a

499
00:30:22,446 --> 00:30:25,814
question of whether we would be able to still exist as a company.

500
00:30:25,982 --> 00:30:29,084
And so while that was painful for, you know, our

501
00:30:29,172 --> 00:30:32,876
stateside effort and also painful for some of our winemakers who are expecting

502
00:30:32,908 --> 00:30:36,572
us to buy a lot higher volume of wine than we wound up buying over

503
00:30:36,596 --> 00:30:39,932
the last 12, 18 months, in the long term, it's going to wind up

504
00:30:39,956 --> 00:30:43,772
benefiting the region and our effort because, you know, we need to stay

505
00:30:43,796 --> 00:30:47,452
alive. We're. There have been a couple other importers of Armenian wine

506
00:30:47,516 --> 00:30:51,212
that have tried, and it's not worked out for them. We wish it had, because

507
00:30:51,316 --> 00:30:54,956
we think this is a situation where, you know, with a rising tide, all boats

508
00:30:54,988 --> 00:30:58,748
rise, or there's only. There's only benefit from having more exposure

509
00:30:58,764 --> 00:31:02,552
of Armenian wine in the US and we're hoping that more importers

510
00:31:02,616 --> 00:31:06,312
will. Will step up and find a way to resource what

511
00:31:06,336 --> 00:31:10,040
is a very difficult business, particularly in the first five or ten

512
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,704
years. We've been at this for almost five years now. It's. We're entering our fifth

513
00:31:13,752 --> 00:31:17,352
year. And yeah, I can say that it's, it's tough,

514
00:31:17,416 --> 00:31:21,240
but we see things starting to trend in the right direction.

515
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,780
You said to me at Guinea Fest the first time we met, I don't,

516
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,362
you said something like, sorry, man, or

517
00:31:29,386 --> 00:31:32,350
something. We didn't know what we were doing.

518
00:31:33,210 --> 00:31:36,706
And I'm wondering if that's, you know, coming out of the gates, 18 people

519
00:31:36,858 --> 00:31:39,794
pumping it up, you know, this is a product, we can make it work. Everybody,

520
00:31:39,842 --> 00:31:43,122
all you have to do is dot our I's and cross our T's and this

521
00:31:43,146 --> 00:31:45,634
is a product that we could make. And then you realize, I think this is

522
00:31:45,642 --> 00:31:48,034
what you're trying to tell me at the point. You realize, yeah, this is a

523
00:31:48,042 --> 00:31:51,602
different road than marketing a widget that everybody can

524
00:31:51,626 --> 00:31:55,442
use. Yeah, well, we certainly, I certainly still don't know what I'm doing in

525
00:31:55,466 --> 00:31:58,150
this world. And my co founders,

526
00:32:00,630 --> 00:32:04,078
it's a tough world. It's a tough market. And the industry has been

527
00:32:04,134 --> 00:32:07,886
pretty, has performed pretty poorly in the U.S. like, wine consumption

528
00:32:07,918 --> 00:32:11,678
is down all over. All over. Yeah. So we're

529
00:32:11,694 --> 00:32:15,390
in a tough environment. But I took

530
00:32:15,430 --> 00:32:19,006
a very first principles approach of just find

531
00:32:19,078 --> 00:32:22,810
people who are capable and who care about

532
00:32:23,190 --> 00:32:27,022
the mission that we're on, which is to bring a brand new category to the

533
00:32:27,046 --> 00:32:30,542
most competitive wine market in the world. We knew it was going to be

534
00:32:30,566 --> 00:32:34,382
difficult. And as long as we see signs that, that

535
00:32:34,406 --> 00:32:37,950
there is a light at the end of the tunnel, let's keep finding ways to,

536
00:32:38,070 --> 00:32:41,838
to try and fail. And we certainly, we certainly tried a lot and failed

537
00:32:41,854 --> 00:32:45,050
a lot in the beginning, but it didn't, it didn't kill our business, which

538
00:32:45,430 --> 00:32:48,638
I think is ultimately a good sign. And now we're, we're in a place

539
00:32:48,694 --> 00:32:52,462
where if we see the, the industry start to turn back

540
00:32:52,486 --> 00:32:56,078
around and we see that there is a growing desire for

541
00:32:56,134 --> 00:32:59,714
the large sort of middle of the value chain players,

542
00:32:59,802 --> 00:33:03,474
the sort of legalized bootleggers from Prohibition

543
00:33:03,602 --> 00:33:06,830
come back around to wanting new regions and new

544
00:33:07,370 --> 00:33:10,830
brands. I think that'll wind up really helping the Armenian wine industry.

