May 21, 2024
Persistance Is Grit. Monika Has Grit. Meet Monika Elling.
The word grit carries many forms in this podcast: the guest has grit, her ideas have grit, her discipline has grit, and her approach to the beverage industry has grit. Find out what grit means in a modern day setting. 🍷 **Adapt or Taste Your...
The word grit carries many forms in this podcast: the guest has grit, her ideas have grit, her discipline has grit, and her approach to the beverage industry has grit. Find out what grit means in a modern day setting.
🍷 **Adapt or Taste Your Own Dust**: Monika Elling highlighted the critical importance of adapting to consumer trends and interests, not just in creating products but also in marketing them. Like trying to ferment grape juice with old socks, ignoring trends in the wine industry will only result in a sour taste in consumers' mouths.
🍷 **Brand is King, but the Customer is the Almighty**: The episode emphasized that while having a captivating brand is akin to holding a royal flush in cards, understanding the consumer's needs and desires is like owning the casino. Monika and Paul discussed that without strong brand ideation rooted in consumer psychology, you might as well be selling water to a well.
🍷 **Tech it Easy**: In a world where even wines get digital makeovers, Monika stressed the significance of merging digital marketing strategies with traditional methods. If your brand isn't evolving with technology, you're essentially running a vineyard with horse plows in a tractor world.
She has it all goin'on.
In this enlightening tussle with grapes and brands, Monika Elling decanted wisdom on crafting brands that resonate and sell. From branding faux pas equivalent to wearing socks with sandals, to championing the salient blend of digital vigor and sensory appeal, this episode was a toast to the complexities of the wine industry. Paul and Monika traversed topics like the non-alcoholic beverage debacle—likening it to juicy juice with a trust fund—and the almighty reign of consumer understanding over mere aesthetics of wine label designs. Laughs were poured generously as Monika likened misguided brand strategies to playing tennis with a pickleball racket—possible but frustratingly fruitless. Cheers to navigating the vast vineyards of wine branding with the acumen of a seasoned sommelier!
Transcript
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Carson Leno,
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Fallon. Now it's
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wine talks with Paul K.
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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in
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beautiful Southern California about to have a conversation with Monica Elling,
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the fractional CMO and the CEO of
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FMG Corporation. Introductions in just a moment.
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Wine talks, of course, available on iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, wherever you hang out for
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podcasting. Hey, have a listen to an incredible
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conversation I had with Julie Hernandez. Now
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we're going to talk about women in wine today. But Julie came to me
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about 20 years ago working for RN DC, one of the
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great suppliers of wine in America, and she. I thought,
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there's no way she's going to make this industry. It's too tough, it's too hard.
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She ended up becoming a local executive here in Southern California and one of the
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great allies of the original wine of the month club. So it's a great conversation
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about her headwinds and being a mother at the same time. And also a
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conversation with Paul Warson. Anybody
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that doesn't know this is probably not
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alone because there's a winery in Beverly Hills. It's about
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nine acres of planted vineyards. It's called Moraga. It's owned now
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by the great Rupert Murdoch.
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Incredible. You walk into the gates of this place
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and all of a sudden you're in a whole different world. You're not off the
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four or five freeway, you're not off the ten freeway. You are in the middle
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of what would be wine country, surrounded by vineyards, winery,
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tasting room, residence. The whole thing is there and the wines are
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very good. A great conversation with Paul Worsten. Have a listen to that.
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Hey, I'm going to start working on the show a little more in the sense
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of I am. We're not going to pull any punches. We are going to go
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after this industry. There's so many, I don't know, so many prongs
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of it that are bothering me. And having done this for 50
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years, I've just got issues I want to peel
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back. And so we're going to take those two to the head right now with
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a conversation with Monica Elling. She's the CEO of
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FMG. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Paul. Lovely to
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be here. We had a great conversation off camera before we got started,
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but I'm looking at your profile on LinkedIn,
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nutritional psychologist, digital marketeer. The
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conversation we had last week about the projects you're working on, it's amazing.
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How much time do you have in a day to do all these things?
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I'm a mother of three, so I can do anything. As
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any mom would know, you managed to juggle everything
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all at once. You know, it's kind of interesting you say that, because
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the woman I was just talking about, Julie Hernandez, she has triplets.
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And so. Boy, you talk about compounding the amount of work you have
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to do because they're all on the same schedule. Not the same schedule,
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because none of them are on the same schedule. Right. That's almost impossible.
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It would be nice. Yes. Are you, you're out in New York?
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I am in Manhattan, yes. You know, we didn't talk about this last
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time, but what, what does your day look like when you start? You're up. You
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probably, I don't know. Many of us don't sleep because we're worried about what's
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happening the next day. But what is it? What does your regular day look like?
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At FMG, I do have a
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fairly serious morning routine.
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I tend to follow the same protocol,
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and it's been something that's been drilled into me as an athlete. When
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I was in my early teens, I was a tennis player,
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nationally ranked, and then d one. So the discipline
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of all of that has stayed with me, and it's been very helpful in
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my life. I tend to go for run over
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workouts. I do have meditation breath work
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in the, in the mix. And I really
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then structure my day based on what I've
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already planned for the week and what goals I want to accomplish. And I just
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revisit all of that. And nice cup of coffee to get
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me started. It's funny, this morning I responded to something.
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I can't remember what it was on LinkedIn. I go, yeah, after my cup of
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coffee, then I can get started on your, your idea here. But
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interesting thought, we didn't discuss this either. As an
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athlete ranked tennis player,
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how much of those lessons did you carry forward? And I'll tell you a story
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in a second, but do you teach that to your kids, too?
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To use athleticism and the discipline
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of that to move, to move the needle entirely?
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I think it doesn't matter what level of athletics you
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participate in. Some of that mindset and
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structure and training is helpful for life. In my
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case, it was pretty rigorous. And as a d one player, we had a
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full year season, so I hardly had any time off during those
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years. When I finished playing
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for the university, I made a decision
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not to go pro. I wanted a real life. I was ready for that.
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But then I couldn't find anybody to play with. So then I had this
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brilliant idea that I would have some children and
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train them to beat me. And two out of
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three worked. I raised two nationally ranked
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athletes out of the three, and one in tennis,
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one in swimming, and all four of us play,
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and there's intense in house
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competition. That's great. It's such an important
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lesson, and I glossed over that last time we spoke about your
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career in athleticism. But it's such an important part of. I have
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a daughter who, her first year in college, decided she wanted to be in the
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band. And I said, well, you should probably play an instrument.
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And because of her discipline through her career in
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softball, she got herself on the band because she
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practiced what she needed to practice and was able to march on the field.
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So such important lessons to learn through athleticism
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in our youth. And I wonder if that's glossed over. You think that's missed by
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a lot. Of parents or 100%, 100% misunderstood. And
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so it doesn't matter what road you
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travel, you carry that with you. That mindset, the
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resilience. Tennis, particularly, is harsh.
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And it was interesting. My son was a nationally ranked swimmer from the time he
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was six, and that's a grueling
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discipline. But when he turned to playing tennis after
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swimming, he walked off his first match. And
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essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, but basically he said,
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mom, you never told me. It's torture all the way, and I'm aware
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of it with all the ups and downs in the match. You're up,
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you're down. He said, I'm swimming. I just jump in. I come
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out the end of the pool and I look up my time.
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And so there is a
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rigor in that mindset. There is a focus
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that you learn and you
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develop grit. You have to come back. It's never over.
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That's right. That's a very good point. You can't walk away.
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So I'm done. I'm going to give up and you just can't do it. So
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you guys playing pickleball now over there at the LA household? Yeah.
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You know, that's an interesting question. I am not there.
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Tennis is. It's a very
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serious sport, and I'm not ready to
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dumb it down. I love the fact that people are
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playing a racket sport. That's great.
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But when you put in as much time as I have into the sport, I'm
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not really ready to give that part of it up. Okay, that's funny.
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We did. I did put a pickleball court in our home because we had this
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giant slab and we never knew what to do with it. It worked perfectly. I
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haven't used it very much in the last year. However, we did have a
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Sunday afternoon burger bash and brought some friends over who
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are, you know, tied to it. It's almost a religion now.
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People get in their car and they drive miles to go, just jump in and
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play. And I will say it's a lot of fun.
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Anybody can jump in and just play. You know, you don't. You may not
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compete very, you know, rigorously, but
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at least you can feel like you're participating in something. And tennis
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is, you know, much harder. But there are certain, certainly there's skills. That cross
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over 100%, and it's great
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that people are moving and enjoying that part of
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the process. So I'm all for anything that
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makes people move and get out of their chairs and away from their
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computers. So. Oh, thank you for that.
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So you said something, too. I wanted to peel back a little bit. You said,
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d one athlete. And I sent many, many kids
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from my coaching sets years to
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college, and I coached girls softball for years, high school.
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And many, many girls went through, and it was very important
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for a handful of them to survive the whole four
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years to finish their career. Softball at that time, or
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athleticism created their foundation for their college studies
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and for their experience in college. And others at the same
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time realized that there was more to it and they wanted
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to, and they maybe played a year or two and they moved on, saying,
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basically, I'd like more arrows in my quiver other than just
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the game. So did you see that through your
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career and with your children that there's. Yes, we want to
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maximize the value of the relationship with the sport, but there are times
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where we just say, look, it's time for other things. Absolutely.
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And in my case, I made that
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exact decision. I played three out of the four years. I had
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a double major. Everybody on my team was going five
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years to school. I didn't want that. I made that decision not to
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go pro at that point. I realized, okay, then I'm going to
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finish out with my third year. I happened to be undefeated at that
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point, and so I felt I might
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as well just go out on top. And unfortunately, my coach
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was not happy because we had to win five out of nine
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matches, and I brought home two wins in every match,
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singles and bowls. So that was a detriment to the
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team. But I was ready to begin my life and I just wanted to
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complete school. So. So you made that decision. It's a tough decision.
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Very tough. Very, very tough. It's been such a part of my life up
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to that point. So I'm looking at your
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LinkedIn profile here. The CEO, founder of
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Fractional, I'm sorry, FMG, but you
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also. You talk about wine and spirits, talk about brand strategy, talk about strategic digital
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marketing, nutritional psychology. I mean, you cover quite
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a plethora of subjects here for your career. And it's very fascinating that
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we landed in wines and spirits. And it's, as you know,
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there's this camaraderie, there's this, there's this. I don't know, maybe it's the
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lifestyle. You know, we're going to Europe next month and
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we've been greeted all over the world by Bordeaux houses and
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Piemonte, et cetera, et cetera. What landed you there?
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And was it something you aspired to do, or you just found yourself
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there? I was just a long answer.
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I had no idea about the wine and spirits business as
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such. I started out in marketing, Madison Avenue
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advertising, publishing, and I had the good fortune
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of working in my early days
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with Michelle Ru of Absaltwake.
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He was my client. I was determined to bring him into our
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publication. And I saw up close
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and personal how a brand can be brought
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to life. In that case, a spirit's brand.
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And that was not something that was done
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previously, not to such level. So absolute, really made
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waves at that time. And I learned a
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lot, but I sort of checked it in the back of my mind.
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I did about ten years of nonprofit international trade
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and investment development with central and eastern Europe,
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primarily. And it was during that time that I was
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working with some of
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the greatest brands that were coming into the region for investment.
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There was Antonori. So my first
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vineyard walk was with Tigor Gall of Ornalaya. He was the
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first 100 point wine maker in the history of wine, which
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was a wonderful way to get into the business. And then
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Jean Michel kest vax, Melissa May, and many of that
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ilk. So I looked up a year later and I wound
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up in the wine business. Well,
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because for me, I really. I was around all my
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life, but until my father said, look, I'm going to sell, I'm going to get
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out. You should come back and check this out. But even
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then, after ten years of selling wine, it was still,
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like I say, it was work. I'm going to say it was a task
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to make sure that we were on track, doing the things, checking the boxes that
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we were supposed to do in order to market wine. But
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at some point, it crossed over into this passion and this love
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affair with the industry and the brand. And so you mentioned something
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interesting that you worked with Michel Roux of
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absolute. I mean, branding, is that a formula? I mean,
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people, and I want to kind of define this a little bit because everybody talks
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about branding and, you know, brand managers, and I'm going to create
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a brand, and that's not a rock solid thing. This is
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sort of an open field to understanding how an
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absolute becomes a brand or how you create a couple
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of brands on your surface. There.
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There's no formula for this. Or is this something that if you do the right
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things, you will have a brand? If there were an exact
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formula, everyone would be doing it and everybody would do it right.
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Creativity and everybody could win all the time.
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That is not the case. The consistency from my
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career path and my vision for
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my career had to do with
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psychology. And this is what brings it all
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together. So on the psychology side, it's
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about behavior. It's about consumer behavior
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in my mind. And that was at the root of many
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things I did thereafter. So my initial
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background is in psychology. And as I went
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to the business side of things, I started to
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apply consumer behavior in reaction to
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products, in reaction to how we sell the
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sales process. All of those things combined together
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are what fascinates me, and it keeps me
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excited about brand creation, brand strategy, brand
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development, voice of the brand. And
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yes, over 20 some odd years, I've honed into
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the process that I believe is ensuring maximum
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success. And when you talk about digital and all
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these other aspects of it, I saw that technology
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was going to have a massive impact on that brand
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building and that consumer communication
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that is all very consistent with what is the
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end game. The end game is to create a brand that consumers
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will love and create the
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communication and that relationship between the brand and the
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consumer. In the wine and spirits industry, we have all this noise,
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this infrastructure in between that everyone is
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derailed by. And unfortunately for specifically
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the wine industry, there's so much talk about the trade side
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of things I don't know that any producer in Europe actually
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understands. The 44 year old woman who has three
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kids, two dogs, drives an Audi, and is
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going to shop for dinner at her store
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in Rochester, Minnesota. So how
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are we supposed to create consumer products in this
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industry when we don't know anything about the consumer
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journey and how they are perceiving
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whatever products are being sold to them in this space?
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That's an interesting concept because
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you said a mouthful of issues that we have in our industry, one of them
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being the noise that's out there. So it seems
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like some brands, either because their
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psychology isn't properly managed or understood, are
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just doomed to failure from the beginning. I've seen it many times and I'm
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wondering if you think that's because this path
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and their client was not properly understood or there was just a
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dumb idea from the beginning that nobody really would have taken to it in the
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first place. So I'll give you an example
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of a fail. I was not using any names, but go ahead.
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No, there's no name. And this is speaking to
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the industry. They will recognize themselves. And I'm not
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talking about a specific brand. There's way too much of this going
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on. Two guys walk into a bar, slap each other in the back, hey,
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we should have a vodka brand or whatever brand. Great. Wonderful. That's the
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beginning of a joke, right? Two guys walk into a bar, but. That'S happening all
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the time. And then there's some
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funding mechanism behind them. Two girls walk into a bar
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and they go, oh, it's a whole different conversation. And they don't get
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funded, but we'll get there. The
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ideation occurs. They think they have a brilliant idea
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about a brand. They think it's wonderful
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and they start to create the
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product they're going to market. Now they're even
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convincing distributors to take on a product. What they
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don't understand very often
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is they miss the core aspect of the brand
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creation journey, which is an incredibly
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serious process. It's artistic, it's
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scientific, it's a lot of different aspects.
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So what happens is now they finally get their
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product into a bar, they're all excited.
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Consumer comes in and somebody that
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is friendly to that brand, so they want to support them. But
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now they have a call name, they're trying to get
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the attention of a bartender with, and it's unpronounceable
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or it's a lie long or it's, can I have
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a red herring, blue, whatever,
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on the rocks, please? And it's like, what were you
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thinking when you created the brand? How do you think your consumer is going to
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address that brand in a bar or
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in such an environment? So there are a lot of things missed in
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the wine arena. There are examples
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of bigger problems because the idea
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that something has to have the proper name and connectivity
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to a consumer, that's not what they're thinking about. They're thinking about,
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well, we want to have a line extension. Let's put this name on it. That
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sounds good. They might get a relative to create the
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label, they might have their niece or nephew give
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it the brand name or the grandmother. And
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I'm being to some degree facetious here, but I have seen all
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those examples live. And then people
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wonder why the sales strategy is not working.
