Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / The Post Pandemic Wine Market: Jim Silver on Succession Planning and the Bifurcation of Wine

Transcript

The Post Pandemic Wine Market: Jim Silver on Succession Planning and the Bifurcation of Wine · Ready To Drink Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: My name is James Silver.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm an author.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: I wrote a book called The Post Pandemic Wine Market, a Practical Guide.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: And most recently, Chief Sales Officer at Wine Direct Fulfillment.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Just prior to that, managing director for North America for the Bulgaroni Family Vineyards.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to hit all three tracks while we just talked about there for the over the next hour.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's start um with the authorship, because that's a very unique thing right off the bat that I'm going to be able to be able to work with.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: So where was what was the precipice for that book?
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And kind of when was the decision made to become an author?
0:32
SPEAKER_01: I've always wanted to write.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, we're in it.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, we're in it.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: No, um I uh found myself between positions.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm I'm I'm a busy little beaver, I guess, and um just wanted to keep busy.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: But honestly, having uh a book in my a book's been rattling around in my head for years and years and years, and I just never thought that it would be that I would be uh something uh that I would could produce something anyone would really want to read.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: And then I realized actually it's probably true that um I did have something to say.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been doing various things in the wine business for 30 plus years and decided like this would be uh this is a great opportunity to just see what comes out.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: And I started uh writing.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: And um I uh you know, I'm asked all the time, did you get AI to help you write it?
1:28
SPEAKER_01: And um, to be honest, uh yes and no.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it helped me with an outline.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I told whatever prompt it was, it wasn't even Chat GPT, wasn't even I I didn't have that.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: I said, here's what I want to write.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Give me an outline.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: And it was helpful.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: It gave me like 14 chapters, it was entirely too much.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: So I I edited from there and started writing on my own.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: So the the words are mine, the structure was, you know, I was helped out by uh AI to a certain extent.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: And what's interesting to me now is AI is part of my life now, it's part of my desktop all the time, but it wasn't then.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: And we're the distance of s of time, one year.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've gone from you know not having it to having it every day uh in in the space of a year.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know you live that every I think everyone's living it.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it it is, and it's also it's interesting the way you phrased your use of AI because it's the same as myself.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I use AI every day, all day.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: It's attached to my to my phone, it's attached, and it's not just attached as an app.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Like it's con I I have it trained to constantly be reviewing the way that I communicate through text messages, through everything, because I want it to be, I want that muscle memory to be there so that it can be a representation and know what I want, but also it can also at the same time gather all the information from a wide aggregation standpoint, and then just like you just said, help me develop the framework successfully.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think the hardest thing, especially in a creative aspect, is we can all be creative as we want, whether it's writing or making music or building a business.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: But one thing, creatively, when we anybody goes into a creative mindset, you lose the logic and the analytical mindset.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So I found that AI is able to give me that framework and keep the creativity grounded and structured so I can focus all of my attention on the creativity and not worry about the framework.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Great.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: No, I I agree.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, it it really is, it it sits there like a helper.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I think it really should be.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: It's not supposed to replace you or anyone else necessarily, it's your helper.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And um the for me, this is not commercial, but for me, one of the most useful tools I have is Grammarly, because it's constantly fixing mistakes as I type them, as I type them.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And I what a time saver.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: It makes me look 20 times smarter than I am.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And and that it's really, you know, whether I'm writing a LinkedIn post or a Substack thing or or um, you know, anything on an email.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: It's sitting there fixing my mistakes, and it looks, I mean, people say, Oh, I can tell it's AI because everything is perfect.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get I get that so much where everybody's everybody will be like, I didn't respond to your email because it was too good.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: It must have been AI.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, guys, I went to college for corporate communications and public relations.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I like literally would write press releases all day long.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I write, I've always written amazing emails.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Now you're gonna judge me.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: No, I I even put as the subtext of one of my subtitle of one of my Substack pieces.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: I I I noted that I was a human user of the M-Dash.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: I love the M-Dash.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I've always thank you, thank you for finally saying that.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: That that's what people say to me.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going back and screenshotting now years ago to be like, guys, I've been dashing harder than you guys ever, but I was dashing before you guys were commas and semicolons.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, the the M-dash really is conversational.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: It helps it because that's the way people speak.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: They go from they they they they have a uh a quarter second break between thoughts.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what that is.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: And I and it's I I don't know.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: I always found that quite well.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm so I'm this is a clip right now, and I'll I'll have this in the back of it that that it that conversation right now is a clip because my girlfriend and I have been talking about this like crazy, how people constantly are calling her and I out for it.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: We're like, just because we're grammatically successful doesn't mean that we're AI with the dash.