545
00:33:12,010 --> 00:33:15,570
There's an argument going on. Well, it's been going on for a long time,

546
00:33:15,610 --> 00:33:19,074
but one of the first things that came out of the, when the Armenian

547
00:33:19,122 --> 00:33:22,162
wines were being made properly, that was the first thing that had to happen, is

548
00:33:22,186 --> 00:33:24,994
the technology had to go there and they had to sort of understand the western

549
00:33:25,042 --> 00:33:28,854
style winemaking. And like I said, it's cyclical, depending

550
00:33:28,902 --> 00:33:32,470
on style, but at least they're doing it the right way.

551
00:33:32,590 --> 00:33:35,542
But then it was, well, you know, we got to have you know, the world

552
00:33:35,566 --> 00:33:39,366
is ready for Adani. I heard that how many times? And Adam is a wonderful

553
00:33:39,398 --> 00:33:42,438
grape. And I have my personal opinions about, you know, whether it should be oaked

554
00:33:42,454 --> 00:33:45,750
or not, etc. But do

555
00:33:45,790 --> 00:33:49,302
we pursue. And when I had the

556
00:33:49,326 --> 00:33:53,140
conversation with David that Voskovas and I just reading his.

557
00:33:53,260 --> 00:33:56,760
I have to read the captions because I don't speak the language.

558
00:33:57,660 --> 00:34:01,396
He's saying, you know, the world is ready for Voska hat and Kangun and Otany

559
00:34:01,428 --> 00:34:05,124
and all these grapes, when that probably adds to the

560
00:34:05,132 --> 00:34:08,852
headwinds of getting the marketplace to understand. And let me switch a little

561
00:34:08,876 --> 00:34:12,532
bit. There was a Moldavian wine that came in here years ago. It was called

562
00:34:12,556 --> 00:34:15,892
Hickory Ridge, clearly a Moldovan name.

563
00:34:16,076 --> 00:34:19,732
And finally you had to drill down the back label that the

564
00:34:19,756 --> 00:34:23,602
wines, the grapes were made and grown in Moldavia, but,

565
00:34:23,716 --> 00:34:26,614
you know, there was marketed through and they did everything they could to make it

566
00:34:26,622 --> 00:34:29,974
look like it was an American wine, except for, you know, vintage and

567
00:34:29,982 --> 00:34:33,590
bottled. And, and so I thought, okay, does

568
00:34:33,630 --> 00:34:37,462
Armenian have the same headwinds? Are they, are they not only struggling with

569
00:34:37,486 --> 00:34:41,302
trying to get a region recognized, but now we're also talking about varietals that we

570
00:34:41,326 --> 00:34:44,662
have to figure out how to get understood, or do we just put white wine?

571
00:34:44,806 --> 00:34:48,550
That's a good question. Jack's blend. We, we've debated

572
00:34:48,630 --> 00:34:52,310
do we change or do we seek to use different names for

573
00:34:52,350 --> 00:34:56,033
certain grapes? I mean, the country of Ar Actually decided

574
00:34:56,081 --> 00:34:59,921
to refer to the Khandoni grape as the Sidani grape. They

575
00:34:59,945 --> 00:35:03,633
thought Sidani was an easier word to say, which it is still not the

576
00:35:03,641 --> 00:35:07,121
easiest. So there has been some of that already from the, the

577
00:35:07,145 --> 00:35:10,897
Armenia side infrastructure from my perspective. And you know,

578
00:35:10,953 --> 00:35:14,769
philosophically, we want Armenian culture to be, to

579
00:35:14,809 --> 00:35:18,449
be very much part of the Storica story. You know, we want

580
00:35:18,489 --> 00:35:22,177
to, we don't want to import brands that are producing non Armenian

581
00:35:22,193 --> 00:35:25,942
grapes in Armenian. Armenia, because even though it's a product of Armenia, it's not an

582
00:35:25,966 --> 00:35:29,494
Armenian varietal. So that's, you know, that's a philosophical

583
00:35:29,542 --> 00:35:33,302
thing. That's not right, wrong or indifferent. So in the, in

584
00:35:33,326 --> 00:35:36,502
the topic of, you know, you can't, it's hard to pronounce Voskahad or it's hard

585
00:35:36,526 --> 00:35:40,326
to pronounce. Okay, you know, use some phonetic

586
00:35:40,358 --> 00:35:44,150
cards, which is what we've done. We've, we've, we've brought like the phonetic way

587
00:35:44,190 --> 00:35:47,782
to pronounce these to our sales trainings, and we've used it in some of

588
00:35:47,806 --> 00:35:51,622
our shelf talkers. So there are ways to to make it fun and

589
00:35:51,646 --> 00:35:54,922
make it less of a challenge. But it certainly is. Is causing some

590
00:35:54,946 --> 00:35:57,978
headwind. To your question about, do you bucket these into

591
00:35:58,034 --> 00:36:01,722
categories that avoid having to call it a

592
00:36:01,746 --> 00:36:05,434
new category? Like, we've had some shops say to us, well, I love this wine,

593
00:36:05,482 --> 00:36:08,442
but I don't have an Armenia section, so I don't know where to put it.