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It's because nobody wants that particular product
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and you're not communicating appropriately. And that's from the starting
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point of the brand name and the brand
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ethos. He says, you made me think of something, and I just
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had this experience a few years ago. I've seen it a thousand times. And you
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and I are not new to this story, I'm going to tell you. But
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maybe because the wine industry is so sophisticated, it's so complex, and
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it's so congested that the idea of
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this launching a brand without some of this psychology
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understood and some of the path of the consumer understood that it's
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almost, it's a zero chance crapshoot unless there's
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something absolutely unique about it that
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you make it happen. The reason I brought that up is I had a vendor
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come in years ago, and he was from a local Appalachian here in southern
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California, so one that doesn't have a lot of pedigree like Napa or
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Sonoma. And he shows me this brand and he
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wanted pretty good money for it. It was called sleeping
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Indian, you know, so not the brightest thing in the world as far as, you
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know, today's environment of, you know, wokeness.
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And the label was horrible and the wines were average. And I said, it
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looks like your daughter drew this on a computer.
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And he goes, she did? And I
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thought, based on what you just said, I'm thinking the guy
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had no chance. And I told him this and he was offended by it. But
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I wanted to be honest with him. I said, look, you might as well just
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stick to your local market, sell it to the restaurants and the local stores and
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be on your way. But if you want to go corporate and you want to
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go national, you ain't going to do it with
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sleeping indian and a label that looks like this,
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besides the distribution complications. So the point
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being, man, it's an absolute
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0% crapshoot if you don't have some kind of
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legs behind you. Psychology, branding, I mean, you know,
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demographic understanding. I mean, you made a great point. A 44 year old
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woman with three kids going shopping, you know, what's. What are the, what are the
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decision criteria from that woman to buy something?
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And it gets, it gets a little bit trickier because you
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have now 50 states producing wine. The
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distributors won't take on those wines that are not
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from California, Washington, Oregon,
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basically, no other state will
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work with distribution and that's their philosophy.
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And now some of those wineries are fighting
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the state regulations so that they can distribute themselves
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appropriately to get to market, because even their own state
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distributors won't. The missing
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link for, for those wineries within those states is
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that they do make
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decisions such as what you and I just described about
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their branding or, oh, we love this, this looks great.
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And there's absolutely no professional knowledge
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behind it. And why should the consumer care?
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So they're fighting an uphill battle even in their own
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states, if they really don't produce the
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caliber of production that competes on a national basis. Because
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the consumer doesn't care about these arkeme regulations and barriers.
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All they know is there is this really nice looking wine from
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California, perhaps, and there's a great one from
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Spain, and then there's this really ugly label from our local
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market. Now, why should we pay for that? So
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if the wineries within the other
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47 states want to start competing for consumer
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interest, they have to up the game of how they come
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to market with their brand lineups. And it's
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not enough to say that, you know, the buses of tourists that are coming into
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the tasting room are satisfied that they love our product.
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No. Go do a blind tasting and then go do a packaging
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comparison with global market
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brands and frankly, take those results
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home and then do something about it. You
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know, you're just like hitting these points
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that have the back of my mind. I just got done with a
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tasting. The label was horrible. The wines were decent. And he took the
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wine to a local distributor and the guy says, look,
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I know it was another tasting room. The guy says, look, I'm
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00:24:34,812 --> 00:24:38,260
selling all I can sell because people, the
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00:24:38,292 --> 00:24:42,116
busloads of people are coming here and they're buying it. And that kind of
403
00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:45,744
leads to this experiential part of wine today.
404
00:24:46,644 --> 00:24:49,584
I know you're a digital marketer, we're going to talk about that now. But
405
00:24:50,604 --> 00:24:53,356
a couple of things that you mentioned that really important before we get to that
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one is the label design. Like I said, this guy's label was drawn by his
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00:24:57,020 --> 00:25:00,732
daughter on a computer. I bought wine from Sebastiani probably 20
408
00:25:00,788 --> 00:25:04,452
years ago. Beautiful Cabernet franchise, already bottled. They didn't market it
409
00:25:04,468 --> 00:25:08,060
because they actually had the three year old daughter playing on a
410
00:25:08,092 --> 00:25:11,424
Mac and she designed a label and it never took off. So
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00:25:11,884 --> 00:25:15,612
they just stored at the back of the warehouse. Wine was great, by the way.
412
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But Mike Houlihan, who founded the brand barefoot
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Sellers, had learned a lesson from the
414
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thrifty which back then, Rexall drugs, thrifty
415
00:25:26,964 --> 00:25:30,220
drugs before the cvs is in the writings of the world. One of the
416
00:25:30,252 --> 00:25:33,986
biggest pharmacy change was called thrifty. They're known
417
00:25:34,010 --> 00:25:37,754
for their ice cream. You go to Rite Aid now they have thrifty ice cream
418
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still. And he says, the buyer said, look, I want
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to be, if I'm a mother and I'm walking down the
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aisle, I want to be able to see that label from four stalls
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away. I want to be directed to your brett. So when you bring me a
422
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wine that looks that I will recognize four steps
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away, then I'll take a look at it and I go, wow, that's a
424
00:25:59,362 --> 00:26:02,762
really interesting thing. That is probably true today to a certain
425
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percent, 100%. So when we design, so we
426
00:26:06,242 --> 00:26:09,814
design great brands, beautiful packaging,
427
00:26:10,874 --> 00:26:14,546
and we design it with the mindset of
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the digital shelf. It has to have instant impact
429
00:26:18,306 --> 00:26:22,106
when people see it online, has to be memorable
430
00:26:22,170 --> 00:26:25,922
there, and the physical shelf, so it has to work in both
431
00:26:25,978 --> 00:26:29,786
ways. And that is something
432
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that I can't stress enough.
433
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There's no way of getting around it. The failure of
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that had never ceased to amaze me. On Tuesdays, when I
435
00:26:41,930 --> 00:26:45,418
tasted you look at them, it's like, what do you think? And I already
436
00:26:45,466 --> 00:26:49,258
know I have a label designer, Pasar Robles. She was charging, I
437
00:26:49,266 --> 00:26:52,050
don't know, twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a label, depending on the amount of work.
438
00:26:52,082 --> 00:26:55,650
And that that would include whether you wanted an embossed or a
439
00:26:55,802 --> 00:26:59,570
foil overlay or whatever. You have certain paper type, ink
440
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type. It wasn't an expensive proposition
441
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other than having your three year old daughter on a Mac. And every
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time I see a label that's just got no criteria at all, I
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just cringe. Now, I know in Napa you can spend
444
00:27:15,614 --> 00:27:18,822
five, 7810 thousand dollars designing a label. Six
445
00:27:18,878 --> 00:27:22,630
figures, yeah, six figures. Six figures. And
446
00:27:22,702 --> 00:27:26,510
it's not just designing a bottle, you're creating the
447
00:27:26,542 --> 00:27:29,914
brand and designing a label
448
00:27:31,054 --> 00:27:34,846
that you could, you could do that, anybody could do
449
00:27:34,870 --> 00:27:38,470
that. With today's day and age of technology, you could do that.
450
00:27:38,622 --> 00:27:42,390
Creating a brand is a whole different proposition. I'll
451
00:27:42,422 --> 00:27:46,182
tell you that. In 2017, we created a spirits
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brand that had a multi hundred million dollar exit five
453
00:27:50,022 --> 00:27:53,686
years later. And it wasn't just a brand, because it
454
00:27:53,710 --> 00:27:57,198
begins with the strategy, what are you creating a brand for?
455
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Who are you creating it for? That's the starting
456
00:28:00,934 --> 00:28:04,478
point. So you better understand
457
00:28:04,606 --> 00:28:08,434
and be able to create the strategy. And that's a business
458
00:28:09,194 --> 00:28:12,906
acumen and marketing skill which is
459
00:28:12,970 --> 00:28:16,730
not the same as design. That's true. So those are
460
00:28:16,762 --> 00:28:20,362
two different sides. And then, and then you take the strategy.
461
00:28:20,418 --> 00:28:23,578
Now, what's going to get us to win with that
462
00:28:23,746 --> 00:28:27,218
direction? And so it begins with the
463
00:28:27,266 --> 00:28:30,698
analysis, what's the opportunity? What's the market opportunity?
464
00:28:30,826 --> 00:28:34,450
What's the strategy? And then what's the brand that we are going to
465
00:28:34,482 --> 00:28:37,484
create to drill that home? And
466
00:28:38,624 --> 00:28:41,784
so the investment is
467
00:28:41,864 --> 00:28:45,344
actually fairly significant in that
468
00:28:45,384 --> 00:28:49,216
regard. And I'm not saying that wineries should do that for
469
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,644
every single item that they're put out. However,
470
00:28:54,224 --> 00:28:58,008
I also can point to a real solid example
471
00:28:58,056 --> 00:29:01,564
that I've had over the years, and that is
472
00:29:02,344 --> 00:29:06,112
focus is key. I know a lot of
473
00:29:06,128 --> 00:29:09,824
wineries that are constantly pulling out. Yet a new wine,
474
00:29:09,864 --> 00:29:13,352
yet a new wine, yet a new wine. And I can tell
475
00:29:13,408 --> 00:29:16,004
you, during my time at Southern Glazers
476
00:29:17,304 --> 00:29:20,744
in New York, New York metro, I was with the
477
00:29:20,784 --> 00:29:24,604
Labward division. Just as we were taken over by Southern,
478
00:29:25,544 --> 00:29:29,104
the most successful wine buy
479
00:29:29,144 --> 00:29:32,672
value was Jordan Chardonnay,
480
00:29:32,768 --> 00:29:36,404
Cabernet, two wines in sync, focus.
481
00:29:37,864 --> 00:29:41,632
And I'm not saying that that's the guideline for everybody,
482
00:29:41,728 --> 00:29:44,684
but when there's too much of an
483
00:29:45,704 --> 00:29:49,120
ad hoc approach to what it is that we are
484
00:29:49,152 --> 00:29:52,904
selling, then again, you don't
485
00:29:52,944 --> 00:29:56,692
have the level of success with Empress. When we created Empress,
486
00:29:56,748 --> 00:30:00,444
1908, Jen, we had one skew, or actually,
487
00:30:00,524 --> 00:30:03,804
technically two. We had a 50, same thing. One
488
00:30:03,844 --> 00:30:07,604
product. One product. You know, it's
489
00:30:07,644 --> 00:30:11,492
interesting thought, because we created a lot of. I'm
490
00:30:11,508 --> 00:30:15,308
going to reverse my thought process here. We created a lot of labels here
491
00:30:15,396 --> 00:30:18,584
at wine of the month club. I have a license to make wine here,
492
00:30:19,484 --> 00:30:22,724
versus what you're saying, which is a brand. So I needed, let's say I found
493
00:30:22,764 --> 00:30:26,610
some juice in Napa that was distressed. Volume wise,
494
00:30:26,642 --> 00:30:29,938
I just had too much. I was able to buy it inexpensively, put it in
495
00:30:29,946 --> 00:30:33,482
a bottle. And so I wasn't, you know, it's very interesting because I didn't think
496
00:30:33,618 --> 00:30:37,402
I was trying to create a brand. I was thinking, I need to put a
497
00:30:37,418 --> 00:30:40,654
label on this wine so I can sell it through my regular channel,
498
00:30:41,154 --> 00:30:44,066
but not giving it the thought that, what if this is a brand? What if
499
00:30:44,090 --> 00:30:46,082
I do want to put it on the shelf? What if I do want to
500
00:30:46,098 --> 00:30:49,690
take it to a tasting room and have somebody taste it? And two different thought
501
00:30:49,722 --> 00:30:52,674
processes. Thought processes completely.
502
00:30:53,494 --> 00:30:57,326
That's really fascinating. You want to have an understanding of what
503
00:30:57,350 --> 00:31:01,134
is the business outcome you're looking for for this. What is the purpose?
504
00:31:01,254 --> 00:31:05,022
Because frankly, wine should not, or any brand should not exist unless it has a
505
00:31:05,038 --> 00:31:08,622
purpose. What is that purpose? And what makes
506
00:31:08,678 --> 00:31:12,510
sense to achieve that purpose in the fastest amount of
507
00:31:12,542 --> 00:31:16,254
time? You know, I had a conversation with Jessica Kogan.
508
00:31:16,294 --> 00:31:20,038
She. She's actually has a similar career to yours. She was with Donna
509
00:31:20,086 --> 00:31:23,558
Corinne, I think, one of the fashion companies early
510
00:31:23,606 --> 00:31:27,230
on, and she's become quite the guru in spirits and
511
00:31:27,262 --> 00:31:31,102
wine customer CX,
512
00:31:31,158 --> 00:31:34,878
customer experience. And we were sort of lamenting
513
00:31:34,926 --> 00:31:38,774
and sort of deciding together that the social network
514
00:31:38,854 --> 00:31:42,510
side of marketing, particularly in the spirits world, is sort of going to
515
00:31:42,542 --> 00:31:46,390
implode here. And that the experiential part of our
516
00:31:46,422 --> 00:31:50,270
industry is going to come back to the days like when I'm wearing this patch
517
00:31:50,382 --> 00:31:54,150
from Les Amis Devin, which was a wine enthusiast group in the seventies
518
00:31:54,182 --> 00:31:57,702
and eighties that had 150 chapters throughout the
519
00:31:57,718 --> 00:32:01,046
US. People would gather, exchange
520
00:32:01,150 --> 00:32:04,886
conversation, maybe have dinner, not unlike a
521
00:32:04,910 --> 00:32:08,710
tasting room that has a quality experience. But how do you feel about
522
00:32:08,862 --> 00:32:12,658
the future of digital marketing when it comes
523
00:32:12,746 --> 00:32:16,450
to spirits and wine? I think they serve
524
00:32:16,482 --> 00:32:20,130
a different purpose. You have multiple channels of
525
00:32:20,162 --> 00:32:23,874
communication in person, online and so
526
00:32:23,914 --> 00:32:27,370
on. So I'm not saying one
527
00:32:27,482 --> 00:32:31,258
is meant to replace the other, because they serve different
528
00:32:31,346 --> 00:32:35,146
purposes and people are processing
529
00:32:35,250 --> 00:32:38,714
information, communication about brands, in
530
00:32:38,794 --> 00:32:42,362
instance, and they do it ad hoc, they do it in between
531
00:32:42,458 --> 00:32:46,298
other things. It is not a focused process. They're not
532
00:32:46,346 --> 00:32:50,066
sitting there immersing themselves into a
533
00:32:50,130 --> 00:32:53,978
brand or a branded page, but they are taking snippets of
534
00:32:54,026 --> 00:32:57,810
information away. You just want to make sure that the snippets that you're
535
00:32:57,842 --> 00:33:01,186
offering are going to hit the right
536
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,924
tone. That's one side, on the
537
00:33:05,584 --> 00:33:09,200
personal side of coming together
538
00:33:09,272 --> 00:33:12,992
for events. I think that's always. And that's part
539
00:33:13,008 --> 00:33:16,680
of humanity. We're social creatures. We want to be together, we want
540
00:33:16,712 --> 00:33:18,644
to have reasons to be together.
541
00:33:20,264 --> 00:33:23,960
I do believe that that part will come back. But if somebody thinks
542
00:33:23,992 --> 00:33:27,004
that that's going to help the brand building process,
543
00:33:28,704 --> 00:33:31,844
that's sort of a small part of the journey.
544
00:33:31,964 --> 00:33:35,676
It's. I think that's accurate. Yeah.
545
00:33:35,740 --> 00:33:39,100
I don't think it can compete with the amount of information
546
00:33:39,212 --> 00:33:42,940
processing that we are engaged
547
00:33:43,012 --> 00:33:46,444
in on a daily basis. Cause when I started
548
00:33:46,484 --> 00:33:49,996
doing Facebook back in the day was the day that everybody
549
00:33:50,140 --> 00:33:53,724
got your message, that was part of your network. You
550
00:33:53,804 --> 00:33:57,460
actually didn't wanna leave Facebook, or it wasn't even Instagram at that time, but
551
00:33:57,532 --> 00:34:01,250
you didn't wanna. It's so interesting to me because social networking
552
00:34:01,282 --> 00:34:05,034
was meant originally to be social networking. And so when you're
553
00:34:05,074 --> 00:34:08,610
on Facebook at those days, you didn't leave to go buy something.
554
00:34:08,762 --> 00:34:12,442
Even if you were delivered a message to buy something. You're like, no, I'm hanging
555
00:34:12,458 --> 00:34:16,234
out with my friends. We're talking and we're chatting, whatever we're doing. And now
556
00:34:16,274 --> 00:34:18,894
it's primarily a methodology for
557
00:34:19,474 --> 00:34:23,322
advertising and sales and obviously why Facebook has done
558
00:34:23,338 --> 00:34:26,749
so well the stock market side of things financially.