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Everybody just wants to pretend it didn't exist before.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's interesting.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: I have um uh you asked me what you know what where where does a book come from?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know because I I'm not well read.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't sit around reading books.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: I know plenty of people.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: I was my wife was sitting on the couch last night just reading a book, and I just don't do that.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: But what I read is everything else in the universe.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And I and I think uh and I think that's attention span, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Um uh but it's where I get my language from, it's where I get my grammar from, it's where I get uh people.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: I had a I had a commenter on Substack tell me I use too many big words, just write normal.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, which is which is fine, but that's I I don't know, I kind of absorb these things, but not from literature.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm I don't think I've read my own book, but I think it's pretty good.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: That to be honest with you, there's a lot of authors that I enjoy in the business world and the the biographical world that that aren't big readers, and I'm not advocating don't read.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm trying to say to anybody that's listening or watching.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we all understand to understand that we interpret and we we extrapolate and we discern differently.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm the same way.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Like I try very hard every year to set a goal and to read a book a month, and I always do it for a couple months, and I get to like March, and then March for me in our season in the alcohol world, it it gets busy.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And and then all of a sudden I lose that, I lose that goal every year, three months in, and not because I don't want to, and not because it's not my intention to.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, there is there's a balance between the two of burying yourself into reading and versus opening the eyes and seeing what's presently going on.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it sounds like you're also doing that, where it's like you're still gathering the education, you're just gathering it in a different medium.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm that's what I mean.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Is like if book books are important and reading's important, but also the foundation of just discernment and understanding and constant learning and evolution, I think is the most important part as opposed to the medium sometimes.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: I think I really secretly want reading to be entertaining, it just has to be entertaining.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: And the one of the things that I wanted about my so my book's an academic book.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: It's for the trade, but I also wanted it to be entertaining.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: So I did write it in my voice.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: I did write a conversational that I mean, I I don't think there's any profanity and anything like that, but it is, you know, colloquial.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: And there's um uh, you know, I I I it's peppered all over with dozens of little stories, personal stories from my career through, I mean, that go back years and years.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I don't even remember how far back.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: But I wanted it to be entertaining.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: For example, I mean, I sat down one time and read the entire Game of Thrones, right?
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Every all the books, everything, all in a row, nonstop, on my phone.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: And that's 5,000 or 10,000 pages or whatever it was.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: And I was so annoyed when I was done that I said, What's the biggest book I can find that would keep me entertained like that?
8:11
SPEAKER_01: And I read the unabridged Les Miserables uh, you know, from start to finish.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: I haven't read a book since.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's you know, not like that.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: I just I just I guess I binged, you know, and reading.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you you definitely you hyperfixated and went into it, but it's one of those things where it's important.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And I like I already can tell, like uh, I didn't know about the book prior.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I don't do a research intentionally, but I pulled it up on the screen just now while you were talking.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And first off, I want to say, love the cover.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say that is like crucial for me.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, so perfect job.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can give uh Brian Amelli, my publisher, credit for that.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, I I wanted it to uh I I forget what book I was trying to copy, uh um, but he didn't like it at all.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: He goes, How about this one?
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh, that's perfect.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Let's just let's just do that.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: And I even beautiful.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: It is beautiful.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Now, when somebody orders online, do they is it at an online shipping place, or is that you per you packing and shipping those orders?
9:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, if they if you buy it from Brian's public uh publishing house, the board and bench, I'm sure they pack it up themselves.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm really not sure.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, but this is available on Amazon too.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: And do you sell it on a website as well, or just on those two platforms?
9:21
SPEAKER_01: No, just those two platforms.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I mean, I gotta be honest, my approach to be writing a book was uh I did I certainly didn't think I was gonna make any money at it.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't, I assure you.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Um it was more this was for me.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: I did it for me, uh, because I had so much stuff rattling around in my head that I wanted to organize and just say, hey, look, I've been out here selling wine, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of wine over 30 years.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to tell you about it.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think here here's what we can, you know, here's maybe this is helpful because I've and and really, you know, the book is interesting because I tell you all the bad stuff too.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: I tell you all the stuff that failed.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and that I think that's helpful, really, really helpful to tell you.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I think I've been told a number of times by different people that one of my little side snippets in the in gray boxes where I tell you the story is about a failure that I had six or six years ago or something like that.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: A store that was opened, it was it was too far off the corner, but I insisted, I insisted this was gonna work.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is gonna work.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: It didn't work.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: And I said, why?
10:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I think that's helpful.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh that kind of stuff.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: It is, and that's uh that's the theme of everything we do here.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: We have I have another show called The Leaders Arena, and we go through all the grit resilience and the roller coasters, and not sure how much content you had gotten before, but I'm very open about I started this business 17 years ago.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, I started in the alcohol space, specifically in beer.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: I got to start this business in 2008 and then ride the craft beer wave from 2008 all the way up to 2020.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, I traveled around the country working with breweries around the country, setting up distribution in the Mid-Atlantic region in Pennsylvania.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: But with that, it became hard.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: It was at different times that it was hard to run this business.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a solo entrepreneur and solopreneur, so I don't have a support team or anything like that.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: So there was times where I was dead broke.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean dead broke with a savings account.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean dead broke losing the house, the whole thing multiple times over the past 17 years.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And I I'm open about it, not from a victimhood standpoint.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna open about it in the sense of exactly what you're talking about, but in another way too, which is you just keep going though.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: You don't keep doing the same thing the same way when it didn't work, but you tweak it just a little bit, but your momentum still needs to move forward because of that, because of that failure.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: You didn't run away from the industry in embarrassment because you were wrong.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: You figured out what you did wrong and you dug in and you learned from that mistake.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want everybody to take from every episode of this.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's it's perfectly fine.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was um it's important.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: It's important here.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got to know.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Everyone, I mean, you can't um I know we're we live in a a time where shame has left the left the conversation, but it's it's not something to be ashamed of.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: It's something that, like, look, you know, I've probably tried things um that other people wouldn't have.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Um and that's good.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: I think that's you know, take let me ask you though, if you don't mind, uh, because I'm originally from Philadelphia area.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: I am as well.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: I was born in Bucks County, went to Drexel.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I want to uh so did my wife.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to uh ask you what what were you doing in the in the Pennsylvania area?
12:26
SPEAKER_01: What what what business is what what I recognize?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so in uh in Pennsylvania, I worked uh I started out with a Reglio beverage, which is uh one of the Miller course wholesalers there.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: That's how I started there right out of high school.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I started in breakage, uh I was in the room in the back, and when the trucks would come back with the broken cases, I would clean them, fix them, send them out.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: That way everybody in the audience understands what that is.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: So literally one of the it's the next step to the janitor and the maintenance man.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh that's how I started in the industry.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, just started moving my way through and uh work my way up through there, and then within a couple years was the vice president of Ace Distributing in York, Pennsylvania.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh sure.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: When I was the vice president there, I ran their craft beer division uh through this business.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: It was an exclusive contract where they brought me in as a contractor to open the new division and and expand their territory.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: So I managed mergers and acquisitions of different brands as well as a couple different businesses over the course of my time there.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, these are great, these are great names.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I haven't heard them in a long time.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: I haven't been back in Philadelphia in many, many years, many years.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of the brand, some of the brand stuff we did was uh bringing Deschutes into Pennsylvania and New Belgium, uh New Belgium Bring Company out of Fort Collins, Colorado.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: And about 30, in the course of the time, there was about 36 different brands we brought into Pennsylvania.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember this is a funny story, uh not funny, but it's mercifully brief.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: I remember I was the um uh sommelier at the Philadelphia Four Seasons Hotel.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: That was one of my accounts when I was Riglio.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I think that was I think there was everybody's account.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: We were the the four seasons at the time, this is in the 90s, early 90s, uh but midnight, uh, was the biggest account uh for wine anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: We bought millions of dollars uh beer too.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: And I was approached by, and I'm I'm in my 20s or something, and uh I was approached by a guy that said, Hey, do you want to go into the beer business instead of wine?
14:17
SPEAKER_01: It's it's really happening right now.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And I said, uh what is it?
14:22
SPEAKER_01: And he said, it's a it's a little bit of a startup right now, but it I think you know, I think you'll you'll really rise quick.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: It's called Sam Adams.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, get out.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm like that.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: I look I thought about it at the time.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I was like, get out of town.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's a first of all, Boston, you're in Philadelphia make no sense to me.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I didn't do it, but I'd probably be a very different person right now had I taken the opportunity.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: It would be, and it and uh it would be a universal trait that would have accelerated you doing a brand like that because you understood all the stuff from the wine world.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So that's what they want.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: They won it in the very beginning.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: It very much was uh they were searching for some allies and stuff like that because they knew where crappier was going and they needed to accelerate.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that would that's that's interesting that you mentioned that.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think exactly in the the four seasons.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll make you laugh at this.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't to go in to sell beer, it was that we carried Voss water.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, sure.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And so that was I I was the one that went around the white tablecloth account uh accounts in in Philadelphia selling the Voss Water while stuff.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: So let's move over to uh to your consulting business currently.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: So we have the book has been established, the book is out there.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: I want two pieces actually before we go into consulting.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: I just realized.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Um for anybody else out there, we have a lot of about 50% of our followers are all founders, owners, and senior leaders.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Talk a little bit about like the book was for you, but have you seen any indirect like lead generations or engaging conversations with industry people so far?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Any way that it's kind of opened some doors for you outside of just the reading and selling the book?