594
00:36:08,546 --> 00:36:12,090
Right. In the case of Adeni, let's say. But when we bring them our

595
00:36:12,130 --> 00:36:15,722
Kush sparkling wine, since it's champagne method, they say, I love this

596
00:36:15,746 --> 00:36:19,256
wine, and I'll just put it in the champagne cooler. So,

597
00:36:19,408 --> 00:36:23,128
you know. Okay, we want to win from a business perspective.

598
00:36:23,304 --> 00:36:27,060
So in that respect, we want our wines to fit into

599
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:31,512
wine categories that have literal shelf space

600
00:36:31,616 --> 00:36:35,288
or menu space. And so in the case of. Let's. Like

601
00:36:35,344 --> 00:36:38,408
in the. In the case of Vonardi, which is a red blend, it's a blend

602
00:36:38,424 --> 00:36:42,232
about any. And. And we

603
00:36:42,256 --> 00:36:45,176
call that a red blend. We lead with, hey, this is a red blend. Yeah.

604
00:36:45,208 --> 00:36:48,680
It's coming from Armenia, and it's these two grapes, which you really can't pronounce but

605
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:52,196
will help. That's how we're trying to get

606
00:36:52,348 --> 00:36:56,068
adoption going, is to say, yeah, you may not have an Armenia

607
00:36:56,164 --> 00:36:59,940
category, or you may not have an Eastern Europe category, but this is

608
00:36:59,980 --> 00:37:03,812
champagne. This is a red blend, and where we have

609
00:37:03,836 --> 00:37:07,636
opportunity, we'll keep doing that. I guess it's like

610
00:37:07,708 --> 00:37:11,460
my dad's shop. In that picture, it was Cabernet Nap and other

611
00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:15,284
reds. For now, we're in other reds for the wine list. For now, we're in

612
00:37:15,292 --> 00:37:18,872
other reds, But. I think, you know, and we call that a hand sell. Right.

613
00:37:18,896 --> 00:37:22,632
And if you're. If you're on a restaurant list. Yeah. Not

614
00:37:22,656 --> 00:37:25,112
too many people are walking and saying, can I get an odd knee or a

615
00:37:25,136 --> 00:37:28,696
volcano? I heard that term so much in the beginning. Hand sell.

616
00:37:28,768 --> 00:37:32,312
And. And I. I mean, I understand the literal meaning of you need someone to

617
00:37:32,336 --> 00:37:35,960
physically hand this to a customer for them to ever know it even

618
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,672
exists. But. But the. The. The. The. Like, what

619
00:37:39,696 --> 00:37:43,368
that really means has really, I've learned over the years

620
00:37:43,424 --> 00:37:46,416
that's really like. Like, this is hard. It's a manual

621
00:37:46,608 --> 00:37:50,080
exposure. Yeah. No one's walking into a shop and saying, hey,

622
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,952
where? Show me your best identity. Yeah, right. Exactly. And

623
00:37:53,976 --> 00:37:57,632
that's been like that for a little while. But when I do pour, for

624
00:37:57,656 --> 00:38:01,136
instance, the Karasi Voska, which I think is one of the stupendous

625
00:38:01,168 --> 00:38:04,672
wines. Beautiful. I mean, I just. Yeah. When it comes to

626
00:38:04,696 --> 00:38:08,368
expression, complexity, showing a place

627
00:38:08,424 --> 00:38:12,224
a Time of place. Yeah, I haven't had anything that I think is as

628
00:38:12,232 --> 00:38:15,984
good as that. And even though I tasted every single wine at Guinea Fest

629
00:38:16,032 --> 00:38:19,664
last time there was 75 wines, it still

630
00:38:19,752 --> 00:38:23,552
stood out to me. But you have to just put

631
00:38:23,576 --> 00:38:26,780
it in the glass. You have to and just say, taste this.

