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Growing a Boutique Wine Business From the Vineyard to the Bottle · The Realtor Who Wines

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Realtor Who Wines podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm Rachelle Newmeyer, your hostess with the mostest a student of life, a connector, a passionate wine enthusiast, and your local favorite guide.
• 0:10
  Join me as we explore the vibrant Pacific Northwest.
• 0:14
  Savor the finest wines and champion the spirit of entrepreneurship.
• 0:18
  Each episode, I'll sit down with inspiring guests, supporting business ownership and uncovering the stories that make this community unique.
• 0:25
  So grab a glass of wine, settle in, and let's embark on a journey of discovery and connection together. Cheers.
• 0:31
  Hi everyone.
• 0:32
  Welcome back to the realtor who wins.
• 0:34
  I'm Rachelle Neumeyer, your local realtor who loves to wine.
• 0:37
  I am with winemaker extraordinaire.
• 0:40
  I cannot wait for her to share her brand with you.
• 0:42
  Her wine with you.
• 0:43
  Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 0:46
  I'd like to cheers you solutely.
• 0:48
  Thanks for having me. Yeah, I shared it.
• 0:54
  Oh my gosh, that's so good.
• 0:55
  Before we dive in, it's really refreshing.
• 0:58
  That's so good.
• 0:59
  Such a good summer wine.
• 1:00
  It is, into all things wine with you.
• 1:03
  Introduce yourself to everybody.
• 1:03
  Absolutely.
• 1:05
  My name is Jennifer Warner.
• 1:06
  I am a now in my second year winemaker.
• 1:12
  It is more of a passion project.
• 1:13
  It's not how I pay the bills yet, so I'm still having a lot of fun with it.
• 1:18
  I feel very fortunate that I have another career outside of this.
• 1:23
  And talking with winemakers, I'm sure you're hearing this often.
• 1:26
  A lot of us do have a 9 to 5, and they're doing this on the side, and it's kind of a passion project. So, yeah, I'm in my second vintage, so first year was my first year and learning a lot.
• 1:39
  I'm still learning a lot.
• 1:41
  It's an endless kind of seed.
• 1:44
  Oh for sure. Information.
• 1:48
  I in a past life as a lawyer, I went to law school because I wasn't good at science, at math.
• 1:53
  And here I am now, like, at 38 years old, trying to learn science and math.
• 1:58
  Oh my gosh, that's actually it's so funny.
• 2:00
  One of the reasons I wanted to do the podcast was to showcase how wine is made and like how much goes into it.
• 2:06
  So it's not just like bottoms up, bottoms up.
• 2:08
  You know, it's not just that kind of situation because I don't think people think truly about the farming that goes behind it.
• 2:15
  And then the chemistry of the perfect balance.
• 2:18
  And then what happens when it's sitting and fermenting and then to the bottle and just it's a whole process.
• 2:23
  And so much love and hard work goes into each bottle.
• 2:27
  Absolutely.
• 2:27
  Yeah. I mean, I can relate so much.
• 2:29
  I in my first year made only white wines.
• 2:32
  Well, I mean a white and a rosé, which you know, from a technical standpoint is a white wine.
• 2:39
  I mean, it sits for a couple of hours and then we press it.
• 2:41
  But this is the first year I'm taking on a red wine.
• 2:43
  And yeah, I was at the winery a couple hours ago, like, what am I doing trying to to sort those things out. But yeah, it's such an adventure and I'm having so much fun with it.
• 2:55
  Yeah, I know that you didn't grow up in this area.
• 2:58
  I did not. You, moved here. How long ago?
• 3:02
  I've been in Oregon for about eight years now.
• 3:06
  Okay.
• 3:07
  Now, gosh, it's been longer than that.
• 3:08
  Like 9 or 10.
• 3:10
  I've been in Salem for seven.
• 3:12
  Prior to that, I was in Arizona for 7 or 8 years, and before that I was in Wisconsin, where I grew up.
• 3:19
  Yeah, yeah.
• 3:19
  So you don't have a background in wine?
• 3:21
  It was just being exposed to the Willamette Valley that really got you into it.
• 3:25
  It is, I mean, growing up, we had beer.
• 3:30
  We had spirits occasionally, like, wine would be brought out for, like, a special event, but like, the Midwest is more like fruit forward wines, like a a pear wine.
• 3:41
  Oh, yeah.