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: I did not realize what was going to happen.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people who um they they leave their position for one reason or another and they say, well, now I'm gonna be a consultant.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I felt that was a little strange.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: I honestly set up a consulting uh shingle or hung my shingle out because taxes, you know.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: But on it, but after the book came out, I've been approached um a lot.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And and not by like, oh, this winery really, you know, needs help, although that's happened too, but by companies that are uh tangential or or ancillary to the to the wine business.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Second, you know, for example, um uh tourism companies.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Um I I was asked to join the uh board of advisors on a tourism company, um, but uh also uh fulfillment companies because of my recent uh position with uh Wine Direct, which is uh shipping and fulfillment company, and even a tech company uh who just who is who dabbles in this in this realm and just wants information.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: So the that kind of attention that that comes from publishing a book and and put getting out there.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: And to be quite honest, this is only even though this is only my second podcast that I've ever been on, um, the first podcast uh uh had my phone not my phone, but my email ringing off the hook.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: And and that was great.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is great.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And I I'm I'm I'm wondering what my uh next 10 years is gonna look like, and it's gonna be awfully different than my last 10 years.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And if I actually wrote and fin well, I should say if I actually finished my second book, that would be a huge big deal.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Um so I think uh because it I I I think I can I think I can carve out a place in that um I don't know what you if you call it, influencers it's not I'm not an influencer, but like, you know, um thinkers, you know, thinkers.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: And um I'd like that.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: I would like that.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I have been in deep thought about our business for three decades.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: And um that really I honestly, that's what the book is about.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, let's think about our business.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: That's what my substack is about.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about our business.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And um, I'm excited, I'm excited to buy your book uh after this episode because uh I always say that there's not enough good books for specifically this industry.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I mean alcohol in general.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: It looks like this if you're watching.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll be ordering that this week for sure.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Um is I want to kind of I want people to understand that, you know, for me personally, I when I was working in the wholesale side of things as well as managing sales teams, there was a longest for the longest time, you know, sale new salespeople would graduate college and want to work in the alcohol industry and they would want to do this, but we would literally be like, there's not a book for this.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, and and it's that's true.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's it was true in that time.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple books now, you know what I mean, but really cohesive, comprehensive, industry forward books that can help people through because there's a lot of sales books out there, there's a lot of marketing books, but we all know that the beverage industry is a subset of marketing, and then within a subset of that you have alcohol, and then with a subset of that, you have you know, wine and and alcohol, and then from there we separate the different kinds of alcohol.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's important to have books like this out on the on the shelf and online for people to access, not just to reflect, but also to educate a next generation.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Nate, you're exactly right.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: You've touched on it exactly.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: And and and this and really, really important, and I'm so happy that you brought brought that up because that's exactly right.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: There never has been a book.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: There had, there's not, there aren't courses for this necessarily.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe Sonoma State does that.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there there has no one no one wrote a book on how to sell wine and into the marketplace.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what this book does.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: So this book has two audiences.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Um really, it's the middle managers, sales and marketing, middle level managers who would find the book terribly interesting.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: And uh and that means wholesale, that means DTC, all that stuff.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: The other audience is the owner of the winery or the president of the winery who uh who answers most questions with, I have people for that.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: So they don't know how DTC really works.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: They don't know how their e-commerce, why their e-commerce platform decision is really important, why Shopify is important, why you know fulfillment is important, why anything is important.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: They they just they're uh they're of a CEO mindset or an ownership mindset, and they they they control things from 36,000 feet in the in the sky.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's great.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: So if they want to know how this all works, that book is for them too.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Who the book is not for is for um people who already know everything.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, honestly, and there are people like that.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: They'll read the book and they'll say, Well, I don't think I would do it that way.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I'm not so sure I I agree with that.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm just one guy, and these are just what happened to me over 30 years and and how I think you should be doing it now.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: And I I honestly I I uh I think there's something useful in it for anyone, honestly, anyone.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just uh like just looking at at everything you you've covered in there, and and uh it definitely makes sense.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, with uh with Wine Direct full uh and wine direct and everything like that, let's talk a little bit about that.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: So DTC space for for wine and what do you guys do there and and kind of how do you guys approach the markets?
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, I my uh time with uh Wine Direct ended at the end of the year, and and which is fine.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: No, no, that's fine.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: Um they're they're I mean, talk about a great company with great leadership.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Um they're they're really, really smart people, and they do a necessary function in this in this industry.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: The CEO of that company almost uh essentially invented the modern fulfillment of wine shipping.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: And and that's that's that's the way that when I say necessary, I mean the experience of of the customer has of purchasing the wine is one thing, um, but receiving the wine at their house is another thing.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's and that's that's Really, what fulfillment does.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: It's an extension of the DTC tasting room.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: It's an extension of the winery's brand.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: It's an extension of all those things.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Because if the wine arrives in one piece in the proper box with proper packaging and the proper branding, and it's not beat up and it doesn't look like garbage when it gets there, and it's not wet or it's not, you know, covered in soot, that's important.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's what fulfillment houses do.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: Of course, once it gets into the hands of FedEx or UPS, you don't really know what's going to happen, but you can try and you can track.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of technology these days that really wasn't there just a few years ago, especially for tracking and getting a text message where my where is my package, that sort of thing.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: So the really there, it's not just shipping, it's part of the whole experience for the consumer.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: And this is great.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a really important part of the business.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: In addition to that, you've got the e-commerce platforms like Waterport and WineHub and Commerce 7, who um are making it easier for the consumer to purchase wine and enjoy and and and receive the experience the winery is hoping to get to the customer as well.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of these things seem very, very technical.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: They are very technical, um, but they are part and parcel to uh the overall consumer experience.