632
00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:30,672
So Vosqueja or Vosque Vaz is an

633
00:38:30,696 --> 00:38:34,384
example of a beautiful set of wines. I mean, these wines

634
00:38:34,432 --> 00:38:38,208
would compete with 3, 4, 500 French wines. But they're not French. That's

635
00:38:38,224 --> 00:38:41,996
the problem. And so what do you do with them? And we've tried

636
00:38:42,028 --> 00:38:45,532
many different approaches. What we've tried, which we thought

637
00:38:45,716 --> 00:38:49,132
was creative enough to work and it's worked a little bit, is go

638
00:38:49,156 --> 00:38:52,972
to five star Michelin star restaurants, all of which have

639
00:38:52,996 --> 00:38:56,412
tasting menus where they're looking for wines that are interesting, that have a

640
00:38:56,436 --> 00:39:00,012
story that show and taste like very expensive wines.

641
00:39:00,076 --> 00:39:03,724
And maybe instead of them pouring a $200 French

642
00:39:03,772 --> 00:39:07,324
wine, which they buy for 60 bucks, let them pour Voskat or

643
00:39:07,332 --> 00:39:10,876
Voskavas rather, which, which shows like a $200 French wine

644
00:39:10,988 --> 00:39:14,744
and has a really interesting story that a custom tasting menu may like and

645
00:39:14,752 --> 00:39:18,552
they get to charge whatever they want and make more margin by buying it for

646
00:39:18,576 --> 00:39:22,088
a quarter of the price. Right. That's been our approach. It's worked in some

647
00:39:22,144 --> 00:39:25,864
markets, but you know, that's one where it seems like it makes perfect

648
00:39:25,912 --> 00:39:29,416
sense in theory. But you know, going and getting in front of

649
00:39:29,568 --> 00:39:33,320
these directors of these restaurants and getting them to

650
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,760
be willing to switch out a tried and true,

651
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,568
you know, French or Italian or Californian wine is just tough. It's

652
00:39:40,584 --> 00:39:44,184
just, it's just really difficult hand to hand combat. It's not any easier

653
00:39:44,232 --> 00:39:48,004
today because everybody's trying to cut back on their list. They're trying to reduce the

654
00:39:48,012 --> 00:39:51,780
number of vendors they're doing business with. That's right. And you know, post Covid World

655
00:39:51,820 --> 00:39:55,524
has created a different restauranteur and it's still us doing it. You know,

656
00:39:55,532 --> 00:39:59,140
we, we have some really great distributors around the country and they have their

657
00:39:59,180 --> 00:40:02,692
teams of sales reps, many of whom have embraced the wines. But there's still a

658
00:40:02,716 --> 00:40:06,052
lot of need for Storica to be

659
00:40:06,236 --> 00:40:09,860
proactively involved in the selling process. And, and what we now

660
00:40:09,900 --> 00:40:13,730
aspire to become is, is, is part of a

661
00:40:14,190 --> 00:40:17,462
larger sort of distribution infrastructure

662
00:40:17,606 --> 00:40:21,382
that has just armies and armies of people

663
00:40:21,566 --> 00:40:25,302
who can get behind the story. And then now you're dealing with

664
00:40:25,486 --> 00:40:28,870
markets where Instead of having four or five sales reps, you've got 40 or

665
00:40:28,910 --> 00:40:32,614
50. It becomes a lot easier to do that hand to hand combat

666
00:40:32,662 --> 00:40:36,150
for, for. Voskvaz and you know, the headwinds to that already. But. Right,

667
00:40:36,270 --> 00:40:40,086
yeah, I mean that's the southern. Or young, highly

668
00:40:40,118 --> 00:40:43,604
competitive set of portfolio slots. Lots. The problem in the

669
00:40:43,612 --> 00:40:47,140
industries already know. But the books are getting thicker, which

670
00:40:47,180 --> 00:40:50,964
means your, your, the vision, your vision is getting smaller.

671
00:40:51,092 --> 00:40:54,740
And then that requires you to go into that sales mode and get into

672
00:40:54,780 --> 00:40:58,066
those conferences and have those conversations. You know, there's an interesting group I don't know

673
00:40:58,068 --> 00:41:01,012
if you ever heard of, it's called Odiny Global. Have you heard of this? I

674
00:41:01,036 --> 00:41:04,484
have heard that name. So there, it's a, it's, it's a female

675
00:41:04,532 --> 00:41:08,244
run French group out of the Rhone and its

676
00:41:08,332 --> 00:41:11,990
purpose is to organize wineries

677
00:41:12,150 --> 00:41:15,142
that have headwinds and to help them understand the

678
00:41:15,166 --> 00:41:18,966
marketplace and. But why they call it oddity

679
00:41:19,078 --> 00:41:22,742
is the most interesting, fascinating thing. It's a very. The woman who ran it was

680
00:41:22,766 --> 00:41:26,518
here and she said because it's unknown and we want people

681
00:41:26,574 --> 00:41:30,358
to learn, people understand. And so we call it. But they're

682
00:41:30,374 --> 00:41:33,590
not Armenian. No, completely French. Okay.