559
00:34:26,921 --> 00:34:30,669
So it's migrated completely. And
560
00:34:30,781 --> 00:34:34,473
I don't think the consumers understand. And I have a niece who's starting
561
00:34:34,813 --> 00:34:38,261
a salad dressing company and she's a
562
00:34:38,437 --> 00:34:42,181
prolific social network. She's done a lot of work with content. But when it
563
00:34:42,197 --> 00:34:45,909
gets down to the metrics of making money on social networking,
564
00:34:45,941 --> 00:34:49,493
it's very difficult on its own. I think there have been a few
565
00:34:49,533 --> 00:34:52,445
success stories that people have hung their hat on. Like, look, I did. I did
566
00:34:52,469 --> 00:34:55,264
all this on Facebook. I think that's far and few
567
00:34:56,524 --> 00:34:59,908
and far between backwards and
568
00:34:59,996 --> 00:35:03,604
probably pretty specific to the product.
569
00:35:03,684 --> 00:35:07,364
The need, the consumer that is reaching and who's doing that.
570
00:35:07,444 --> 00:35:10,544
But you wrote something today. This is why I'm trying to get to
571
00:35:11,164 --> 00:35:14,940
that kind of upset some people about non alk wines. Tell me about this
572
00:35:14,972 --> 00:35:18,164
article that you published. I read most of it, but I want you to tell
573
00:35:18,204 --> 00:35:21,716
me what you were thinking. Yes. So
574
00:35:21,820 --> 00:35:25,436
I. Looking at the conversations bubbling, just need
575
00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:29,060
the surface. And non alcoholic
576
00:35:29,092 --> 00:35:32,580
wines is now a formed category
577
00:35:32,692 --> 00:35:36,492
with a lot of research and all that. I
578
00:35:36,548 --> 00:35:40,012
have to say I take exception to some of the elements
579
00:35:40,108 --> 00:35:43,740
of those conversations because at the end of the
580
00:35:43,772 --> 00:35:47,512
day, we're drinking something that's non alcoholic. There have
581
00:35:47,528 --> 00:35:51,200
been non alcoholic products forever, starting
582
00:35:51,232 --> 00:35:54,984
with water, starting with tea, going into sodas,
583
00:35:55,064 --> 00:35:57,484
juices and the like.
584
00:35:58,864 --> 00:36:02,656
So I have no issue with that. I drink many of
585
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,088
those other types of liquids, non alcoholic liquids,
586
00:36:06,136 --> 00:36:09,480
myself. That's. That's not the point. And in fact, when I was first
587
00:36:09,552 --> 00:36:13,188
pregnant with my first child, I did a lot of research about this.
588
00:36:13,376 --> 00:36:16,996
And that was back 20 plus years ago.
589
00:36:17,140 --> 00:36:20,668
And I drank Klaus Thaler, a german
590
00:36:20,756 --> 00:36:24,476
non alcoholic beer. It was one of two in the market. There was
591
00:36:24,580 --> 00:36:28,348
O'Toole's, which had no flavor, tastes like water, and there was a
592
00:36:28,396 --> 00:36:31,284
german non alcoholic beer. So obviously I went that
593
00:36:31,324 --> 00:36:34,740
direction and I never heard of
594
00:36:34,772 --> 00:36:38,548
anybody else really talking about that. So
595
00:36:38,716 --> 00:36:42,268
that was early days of this non alcoholic category
596
00:36:42,356 --> 00:36:46,174
journey, which has now imploded into this whole big thing.
597
00:36:46,634 --> 00:36:49,874
I have issues with the
598
00:36:49,914 --> 00:36:53,254
pricing, I have issues with the positioning.
599
00:36:53,594 --> 00:36:57,010
And frankly, most of it is just
600
00:36:57,082 --> 00:37:00,530
juice. And then there is the other
601
00:37:00,642 --> 00:37:04,338
element that I found, because I purchased just about every
602
00:37:04,386 --> 00:37:08,082
product that's been available online and teased it
603
00:37:08,098 --> 00:37:11,526
through, and I've done most of them because most don't even hit
604
00:37:11,610 --> 00:37:15,074
the flavor profile of something drinkable for me.
605
00:37:15,414 --> 00:37:19,190
And there have been some exceptions that
606
00:37:19,222 --> 00:37:22,154
I've liked, but then I can't rationalize the price.
607
00:37:23,614 --> 00:37:27,394
So there are two things happening. The pricing is out of control.
608
00:37:27,934 --> 00:37:31,566
We're drinking juice. The consumer is about to
609
00:37:31,590 --> 00:37:35,238
wise up that they are drinking juice and they're being
610
00:37:35,286 --> 00:37:38,874
told to pay 30 plus dollars for some of this
611
00:37:39,204 --> 00:37:42,988
elixir, craft elixir. So there's
612
00:37:43,036 --> 00:37:46,764
that. The other part for viscosity, mouth feel. And I blend
613
00:37:46,804 --> 00:37:49,104
wines for clients around the world.
614
00:37:50,364 --> 00:37:54,036
I find that there are other
615
00:37:54,100 --> 00:37:57,812
ingredients, including different variations on sugar,
616
00:37:57,868 --> 00:38:01,156
whether it's agave or pure cane or some sort of
617
00:38:01,180 --> 00:38:04,356
syrup that are added to the product for
618
00:38:04,420 --> 00:38:07,910
viscosity, for mouth feel and so on, which is not
619
00:38:07,942 --> 00:38:11,278
unusual, because when the food industry took
620
00:38:11,326 --> 00:38:14,694
out fats from everything, they added in
621
00:38:14,774 --> 00:38:18,374
sugar into all foods. It's essentially what's
622
00:38:18,414 --> 00:38:22,070
happening here. And I have a nutrition background and I just look at this,
623
00:38:22,102 --> 00:38:25,726
I'm like, what are you doing? You're just trading one for the other. I'd rather
624
00:38:25,790 --> 00:38:29,574
have the single ingredient grape and
625
00:38:29,614 --> 00:38:33,430
have wine than pretend I'm doing anything healthy for
626
00:38:33,462 --> 00:38:36,882
my body with the. Whatever the concoction
627
00:38:36,938 --> 00:38:40,610
is. So if I want something non alcoholic,
628
00:38:40,722 --> 00:38:44,026
I'll have seltzer with lime,
629
00:38:44,090 --> 00:38:47,754
or I blend my own teas. And
630
00:38:47,874 --> 00:38:51,634
I created a nothing added
631
00:38:51,794 --> 00:38:54,574
blend of hibiscus, pomegranates,
632
00:38:55,394 --> 00:38:59,234
orange, whatever combination of teas. Added
633
00:38:59,314 --> 00:39:02,860
some fresh fruit, some ice, put in a nice glass, topped up
634
00:39:02,892 --> 00:39:06,540
with club soda. Looks beautiful, tastes delicious. Zero
635
00:39:06,612 --> 00:39:10,236
added ingredients, zero carbohydrates, zero calories.
636
00:39:10,380 --> 00:39:13,652
Oh, and it costs less than a dollar to make, so I'm bottling
637
00:39:13,708 --> 00:39:16,464
it. Aha. I read that section.
638
00:39:16,924 --> 00:39:20,604
Yeah, this is amazing because you're
639
00:39:20,644 --> 00:39:24,196
probably too young to remember the Scarsdale diet, but there was a diet put out
640
00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:27,924
by the guy that was in the biosphere in Arizona. And he
641
00:39:27,964 --> 00:39:31,246
talks about, look, if you're gonna go to a party and you're on my diet,
642
00:39:31,310 --> 00:39:35,014
you can't have alcohol. So just have a glass of soda
643
00:39:35,054 --> 00:39:38,342
water, you know, so it looks like you're having a Tom Collins and squeeze a
644
00:39:38,358 --> 00:39:42,166
lime in. It looks like you're having a vodka. Vodka soda, and you'll be
645
00:39:42,190 --> 00:39:45,910
fine. And I. I kind of rely on this. But the fancy food
646
00:39:45,942 --> 00:39:49,454
show in Vegas a couple years ago, so much of it was about the non
647
00:39:49,494 --> 00:39:53,326
alk business, and so much of it was undrinkable. And I
648
00:39:53,350 --> 00:39:57,076
wanna tell the listeners for a second, because I just got
649
00:39:57,100 --> 00:40:00,580
done yesterday, I went to the biodynamic organic tasting, tasted some
650
00:40:00,612 --> 00:40:04,304
fabulous wines from that ilk. And
651
00:40:04,644 --> 00:40:08,380
I started thinking, if you make a non alcoholic
652
00:40:08,412 --> 00:40:12,236
wine, the dollar makes sense that
653
00:40:12,260 --> 00:40:15,788
there's a problem with the dollars for one, because you remove the alcohol.
654
00:40:15,836 --> 00:40:19,356
But it doesn't just remove the alcohol, it removes about 30% of the
655
00:40:19,380 --> 00:40:23,046
volume of what you made. So if you have 1000 gallons in the
656
00:40:23,070 --> 00:40:26,854
tank, um, and when you're done removing the alcohol, you're gonna have 700 gallons.
657
00:40:26,894 --> 00:40:30,110
So you've just wasted 30% of, of your
658
00:40:30,142 --> 00:40:33,854
volume. Then you have to add back as you're talking about whether it's agave,
659
00:40:33,934 --> 00:40:37,510
or sugar or cane sugar, or flavoring agents. Water for
660
00:40:37,542 --> 00:40:41,246
sure. So you've now added it back into,
661
00:40:41,390 --> 00:40:44,926
to flavor it up so you can drink it. Cause it's undrinkable as a
662
00:40:44,950 --> 00:40:48,646
dealcoolyzed drink. And then you have to put it in the
663
00:40:48,670 --> 00:40:52,160
bottle within seven days or it fails completely.
664
00:40:52,312 --> 00:40:55,328
And I thought that was really interesting. So from an industry
665
00:40:55,416 --> 00:40:59,016
standpoint, you can have wine sit in the tank for as long as
666
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,432
you feel like the wine is going to survive. It could be years in the
667
00:41:01,448 --> 00:41:05,152
tank and it doesn't, you know, changes, but it's fine. But as soon as you
668
00:41:05,168 --> 00:41:08,600
take the alcohol out, you need to put it in a bottle. And so that
669
00:41:08,632 --> 00:41:11,724
changes the logistical part of this whole business as well.
670
00:41:12,104 --> 00:41:15,872
And one of the major brands anyway. So the point I was
671
00:41:15,888 --> 00:41:18,724
going to make was like, here is a movement for biological,
672
00:41:19,254 --> 00:41:22,550
biological, bio dynamic and organic
673
00:41:22,582 --> 00:41:26,222
wines. Do something healthier for yourself. If you're going to drink wine, why don't you
674
00:41:26,238 --> 00:41:29,926
drink these versus non alcoholic? But it's full
675
00:41:29,950 --> 00:41:33,494
of who knows what's in there. Is that accurate?
676
00:41:33,654 --> 00:41:37,374
It sure is. You nailed it. And the other thing
677
00:41:37,414 --> 00:41:41,118
is, most of us in the industry, but consumers won't
678
00:41:41,166 --> 00:41:44,374
know this. The qualification for organic
679
00:41:44,414 --> 00:41:47,390
biodynamic, all sustainable, all these
680
00:41:47,582 --> 00:41:51,382
buzzwords, they've been around for a long time. And
681
00:41:51,478 --> 00:41:55,286
everybody has different systems. The EU has a different system. So you
682
00:41:55,310 --> 00:41:58,974
could be organic, and we can't bring it in as organic,
683
00:41:59,014 --> 00:42:02,750
we can't label it. So we have to call it natural wine. Now, natural
684
00:42:02,782 --> 00:42:06,430
wine has different connotations. So there's mass confusion
685
00:42:06,542 --> 00:42:09,822
and it's not being resolved anytime
686
00:42:09,878 --> 00:42:13,416
soon. So all those buzzwords are what they are.
687
00:42:13,590 --> 00:42:17,140
What I do, and what I can attest to is
688
00:42:17,172 --> 00:42:20,264
that so many european producers,
689
00:42:20,884 --> 00:42:24,524
and I can't say the same for the US, but so many european
690
00:42:24,564 --> 00:42:28,116
producers have been farming biodynamic
691
00:42:28,260 --> 00:42:32,076
organic without certification for
692
00:42:32,140 --> 00:42:35,804
ages. Some have gone the process,
693
00:42:35,964 --> 00:42:39,452
the expensive and time consuming process
694
00:42:39,628 --> 00:42:43,460
of getting that certification. But not
695
00:42:43,492 --> 00:42:46,940
everybody is doing it. And so that becomes an
696
00:42:46,972 --> 00:42:50,724
issue. Nevertheless, there are great products
697
00:42:50,804 --> 00:42:54,612
out there. So one of the conversations
698
00:42:54,668 --> 00:42:58,372
I was having, it was very interesting because, you
699
00:42:58,388 --> 00:43:02,084
know, we know that Burgundians for years, for hundreds of
700
00:43:02,124 --> 00:43:05,412
years, were making wines organically. They had no other way to make wines
701
00:43:05,548 --> 00:43:09,334
organic. Was the. Was the standard of winemaking because we didn't have the opportunity
702
00:43:09,374 --> 00:43:13,110
to add stuff. And for the listeners, there's like 79
703
00:43:13,182 --> 00:43:16,822
or 76 things in California you can add to wine
704
00:43:16,998 --> 00:43:20,594
that will influence a wine's character.
705
00:43:21,174 --> 00:43:24,474
But what was interesting to me at this tasting was that the small
706
00:43:25,014 --> 00:43:28,302
producer who's making 1500 cases, 2000 cases,
707
00:43:28,398 --> 00:43:32,182
who's. This is their third or fifth vintage, they had this very
708
00:43:32,238 --> 00:43:35,424
altruistic opinion of the industry that
709
00:43:35,964 --> 00:43:39,228
all the history and all the work behind all the hundreds of years of making
710
00:43:39,276 --> 00:43:42,868
wine are irrelevant today. Or that they think
711
00:43:42,996 --> 00:43:46,436
that this idea of biodynamic organic is a new thing and they're first to the
712
00:43:46,460 --> 00:43:50,276
market or they're 10th to the mark, whatever. That conversation was
713
00:43:50,340 --> 00:43:54,140
very unique. I probably had it four times on
714
00:43:54,212 --> 00:43:57,516
Monday. Then there were the biodynamic
715
00:43:57,580 --> 00:44:01,244
organic makers that already are logistically in the
716
00:44:01,284 --> 00:44:05,028
system with one of the big houses like Southern Glazer or with RDC. And they
717
00:44:05,036 --> 00:44:08,516
have a completely different opinion of the direction of it
718
00:44:08,540 --> 00:44:12,004
all and the marketing of it all. And I thought, this is fascinating
719
00:44:12,044 --> 00:44:15,500
because, you know, the wanna do
720
00:44:15,532 --> 00:44:19,260
it, which is fine, a great industry to get involved with. The
721
00:44:19,292 --> 00:44:23,052
wanna be part of the program didn't understand really, what
722
00:44:23,068 --> 00:44:26,836
the program is about. And unfortunately, it's. The marketing of wine is
723
00:44:26,860 --> 00:44:29,104
a different animal than everything else.
724
00:44:31,164 --> 00:44:34,994
Go ahead. Sorry. So one of the challenges that I've seen, seen
725
00:44:35,494 --> 00:44:38,950
with the industry, and I go back to what I said initially
726
00:44:39,142 --> 00:44:42,434
about the noise in the middle
727
00:44:43,574 --> 00:44:47,246
in. Let's take handbags, for instance. Let's take an
728
00:44:47,270 --> 00:44:51,006
Hermes handbag or Prada or something of
729
00:44:51,070 --> 00:44:54,654
luxury stature. They do have
730
00:44:54,694 --> 00:44:57,794
production. They're very mindful of their production.
731
00:44:58,254 --> 00:45:01,910
They do a bang up job on the level and
732
00:45:01,942 --> 00:45:05,634
quality of the products, use the raw materials as part of their story.
733
00:45:06,654 --> 00:45:08,914
But their focus,
734
00:45:09,814 --> 00:45:13,486
incessant focus, is on the consumer
735
00:45:13,670 --> 00:45:17,462
that they're trying to reach, how they reach that consumer,
736
00:45:17,518 --> 00:45:21,314
how they communicate and embrace that consumer.
737
00:45:21,654 --> 00:45:25,414
Whereas the wine industry doesn't have a clue in so many
738
00:45:25,454 --> 00:45:29,248
cases who is actually buying or
739
00:45:29,296 --> 00:45:33,040
who are you looking to have buy your product. I was no joke
740
00:45:33,072 --> 00:45:36,284
in a meeting yesterday with a brand
741
00:45:37,424 --> 00:45:40,324
and I asked the question, who is your target consumer?
742
00:45:41,384 --> 00:45:44,764
And I quote, 22 to 74.