23:22
unknown: Yeah.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, um, so with that, with that closing out uh the other week there, what uh what are the next steps and some of the uh strategy ideas if you can give us a peek under the curtain for the future of Jim there for 2026?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Sounds exciting with the book and everything like that going forward.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, honestly, yeah, no, writing uh book number two and three are both on on um uh somewhere on the screen here.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: And um I'm working with the publisher on on what they're what they should look like.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm also trying to assess, you know, things are changing very rapidly.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: 2025 was a really interesting year.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: 2026 is going to be a really interesting year.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm trying to assess what's important to write about.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: I just you know, I can't I can't sit back and just write a dry academic treatise on you know BTC tech marketing techniques.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: It's just nobody cares.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: I it has to be something really uh to me, it has to be meaningful, it has to actually address issues that are important to the to the wine business today.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm working on those kinds of things.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm also I also joined the board and I'm keeping myself you know busy that way.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And uh certainly, certainly I'll I'll end up in a in another uh situation soon, I'm sure.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Um although, you know, anyone who has that little green box around their face or a little green circle around their face on LinkedIn, I you gotta feel bad for right now because the the market is um convulsing.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the I mean it's it's the the whole alcohol industry is in a convulsion.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: And it's not their fault.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: It's it's at all.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is really um I think the the expectation, sorry, I'm riffing a little bit here, but keep going, keep going.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the expectations uh that the business has on consumers is just unreasonable.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: They, you know, that we're just gonna keep drinking and drinking and drinking our faces off, like, oh, the worse the news gets, the more we're gonna keep drinking.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: That's that's not what's happening.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: People's reaction to uh bad news on the screen every day has been to get healthier.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Good, fine, what's wrong with that?
25:21
SPEAKER_01: But if we can if we can right size to use good technology uh tech tech term, if we can right size um our business uh to meet the the consumers where they are uh and not be unreasonably wishing for 22-year-olds to pick up a wine glass.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just not gonna happen.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: Um if we can right size our our business expectations, we're gonna be better off.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: And really, we're we're not talking about right-sizing, as much as we're talking about right-sizing the business, the production, the vineyards, all these things, really getting our expectations in line is just as important.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the um, I wrote a an article about this, the uh our expectation of of growth and growth and growth and more growth for these companies.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: And then if you don't grow, you're a failure.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Just doesn't, I mean, look out the window.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Look out the window.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: That's that that's not normal right now.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: So we have to um we have to right size our expectations.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: There are companies that are growing, um, just as there would be companies growing at any given time.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: There are companies losing, just like there would be companies losing at any given time.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I I I I bristle when somebody says, Yeah, but that company's growing 18%.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: I've had it, I've had a very interesting view on our wine business, Napa and Sonoma in particular, Posarobolis, um, when I was at my previous position and I could see where people's business was.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: And I would never say anything, but I can tell you that it was there was a lot of red.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, there was some green, but there was more red than green.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: There just is.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: And so um I think we'll get it straightened out.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: And I think AI is going to play an important part in in how we communicate and what we do.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think the um I I think so long as we don't lose the spirit of it, so long as we don't lose the the the convivial nature of alcohol, beverage, enjoyment, and the spirit of it, um then, then we should be okay.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: It's um 27 when the farm bill passed in 2018 uh for the hemp beverage area and stuff like that for hemp um and marijuana.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I saw the writing on the wall at that point that the consumer was going to be distracted off alcohol and where you could see a comparable uh type of product.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: So we started adding those into I went and got certified in the marijuana industry and all kinds of stuff, and I started adding that in the portfolio.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I have alcohol in the portfolio at various points.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: I've had wine, beer, RT, spirits, non-alcoholic beers and cocktails, all the way through to botanical teas, functional mushroom beverages, and now hemp beverages.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I bring that up because I'm gonna say this, and it probably is gonna upset a lot of people in the alcohol industry with their druthers of what's going on right now, but I feel like a lot of people haven't been in business without growth in a while.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: So they forget that they don't, they're actually realizing that they don't like business.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Because this is business.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Like I've been in business by myself for 17 years, it's peaks and valleys.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And and sitting and complaining and yelling to the rooftop doesn't mean anything.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Adaptability and authenticity and transparency is what happens.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And here's the problem with that in the alcohol industry, I'm gonna call it right now, is transparency on labeling.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And one thing the hemp beverage industry is doing right now that's gonna start converting consumers for expectations to the other industries is the hemp beverages have nutrition facts as if it's an FDA canned soda.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: They have all the ingredients, they have a QR code that you scan and shows you all the lab tests of bacteria to make sure there's nothing inside, literally to the metallic uh infusions that could occur inside the liquid.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: And where I see that growth of that industry and the transparency of that packaging is going to filter across to all beverages because they're the consumer, it's not that the consumer is leaning towards hemp sometimes.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're just look leaning towards cleaner products.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's not overall.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not an overall thing.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: They're not leaving forever from alcohol, but we have to understand that they're including a bolt-on now to their lives.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: And that bolt on is exactly what you just said.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna continue to grow the volume of fluids that we consume every day and every month.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: So if we're gonna bring in a new category into our lives, it's gonna replace something else in some capacity of a portion.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, wine clubs, for example, have always been zero sum.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: The the, you know, you go back to right around what the time you're talking about around 2018 when the growth stopped.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: And um the only only Silicon Valley Bank raised an alarm at that point, um, at least as far as I know.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Um even then, back then, I was saying, look, if someone joins your wine club, it's because they left two others.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's how it was contracting.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's how it was contracting.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, did you you you you you added uh five new club members?