• 3:42
  And, yeah, I actually went home recently and like, my parents are getting really into wine, like, understanding it not necessarily drinking it, but they're like, let's go to the biggest grocery store we have here and go check out the liquor department in the wine aisle.
• 3:56
  And, yeah, it's like mostly fruit wines and stuff like that.
• 3:59
  There is there was a really great winery, though, that I bought a bottle of dry Riesling and a bottle of Pinot noir that local produce and made in Wisconsin, and they were fabulous.
• 4:08
  That's awesome.
• 4:09
  Like, people think all these other states are making good wines and you can find.
• 4:13
  Oh, they are I mean, it's just they can only control what they can control.
• 4:17
  It's not like Texas fault if they can't grow certain kind of grapes.
• 4:20
  Right.
• 4:20
  So then they bring them in from Oregon, which is also great for us.
• 4:23
  Yeah. Or California or Washington or whatever.
• 4:26
  Totally.
• 4:26
  These were actually grown and, I think it's a special clone that's frost resistant.
• 4:31
  Oh, nice.
• 4:32
  But like, I mean, you could put it side by side with an Oregon, you know, and be like, that's awesome.
• 4:36
  It stands up. It was great, I love that.
• 4:39
  Yeah.
• 4:39
  What besides, like, so just being exposed to wineries all around.
• 4:44
  We're in wine country for sure.
• 4:45
  Was there anything in particular that made you think, like, I want to learn more about that.
• 4:49
  Like, what was it about the wine industry that spoke to you?
• 4:53
  I took a very strange route into it, like most of us do.
• 4:58
  During Covid, I started brewing cider at home.
• 5:03
  I'm a big cider drinker. Love cider.
• 5:05
  Still drink a lot of it.
• 5:07
  You can only drink so much wine, you know.
• 5:09
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  So yeah, during Covid, I started brewing wine or cider and, I wrote some beer for my husband too, which, it turned out great, but not much of a beer drinker.
• 5:23
  And I was like, man, I really like doing this.
• 5:24
  This is so fun. Like.
• 5:24
  And we're in the perfect.
• 5:27
  Yeah. You know, northwest of cider land.
• 5:30
  Yeah.
• 5:31
  So I was like, I want to learn more about this.
• 5:33
  Like, I got to find some education.
• 5:38
  So I started kind of going down that once the world reopened again and, I was like, well, OSU had a program that was like a week long intensive and cider production where you get to go in and work on all the big equipment.
• 5:52
  I was like, that's kind of cool, but like a week is just like so short of amount of time, I feel like I'm not going to learn what I need to learn in that amount of time.
• 6:00
  So then I was just like, all right, you know, we'll see what happens.
• 6:03
  And then, one of my neighbors actually passed away, and she was, educator.
• 6:09
  And her funeral service was at wine room.
• 6:13
  Oh. And I was like, wait, what?
• 6:16
  Yeah, I know, track it up.
• 6:17
  I know wine, like.
• 6:18
  Yeah. What what's going on here.
• 6:21
  So, you know, a couple weeks later I investigated that and I was like wow.
• 6:24
  They have like a whole wine school literally right down the street for me that they really do.
• 6:28
  And it's beautiful. It's so awesome.
• 6:31
  I haven't I think I've taken like 8 or 9 classes at this point, just very like part time dabbling.
• 6:39
  Went in with no intentions on making wine on a commercial scale.
• 6:42
  Just kind of wanted to learn more and more of a hobby at that point.
• 6:46
  Yeah. For sure.
• 6:47
  And then I had an opportunity to apply to an incubator program that were looking to help people who've never had a commercial production make wine.
• 6:55
  And I applied to that, and I got it.
• 6:57
  So me so it was like a very quick path. But, it's very interesting being like, I'm a winemaker, but I've never worked under anybody.
• 7:08
  I've never worked in another person's winery.
• 7:11
  Like I just went straight into it.
• 7:14
  And I love that it is jump first.
• 7:17
  Yeah, I love that. It's terrifying.
• 7:19
  But I mean, I work out of a collaborative space, so there's always someone to, like, bounce ideas off of.
• 7:25
  You know, someone to lend a hand if you're trying to move something heavy or whatever.
• 7:28
  So it's been really fun.
• 7:30
  And is that where you make the wine as like an a co-op?
• 7:32
  Yeah. Type space.
• 7:32
  You want to talk about that a little bit.