743
00:45:48,024 --> 00:45:50,644
Oh, okay. Well, let's just
744
00:45:51,624 --> 00:45:55,218
so. Wow, that conversation,
745
00:45:55,386 --> 00:45:59,210
where did that come. From, do you think? Had to be. How do they even
746
00:45:59,242 --> 00:46:03,018
narrow it down, huh? Well, not everybody's. Most
747
00:46:03,066 --> 00:46:06,770
people are not marketing people that go in the wine business. No, that's
748
00:46:06,922 --> 00:46:10,562
business people or whatever their background is,
749
00:46:10,658 --> 00:46:14,306
or agricultural background, or, you know, some sort of a
750
00:46:14,330 --> 00:46:17,490
business background. But I can't even
751
00:46:17,682 --> 00:46:20,334
fathom an answer like that.
752
00:46:21,234 --> 00:46:25,066
Again, who is your
753
00:46:25,170 --> 00:46:28,786
target customer and why does your wine even
754
00:46:28,850 --> 00:46:32,330
exist? You know, I'm going to interrupt you for a second,
755
00:46:32,522 --> 00:46:36,362
because I just thought of this, but that is one year past the legal drinking
756
00:46:36,418 --> 00:46:40,146
age and one year short of the average lifespan.
757
00:46:40,290 --> 00:46:43,730
Correct. So who's our customer?
758
00:46:43,802 --> 00:46:47,482
Everybody. Well, if you're doing everything for everybody, you do
759
00:46:47,538 --> 00:46:51,278
have to have 1000 different wines with crappy labels because
760
00:46:51,446 --> 00:46:55,078
you have no idea who you're trying to reach and you're just
761
00:46:55,126 --> 00:46:58,874
throwing things against the wall and maybe something sticks.
762
00:46:59,334 --> 00:47:02,238
That's the crapshoot, the strategy. First of all,
763
00:47:02,326 --> 00:47:05,638
winemakers are not marketers, they're not
764
00:47:05,686 --> 00:47:09,366
salespeople. They do a bang up job with who and
765
00:47:09,390 --> 00:47:13,238
what they are in the vineyard, in the winery. And that's
766
00:47:13,286 --> 00:47:16,974
great. There is another element, blending. That's
767
00:47:17,014 --> 00:47:20,100
not the forte of every winemaker either, which is
768
00:47:20,222 --> 00:47:24,064
why I wind up doing some of that for
769
00:47:24,104 --> 00:47:27,872
clients. Because I blend to price palette
770
00:47:28,008 --> 00:47:31,440
position, because I do know the
771
00:47:31,472 --> 00:47:34,952
consumer that we're trying to reach and I know what's going to work for
772
00:47:34,968 --> 00:47:38,764
them. I'm also fortunate that in my household I have
773
00:47:39,944 --> 00:47:43,792
three adult children, so two millennials and
774
00:47:43,808 --> 00:47:47,398
all their friends, and one Gen Z and all her friends.
775
00:47:47,566 --> 00:47:51,406
And I could see the trends coming from a mile away, just because of
776
00:47:51,470 --> 00:47:55,206
some of the things that occur in house. So
777
00:47:55,230 --> 00:47:58,594
you do know who's buying. That's an interesting point,
778
00:47:59,134 --> 00:48:02,846
because I vowed on a previous podcast never to beat up the millennials
779
00:48:02,870 --> 00:48:06,638
again, because I have three myself, three girls as well, and so I will not
780
00:48:06,726 --> 00:48:10,534
bash the generation. But you said something
781
00:48:10,574 --> 00:48:12,662
earlier, and I want to peel that back a little bit, and we're almost out
782
00:48:12,678 --> 00:48:16,250
of time. Unbelievably. But that is, people
783
00:48:16,322 --> 00:48:19,954
come to the industry with a background in something else. I've seen how many
784
00:48:19,994 --> 00:48:23,802
beverage soda manufacturers or soda executives come to
785
00:48:23,818 --> 00:48:27,594
the wine industry fail. And so it sounds like, or it feels like
786
00:48:27,634 --> 00:48:31,410
you're saying alternate businesses
787
00:48:31,442 --> 00:48:34,194
that you bring thinking you're going to bring to the table of the wine industry,
788
00:48:34,234 --> 00:48:37,574
and you're going to set the wine industry on fire because you've
789
00:48:37,954 --> 00:48:41,574
experienced success in another industry using certain tactics.
790
00:48:42,444 --> 00:48:45,744
They generally don't work. Is that accurate?
791
00:48:46,564 --> 00:48:49,812
Not exactly. I also come from outside of the industry. And in
792
00:48:49,828 --> 00:48:53,172
fact, to some degree, it was exactly that
793
00:48:53,228 --> 00:48:57,020
outsider perspective that has allowed me to succeed, because
794
00:48:57,212 --> 00:49:00,892
I question everything. And I literally believe
795
00:49:00,988 --> 00:49:04,724
that I can apply foundational marketing principles
796
00:49:04,884 --> 00:49:08,580
to things that this industry is not accustomed to. I still maintain that
797
00:49:08,612 --> 00:49:11,980
outsider's view. What I'm pointing to
798
00:49:12,092 --> 00:49:15,204
is running an agricultural
799
00:49:15,284 --> 00:49:18,796
production is one side of the
800
00:49:18,820 --> 00:49:22,516
business, obviously critical side. But if
801
00:49:22,540 --> 00:49:26,020
you're just producing without understanding who you are
802
00:49:26,052 --> 00:49:29,532
producing for, and what is it that you're trying to create
803
00:49:29,668 --> 00:49:31,504
for that particular target?
804
00:49:33,684 --> 00:49:36,994
You can produce all you want. I had one italian
805
00:49:37,034 --> 00:49:40,610
winemaker at one point tell me, well, we make
806
00:49:40,642 --> 00:49:43,574
wine like we always made wine, and
807
00:49:44,394 --> 00:49:47,914
people like it, they're going to buy it. I said, really?
808
00:49:48,034 --> 00:49:51,826
That's so exciting. That's so interesting. So you must sell everything you make.
809
00:49:51,930 --> 00:49:55,282
Oh, no, we have too much inventory. So you
810
00:49:55,298 --> 00:49:58,994
know that mindset. You're in
811
00:49:59,034 --> 00:50:02,614
agriculture, you're running a production facility,
812
00:50:03,034 --> 00:50:05,734
you're in that space.
813
00:50:07,034 --> 00:50:10,786
It takes equal amount of expertise to go to market
814
00:50:10,890 --> 00:50:13,854
with any product, and it's a different skill set.
815
00:50:14,794 --> 00:50:18,146
Do you think that's some of the disillusion that you see with people that come
816
00:50:18,170 --> 00:50:21,654
to the table? Monica, we need your help. And
817
00:50:22,994 --> 00:50:26,746
you don't see much thought behind it. When they started, they realize they've
818
00:50:26,770 --> 00:50:30,104
gotten into an industry that's very difficult to market and
819
00:50:31,004 --> 00:50:34,556
lack of understanding, or let's
820
00:50:34,580 --> 00:50:37,584
not diminish it more like
821
00:50:38,044 --> 00:50:41,780
bright eyed and bushy tailed, going into the industry because it's so romantic
822
00:50:41,812 --> 00:50:44,788
and we want to do this. And we went to the wine country and we
823
00:50:44,796 --> 00:50:48,348
had so much fun there, and we just love the lifestyle.
824
00:50:48,516 --> 00:50:51,916
And then they get into it and realize it's exactly what you're
825
00:50:51,940 --> 00:50:55,444
saying. It's without a
826
00:50:55,484 --> 00:50:59,254
doubt a challenging business because you
827
00:50:59,294 --> 00:51:03,014
do have to straddle the agricultural side. Unless, of course,
828
00:51:03,054 --> 00:51:06,782
you're just creating a brand and sourcing fruit and going from there.
829
00:51:06,918 --> 00:51:10,462
But if you're running a winery and a production facility,
830
00:51:10,558 --> 00:51:13,958
whether it's distillery or winery for that matter, there are
831
00:51:14,046 --> 00:51:17,406
production operational related challenges that have to be
832
00:51:17,430 --> 00:51:21,262
addressed. But you can't do that in some sort
833
00:51:21,278 --> 00:51:25,026
of a vacuum, which is what are I see occurring more often
834
00:51:25,090 --> 00:51:28,890
than not. It's the vacuum of that. Without the
835
00:51:28,922 --> 00:51:32,730
understanding that the only thing you need to produce and
836
00:51:32,762 --> 00:51:36,602
you should be producing has to have a rationale for why
837
00:51:36,658 --> 00:51:40,298
it's being produced. Why should anyone care who's going to buy
838
00:51:40,346 --> 00:51:42,774
it and who's going to buy it time and again?
839
00:51:44,114 --> 00:51:47,946
That's a good point. We're at 50 minutes, which is
840
00:51:47,970 --> 00:51:51,722
about the limit we didn't touch. Well, we
841
00:51:51,738 --> 00:51:55,514
already spoke before, and so I knew that topics were not going to be
842
00:51:55,634 --> 00:51:59,294
short here, but I wrote some down anyway. We're not even
843
00:51:59,954 --> 00:52:03,618
halfway through them, so I hope we can do this again. I would love that.
844
00:52:03,666 --> 00:52:07,010
And I would like to hear the flip side of some of the projects you're
845
00:52:07,042 --> 00:52:10,770
working on today. And there's a lot of subjects to
846
00:52:10,802 --> 00:52:14,066
talk about in this industry that we need to get to. One of them is,
847
00:52:14,130 --> 00:52:17,104
I'm going to a launch party on Saturday.
848
00:52:17,524 --> 00:52:21,300
My 19 year old niece is launching a self serve and not self serve,
849
00:52:21,332 --> 00:52:25,116
single serve salad dressing, and I would love to hear your
850
00:52:25,140 --> 00:52:28,876
thoughts on that once she launches it. It's a brand. It's
851
00:52:28,900 --> 00:52:32,700
so branding. It's kind of interesting. Branding. Salad dressing,
852
00:52:32,732 --> 00:52:36,380
after I've done a little research with her and helped her a little bit, is
853
00:52:36,412 --> 00:52:38,344
not unlike wine. It's not unlike
854
00:52:39,444 --> 00:52:41,944
toothpaste. Shelf space,
855
00:52:42,514 --> 00:52:46,098
recognition, where you're going to sell it, who's going to buy it,
856
00:52:46,226 --> 00:52:49,818
is all part of that conversation. 100%, but less
857
00:52:49,866 --> 00:52:53,574
regulatory with a little less regulation. Right. So
858
00:52:54,194 --> 00:52:57,490
good luck the rest of the day, and I hope that we get a chance
859
00:52:57,522 --> 00:53:01,090
to reconnect in the future. And certainly when we're out in Manhattan. You're in Manhattan,
860
00:53:01,122 --> 00:53:04,214
right? That's right. That we would get together.
861
00:53:04,834 --> 00:53:08,378
We usually hang out the baccarat, take you upstairs, and we'll have a
862
00:53:08,386 --> 00:53:11,846
martini or something, or a glass of wine and one of their famed glasses.
863
00:53:12,010 --> 00:53:15,382
And as long as it's not non alcoholic.
864
00:53:15,478 --> 00:53:19,062
Yeah. You know, before you get off, I didn't bring it up,
865
00:53:19,078 --> 00:53:22,766
but when we were walking down the aisles at the fancy food show in San
866
00:53:22,790 --> 00:53:26,582
Francisco, well, this year was in Vegas when I said it was
867
00:53:26,598 --> 00:53:30,390
a preeminent theme for the show of non alcoholic spirits and wine,
868
00:53:30,422 --> 00:53:33,806
and a guy stuck a glass of prosecco in my face, and it actually was
869
00:53:33,830 --> 00:53:37,342
palatable. I had him on the show. It was a very interesting guy. So I'm
870
00:53:37,358 --> 00:53:40,396
going to extend this five minutes so I can hear your thoughts. But the other
871
00:53:40,420 --> 00:53:44,180
thing that was on the show, a lot of was non alcoholic spirits, which
872
00:53:44,252 --> 00:53:47,772
were almost unpalatable. I don't know why they needed to use
873
00:53:47,828 --> 00:53:51,180
indian spices to make these things work. And it goes back to your
874
00:53:51,212 --> 00:53:54,964
point. I saw a non alcoholic bourbon at whole
875
00:53:55,004 --> 00:53:58,740
Foods the other day, and it was $35 a bottle. Now,
876
00:53:58,772 --> 00:54:02,492
you can buy, you know, some pretty decent bourbon for that $40, 50 a
877
00:54:02,508 --> 00:54:05,984
bottle. But why would I buy this for $35
878
00:54:06,304 --> 00:54:10,088
when it does nothing except taste. Like, I just don't
879
00:54:10,136 --> 00:54:13,912
get it. Price is what
880
00:54:14,008 --> 00:54:17,664
people will be willing to pay. So there has been
881
00:54:17,704 --> 00:54:21,320
this narrative about this whole category, and I'm just
882
00:54:21,352 --> 00:54:25,184
saying consumers are wise. They wake up. You can only
883
00:54:25,224 --> 00:54:29,056
fool certainly the american consumer for so long. We always
884
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,804
see the backlash when production,
885
00:54:33,534 --> 00:54:36,998
for instance, there was the whole thing with
886
00:54:37,046 --> 00:54:40,790
rose and rose boomed and then the quality went
887
00:54:40,822 --> 00:54:44,550
down, price went up and consumers started to pull back.
888
00:54:44,742 --> 00:54:48,554
It is a cycle. Consumers aren't stupid.
889
00:54:49,174 --> 00:54:52,550
They may not react instantly, but they will react.
890
00:54:52,702 --> 00:54:56,486
And right now, there's no rationale, in my view, in
891
00:54:56,510 --> 00:55:00,154
my analysis, for those types of priced non
892
00:55:00,194 --> 00:55:03,970
alcoholic products. I think it's a mess. Well, I've
893
00:55:04,002 --> 00:55:07,682
had, it's an interesting thought and I have just two pieces of sort
894
00:55:07,698 --> 00:55:11,530
of ad hoc evidence. One is Boisson, the
895
00:55:11,562 --> 00:55:14,834
famed retailer and just wholesaler of non alcoholic
896
00:55:14,914 --> 00:55:18,618
brands apparently has filed bankruptcy. I haven't seen that yet, but it
897
00:55:18,626 --> 00:55:22,434
was brought up on a post. And second, I
898
00:55:22,474 --> 00:55:25,620
have here as a consultant for the direct consumer
899
00:55:25,652 --> 00:55:29,420
marketing, I have gotten less requirement arrest requests
900
00:55:29,452 --> 00:55:33,156
from people to help them with that. I've had more requests across the globe for
901
00:55:33,180 --> 00:55:36,604
people to bring brands of wine to Los
902
00:55:36,644 --> 00:55:40,084
Angeles. And so I have in my quiver a really good armenian
903
00:55:40,124 --> 00:55:42,384
wine. I have in my quiver a
904
00:55:44,204 --> 00:55:48,052
Bordeaux from a boutique house in Lalonde de Pomerol. And I have a
905
00:55:48,068 --> 00:55:51,798
non alcoholic prosecco. And I, you
906
00:55:51,806 --> 00:55:55,606
know, with all my connections and all 50 years of doing this, I'm having
907
00:55:55,630 --> 00:55:59,070
a hard time getting in the door with any brand because the
908
00:55:59,102 --> 00:56:02,638
marketplace is so flooded. And it seems to me
909
00:56:02,806 --> 00:56:05,966
maybe that bubble is bursting a little bit in non al
910
00:56:06,070 --> 00:56:09,822
world. Everybody rushed to it. And, you
911
00:56:09,838 --> 00:56:13,366
know, like I said, boss, I'm going out of business and I'm getting resistance to
912
00:56:13,390 --> 00:56:17,210
put it in the book because not every wholesaler, for sure, maybe,
913
00:56:17,282 --> 00:56:21,002
maybe less than half of them in Los Angeles have a non alk. In
914
00:56:21,018 --> 00:56:24,354
their book, have tea by
915
00:56:24,394 --> 00:56:28,010
juice. What's that? Have tea or
916
00:56:28,042 --> 00:56:31,882
buy juice. Yeah, right. My recommendation. So I, you
917
00:56:31,898 --> 00:56:35,682
know, we'll leave it at that. Have tea or buy juice.
918
00:56:35,778 --> 00:56:39,574
And such a pleasure to see you again. And I look forward to doing it.
919
00:56:40,274 --> 00:56:41,534
We'll talk soon.