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, somebody lost 10.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's um that's that's that's the way that is.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: And and it and it's been playing out.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: I think the whole uh market right now is is almost zero sum for wine, that is, for that the um that we are fighting each other, jockeying for position.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Um and there's but there's not much there's not much else we can do.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: We're not a unified industry per se.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't even though we have the same sort of behavior, which is why they call us an industry, um, you know, we we behave similarly, we're not really unified and we don't move together.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, for now we're we're it's just gonna be taking business from each other.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: And so how's that gonna look when it's done?
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's to me, we're talking about a major bifurcation of the wine business.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: So you've got massive scale on one end and tiny scale on the other.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's the middle is where uh is gonna be oppressed, like like any economic situation, the middle gets oppressed a lot.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: And so scale is gonna win on one side, and and uh so I mean you can see how people are hedging their best.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Look at Gallo.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, Gallo's taken the bottom shelf, now they've taken the bottom two shelves.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Um the the small producer who is 5,000 cases or 6,000 cases and and manages to be profitable somehow, um needs to just hold hold the line and keep doing that.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: Be efficient, be smart, and just hold the line until things normalize.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: What's that look like?
31:58
SPEAKER_01: I I can't say.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: How long is that gonna take?
32:00
SPEAKER_01: Who who knows?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: A couple years.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: When you um what year were how old were you when you started uh in the wine industry?
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh 20.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: You're 20?
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we were about to yeah, I was 19, so we're the same age.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: When you when you were in the 20s, it was the coolest job in the world and all this stuff.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all this stuff.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: But did you envision the level in which you are now?
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean this egotistically, I mean the knowledge level and the framework understanding of the system of what is the wine industry.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question because I used to think that having more and more wine knowledge, like being able to, you know, walk blindfolded from Mursault to Volnay, and and you know, that like that would be important, like knowing every grape variety on earth, like that was important.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Boy, that was the same thing.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: That was wrong.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: I you know, I if I if I if I had it to do over again, I think I would have uh I would have taken some more business classes.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: Because it that's sometime around, I don't know, late 90s, early 2000s, I realized that, uh-oh, I better know the difference between uh an income statement and a balance sheet.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And and at that point I said, well, you know, I I had to divorce myself from the romantic side of the wine business.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: It it it never left me, but I just I can't mess around with that.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: And I have to I have to study business.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I started, I took over wineries beginning around 2002.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: And um, so that's like well, I don't know, 20-something years ago.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And that's when that's when this started to form in my head, like how wine matters in a business sense.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: And it I wrote an article not too long ago um that I said it was titled Um The Problem with the Wine Business is business.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: And it has to do with managing the expectations of business.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Business expects growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, among other things.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's a reason why there's no accounting software written for the wine business, it's too small.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: And you know, there you know, it wasn't until recently that QuickBooks didn't even QuickBooks didn't even understand multiple warehouses uh until until not too long ago.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: And you know, manage a small winery with NetSuite, for example.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, NetSuite costs a hundred thousand dollars a year to run.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: Business isn't made for the wine business.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: And what business on earth takes a product from an agricultural product abud to grapes, to you know, crush, to the barrel, to the elevants, to this, that and all the inputs that go into to a bottle, then to the consumer, into the regulation pool, and and it comes out the other side three and a half years later.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: What kind of business that's the dumbest business I've ever heard?
34:48
SPEAKER_01: And it's remarkable.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's I there's no business like that.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Um it takes uh that it takes three and a half years to make a bottle of Cabernet, proper bottle of Cabernet, and sell it is outrageous.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: But there's no business.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: So why would we expect the b the wine business to conform with our modern idea of business?