• 7:35
  Yeah. It's up in Milwaukee.
• 7:37
  It's called ABP.
• 7:39
  The owner, she originally, owned a wine club, in Portland.
• 7:46
  That was she was not a wine producer, but she was curating Oregon wines for a wine club, which I thought was a really cool idea.
• 7:56
  And I think they still exist.
• 7:57
  I think she sold it to someone else.
• 8:00
  But she was seeing all these small producers getting pushed out of their spaces, and.
• 8:04
  Yeah, she was kind enough to open a space for us to exist.
• 8:09
  Yeah, I love that, because not everybody like you, for example, you're doing smaller batches and stuff, and so.
• 8:15
  And at first you're a dabbling. Right.
• 8:17
  And so you're like, well, I don't have the investment to like, just have my own.
• 8:21
  I got its production area.
• 8:23
  So it's so nice that there are these co-ops throughout the Willamette Valley and probably in other states as well, but that, like, you can come and make your batches of wine and pressure groups and do all the things you need to do.
• 8:34
  Yeah.
• 8:35
  And I mean, there's even a lot of wineries that don't advertise that they do that.
• 8:38
  But a lot of places will rent out their space to friends or, you know, other people they know in the industry too.
• 8:43
  So yeah, it's all over the place.
• 8:45
  I love the name dagger Daisy.
• 8:48
  Thank you. You talk a little bit about the inspiration and how that name came about.
• 8:52
  Sure.
• 8:53
  It's been really fun getting to the sales part of it and getting to talk to people and like seeing people's reaction to it.
• 9:00
  And most people are the same.
• 9:02
  They're like, so cool. Like, what does it mean?
• 9:04
  Where did it come from? Well, it's so like for me, it's kind of like a woman, right?
• 9:08
  Like we can be very feminine, like Daisy, but also don't fuck with us. Yes.
• 9:12
  Like this you got. Yeah. Nailed it.
• 9:15
  You totally got it.
• 9:17
  So when I started working on the branding, I had a really good idea of what I wanted the imagery to be, which, like, that was an easy, no brainer.
• 9:26
  But then I was like, now I gotta come up with a name for this.
• 9:28
  And I've been an entrepreneur.
• 9:29
  My whole life, and all of my businesses have been boring and have had very boring names.
• 9:35
  I literally worked for a law firm at one point.
• 9:36
  Their name was Legal Helpers, right?
• 9:39
  Like so I was like, I got to like, really knock this out of the park and like, figure this out.
• 9:46
  You have one shot to, like, name a business, right? So, I wrote down a ton of names that were all kind of like witchy, ethereal, but always a play on like, dark and light, gothic and girly, feminine, masculine kind of vibe.
• 10:04
  So I, I probably wrote down like 300 names in a notebook, narrowed it down to like ten.
• 10:11
  Then I checked LLC record.
• 10:13
  Oh, sure.
• 10:14
  Like and who has does anybody have these names or anything like that?
• 10:17
  There actually is another dagger Daisy that I think is like a jewelry brand or something like that, like a small, like Etsy store.
• 10:23
  So I was like, I'm sure they won't mind, right?
• 10:26
  In a completely different segment, you know?
• 10:27
  Yeah.
• 10:29
  Also to track trademarks, a lot of the names I came up with were fine.
• 10:34
  So it was like, okay, I got a narrow this down, and I settled on that name, and then I let it sit for like 3 or 4 weeks before I filed any paperwork or did anything.
• 10:45
  I told my friends, told my family, yeah, get a reaction for sure.
• 10:48
  And, I don't know, some people were like me, I don't know, some people were like, that's really cool.
• 10:54
  I like it, but I think with the imagery and everything, it the reception has been really good. Yeah.
• 10:58
  So the branding is great.
• 11:01
  Did you design the label or do I have someone I designed the typography, the logo, the actual artwork that's on the front of the bottle I bought from an artist and then, like, kind of made it my own with filtering and stuff like that.
• 11:15
  But, yeah, typography is like wild.
• 11:19
  The back of this label took me so long.
• 11:19
  Yeah.
• 11:21
  So I'm not an experienced graphic designer, and I'm very much a bootstrap.
• 11:26
  So like, hiring a graphic designer in the beginning was not something I was.
• 11:30
  Well, yeah. Well, and it's hard to do.
• 11:32
  It's hard to hire somebody in any position if you don't know how to give direction to so totally.