920
00:56:50,254 --> 00:56:53,590
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum Cary. And don't forget to
921
00:56:53,622 --> 00:56:56,774
subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way.
922
00:56:56,934 --> 00:57:00,254
Folks, have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:02,674
Carson Leno,
2
00:00:03,294 --> 00:00:06,734
Fallon. Now it's
3
00:00:06,814 --> 00:00:09,794
wine talks with Paul K.
4
00:00:11,094 --> 00:00:14,222
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in
5
00:00:14,238 --> 00:00:17,750
beautiful Southern California about to have a conversation with Monica Elling,
6
00:00:17,902 --> 00:00:21,398
the fractional CMO and the CEO of
7
00:00:21,446 --> 00:00:25,078
FMG Corporation. Introductions in just a moment.
8
00:00:25,206 --> 00:00:28,950
Wine talks, of course, available on iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, wherever you hang out for
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podcasting. Hey, have a listen to an incredible
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conversation I had with Julie Hernandez. Now
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we're going to talk about women in wine today. But Julie came to me
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about 20 years ago working for RN DC, one of the
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great suppliers of wine in America, and she. I thought,
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there's no way she's going to make this industry. It's too tough, it's too hard.
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She ended up becoming a local executive here in Southern California and one of the
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great allies of the original wine of the month club. So it's a great conversation
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about her headwinds and being a mother at the same time. And also a
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conversation with Paul Warson. Anybody
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that doesn't know this is probably not
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alone because there's a winery in Beverly Hills. It's about
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nine acres of planted vineyards. It's called Moraga. It's owned now
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by the great Rupert Murdoch.
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Incredible. You walk into the gates of this place
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and all of a sudden you're in a whole different world. You're not off the
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four or five freeway, you're not off the ten freeway. You are in the middle
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of what would be wine country, surrounded by vineyards, winery,
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tasting room, residence. The whole thing is there and the wines are
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very good. A great conversation with Paul Worsten. Have a listen to that.
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Hey, I'm going to start working on the show a little more in the sense
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of I am. We're not going to pull any punches. We are going to go
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after this industry. There's so many, I don't know, so many prongs
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of it that are bothering me. And having done this for 50
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years, I've just got issues I want to peel
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back. And so we're going to take those two to the head right now with
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a conversation with Monica Elling. She's the CEO of
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FMG. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Paul. Lovely to
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be here. We had a great conversation off camera before we got started,
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but I'm looking at your profile on LinkedIn,
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nutritional psychologist, digital marketeer. The
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conversation we had last week about the projects you're working on, it's amazing.
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How much time do you have in a day to do all these things?
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I'm a mother of three, so I can do anything. As
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any mom would know, you managed to juggle everything
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all at once. You know, it's kind of interesting you say that, because
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the woman I was just talking about, Julie Hernandez, she has triplets.
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And so. Boy, you talk about compounding the amount of work you have
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to do because they're all on the same schedule. Not the same schedule,
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because none of them are on the same schedule. Right. That's almost impossible.
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It would be nice. Yes. Are you, you're out in New York?
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I am in Manhattan, yes. You know, we didn't talk about this last
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time, but what, what does your day look like when you start? You're up. You
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probably, I don't know. Many of us don't sleep because we're worried about what's
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happening the next day. But what is it? What does your regular day look like?
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At FMG, I do have a
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fairly serious morning routine.
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I tend to follow the same protocol,
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and it's been something that's been drilled into me as an athlete. When
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I was in my early teens, I was a tennis player,
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nationally ranked, and then d one. So the discipline
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of all of that has stayed with me, and it's been very helpful in
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my life. I tend to go for run over
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workouts. I do have meditation breath work
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in the, in the mix. And I really
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then structure my day based on what I've
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already planned for the week and what goals I want to accomplish. And I just
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revisit all of that. And nice cup of coffee to get
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me started. It's funny, this morning I responded to something.
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I can't remember what it was on LinkedIn. I go, yeah, after my cup of
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coffee, then I can get started on your, your idea here. But
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interesting thought, we didn't discuss this either. As an
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athlete ranked tennis player,
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how much of those lessons did you carry forward? And I'll tell you a story
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in a second, but do you teach that to your kids, too?
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To use athleticism and the discipline
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of that to move, to move the needle entirely?
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I think it doesn't matter what level of athletics you
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participate in. Some of that mindset and
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structure and training is helpful for life. In my
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case, it was pretty rigorous. And as a d one player, we had a
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full year season, so I hardly had any time off during those
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years. When I finished playing
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for the university, I made a decision
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not to go pro. I wanted a real life. I was ready for that.
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But then I couldn't find anybody to play with. So then I had this
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brilliant idea that I would have some children and
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train them to beat me. And two out of
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three worked. I raised two nationally ranked
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athletes out of the three, and one in tennis,
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one in swimming, and all four of us play,
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and there's intense in house
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competition. That's great. It's such an important
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lesson, and I glossed over that last time we spoke about your
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career in athleticism. But it's such an important part of. I have
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a daughter who, her first year in college, decided she wanted to be in the
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band. And I said, well, you should probably play an instrument.
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And because of her discipline through her career in
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softball, she got herself on the band because she
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practiced what she needed to practice and was able to march on the field.
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So such important lessons to learn through athleticism
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in our youth. And I wonder if that's glossed over. You think that's missed by
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a lot. Of parents or 100%, 100% misunderstood. And
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so it doesn't matter what road you
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travel, you carry that with you. That mindset, the
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resilience. Tennis, particularly, is harsh.
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And it was interesting. My son was a nationally ranked swimmer from the time he
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was six, and that's a grueling
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discipline. But when he turned to playing tennis after
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swimming, he walked off his first match. And
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essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, but basically he said,
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mom, you never told me. It's torture all the way, and I'm aware
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of it with all the ups and downs in the match. You're up,
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you're down. He said, I'm swimming. I just jump in. I come
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out the end of the pool and I look up my time.
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And so there is a
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rigor in that mindset. There is a focus
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that you learn and you
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develop grit. You have to come back. It's never over.
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That's right. That's a very good point. You can't walk away.
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So I'm done. I'm going to give up and you just can't do it. So
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you guys playing pickleball now over there at the LA household? Yeah.
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You know, that's an interesting question. I am not there.
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Tennis is. It's a very
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serious sport, and I'm not ready to
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dumb it down. I love the fact that people are
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playing a racket sport. That's great.
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But when you put in as much time as I have into the sport, I'm
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not really ready to give that part of it up. Okay, that's funny.
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We did. I did put a pickleball court in our home because we had this
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giant slab and we never knew what to do with it. It worked perfectly. I
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haven't used it very much in the last year. However, we did have a
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Sunday afternoon burger bash and brought some friends over who
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are, you know, tied to it. It's almost a religion now.
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People get in their car and they drive miles to go, just jump in and
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play. And I will say it's a lot of fun.
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Anybody can jump in and just play. You know, you don't. You may not
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compete very, you know, rigorously, but
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at least you can feel like you're participating in something. And tennis
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is, you know, much harder. But there are certain, certainly there's skills. That cross
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over 100%, and it's great
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that people are moving and enjoying that part of
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the process. So I'm all for anything that
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makes people move and get out of their chairs and away from their
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computers. So. Oh, thank you for that.
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So you said something, too. I wanted to peel back a little bit. You said,
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d one athlete. And I sent many, many kids
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from my coaching sets years to
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college, and I coached girls softball for years, high school.
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And many, many girls went through, and it was very important
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for a handful of them to survive the whole four
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years to finish their career. Softball at that time, or
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athleticism created their foundation for their college studies
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and for their experience in college. And others at the same
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time realized that there was more to it and they wanted
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to, and they maybe played a year or two and they moved on, saying,
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basically, I'd like more arrows in my quiver other than just
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the game. So did you see that through your
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career and with your children that there's. Yes, we want to
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maximize the value of the relationship with the sport, but there are times
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where we just say, look, it's time for other things. Absolutely.
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And in my case, I made that
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exact decision. I played three out of the four years. I had
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a double major. Everybody on my team was going five
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years to school. I didn't want that. I made that decision not to
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go pro at that point. I realized, okay, then I'm going to
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finish out with my third year. I happened to be undefeated at that
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point, and so I felt I might
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as well just go out on top. And unfortunately, my coach
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was not happy because we had to win five out of nine
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matches, and I brought home two wins in every match,
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singles and bowls. So that was a detriment to the
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team. But I was ready to begin my life and I just wanted to
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complete school. So. So you made that decision. It's a tough decision.
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Very tough. Very, very tough. It's been such a part of my life up
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to that point. So I'm looking at your
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LinkedIn profile here. The CEO, founder of
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Fractional, I'm sorry, FMG, but you
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also. You talk about wine and spirits, talk about brand strategy, talk about strategic digital
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marketing, nutritional psychology. I mean, you cover quite
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a plethora of subjects here for your career. And it's very fascinating that
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we landed in wines and spirits. And it's, as you know,
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there's this camaraderie, there's this, there's this. I don't know, maybe it's the
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lifestyle. You know, we're going to Europe next month and
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we've been greeted all over the world by Bordeaux houses and
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Piemonte, et cetera, et cetera. What landed you there?
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And was it something you aspired to do, or you just found yourself
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there? I was just a long answer.
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I had no idea about the wine and spirits business as
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such. I started out in marketing, Madison Avenue
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advertising, publishing, and I had the good fortune
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of working in my early days
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with Michelle Ru of Absaltwake.
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He was my client. I was determined to bring him into our
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publication. And I saw up close
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and personal how a brand can be brought
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to life. In that case, a spirit's brand.
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And that was not something that was done
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previously, not to such level. So absolute, really made
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waves at that time. And I learned a
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lot, but I sort of checked it in the back of my mind.
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I did about ten years of nonprofit international trade
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and investment development with central and eastern Europe,
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primarily. And it was during that time that I was
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working with some of
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the greatest brands that were coming into the region for investment.
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There was Antonori. So my first
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vineyard walk was with Tigor Gall of Ornalaya. He was the
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first 100 point wine maker in the history of wine, which
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was a wonderful way to get into the business. And then
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Jean Michel kest vax, Melissa May, and many of that
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ilk. So I looked up a year later and I wound
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up in the wine business. Well,
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because for me, I really. I was around all my
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life, but until my father said, look, I'm going to sell, I'm going to get
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out. You should come back and check this out. But even
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then, after ten years of selling wine, it was still,
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like I say, it was work. I'm going to say it was a task
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to make sure that we were on track, doing the things, checking the boxes that
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we were supposed to do in order to market wine. But
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at some point, it crossed over into this passion and this love
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affair with the industry and the brand. And so you mentioned something
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interesting that you worked with Michel Roux of
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absolute. I mean, branding, is that a formula? I mean,
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people, and I want to kind of define this a little bit because everybody talks
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about branding and, you know, brand managers, and I'm going to create
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a brand, and that's not a rock solid thing. This is
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sort of an open field to understanding how an
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absolute becomes a brand or how you create a couple
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of brands on your surface. There.
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There's no formula for this. Or is this something that if you do the right
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things, you will have a brand? If there were an exact
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formula, everyone would be doing it and everybody would do it right.
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Creativity and everybody could win all the time.
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That is not the case. The consistency from my
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career path and my vision for
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my career had to do with
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psychology. And this is what brings it all
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together. So on the psychology side, it's
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about behavior. It's about consumer behavior
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in my mind. And that was at the root of many
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things I did thereafter. So my initial
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background is in psychology. And as I went
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to the business side of things, I started to
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apply consumer behavior in reaction to
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products, in reaction to how we sell the
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sales process. All of those things combined together
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are what fascinates me, and it keeps me
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excited about brand creation, brand strategy, brand
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development, voice of the brand. And
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yes, over 20 some odd years, I've honed into
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the process that I believe is ensuring maximum
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success. And when you talk about digital and all
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these other aspects of it, I saw that technology
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was going to have a massive impact on that brand
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building and that consumer communication
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that is all very consistent with what is the
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end game. The end game is to create a brand that consumers
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will love and create the
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communication and that relationship between the brand and the
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consumer. In the wine and spirits industry, we have all this noise,
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this infrastructure in between that everyone is
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derailed by. And unfortunately for specifically
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the wine industry, there's so much talk about the trade side
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of things I don't know that any producer in Europe actually
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understands. The 44 year old woman who has three
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kids, two dogs, drives an Audi, and is
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going to shop for dinner at her store
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in Rochester, Minnesota. So how
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are we supposed to create consumer products in this
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industry when we don't know anything about the consumer
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journey and how they are perceiving
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whatever products are being sold to them in this space?
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That's an interesting concept because
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you said a mouthful of issues that we have in our industry, one of them
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being the noise that's out there. So it seems
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like some brands, either because their
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psychology isn't properly managed or understood, are
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just doomed to failure from the beginning. I've seen it many times and I'm
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wondering if you think that's because this path
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and their client was not properly understood or there was just a
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dumb idea from the beginning that nobody really would have taken to it in the
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first place. So I'll give you an example
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of a fail. I was not using any names, but go ahead.
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No, there's no name. And this is speaking to
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the industry. They will recognize themselves. And I'm not
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talking about a specific brand. There's way too much of this going
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on. Two guys walk into a bar, slap each other in the back, hey,
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we should have a vodka brand or whatever brand. Great. Wonderful. That's the
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beginning of a joke, right? Two guys walk into a bar, but. That'S happening all
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the time. And then there's some
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funding mechanism behind them. Two girls walk into a bar
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and they go, oh, it's a whole different conversation. And they don't get
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funded, but we'll get there. The
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ideation occurs. They think they have a brilliant idea
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about a brand. They think it's wonderful
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and they start to create the
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product they're going to market. Now they're even
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convincing distributors to take on a product. What they
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don't understand very often
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is they miss the core aspect of the brand
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creation journey, which is an incredibly
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serious process. It's artistic, it's
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scientific, it's a lot of different aspects.
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So what happens is now they finally get their
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product into a bar, they're all excited.
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Consumer comes in and somebody that
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is friendly to that brand, so they want to support them. But
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now they have a call name, they're trying to get
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the attention of a bartender with, and it's unpronounceable
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or it's a lie long or it's, can I have
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a red herring, blue, whatever,
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on the rocks, please? And it's like, what were you
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thinking when you created the brand? How do you think your consumer is going to
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address that brand in a bar or
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in such an environment? So there are a lot of things missed in
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the wine arena. There are examples
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of bigger problems because the idea
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that something has to have the proper name and connectivity
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to a consumer, that's not what they're thinking about. They're thinking about,
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well, we want to have a line extension. Let's put this name on it. That
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sounds good. They might get a relative to create the
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label, they might have their niece or nephew give
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it the brand name or the grandmother. And
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I'm being to some degree facetious here, but I have seen all
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those examples live. And then people
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wonder why the sales strategy is not working.
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It's because nobody wants that particular product
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and you're not communicating appropriately. And that's from the starting
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point of the brand name and the brand
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ethos. He says, you made me think of something, and I just
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had this experience a few years ago. I've seen it a thousand times. And you
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and I are not new to this story, I'm going to tell you. But
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maybe because the wine industry is so sophisticated, it's so complex, and
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it's so congested that the idea of
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this launching a brand without some of this psychology
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understood and some of the path of the consumer understood that it's
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almost, it's a zero chance crapshoot unless there's
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something absolutely unique about it that
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you make it happen. The reason I brought that up is I had a vendor
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come in years ago, and he was from a local Appalachian here in southern
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California, so one that doesn't have a lot of pedigree like Napa or
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Sonoma. And he shows me this brand and he
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wanted pretty good money for it. It was called sleeping
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Indian, you know, so not the brightest thing in the world as far as, you
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know, today's environment of, you know, wokeness.
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And the label was horrible and the wines were average. And I said, it
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looks like your daughter drew this on a computer.
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And he goes, she did? And I
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thought, based on what you just said, I'm thinking the guy
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had no chance. And I told him this and he was offended by it. But
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I wanted to be honest with him. I said, look, you might as well just
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stick to your local market, sell it to the restaurants and the local stores and
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be on your way. But if you want to go corporate and you want to
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go national, you ain't going to do it with
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sleeping indian and a label that looks like this,
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besides the distribution complications. So the point
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being, man, it's an absolute
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0% crapshoot if you don't have some kind of
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legs behind you. Psychology, branding, I mean, you know,
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demographic understanding. I mean, you made a great point. A 44 year old
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woman with three kids going shopping, you know, what's. What are the, what are the
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decision criteria from that woman to buy something?
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And it gets, it gets a little bit trickier because you
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have now 50 states producing wine. The
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distributors won't take on those wines that are not
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from California, Washington, Oregon,
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basically, no other state will
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work with distribution and that's their philosophy.