35:08
SPEAKER_01: And the only where the only place that really truly works is when you have a massive scale.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: When you have a really big scale, then market forces take over.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: They really do.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um it's it's the hardest thing to describe to people sometimes when you know I work with startups almost exclusively.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Um and and just because I it's a place that I found is a place of comfort.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy the chaos, I enjoy the pressure, um, I enjoy tight budgets and being resourceful.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: It's a fun, it's a fun creative uh outlet for me.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, while also it's serious in the sense that I understand it.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh I understand the seriousness of every dollar needing to have as fast as possible because there's not major investors in, especially in the emperor space.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: I work with those clients because there are not financial institutions or investors that have run into it because of all the grand regulatory stuff.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to what I'm saying to that is it is the biggest challenge to be to run a business properly, to have the proper data, to have the proper CRMs, to have the proper reporting systems that cost to most times minimum a hundred, like you said, a hundred thousand dollars, while also not having the cash flow to do that.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: So it's that cart before the horse of scale, that most uncomfortable place of how do we get to there without the tools and resources of getting there.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where a lot of people give up.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because I've read their call notes, I've read their strategy, and it's it's a lot, it's an attempt, but it's a disjointed attempt, and it's not cohesive.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's the problem is the technology makes the cohesiveness, but the technology sometimes is unattainable.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I think the the wine business needs to be grateful for all the millionaires and billionaires who have put money into it seeking a different kind of lifestyle or a diversification of their their footprint, right?
36:54
SPEAKER_01: And we need to be grateful for that because otherwise, if that hadn't happened, the American wine business would look like Portugal's wine business.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, it it wouldn't, it would be much less important.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, but because we've managed to build a lifestyle around it, and because people are willing to lose money, lots of money, on the wine business, um, it's uh you know, we can enjoy wine the way it is right now, which is a remarkably clean, brilliant product.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, packaged like jewelry and and and you know, shipped all over the country, made available anywhere you want it.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, um it's it's uh it's a stunning thing that we've done.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: We don't give ourselves enough credit for actually creating such a beautiful business.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: But really, the credit belongs to all those people who lost money along the way, which is a lot.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, and even people who really pioneered the the business have taken it on the chin.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Look at you know, uh uh Robert Mundavi.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, we know we all know Robert Mundavi's whole story, and the story is phenomenal, especially beginning in 1966, or where, you know, which is for him in the middle of his story.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: And the you know, the fact that he can start a winery when he's 52 years old and make it the most famous one, you know, wine name on earth is um an extraordinary achievement.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: But then where is it today?
38:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's really, really hard to it's really hard to put your finger on where is where is the Mandavi name today, um, even though the sons are are geniuses and and doing extremely well.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: The um it's it's it's a shame where this whole where this whole thing has gone.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: It um it's also in all industries we're seeing that is is that evolution and and whether it's a brand that sells and then the culture changes and the brand actually changes, or you know, the kids either want to take it over and do a good job, they don't want anything to do with it, or or they drive it into the ground because of their egos.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's one of those, there's like three paths on that one.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And it scares me in some ways because some of these great, and this is actually part of Main Street America too.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of these great brands and great businesses exist that don't have the succession planning in place.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Really, it puts industries at jeopardy, and it's not their fault.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not their fault that the kids don't want to take it over or you know, the finances aren't there that make it a valuable asset to sell.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it it's concerning because of the volume in which it's about to be a wave that in the next five to ten years that I don't think a lot of people are talking about is people retiring, burnout, et cetera, et cetera.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: This this comes back to my point about business in general.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the expectations that uh a young person, and by young I mean like, you know, in their 30s or 40s today, whose parents started a winery because they bought the land in 1968 or they bought the land in 1972 in in Napa, and now they're now they're they're not quite liquid, but you know, they've got that the that land wealth, which is extraordinary.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we should have seen this coming because this played out in Europe over the centuries.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you you look even, and I've been around long enough to remember that when uh uh you meet a chateau owner from Bordeaux or from Loire, wherever they're from, and he laments to you that his kids are not interested in the business.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you why, because they're lawyers in Paris, and because they're doctors, and because they they don't want to spend their time in this run-down farm making no money.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: For what?
40:22
SPEAKER_01: For wine?
40:22
SPEAKER_01: I can buy wine.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't need to make wine.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so are we should have seen that coming a long time ago, that the you know, that the succession was going to be fractured in by by people's uh uh by people's expectations of of what that is.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: Even when it's easy, even when the winery is hyper-successful and the kids are really into it and all that, it's still a difficult succession because the kids have different ideas, modern ideas um from mom and dad, and that that creates an issue too, sometimes.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, not every time.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of time, a lot, and and yeah, sometimes it does.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: And and I've experienced that with a couple different ways of uh transfers of ownership and things like that over the years.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it it could becomes an amazing thing, and sometimes it becomes the detriment and demise of the business.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a uh it's it's um it's a fascinating uh place to be.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think that I want to know a little bit too before we close out.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: When you were 20 uh 20 years old, what was the moment or the person or just like give me the whole environment and experience of when you decided to get into the alcohol industry?