683
00:41:33,750 --> 00:41:37,262
Like the tough French. I mean they're really talented women to do

684
00:41:37,286 --> 00:41:40,702
this. This is a, this is sort of a tough question. It's more of

685
00:41:40,726 --> 00:41:44,238
a philosophical question because we've always

686
00:41:44,294 --> 00:41:47,710
had in this industry entry level things to do in the

687
00:41:47,750 --> 00:41:51,406
70s, 1974, when Sutterholm came out with white Zinfandel that brought

688
00:41:51,438 --> 00:41:55,246
people to the table. Lee from, you know, Blue

689
00:41:55,278 --> 00:41:58,942
Nun back in the day brought people to the table. Matus, Pet

690
00:41:59,046 --> 00:42:02,718
Matus and the other Portuguese wine would bring

691
00:42:02,774 --> 00:42:06,544
lancers, would bring people to the table that otherwise would. So you.

692
00:42:06,632 --> 00:42:09,888
So when you walk into the shelf, you walk into the market. Today when you're

693
00:42:09,904 --> 00:42:13,296
going home, you can stop at Ralph's. Every single

694
00:42:13,488 --> 00:42:17,312
wine has a shelf talker. It's got a tag. Yeah. It's either got

695
00:42:17,336 --> 00:42:20,352
a score or it's got a price reduction or something. And you're looking at the

696
00:42:20,376 --> 00:42:24,176
sea of yellow or red or green or whatever color that the market uses.

697
00:42:24,368 --> 00:42:28,112
How do you get any traction doing that? And what

698
00:42:28,136 --> 00:42:31,940
if it's really not the question, what if, what if profitability was not

699
00:42:31,980 --> 00:42:35,812
part of this equation? What if wine was a product where we didn't need to

700
00:42:35,836 --> 00:42:39,412
worry about making a profit? Would we have a different set of.

701
00:42:39,516 --> 00:42:43,364
Would things be different on the shelf? That's a good question. I

702
00:42:43,372 --> 00:42:47,108
mean there's probably no answer to this, but. Well, I think the first

703
00:42:47,164 --> 00:42:50,132
thing people are going to look at a label and they're going to look at

704
00:42:50,156 --> 00:42:53,280
a Price. And so people who are

705
00:42:53,660 --> 00:42:57,492
wine enthusiasts, right, not like the super duper experts,

706
00:42:57,556 --> 00:43:01,016
but people who know enough about wine to know that a champagne method

707
00:43:01,108 --> 00:43:04,944
sparkling white priced anything below 30 bucks

708
00:43:04,992 --> 00:43:08,592
is probably pretty good value. Right? Like there are enough people in this

709
00:43:08,616 --> 00:43:12,400
country that, that, that have enough knowledge of wine or a red blend

710
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,288
from Italy, if it's good quality and it's priced,

711
00:43:16,304 --> 00:43:19,328
you know, in the 19 to 23 range like that. Okay, that's probably a pretty

712
00:43:19,344 --> 00:43:23,168
good value. Let me look at, let me go look at this wine. I think

713
00:43:23,224 --> 00:43:26,460
things like that are probably the first things that draw people.

714
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,768
What would be in the bottle be different? Like if, if you were, if

715
00:43:30,824 --> 00:43:34,592
I was making wine. Yeah, then he. And the budget wasn't a problem because

716
00:43:34,616 --> 00:43:37,920
it didn't matter that he would be more

717
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,520
expressive of what he's doing or he, or that philos the philosophy of

718
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,232
making wine the way he makes it. Regardless of the budget and the

719
00:43:45,256 --> 00:43:48,832
cost, I'm still going to put in the bottle the most expressive thing I can

720
00:43:48,856 --> 00:43:52,608
do. Well, guys like Vaje, because he said this to me and others and it's

721
00:43:52,624 --> 00:43:56,362
a beautiful thing is he cares to, to produce a

722
00:43:56,386 --> 00:44:00,122
volume that's going to support the villages that he has relationships with. So

723
00:44:00,146 --> 00:44:03,962
he said he tells the people in the villages that he

724
00:44:03,986 --> 00:44:07,466
buys his grapes from, don't sell your grapes to anyone else.

725
00:44:07,578 --> 00:44:11,354
I'm always going to give you 5 or 10% above market and I'm going to

726
00:44:11,362 --> 00:44:14,826
buy all your grapes no matter what. And that's supporting these communities.