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And now some of those wineries are fighting
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the state regulations so that they can distribute themselves
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appropriately to get to market, because even their own state
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distributors won't. The missing
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link for, for those wineries within those states is
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that they do make
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decisions such as what you and I just described about
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their branding or, oh, we love this, this looks great.
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And there's absolutely no professional knowledge
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behind it. And why should the consumer care?
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So they're fighting an uphill battle even in their own
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states, if they really don't produce the
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caliber of production that competes on a national basis. Because
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the consumer doesn't care about these arkeme regulations and barriers.
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All they know is there is this really nice looking wine from
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California, perhaps, and there's a great one from
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Spain, and then there's this really ugly label from our local
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market. Now, why should we pay for that? So
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if the wineries within the other
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47 states want to start competing for consumer
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interest, they have to up the game of how they come
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to market with their brand lineups. And it's
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not enough to say that, you know, the buses of tourists that are coming into
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the tasting room are satisfied that they love our product.
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00:24:01,906 --> 00:24:05,498
No. Go do a blind tasting and then go do a packaging
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comparison with global market
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brands and frankly, take those results
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00:24:12,668 --> 00:24:16,508
home and then do something about it. You
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00:24:16,516 --> 00:24:20,324
know, you're just like hitting these points
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that have the back of my mind. I just got done with a
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00:24:24,140 --> 00:24:27,956
tasting. The label was horrible. The wines were decent. And he took the
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00:24:27,980 --> 00:24:31,500
wine to a local distributor and the guy says, look,
400
00:24:31,532 --> 00:24:34,780
I know it was another tasting room. The guy says, look, I'm
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00:24:34,812 --> 00:24:38,260
selling all I can sell because people, the
402
00:24:38,292 --> 00:24:42,116
busloads of people are coming here and they're buying it. And that kind of
403
00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:45,744
leads to this experiential part of wine today.
404
00:24:46,644 --> 00:24:49,584
I know you're a digital marketer, we're going to talk about that now. But
405
00:24:50,604 --> 00:24:53,356
a couple of things that you mentioned that really important before we get to that
406
00:24:53,420 --> 00:24:56,996
one is the label design. Like I said, this guy's label was drawn by his
407
00:24:57,020 --> 00:25:00,732
daughter on a computer. I bought wine from Sebastiani probably 20
408
00:25:00,788 --> 00:25:04,452
years ago. Beautiful Cabernet franchise, already bottled. They didn't market it
409
00:25:04,468 --> 00:25:08,060
because they actually had the three year old daughter playing on a
410
00:25:08,092 --> 00:25:11,424
Mac and she designed a label and it never took off. So
411
00:25:11,884 --> 00:25:15,612
they just stored at the back of the warehouse. Wine was great, by the way.
412
00:25:15,708 --> 00:25:19,324
But Mike Houlihan, who founded the brand barefoot
413
00:25:19,364 --> 00:25:23,188
Sellers, had learned a lesson from the
414
00:25:23,236 --> 00:25:26,924
thrifty which back then, Rexall drugs, thrifty
415
00:25:26,964 --> 00:25:30,220
drugs before the cvs is in the writings of the world. One of the
416
00:25:30,252 --> 00:25:33,986
biggest pharmacy change was called thrifty. They're known
417
00:25:34,010 --> 00:25:37,754
for their ice cream. You go to Rite Aid now they have thrifty ice cream
418
00:25:37,794 --> 00:25:41,418
still. And he says, the buyer said, look, I want
419
00:25:41,466 --> 00:25:45,266
to be, if I'm a mother and I'm walking down the
420
00:25:45,290 --> 00:25:48,730
aisle, I want to be able to see that label from four stalls
421
00:25:48,762 --> 00:25:52,362
away. I want to be directed to your brett. So when you bring me a
422
00:25:52,378 --> 00:25:55,706
wine that looks that I will recognize four steps
423
00:25:55,730 --> 00:25:59,330
away, then I'll take a look at it and I go, wow, that's a
424
00:25:59,362 --> 00:26:02,762
really interesting thing. That is probably true today to a certain
425
00:26:02,858 --> 00:26:06,210
percent, 100%. So when we design, so we
426
00:26:06,242 --> 00:26:09,814
design great brands, beautiful packaging,
427
00:26:10,874 --> 00:26:14,546
and we design it with the mindset of
428
00:26:14,610 --> 00:26:18,138
the digital shelf. It has to have instant impact
429
00:26:18,306 --> 00:26:22,106
when people see it online, has to be memorable
430
00:26:22,170 --> 00:26:25,922
there, and the physical shelf, so it has to work in both
431
00:26:25,978 --> 00:26:29,786
ways. And that is something
432
00:26:29,890 --> 00:26:33,694
that I can't stress enough.
433
00:26:34,554 --> 00:26:38,210
There's no way of getting around it. The failure of
434
00:26:38,242 --> 00:26:41,906
that had never ceased to amaze me. On Tuesdays, when I
435
00:26:41,930 --> 00:26:45,418
tasted you look at them, it's like, what do you think? And I already
436
00:26:45,466 --> 00:26:49,258
know I have a label designer, Pasar Robles. She was charging, I
437
00:26:49,266 --> 00:26:52,050
don't know, twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a label, depending on the amount of work.
438
00:26:52,082 --> 00:26:55,650
And that that would include whether you wanted an embossed or a
439
00:26:55,802 --> 00:26:59,570
foil overlay or whatever. You have certain paper type, ink
440
00:26:59,602 --> 00:27:03,254
type. It wasn't an expensive proposition
441
00:27:04,234 --> 00:27:07,946
other than having your three year old daughter on a Mac. And every
442
00:27:07,970 --> 00:27:11,730
time I see a label that's just got no criteria at all, I
443
00:27:11,762 --> 00:27:15,574
just cringe. Now, I know in Napa you can spend
444
00:27:15,614 --> 00:27:18,822
five, 7810 thousand dollars designing a label. Six
445
00:27:18,878 --> 00:27:22,630
figures, yeah, six figures. Six figures. And
446
00:27:22,702 --> 00:27:26,510
it's not just designing a bottle, you're creating the
447
00:27:26,542 --> 00:27:29,914
brand and designing a label
448
00:27:31,054 --> 00:27:34,846
that you could, you could do that, anybody could do
449
00:27:34,870 --> 00:27:38,470
that. With today's day and age of technology, you could do that.
450
00:27:38,622 --> 00:27:42,390
Creating a brand is a whole different proposition. I'll
451
00:27:42,422 --> 00:27:46,182
tell you that. In 2017, we created a spirits
452
00:27:46,238 --> 00:27:49,950
brand that had a multi hundred million dollar exit five
453
00:27:50,022 --> 00:27:53,686
years later. And it wasn't just a brand, because it
454
00:27:53,710 --> 00:27:57,198
begins with the strategy, what are you creating a brand for?
455
00:27:57,366 --> 00:28:00,894
Who are you creating it for? That's the starting
456
00:28:00,934 --> 00:28:04,478
point. So you better understand
457
00:28:04,606 --> 00:28:08,434
and be able to create the strategy. And that's a business
458
00:28:09,194 --> 00:28:12,906
acumen and marketing skill which is
459
00:28:12,970 --> 00:28:16,730
not the same as design. That's true. So those are
460
00:28:16,762 --> 00:28:20,362
two different sides. And then, and then you take the strategy.
461
00:28:20,418 --> 00:28:23,578
Now, what's going to get us to win with that
462
00:28:23,746 --> 00:28:27,218
direction? And so it begins with the
463
00:28:27,266 --> 00:28:30,698
analysis, what's the opportunity? What's the market opportunity?
464
00:28:30,826 --> 00:28:34,450
What's the strategy? And then what's the brand that we are going to
465
00:28:34,482 --> 00:28:37,484
create to drill that home? And
466
00:28:38,624 --> 00:28:41,784
so the investment is
467
00:28:41,864 --> 00:28:45,344
actually fairly significant in that
468
00:28:45,384 --> 00:28:49,216
regard. And I'm not saying that wineries should do that for
469
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,644
every single item that they're put out. However,
470
00:28:54,224 --> 00:28:58,008
I also can point to a real solid example
471
00:28:58,056 --> 00:29:01,564
that I've had over the years, and that is
472
00:29:02,344 --> 00:29:06,112
focus is key. I know a lot of
473
00:29:06,128 --> 00:29:09,824
wineries that are constantly pulling out. Yet a new wine,
474
00:29:09,864 --> 00:29:13,352
yet a new wine, yet a new wine. And I can tell
475
00:29:13,408 --> 00:29:16,004
you, during my time at Southern Glazers
476
00:29:17,304 --> 00:29:20,744
in New York, New York metro, I was with the
477
00:29:20,784 --> 00:29:24,604
Labward division. Just as we were taken over by Southern,
478
00:29:25,544 --> 00:29:29,104
the most successful wine buy
479
00:29:29,144 --> 00:29:32,672
value was Jordan Chardonnay,
480
00:29:32,768 --> 00:29:36,404
Cabernet, two wines in sync, focus.
481
00:29:37,864 --> 00:29:41,632
And I'm not saying that that's the guideline for everybody,
482
00:29:41,728 --> 00:29:44,684
but when there's too much of an
483
00:29:45,704 --> 00:29:49,120
ad hoc approach to what it is that we are
484
00:29:49,152 --> 00:29:52,904
selling, then again, you don't
485
00:29:52,944 --> 00:29:56,692
have the level of success with Empress. When we created Empress,
486
00:29:56,748 --> 00:30:00,444
1908, Jen, we had one skew, or actually,
487
00:30:00,524 --> 00:30:03,804
technically two. We had a 50, same thing. One
488
00:30:03,844 --> 00:30:07,604
product. One product. You know, it's
489
00:30:07,644 --> 00:30:11,492
interesting thought, because we created a lot of. I'm
490
00:30:11,508 --> 00:30:15,308
going to reverse my thought process here. We created a lot of labels here
491
00:30:15,396 --> 00:30:18,584
at wine of the month club. I have a license to make wine here,
492
00:30:19,484 --> 00:30:22,724
versus what you're saying, which is a brand. So I needed, let's say I found
493
00:30:22,764 --> 00:30:26,610
some juice in Napa that was distressed. Volume wise,
494
00:30:26,642 --> 00:30:29,938
I just had too much. I was able to buy it inexpensively, put it in
495
00:30:29,946 --> 00:30:33,482
a bottle. And so I wasn't, you know, it's very interesting because I didn't think
496
00:30:33,618 --> 00:30:37,402
I was trying to create a brand. I was thinking, I need to put a
497
00:30:37,418 --> 00:30:40,654
label on this wine so I can sell it through my regular channel,
498
00:30:41,154 --> 00:30:44,066
but not giving it the thought that, what if this is a brand? What if
499
00:30:44,090 --> 00:30:46,082
I do want to put it on the shelf? What if I do want to
500
00:30:46,098 --> 00:30:49,690
take it to a tasting room and have somebody taste it? And two different thought
501
00:30:49,722 --> 00:30:52,674
processes. Thought processes completely.
502
00:30:53,494 --> 00:30:57,326
That's really fascinating. You want to have an understanding of what
503
00:30:57,350 --> 00:31:01,134
is the business outcome you're looking for for this. What is the purpose?
504
00:31:01,254 --> 00:31:05,022
Because frankly, wine should not, or any brand should not exist unless it has a
505
00:31:05,038 --> 00:31:08,622
purpose. What is that purpose? And what makes
506
00:31:08,678 --> 00:31:12,510
sense to achieve that purpose in the fastest amount of
507
00:31:12,542 --> 00:31:16,254
time? You know, I had a conversation with Jessica Kogan.
508
00:31:16,294 --> 00:31:20,038
She. She's actually has a similar career to yours. She was with Donna
509
00:31:20,086 --> 00:31:23,558
Corinne, I think, one of the fashion companies early
510
00:31:23,606 --> 00:31:27,230
on, and she's become quite the guru in spirits and
511
00:31:27,262 --> 00:31:31,102
wine customer CX,
512
00:31:31,158 --> 00:31:34,878
customer experience. And we were sort of lamenting
513
00:31:34,926 --> 00:31:38,774
and sort of deciding together that the social network
514
00:31:38,854 --> 00:31:42,510
side of marketing, particularly in the spirits world, is sort of going to
515
00:31:42,542 --> 00:31:46,390
implode here. And that the experiential part of our
516
00:31:46,422 --> 00:31:50,270
industry is going to come back to the days like when I'm wearing this patch
517
00:31:50,382 --> 00:31:54,150
from Les Amis Devin, which was a wine enthusiast group in the seventies
518
00:31:54,182 --> 00:31:57,702
and eighties that had 150 chapters throughout the
519
00:31:57,718 --> 00:32:01,046
US. People would gather, exchange
520
00:32:01,150 --> 00:32:04,886
conversation, maybe have dinner, not unlike a
521
00:32:04,910 --> 00:32:08,710
tasting room that has a quality experience. But how do you feel about
522
00:32:08,862 --> 00:32:12,658
the future of digital marketing when it comes
523
00:32:12,746 --> 00:32:16,450
to spirits and wine? I think they serve
524
00:32:16,482 --> 00:32:20,130
a different purpose. You have multiple channels of
525
00:32:20,162 --> 00:32:23,874
communication in person, online and so
526
00:32:23,914 --> 00:32:27,370
on. So I'm not saying one
527
00:32:27,482 --> 00:32:31,258
is meant to replace the other, because they serve different
528
00:32:31,346 --> 00:32:35,146
purposes and people are processing
529
00:32:35,250 --> 00:32:38,714
information, communication about brands, in
530
00:32:38,794 --> 00:32:42,362
instance, and they do it ad hoc, they do it in between
531
00:32:42,458 --> 00:32:46,298
other things. It is not a focused process. They're not
532
00:32:46,346 --> 00:32:50,066
sitting there immersing themselves into a
533
00:32:50,130 --> 00:32:53,978
brand or a branded page, but they are taking snippets of
534
00:32:54,026 --> 00:32:57,810
information away. You just want to make sure that the snippets that you're
535
00:32:57,842 --> 00:33:01,186
offering are going to hit the right
536
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,924
tone. That's one side, on the
537
00:33:05,584 --> 00:33:09,200
personal side of coming together
538
00:33:09,272 --> 00:33:12,992
for events. I think that's always. And that's part
539
00:33:13,008 --> 00:33:16,680
of humanity. We're social creatures. We want to be together, we want
540
00:33:16,712 --> 00:33:18,644
to have reasons to be together.
541
00:33:20,264 --> 00:33:23,960
I do believe that that part will come back. But if somebody thinks
542
00:33:23,992 --> 00:33:27,004
that that's going to help the brand building process,
543
00:33:28,704 --> 00:33:31,844
that's sort of a small part of the journey.
544
00:33:31,964 --> 00:33:35,676
It's. I think that's accurate. Yeah.
545
00:33:35,740 --> 00:33:39,100
I don't think it can compete with the amount of information
546
00:33:39,212 --> 00:33:42,940
processing that we are engaged
547
00:33:43,012 --> 00:33:46,444
in on a daily basis. Cause when I started
548
00:33:46,484 --> 00:33:49,996
doing Facebook back in the day was the day that everybody
549
00:33:50,140 --> 00:33:53,724
got your message, that was part of your network. You
550
00:33:53,804 --> 00:33:57,460
actually didn't wanna leave Facebook, or it wasn't even Instagram at that time, but
551
00:33:57,532 --> 00:34:01,250
you didn't wanna. It's so interesting to me because social networking
552
00:34:01,282 --> 00:34:05,034
was meant originally to be social networking. And so when you're
553
00:34:05,074 --> 00:34:08,610
on Facebook at those days, you didn't leave to go buy something.
554
00:34:08,762 --> 00:34:12,442
Even if you were delivered a message to buy something. You're like, no, I'm hanging
555
00:34:12,458 --> 00:34:16,234
out with my friends. We're talking and we're chatting, whatever we're doing. And now
556
00:34:16,274 --> 00:34:18,894
it's primarily a methodology for
557
00:34:19,474 --> 00:34:23,322
advertising and sales and obviously why Facebook has done
558
00:34:23,338 --> 00:34:26,749
so well the stock market side of things financially.