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Oh, uh well, yeah, I think it's um I think I've I've t told the story a number of times.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: Um my mother was a very, very is a very good cook.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, and um we used to watch Julia Child when I was a kid and you know, got an appreciation for those finer things.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: And so um being unsuccessful in my accounting career or my stockbrokering career in in college, I made a turn towards culinary and I went to culinary school and studied in France.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: Part of part of the field trip we took in in France, I was at Lamparen and Dijon.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: We drove up to the Clos Bougeau in Burgundy, and I think it was 19 years old or so.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: And um, we had been out drinking at a bar the night before and uh kind of hung over.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: But class started at 5:45 a.m.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: And there I was looking pretty peaked, I guess.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh somebody at the Clos Bougeau took pity on me and gave me a water-down glass of wine and uh two aspirins and a piece of cheese and said, Here, take these, eat this, drink this, and you'll be fine.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: They were right, it was.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: I was fine.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, but honestly, being in that place um with the stained glass and the remarkable vineyards all around and the the the history, the you know, thousand years of history, the wine was so good uh that it just became a part of me and it never left me.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Never left me.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: Even when I got back to Philly and and started cooking in in kitchens, I only lasted a few months.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: I went straight to the front of the house to uh to figure out what to do in the wine business.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's been I don't know, that was 30 38 years ago.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is I I love uh I love when something like that happens to somebody, like in that experience.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, oh my dad told me to do it and I it worked out and I liked it.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a it was no the universe was putting you there, the universe gave you that experience.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: No, we our family, we didn't even drink.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, even better, even better, even better.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, Jim, I really thank you for taking the time and and most importantly, I thank you for taking the courage of hopping on a podcast without any questions, without any script or anything like that, and have it and no print.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: I try to tell people we didn't go out to dinner earlier, we didn't have breakfast today, um, we've never met, we've never shaken hands, never looked each other in the eye, and uh other than through a screen.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell uh tell you that that means it means a lot to me.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: And it means not only for the format of the show, but also for hope that of the types of people that are out there in this world.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: And I know we get overwhelmed with a lot of the negativity in this world, uh, but I hope that people's key takeaway is that you know there are good people out here and and and there's great people that want to connect and want to and want to do good in this world.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate it, Jim.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Is there any anything um um you want to, as we're closing out, if you want to plug or send anybody, if you want to maybe one more plug on the on the book and where to find it and everything?
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, if you don't mind.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: Um the post the the post-pandemic wine market, you got to go to the books section of Amazon in order to find it.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: But if you live here in Napa where I am, you you can buy it at a local bookstore, and that's even better.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Um the uh uh it's it was fun to write.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoy it.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: It really is for people who want to ply this trade and are can maybe are a little confused about what what the future brings.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: It's not a I kind of age-proofed the the book a little bit um so that it would last and be useful for a long period of time.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh I think it will be.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the second edition will come out in a couple of years and and and update it a bit.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: But no, thank you for the uh opportunity to plug that again.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, this has been a lot of fun.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: I I said this is the second uh podcast I've ever been on.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: The first podcast, I was sent the questions in advance, um, you know, just as notes.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh they they weren't trying to script anything.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: And um, but I forgot to read them.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: So I did the same exact thing.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: I just got on and I started talking.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, I think when you I think when you love something, and I love wine, and I love the wine business, and I love talking about this, it's not hard to talk about.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: It just isn't.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And when you have a when you have a cool host like yourself who who actually understands what what they're hearing, yeah, that's that makes it easier.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate this a lot.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: No, I I thank you, Jim.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: I I I've interviewed uh about 280 founders and CEOs and things like that so far.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: And I've had a lot of people that uh got upset because there was no questions in advance.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm always very blunt to people, and I tell people exactly what you just said.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're passionate about what you do and you know your shit, you can hop on.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: Glad to do it.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope you'll have me back again sometime.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I absolutely will.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna start doing some roundtable stuff where we're gonna bring two different guests in and do some round table topics type stuff.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: So I'm definitely gonna bring you in for that.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to, even though you're it's only your second podcast, Jim, you you you you talk to me like you've done a hundred, a couple hundred as well.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: So uh full confidence going forward with any other podcast you're going on.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: And um, two things I want to tell everybody.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely buying post-pandemic wine market later this week.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you guys do as well, especially if you're in the industry.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, there are not enough books like this.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: So this is a treasure gem that everybody should definitely have.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to checking that out.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: And then secondly, I'll talk to you off camera and maybe we can help you get some book distribution on the East Coast to some of these wineries and gift shops and stuff like that out here.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: Excellent, Jim.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, you have a good rest of your day, and thank you again so much.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: You too.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: You too.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Take care.