727
00:44:15,018 --> 00:44:17,882
Right. So there's obviously an

728
00:44:17,906 --> 00:44:21,722
altruistic and philanthropic almost component to how

729
00:44:21,746 --> 00:44:25,470
he thinks about what he should be doing regardless of the money

730
00:44:25,510 --> 00:44:29,230
he's, he's spending. And that's a beautiful story. And that's part of what we

731
00:44:29,270 --> 00:44:32,494
saw in the Psalm movie that, that you know, we really hoped people would latch

732
00:44:32,542 --> 00:44:36,062
onto and, and rally around Kush as his

733
00:44:36,086 --> 00:44:39,918
sparkling wine product. So I think there are some that think that way of just,

734
00:44:39,974 --> 00:44:43,230
you know, part of why I did this and why I, I labor through it

735
00:44:43,270 --> 00:44:46,686
even though I'm not making much money is because I know that what I'm doing

736
00:44:46,758 --> 00:44:50,398
is benefiting these, these people in these communities that otherwise

737
00:44:50,494 --> 00:44:53,570
would not have much of a, a means of economic

738
00:44:53,870 --> 00:44:56,998
sustenance. That is actually the best

739
00:44:57,054 --> 00:45:00,742
answer. It's actually you're the only person that's come in

740
00:45:00,766 --> 00:45:04,374
here that could say that answer because you have a

741
00:45:04,382 --> 00:45:07,370
relationship with Vahe and he's truly

742
00:45:07,790 --> 00:45:11,494
irregardless of what needs,

743
00:45:11,662 --> 00:45:15,446
what the needs are. Profitability wise. He is making A commitment to this community

744
00:45:15,518 --> 00:45:18,614
and these farmers that he's going to buy. And it's not just Vi. I mean,

745
00:45:18,622 --> 00:45:21,622
Vi is great, and he's a. He's a forebearer of this movement. But all of

746
00:45:21,646 --> 00:45:25,410
our wineries, even those that have their own vineyards, like Von Rd, they will still

747
00:45:25,450 --> 00:45:29,010
go buy a certain portion of their. Of their grapes every year from

748
00:45:29,050 --> 00:45:32,898
local farmers. And part of it is because they. They have these

749
00:45:32,954 --> 00:45:36,530
relationships with these growers who have been growing on those

750
00:45:36,570 --> 00:45:40,338
vines for. For generations. And they want to support them,

751
00:45:40,394 --> 00:45:44,150
provided that it's good quality, which, you know, that's part of the requirement.

752
00:45:44,650 --> 00:45:48,370
There is this. There is this sort of desire among

753
00:45:48,410 --> 00:45:52,144
all the wine, the leading wineries of Armenia, to support the small.

754
00:45:52,322 --> 00:45:56,068
The small growers. And that I think leads to a better product

755
00:45:56,124 --> 00:45:59,860
in the bottle. Beyond. Beyond just the

756
00:45:59,900 --> 00:46:03,720
story. You just define passion. You know, that's.

757
00:46:04,060 --> 00:46:07,876
Profitability is not the primary goal. The community is the primary goal.

758
00:46:07,908 --> 00:46:11,172
And the passion to make the right thing is the primary goal. That's right. You

759
00:46:11,196 --> 00:46:14,932
know, we're almost out of time here, oddly. Wow. But felt like we

760
00:46:14,956 --> 00:46:18,756
just started. Yeah. You just said something I want we should touch on,

761
00:46:18,828 --> 00:46:22,006
which is the movie the cup of Salvation. And I made sure that that Armenian

762
00:46:22,038 --> 00:46:25,654
vintners in Napa went and visited and saw the movie when they were in Napa.

763
00:46:25,782 --> 00:46:29,014
And she wanted to. She wanted me to come up and bring a bottle of

764
00:46:29,022 --> 00:46:32,566
the wine and taste other things with her and her

765
00:46:32,638 --> 00:46:36,342
fellow winemakers at the same time. We haven't done it yet, but I do have

766
00:46:36,366 --> 00:46:40,166
the bottle here. But let's just talk about the marketing for a second.

767
00:46:40,238 --> 00:46:43,570
You know, I sent.

768
00:46:43,950 --> 00:46:47,744
I was averaging when I was marketing my club, when there

769
00:46:47,752 --> 00:46:50,780
was a mail, a million pieces of mail a year.