559
00:34:26,921 --> 00:34:30,669
So it's migrated completely. And
560
00:34:30,781 --> 00:34:34,473
I don't think the consumers understand. And I have a niece who's starting
561
00:34:34,813 --> 00:34:38,261
a salad dressing company and she's a
562
00:34:38,437 --> 00:34:42,181
prolific social network. She's done a lot of work with content. But when it
563
00:34:42,197 --> 00:34:45,909
gets down to the metrics of making money on social networking,
564
00:34:45,941 --> 00:34:49,493
it's very difficult on its own. I think there have been a few
565
00:34:49,533 --> 00:34:52,445
success stories that people have hung their hat on. Like, look, I did. I did
566
00:34:52,469 --> 00:34:55,264
all this on Facebook. I think that's far and few
567
00:34:56,524 --> 00:34:59,908
and far between backwards and
568
00:34:59,996 --> 00:35:03,604
probably pretty specific to the product.
569
00:35:03,684 --> 00:35:07,364
The need, the consumer that is reaching and who's doing that.
570
00:35:07,444 --> 00:35:10,544
But you wrote something today. This is why I'm trying to get to
571
00:35:11,164 --> 00:35:14,940
that kind of upset some people about non alk wines. Tell me about this
572
00:35:14,972 --> 00:35:18,164
article that you published. I read most of it, but I want you to tell
573
00:35:18,204 --> 00:35:21,716
me what you were thinking. Yes. So
574
00:35:21,820 --> 00:35:25,436
I. Looking at the conversations bubbling, just need
575
00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:29,060
the surface. And non alcoholic
576
00:35:29,092 --> 00:35:32,580
wines is now a formed category
577
00:35:32,692 --> 00:35:36,492
with a lot of research and all that. I
578
00:35:36,548 --> 00:35:40,012
have to say I take exception to some of the elements
579
00:35:40,108 --> 00:35:43,740
of those conversations because at the end of the
580
00:35:43,772 --> 00:35:47,512
day, we're drinking something that's non alcoholic. There have
581
00:35:47,528 --> 00:35:51,200
been non alcoholic products forever, starting
582
00:35:51,232 --> 00:35:54,984
with water, starting with tea, going into sodas,
583
00:35:55,064 --> 00:35:57,484
juices and the like.
584
00:35:58,864 --> 00:36:02,656
So I have no issue with that. I drink many of
585
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,088
those other types of liquids, non alcoholic liquids,
586
00:36:06,136 --> 00:36:09,480
myself. That's. That's not the point. And in fact, when I was first
587
00:36:09,552 --> 00:36:13,188
pregnant with my first child, I did a lot of research about this.
588
00:36:13,376 --> 00:36:16,996
And that was back 20 plus years ago.
589
00:36:17,140 --> 00:36:20,668
And I drank Klaus Thaler, a german
590
00:36:20,756 --> 00:36:24,476
non alcoholic beer. It was one of two in the market. There was
591
00:36:24,580 --> 00:36:28,348
O'Toole's, which had no flavor, tastes like water, and there was a
592
00:36:28,396 --> 00:36:31,284
german non alcoholic beer. So obviously I went that
593
00:36:31,324 --> 00:36:34,740
direction and I never heard of
594
00:36:34,772 --> 00:36:38,548
anybody else really talking about that. So
595
00:36:38,716 --> 00:36:42,268
that was early days of this non alcoholic category
596
00:36:42,356 --> 00:36:46,174
journey, which has now imploded into this whole big thing.
597
00:36:46,634 --> 00:36:49,874
I have issues with the
598
00:36:49,914 --> 00:36:53,254
pricing, I have issues with the positioning.
599
00:36:53,594 --> 00:36:57,010
And frankly, most of it is just
600
00:36:57,082 --> 00:37:00,530
juice. And then there is the other
601
00:37:00,642 --> 00:37:04,338
element that I found, because I purchased just about every
602
00:37:04,386 --> 00:37:08,082
product that's been available online and teased it
603
00:37:08,098 --> 00:37:11,526
through, and I've done most of them because most don't even hit
604
00:37:11,610 --> 00:37:15,074
the flavor profile of something drinkable for me.
605
00:37:15,414 --> 00:37:19,190
And there have been some exceptions that
606
00:37:19,222 --> 00:37:22,154
I've liked, but then I can't rationalize the price.
607
00:37:23,614 --> 00:37:27,394
So there are two things happening. The pricing is out of control.
608
00:37:27,934 --> 00:37:31,566
We're drinking juice. The consumer is about to
609
00:37:31,590 --> 00:37:35,238
wise up that they are drinking juice and they're being
610
00:37:35,286 --> 00:37:38,874
told to pay 30 plus dollars for some of this
611
00:37:39,204 --> 00:37:42,988
elixir, craft elixir. So there's
612
00:37:43,036 --> 00:37:46,764
that. The other part for viscosity, mouth feel. And I blend
613
00:37:46,804 --> 00:37:49,104
wines for clients around the world.
614
00:37:50,364 --> 00:37:54,036
I find that there are other
615
00:37:54,100 --> 00:37:57,812
ingredients, including different variations on sugar,
616
00:37:57,868 --> 00:38:01,156
whether it's agave or pure cane or some sort of
617
00:38:01,180 --> 00:38:04,356
syrup that are added to the product for
618
00:38:04,420 --> 00:38:07,910
viscosity, for mouth feel and so on, which is not
619
00:38:07,942 --> 00:38:11,278
unusual, because when the food industry took
620
00:38:11,326 --> 00:38:14,694
out fats from everything, they added in
621
00:38:14,774 --> 00:38:18,374
sugar into all foods. It's essentially what's
622
00:38:18,414 --> 00:38:22,070
happening here. And I have a nutrition background and I just look at this,
623
00:38:22,102 --> 00:38:25,726
I'm like, what are you doing? You're just trading one for the other. I'd rather
624
00:38:25,790 --> 00:38:29,574
have the single ingredient grape and
625
00:38:29,614 --> 00:38:33,430
have wine than pretend I'm doing anything healthy for
626
00:38:33,462 --> 00:38:36,882
my body with the. Whatever the concoction
627
00:38:36,938 --> 00:38:40,610
is. So if I want something non alcoholic,
628
00:38:40,722 --> 00:38:44,026
I'll have seltzer with lime,
629
00:38:44,090 --> 00:38:47,754
or I blend my own teas. And
630
00:38:47,874 --> 00:38:51,634
I created a nothing added
631
00:38:51,794 --> 00:38:54,574
blend of hibiscus, pomegranates,
632
00:38:55,394 --> 00:38:59,234
orange, whatever combination of teas. Added
633
00:38:59,314 --> 00:39:02,860
some fresh fruit, some ice, put in a nice glass, topped up
634
00:39:02,892 --> 00:39:06,540
with club soda. Looks beautiful, tastes delicious. Zero
635
00:39:06,612 --> 00:39:10,236
added ingredients, zero carbohydrates, zero calories.
636
00:39:10,380 --> 00:39:13,652
Oh, and it costs less than a dollar to make, so I'm bottling
637
00:39:13,708 --> 00:39:16,464
it. Aha. I read that section.
638
00:39:16,924 --> 00:39:20,604
Yeah, this is amazing because you're
639
00:39:20,644 --> 00:39:24,196
probably too young to remember the Scarsdale diet, but there was a diet put out
640
00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:27,924
by the guy that was in the biosphere in Arizona. And he
641
00:39:27,964 --> 00:39:31,246
talks about, look, if you're gonna go to a party and you're on my diet,
642
00:39:31,310 --> 00:39:35,014
you can't have alcohol. So just have a glass of soda
643
00:39:35,054 --> 00:39:38,342
water, you know, so it looks like you're having a Tom Collins and squeeze a
644
00:39:38,358 --> 00:39:42,166
lime in. It looks like you're having a vodka. Vodka soda, and you'll be
645
00:39:42,190 --> 00:39:45,910
fine. And I. I kind of rely on this. But the fancy food
646
00:39:45,942 --> 00:39:49,454
show in Vegas a couple years ago, so much of it was about the non
647
00:39:49,494 --> 00:39:53,326
alk business, and so much of it was undrinkable. And I
648
00:39:53,350 --> 00:39:57,076
wanna tell the listeners for a second, because I just got
649
00:39:57,100 --> 00:40:00,580
done yesterday, I went to the biodynamic organic tasting, tasted some
650
00:40:00,612 --> 00:40:04,304
fabulous wines from that ilk. And
651
00:40:04,644 --> 00:40:08,380
I started thinking, if you make a non alcoholic
652
00:40:08,412 --> 00:40:12,236
wine, the dollar makes sense that
653
00:40:12,260 --> 00:40:15,788
there's a problem with the dollars for one, because you remove the alcohol.
654
00:40:15,836 --> 00:40:19,356
But it doesn't just remove the alcohol, it removes about 30% of the
655
00:40:19,380 --> 00:40:23,046
volume of what you made. So if you have 1000 gallons in the
656
00:40:23,070 --> 00:40:26,854
tank, um, and when you're done removing the alcohol, you're gonna have 700 gallons.
657
00:40:26,894 --> 00:40:30,110
So you've just wasted 30% of, of your
658
00:40:30,142 --> 00:40:33,854
volume. Then you have to add back as you're talking about whether it's agave,
659
00:40:33,934 --> 00:40:37,510
or sugar or cane sugar, or flavoring agents. Water for
660
00:40:37,542 --> 00:40:41,246
sure. So you've now added it back into,
661
00:40:41,390 --> 00:40:44,926
to flavor it up so you can drink it. Cause it's undrinkable as a
662
00:40:44,950 --> 00:40:48,646
dealcoolyzed drink. And then you have to put it in the
663
00:40:48,670 --> 00:40:52,160
bottle within seven days or it fails completely.
664
00:40:52,312 --> 00:40:55,328
And I thought that was really interesting. So from an industry
665
00:40:55,416 --> 00:40:59,016
standpoint, you can have wine sit in the tank for as long as
666
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,432
you feel like the wine is going to survive. It could be years in the
667
00:41:01,448 --> 00:41:05,152
tank and it doesn't, you know, changes, but it's fine. But as soon as you
668
00:41:05,168 --> 00:41:08,600
take the alcohol out, you need to put it in a bottle. And so that
669
00:41:08,632 --> 00:41:11,724
changes the logistical part of this whole business as well.
670
00:41:12,104 --> 00:41:15,872
And one of the major brands anyway. So the point I was
671
00:41:15,888 --> 00:41:18,724
going to make was like, here is a movement for biological,
672
00:41:19,254 --> 00:41:22,550
biological, bio dynamic and organic
673
00:41:22,582 --> 00:41:26,222
wines. Do something healthier for yourself. If you're going to drink wine, why don't you
674
00:41:26,238 --> 00:41:29,926
drink these versus non alcoholic? But it's full
675
00:41:29,950 --> 00:41:33,494
of who knows what's in there. Is that accurate?
676
00:41:33,654 --> 00:41:37,374
It sure is. You nailed it. And the other thing
677
00:41:37,414 --> 00:41:41,118
is, most of us in the industry, but consumers won't
678
00:41:41,166 --> 00:41:44,374
know this. The qualification for organic
679
00:41:44,414 --> 00:41:47,390
biodynamic, all sustainable, all these
680
00:41:47,582 --> 00:41:51,382
buzzwords, they've been around for a long time. And
681
00:41:51,478 --> 00:41:55,286
everybody has different systems. The EU has a different system. So you
682
00:41:55,310 --> 00:41:58,974
could be organic, and we can't bring it in as organic,
683
00:41:59,014 --> 00:42:02,750
we can't label it. So we have to call it natural wine. Now, natural
684
00:42:02,782 --> 00:42:06,430
wine has different connotations. So there's mass confusion
685
00:42:06,542 --> 00:42:09,822
and it's not being resolved anytime
686
00:42:09,878 --> 00:42:13,416
soon. So all those buzzwords are what they are.
687
00:42:13,590 --> 00:42:17,140
What I do, and what I can attest to is
688
00:42:17,172 --> 00:42:20,264
that so many european producers,
689
00:42:20,884 --> 00:42:24,524
and I can't say the same for the US, but so many european
690
00:42:24,564 --> 00:42:28,116
producers have been farming biodynamic
691
00:42:28,260 --> 00:42:32,076
organic without certification for
692
00:42:32,140 --> 00:42:35,804
ages. Some have gone the process,
693
00:42:35,964 --> 00:42:39,452
the expensive and time consuming process
694
00:42:39,628 --> 00:42:43,460
of getting that certification. But not
695
00:42:43,492 --> 00:42:46,940
everybody is doing it. And so that becomes an
696
00:42:46,972 --> 00:42:50,724
issue. Nevertheless, there are great products
697
00:42:50,804 --> 00:42:54,612
out there. So one of the conversations
698
00:42:54,668 --> 00:42:58,372
I was having, it was very interesting because, you
699
00:42:58,388 --> 00:43:02,084
know, we know that Burgundians for years, for hundreds of
700
00:43:02,124 --> 00:43:05,412
years, were making wines organically. They had no other way to make wines
701
00:43:05,548 --> 00:43:09,334
organic. Was the. Was the standard of winemaking because we didn't have the opportunity
702
00:43:09,374 --> 00:43:13,110
to add stuff. And for the listeners, there's like 79
703
00:43:13,182 --> 00:43:16,822
or 76 things in California you can add to wine
704
00:43:16,998 --> 00:43:20,594
that will influence a wine's character.
705
00:43:21,174 --> 00:43:24,474
But what was interesting to me at this tasting was that the small
706
00:43:25,014 --> 00:43:28,302
producer who's making 1500 cases, 2000 cases,
707
00:43:28,398 --> 00:43:32,182
who's. This is their third or fifth vintage, they had this very
708
00:43:32,238 --> 00:43:35,424
altruistic opinion of the industry that
709
00:43:35,964 --> 00:43:39,228
all the history and all the work behind all the hundreds of years of making
710
00:43:39,276 --> 00:43:42,868
wine are irrelevant today. Or that they think
711
00:43:42,996 --> 00:43:46,436
that this idea of biodynamic organic is a new thing and they're first to the
712
00:43:46,460 --> 00:43:50,276
market or they're 10th to the mark, whatever. That conversation was
713
00:43:50,340 --> 00:43:54,140
very unique. I probably had it four times on
714
00:43:54,212 --> 00:43:57,516
Monday. Then there were the biodynamic
715
00:43:57,580 --> 00:44:01,244
organic makers that already are logistically in the
716
00:44:01,284 --> 00:44:05,028
system with one of the big houses like Southern Glazer or with RDC. And they
717
00:44:05,036 --> 00:44:08,516
have a completely different opinion of the direction of it
718
00:44:08,540 --> 00:44:12,004
all and the marketing of it all. And I thought, this is fascinating
719
00:44:12,044 --> 00:44:15,500
because, you know, the wanna do
720
00:44:15,532 --> 00:44:19,260
it, which is fine, a great industry to get involved with. The
721
00:44:19,292 --> 00:44:23,052
wanna be part of the program didn't understand really, what
722
00:44:23,068 --> 00:44:26,836
the program is about. And unfortunately, it's. The marketing of wine is
723
00:44:26,860 --> 00:44:29,104
a different animal than everything else.
724
00:44:31,164 --> 00:44:34,994
Go ahead. Sorry. So one of the challenges that I've seen, seen
725
00:44:35,494 --> 00:44:38,950
with the industry, and I go back to what I said initially
726
00:44:39,142 --> 00:44:42,434
about the noise in the middle
727
00:44:43,574 --> 00:44:47,246
in. Let's take handbags, for instance. Let's take an
728
00:44:47,270 --> 00:44:51,006
Hermes handbag or Prada or something of
729
00:44:51,070 --> 00:44:54,654
luxury stature. They do have
730
00:44:54,694 --> 00:44:57,794
production. They're very mindful of their production.
731
00:44:58,254 --> 00:45:01,910
They do a bang up job on the level and
732
00:45:01,942 --> 00:45:05,634
quality of the products, use the raw materials as part of their story.
733
00:45:06,654 --> 00:45:08,914
But their focus,
734
00:45:09,814 --> 00:45:13,486
incessant focus, is on the consumer
735
00:45:13,670 --> 00:45:17,462
that they're trying to reach, how they reach that consumer,
736
00:45:17,518 --> 00:45:21,314
how they communicate and embrace that consumer.
737
00:45:21,654 --> 00:45:25,414
Whereas the wine industry doesn't have a clue in so many
738
00:45:25,454 --> 00:45:29,248
cases who is actually buying or
739
00:45:29,296 --> 00:45:33,040
who are you looking to have buy your product. I was no joke
740
00:45:33,072 --> 00:45:36,284
in a meeting yesterday with a brand
741
00:45:37,424 --> 00:45:40,324
and I asked the question, who is your target consumer?
742
00:45:41,384 --> 00:45:44,764
And I quote, 22 to 74.
743
00:45:48,024 --> 00:45:50,644
Oh, okay. Well, let's just
744
00:45:51,624 --> 00:45:55,218
so. Wow, that conversation,
745
00:45:55,386 --> 00:45:59,210
where did that come. From, do you think? Had to be. How do they even
746
00:45:59,242 --> 00:46:03,018
narrow it down, huh? Well, not everybody's. Most
747
00:46:03,066 --> 00:46:06,770
people are not marketing people that go in the wine business. No, that's
748
00:46:06,922 --> 00:46:10,562
business people or whatever their background is,
749
00:46:10,658 --> 00:46:14,306
or agricultural background, or, you know, some sort of a
750
00:46:14,330 --> 00:46:17,490
business background. But I can't even
751
00:46:17,682 --> 00:46:20,334
fathom an answer like that.
752
00:46:21,234 --> 00:46:25,066
Again, who is your
753
00:46:25,170 --> 00:46:28,786
target customer and why does your wine even
754
00:46:28,850 --> 00:46:32,330
exist? You know, I'm going to interrupt you for a second,
755
00:46:32,522 --> 00:46:36,362
because I just thought of this, but that is one year past the legal drinking
756
00:46:36,418 --> 00:46:40,146
age and one year short of the average lifespan.
757
00:46:40,290 --> 00:46:43,730
Correct. So who's our customer?
758
00:46:43,802 --> 00:46:47,482
Everybody. Well, if you're doing everything for everybody, you do
759
00:46:47,538 --> 00:46:51,278
have to have 1000 different wines with crappy labels because
760
00:46:51,446 --> 00:46:55,078
you have no idea who you're trying to reach and you're just
761
00:46:55,126 --> 00:46:58,874
throwing things against the wall and maybe something sticks.
762
00:46:59,334 --> 00:47:02,238
That's the crapshoot, the strategy. First of all,
763
00:47:02,326 --> 00:47:05,638
winemakers are not marketers, they're not
764
00:47:05,686 --> 00:47:09,366
salespeople. They do a bang up job with who and
765
00:47:09,390 --> 00:47:13,238
what they are in the vineyard, in the winery. And that's
766
00:47:13,286 --> 00:47:16,974
great. There is another element, blending. That's
767
00:47:17,014 --> 00:47:20,100
not the forte of every winemaker either, which is
768
00:47:20,222 --> 00:47:24,064
why I wind up doing some of that for
769
00:47:24,104 --> 00:47:27,872
clients. Because I blend to price palette
770
00:47:28,008 --> 00:47:31,440
position, because I do know the
771
00:47:31,472 --> 00:47:34,952
consumer that we're trying to reach and I know what's going to work for
772
00:47:34,968 --> 00:47:38,764
them. I'm also fortunate that in my household I have
773
00:47:39,944 --> 00:47:43,792
three adult children, so two millennials and
774
00:47:43,808 --> 00:47:47,398
all their friends, and one Gen Z and all her friends.
775
00:47:47,566 --> 00:47:51,406
And I could see the trends coming from a mile away, just because of
776
00:47:51,470 --> 00:47:55,206
some of the things that occur in house. So
777
00:47:55,230 --> 00:47:58,594
you do know who's buying. That's an interesting point,
778
00:47:59,134 --> 00:48:02,846
because I vowed on a previous podcast never to beat up the millennials
779
00:48:02,870 --> 00:48:06,638
again, because I have three myself, three girls as well, and so I will not
780
00:48:06,726 --> 00:48:10,534
bash the generation. But you said something
781
00:48:10,574 --> 00:48:12,662
earlier, and I want to peel that back a little bit, and we're almost out
782
00:48:12,678 --> 00:48:16,250
of time. Unbelievably. But that is, people
783
00:48:16,322 --> 00:48:19,954
come to the industry with a background in something else. I've seen how many
784
00:48:19,994 --> 00:48:23,802
beverage soda manufacturers or soda executives come to
785
00:48:23,818 --> 00:48:27,594
the wine industry fail. And so it sounds like, or it feels like
786
00:48:27,634 --> 00:48:31,410
you're saying alternate businesses
787
00:48:31,442 --> 00:48:34,194
that you bring thinking you're going to bring to the table of the wine industry,
788
00:48:34,234 --> 00:48:37,574
and you're going to set the wine industry on fire because you've
789
00:48:37,954 --> 00:48:41,574
experienced success in another industry using certain tactics.
790
00:48:42,444 --> 00:48:45,744
They generally don't work. Is that accurate?
791
00:48:46,564 --> 00:48:49,812
Not exactly. I also come from outside of the industry. And in
792
00:48:49,828 --> 00:48:53,172
fact, to some degree, it was exactly that
793
00:48:53,228 --> 00:48:57,020
outsider perspective that has allowed me to succeed, because
794
00:48:57,212 --> 00:49:00,892
I question everything. And I literally believe
795
00:49:00,988 --> 00:49:04,724
that I can apply foundational marketing principles
796
00:49:04,884 --> 00:49:08,580
to things that this industry is not accustomed to. I still maintain that
797
00:49:08,612 --> 00:49:11,980
outsider's view. What I'm pointing to
798
00:49:12,092 --> 00:49:15,204
is running an agricultural
799
00:49:15,284 --> 00:49:18,796
production is one side of the
800
00:49:18,820 --> 00:49:22,516
business, obviously critical side. But if
801
00:49:22,540 --> 00:49:26,020
you're just producing without understanding who you are
802
00:49:26,052 --> 00:49:29,532
producing for, and what is it that you're trying to create
803
00:49:29,668 --> 00:49:31,504
for that particular target?
804
00:49:33,684 --> 00:49:36,994
You can produce all you want. I had one italian
805
00:49:37,034 --> 00:49:40,610
winemaker at one point tell me, well, we make
806
00:49:40,642 --> 00:49:43,574
wine like we always made wine, and
807
00:49:44,394 --> 00:49:47,914
people like it, they're going to buy it. I said, really?
808
00:49:48,034 --> 00:49:51,826
That's so exciting. That's so interesting. So you must sell everything you make.
809
00:49:51,930 --> 00:49:55,282
Oh, no, we have too much inventory. So you
810
00:49:55,298 --> 00:49:58,994
know that mindset. You're in
811
00:49:59,034 --> 00:50:02,614
agriculture, you're running a production facility,
812
00:50:03,034 --> 00:50:05,734
you're in that space.
813
00:50:07,034 --> 00:50:10,786
It takes equal amount of expertise to go to market
814
00:50:10,890 --> 00:50:13,854
with any product, and it's a different skill set.
815
00:50:14,794 --> 00:50:18,146
Do you think that's some of the disillusion that you see with people that come
816
00:50:18,170 --> 00:50:21,654
to the table? Monica, we need your help. And
817
00:50:22,994 --> 00:50:26,746
you don't see much thought behind it. When they started, they realize they've
818
00:50:26,770 --> 00:50:30,104
gotten into an industry that's very difficult to market and
819
00:50:31,004 --> 00:50:34,556
lack of understanding, or let's
820
00:50:34,580 --> 00:50:37,584
not diminish it more like
821
00:50:38,044 --> 00:50:41,780
bright eyed and bushy tailed, going into the industry because it's so romantic
822
00:50:41,812 --> 00:50:44,788
and we want to do this. And we went to the wine country and we
823
00:50:44,796 --> 00:50:48,348
had so much fun there, and we just love the lifestyle.
824
00:50:48,516 --> 00:50:51,916
And then they get into it and realize it's exactly what you're
825
00:50:51,940 --> 00:50:55,444
saying. It's without a
826
00:50:55,484 --> 00:50:59,254
doubt a challenging business because you
827
00:50:59,294 --> 00:51:03,014
do have to straddle the agricultural side. Unless, of course,
828
00:51:03,054 --> 00:51:06,782
you're just creating a brand and sourcing fruit and going from there.
829
00:51:06,918 --> 00:51:10,462
But if you're running a winery and a production facility,
830
00:51:10,558 --> 00:51:13,958
whether it's distillery or winery for that matter, there are
831
00:51:14,046 --> 00:51:17,406
production operational related challenges that have to be
832
00:51:17,430 --> 00:51:21,262
addressed. But you can't do that in some sort
833
00:51:21,278 --> 00:51:25,026
of a vacuum, which is what are I see occurring more often
834
00:51:25,090 --> 00:51:28,890
than not. It's the vacuum of that. Without the
835
00:51:28,922 --> 00:51:32,730
understanding that the only thing you need to produce and
836
00:51:32,762 --> 00:51:36,602
you should be producing has to have a rationale for why
837
00:51:36,658 --> 00:51:40,298
it's being produced. Why should anyone care who's going to buy
838
00:51:40,346 --> 00:51:42,774
it and who's going to buy it time and again?
839
00:51:44,114 --> 00:51:47,946
That's a good point. We're at 50 minutes, which is
840
00:51:47,970 --> 00:51:51,722
about the limit we didn't touch. Well, we
841
00:51:51,738 --> 00:51:55,514
already spoke before, and so I knew that topics were not going to be
842
00:51:55,634 --> 00:51:59,294
short here, but I wrote some down anyway. We're not even
843
00:51:59,954 --> 00:52:03,618
halfway through them, so I hope we can do this again. I would love that.
844
00:52:03,666 --> 00:52:07,010
And I would like to hear the flip side of some of the projects you're
845
00:52:07,042 --> 00:52:10,770
working on today. And there's a lot of subjects to
846
00:52:10,802 --> 00:52:14,066
talk about in this industry that we need to get to. One of them is,
847
00:52:14,130 --> 00:52:17,104
I'm going to a launch party on Saturday.
848
00:52:17,524 --> 00:52:21,300
My 19 year old niece is launching a self serve and not self serve,
849
00:52:21,332 --> 00:52:25,116
single serve salad dressing, and I would love to hear your
850
00:52:25,140 --> 00:52:28,876
thoughts on that once she launches it. It's a brand. It's
851
00:52:28,900 --> 00:52:32,700
so branding. It's kind of interesting. Branding. Salad dressing,
852
00:52:32,732 --> 00:52:36,380
after I've done a little research with her and helped her a little bit, is
853
00:52:36,412 --> 00:52:38,344
not unlike wine. It's not unlike
854
00:52:39,444 --> 00:52:41,944
toothpaste. Shelf space,
855
00:52:42,514 --> 00:52:46,098
recognition, where you're going to sell it, who's going to buy it,
856
00:52:46,226 --> 00:52:49,818
is all part of that conversation. 100%, but less
857
00:52:49,866 --> 00:52:53,574
regulatory with a little less regulation. Right. So
858
00:52:54,194 --> 00:52:57,490
good luck the rest of the day, and I hope that we get a chance
859
00:52:57,522 --> 00:53:01,090
to reconnect in the future. And certainly when we're out in Manhattan. You're in Manhattan,
860
00:53:01,122 --> 00:53:04,214
right? That's right. That we would get together.
861
00:53:04,834 --> 00:53:08,378
We usually hang out the baccarat, take you upstairs, and we'll have a
862
00:53:08,386 --> 00:53:11,846
martini or something, or a glass of wine and one of their famed glasses.
863
00:53:12,010 --> 00:53:15,382
And as long as it's not non alcoholic.
864
00:53:15,478 --> 00:53:19,062
Yeah. You know, before you get off, I didn't bring it up,
865
00:53:19,078 --> 00:53:22,766
but when we were walking down the aisles at the fancy food show in San
866
00:53:22,790 --> 00:53:26,582
Francisco, well, this year was in Vegas when I said it was
867
00:53:26,598 --> 00:53:30,390
a preeminent theme for the show of non alcoholic spirits and wine,
868
00:53:30,422 --> 00:53:33,806
and a guy stuck a glass of prosecco in my face, and it actually was
869
00:53:33,830 --> 00:53:37,342
palatable. I had him on the show. It was a very interesting guy. So I'm
870
00:53:37,358 --> 00:53:40,396
going to extend this five minutes so I can hear your thoughts. But the other
871
00:53:40,420 --> 00:53:44,180
thing that was on the show, a lot of was non alcoholic spirits, which
872
00:53:44,252 --> 00:53:47,772
were almost unpalatable. I don't know why they needed to use
873
00:53:47,828 --> 00:53:51,180
indian spices to make these things work. And it goes back to your
874
00:53:51,212 --> 00:53:54,964
point. I saw a non alcoholic bourbon at whole
875
00:53:55,004 --> 00:53:58,740
Foods the other day, and it was $35 a bottle. Now,
876
00:53:58,772 --> 00:54:02,492
you can buy, you know, some pretty decent bourbon for that $40, 50 a
877
00:54:02,508 --> 00:54:05,984
bottle. But why would I buy this for $35
878
00:54:06,304 --> 00:54:10,088
when it does nothing except taste. Like, I just don't
879
00:54:10,136 --> 00:54:13,912
get it. Price is what
880
00:54:14,008 --> 00:54:17,664
people will be willing to pay. So there has been
881
00:54:17,704 --> 00:54:21,320
this narrative about this whole category, and I'm just
882
00:54:21,352 --> 00:54:25,184
saying consumers are wise. They wake up. You can only
883
00:54:25,224 --> 00:54:29,056
fool certainly the american consumer for so long. We always
884
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,804
see the backlash when production,
885
00:54:33,534 --> 00:54:36,998
for instance, there was the whole thing with
886
00:54:37,046 --> 00:54:40,790
rose and rose boomed and then the quality went
887
00:54:40,822 --> 00:54:44,550
down, price went up and consumers started to pull back.
888
00:54:44,742 --> 00:54:48,554
It is a cycle. Consumers aren't stupid.
889
00:54:49,174 --> 00:54:52,550
They may not react instantly, but they will react.
890
00:54:52,702 --> 00:54:56,486
And right now, there's no rationale, in my view, in
891
00:54:56,510 --> 00:55:00,154
my analysis, for those types of priced non
892
00:55:00,194 --> 00:55:03,970
alcoholic products. I think it's a mess. Well, I've
893
00:55:04,002 --> 00:55:07,682
had, it's an interesting thought and I have just two pieces of sort
894
00:55:07,698 --> 00:55:11,530
of ad hoc evidence. One is Boisson, the
895
00:55:11,562 --> 00:55:14,834
famed retailer and just wholesaler of non alcoholic
896
00:55:14,914 --> 00:55:18,618
brands apparently has filed bankruptcy. I haven't seen that yet, but it
897
00:55:18,626 --> 00:55:22,434
was brought up on a post. And second, I
898
00:55:22,474 --> 00:55:25,620
have here as a consultant for the direct consumer
899
00:55:25,652 --> 00:55:29,420
marketing, I have gotten less requirement arrest requests
900
00:55:29,452 --> 00:55:33,156
from people to help them with that. I've had more requests across the globe for
901
00:55:33,180 --> 00:55:36,604
people to bring brands of wine to Los
902
00:55:36,644 --> 00:55:40,084
Angeles. And so I have in my quiver a really good armenian
903
00:55:40,124 --> 00:55:42,384
wine. I have in my quiver a
904
00:55:44,204 --> 00:55:48,052
Bordeaux from a boutique house in Lalonde de Pomerol. And I have a
905
00:55:48,068 --> 00:55:51,798
non alcoholic prosecco. And I, you
906
00:55:51,806 --> 00:55:55,606
know, with all my connections and all 50 years of doing this, I'm having
907
00:55:55,630 --> 00:55:59,070
a hard time getting in the door with any brand because the
908
00:55:59,102 --> 00:56:02,638
marketplace is so flooded. And it seems to me
909
00:56:02,806 --> 00:56:05,966
maybe that bubble is bursting a little bit in non al
910
00:56:06,070 --> 00:56:09,822
world. Everybody rushed to it. And, you
911
00:56:09,838 --> 00:56:13,366
know, like I said, boss, I'm going out of business and I'm getting resistance to
912
00:56:13,390 --> 00:56:17,210
put it in the book because not every wholesaler, for sure, maybe,
913
00:56:17,282 --> 00:56:21,002
maybe less than half of them in Los Angeles have a non alk. In
914
00:56:21,018 --> 00:56:24,354
their book, have tea by
915
00:56:24,394 --> 00:56:28,010
juice. What's that? Have tea or
916
00:56:28,042 --> 00:56:31,882
buy juice. Yeah, right. My recommendation. So I, you
917
00:56:31,898 --> 00:56:35,682
know, we'll leave it at that. Have tea or buy juice.
918
00:56:35,778 --> 00:56:39,574
And such a pleasure to see you again. And I look forward to doing it.
919
00:56:40,274 --> 00:56:41,534
We'll talk soon.
920
00:56:50,254 --> 00:56:53,590
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul Callum Cary. And don't forget to
921
00:56:53,622 --> 00:56:56,774
subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way.
922
00:56:56,934 --> 00:57:00,254
Folks, have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.
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