770
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,936
I'm not here to brag about metrics. Then when that

771
00:46:56,008 --> 00:46:59,808
stopped being effective the last year business, I did 33

772
00:46:59,864 --> 00:47:03,520
million emails. Okay, that's. I sent out in one 12

773
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,264
months. Okay. It's a lot. Right. But I thought

774
00:47:07,352 --> 00:47:10,160
when the movie came out, and it's not the purpose of the movie, but from

775
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:14,042
a marketing tool had not been done. You know, there are. There have been a

776
00:47:14,066 --> 00:47:17,562
handful of successful media shows on

777
00:47:17,666 --> 00:47:21,370
wine, you know, drops of God being one of them, some other things,

778
00:47:21,410 --> 00:47:24,842
but they're not about wine. And here's a cool story about Vahe and what he

779
00:47:24,866 --> 00:47:28,698
does with the Iranian grapes. Is that what it set out to be?

780
00:47:28,754 --> 00:47:32,282
Like this. We're going to try to use this movie to be a marketing tool.

781
00:47:32,306 --> 00:47:35,962
And if that's the case, how Brilliant. Just so I put it up front. But

782
00:47:35,986 --> 00:47:38,430
if it's not so, doesn't mean they're not brilliant.

783
00:47:39,980 --> 00:47:43,060
But was that what it was for or was it Tell the story. No, we.

784
00:47:43,180 --> 00:47:46,160
I cannot take credit for that movie. That was total

785
00:47:46,860 --> 00:47:50,324
luck and serendipity. We. We didn't, we didn't commission it. We had nothing to do

786
00:47:50,332 --> 00:47:53,956
with it. They actually started making the film. The Psalm production

787
00:47:53,988 --> 00:47:57,732
team, some TV team, Jason White, started making the film before we even

788
00:47:57,756 --> 00:48:01,572
started Storica. So we just. Yeah, they started in

789
00:48:01,596 --> 00:48:05,044
2018 and only

790
00:48:05,212 --> 00:48:08,978
about an a year and a half ago when the movie was in post production

791
00:48:09,154 --> 00:48:12,946
did I realize that it was the same company

792
00:48:13,018 --> 00:48:16,270
that made the original Saw movie, which was a pretty well

793
00:48:17,210 --> 00:48:20,642
regarded movie on Netflix. So then I said, oh, wow, this is actually a real

794
00:48:20,746 --> 00:48:24,434
movie. We're going to. We should benefit from this. So we then got involved

795
00:48:24,482 --> 00:48:28,034
and we did a marketing campaign with SOM TV where they

796
00:48:28,122 --> 00:48:31,906
featured Storica and our wines report at some of the showings around the country.

797
00:48:31,978 --> 00:48:35,234
And they had our logo up with a QR code to our shop

798
00:48:35,282 --> 00:48:38,942
online at the end of some of the screenings. So we wound up

799
00:48:38,966 --> 00:48:42,302
benefiting from it quite a bit. Last year and into the early part of this

800
00:48:42,326 --> 00:48:45,934
year, we've seen the. We've seen the sort of boom

801
00:48:45,982 --> 00:48:49,662
from sales growth dissipate a little bit. But, you know, we think overall the

802
00:48:49,686 --> 00:48:53,518
movie will continue to pay dividends just for awareness of our. It'll

803
00:48:53,534 --> 00:48:56,382
be a. It'll be an artifact that everyone will always be able to go to

804
00:48:56,406 --> 00:48:59,902
and say, oh, wow, this is a really cool story about one of the

805
00:48:59,926 --> 00:49:03,774
forebears of the Armenian wine movement. And it should get on one

806
00:49:03,782 --> 00:49:07,594
of the streaming platforms for free this year. And then that hopefully will drive

807
00:49:07,642 --> 00:49:10,826
some viewership. But no, that was total. That was total luck.

808
00:49:10,938 --> 00:49:14,538
Well, you're brilliant. Anyway, Zach, we all know this. Thank

809
00:49:14,554 --> 00:49:18,250
you. Well, I, I do believe

810
00:49:18,290 --> 00:49:21,430
that we'll end on this thought. I do believe.

811
00:49:22,050 --> 00:49:25,866
And I, I did this in the voiceover that would you. Of the movie you.

812
00:49:25,938 --> 00:49:28,790
The show we were talking about earlier, which is

813
00:49:29,650 --> 00:49:33,366
Wine is about the story. It can't be that we're sitting

814
00:49:33,398 --> 00:49:37,110
at dinner together and the story is, I got this for five

815
00:49:37,150 --> 00:49:40,886
bucks on the Internet. That's not a story. No, the story is, hey,

816
00:49:40,918 --> 00:49:43,926
there's this young man who started this company and this is one of the wines

817
00:49:43,958 --> 00:49:47,702
he brings in this Armenia. That whole story evolves at the dinner table because one

818
00:49:47,726 --> 00:49:51,494
thing about wine that's like no other beverage, nobody sits around with a shot of

819
00:49:51,502 --> 00:49:54,918
Jack Daniels and tries to figure out, you know, what the sour mash

820
00:49:55,094 --> 00:49:58,784
blend was. They don't have that conversation. But. But wine,

821
00:49:58,832 --> 00:50:02,060
even though it's an intimidating subject for many, many people to discuss,

822
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:06,080
it's an unintimidating conversation piece at the end of the

823
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:09,904
evening. It's always, it's always interesting. Yeah. It's always cool.

824
00:50:09,952 --> 00:50:12,432
And they all ask the questions. As long as you're not being arrogant about the

825
00:50:12,456 --> 00:50:16,128
answer, they want to know more. Yeah. And so the story

826
00:50:16,184 --> 00:50:19,984
is, how did what's in the bottle become what's in the bottle?

827
00:50:20,112 --> 00:50:23,500
Yeah. And that's what tells the story. Absolutely. And we've got.

828
00:50:23,970 --> 00:50:27,230
Armenia has the benefit of having a really rich

829
00:50:27,890 --> 00:50:31,610
set of story pieces, you know, content pieces

830
00:50:31,690 --> 00:50:35,226
that we get to work with, both from the ancient history of it and

831
00:50:35,298 --> 00:50:39,066
how the geopolitical evolution of Armenia as an independent

832
00:50:39,098 --> 00:50:42,730
republic has now led to this renaissance of winemaking. And that is

833
00:50:42,770 --> 00:50:46,618
now being brought forward by mainly Diasporan Armenians,

834
00:50:46,714 --> 00:50:49,990
which are, you know, Armenians coming from other parts of the world,

835
00:50:50,690 --> 00:50:53,670
but committing their

836
00:50:54,290 --> 00:50:57,754
time and energy and moving their families to Armenia

837
00:50:57,882 --> 00:51:01,722
to be a part of this movement. Those are beautiful stories, and those

838
00:51:01,746 --> 00:51:04,750
are actually representative of the way Armenians

839
00:51:05,970 --> 00:51:09,722
operate broadly. We all feel, all of us

840
00:51:09,746 --> 00:51:13,482
in the diaspora feel a connection to Armenia, our homeland, and we

841
00:51:13,506 --> 00:51:17,274
find ways to stay connected, whether it be just by visiting every

842
00:51:17,362 --> 00:51:20,922
year or by participating in charitable organizations or other

843
00:51:20,946 --> 00:51:24,742
efforts of, like, emblematic, if you will, the way the

844
00:51:24,766 --> 00:51:28,614
Armenian wine industry has now evolved. It's emblematic of the Armenian

845
00:51:28,662 --> 00:51:32,166
culture broadly. So that's just a cool story, right? Whether, whether

846
00:51:32,238 --> 00:51:35,750
someone who's drinking the wine in a, at a wine bar in Omaha

847
00:51:35,830 --> 00:51:39,494
or, you know, someone who is tasting it in a, by the glass placement

848
00:51:39,542 --> 00:51:42,870
in New York City, like, if they get to have that,

849
00:51:42,910 --> 00:51:46,646
like, glimmer of curiosity, where did this come from?

850
00:51:46,718 --> 00:51:50,456
And they do a little digging. They'll. They'll come across the story and then they'll

851
00:51:50,638 --> 00:51:54,420
hopefully go visit Armenia and they'll go tell their friends. And that's really how our

852
00:51:54,460 --> 00:51:58,292
business is going to win. It's not going to be from, like, you

853
00:51:58,316 --> 00:52:02,132
know, doing influencer campaigns on Instagram and, and doing a

854
00:52:02,156 --> 00:52:05,636
whole bunch of email blasts. And I mean, those things will help,

855
00:52:05,708 --> 00:52:09,188
but those things will help. Once we've got that initial,

856
00:52:09,364 --> 00:52:13,140
like, light bulb turning on from enough people in this country

857
00:52:13,180 --> 00:52:16,942
who actually care to consume a really cool story. We're going

858
00:52:16,966 --> 00:52:20,650
to leave it at that. It was well put. Thanks for joining us today.

859
00:52:21,350 --> 00:52:24,094
Travels the rest of the trip. Thank you. And I'm sure We're going to do

860
00:52:24,102 --> 00:52:27,010
this again. Let's do it. We'll bring Vaje with us next. Yeah.

861
00:52:28,150 --> 00:52:28,590
Cheers.