• 11:37
  If you didn't know what you wanted, how could you say until you started playing with it yourself, like, hey, can you make a label look like this because you don't know until you mess with it yourself?
• 11:45
  Yeah, that was me, literally in Canva and my printer sitting on the floor, printing it over and over again, cutting it to the shape and paint on a little ball and there's still a few tweaks that I would probably make now that it's on the bottle, but we've got next year.
• 12:00
  So yeah, you can always me like new label release.
• 12:03
  Yeah, all of that.
• 12:04
  Let's talk about how you decided to do these two varieties.
• 12:09
  Sure.
• 12:10
  Coming in, I as a cider drinker, Sauvignon blanc is like perfection to me.
• 12:17
  Like, I have some saving blanc in barrels right now that's not completely done fermenting yet, but I was like, I get why this is my favorite varietal, because right now it tastes just like cider.
• 12:27
  Like it's a little sweeter than I would prefer, but, so going in like that was a no brainer.
• 12:33
  Yeah, this is what I like.
• 12:34
  It's easy to sell and that has transpired.
• 12:38
  Like when you really enjoy something, it's easy to talk to people about and sell it.
• 12:42
  And so yeah, that's been great.
• 12:45
  And that's another nice way because we are in like Pinot noir country.
• 12:48
  So it's also just a nice way to like stand out or be a little bit separate is to start with not a Pinot noir.
• 12:54
  Yeah, I think small producers that are coming out with Pino and Chardonnay are like nuts.
• 12:59
  I say, as someone who has a Pino rosé, but yeah, I mean, there are so many people who are making really beautiful Pinos like, and they have like three generations of history doing it.
• 13:12
  Like, I can't compete with that, you know?
• 13:15
  Yeah. And and it's hard to sure. Yeah.
• 13:18
  So yeah, I think a lot of smaller producers, especially of where I'm working out, they're working with different varieties.
• 13:25
  And I think it's a good space to be in.
• 13:29
  And yeah, so I mean, Blanc is like, I love it so much.
• 13:33
  Yeah. It's so easy to drink.
• 13:34
  It's refreshing.
• 13:35
  It's totally refreshing.
• 13:36
  Some people hate it, like.
• 13:38
  But I've converted a couple of people.
• 13:40
  Yeah.
• 13:42
  You know, it's it's got a nice acid so you can eat it with anything with a rich fat food.
• 13:48
  Spicy food.
• 13:49
  I mean, it goes well with everything.
• 13:49
  Yeah. And on its own, too.
• 13:52
  I think it'd be really good with Thai food.
• 13:54
  Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:55
  As soon as I took this up, I was like, I'm in the mood for taste.
• 13:58
  Yeah, yeah. Anything.
• 14:00
  And then the Pino no y rosé.
• 14:03
  So which one was first?
• 14:05
  They both were made in 2024.
• 14:07
  Oh, okay.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  So this came in first and that came in second, but yeah.
• 14:11
  Same season. So, yeah the Pinot noir rosé that is from the Willamette Valley.
• 14:20
  And that one was a little more challenging than the Sauvignon Blanc to make Pinos a little more finicky.
• 14:27
  And the Sauvignon blanc was farmed really well.
• 14:30
  So I got that from OSU's research vineyard in southern Oregon.
• 14:34
  They have like PhD teachers and students working on it like they know what they're doing.
• 14:39
  The chemistry on it came back.
• 14:41
  Well, in that area grows that variety really well.
• 14:44
  They do the weather and everything, the temperament, the soil.
• 14:47
  It's perfect for those kind of grapes.
• 14:49
  We are starting to see a lot of people planting in the valley too, which I don't know that I've had a sampling from the Valley, but I don't think I have.
• 14:57
  I'm normally it's sourced somewhere else, but yeah, I'm I'm excited to try it.
• 15:01
  I think the temperatures are kind of starting to go the right way for it. So, but yeah, there's it's really fun, like getting into this in 2024, you're like, there's not a ton of soybean plug in.
• 15:13
  Just in the last year, like the amount of people I've seen bringing into the winery, the amount of people I've been seeing it on the market, like, yeah, it's a very big growing segment, which for me, I love because yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 15:26
  What is next on the horizon for you?
• 15:29
  So we are on October 3rd deep in the middle of harvest.
• 15:33
  Yeah. So I've fortunately brought all my fruit in already.
• 15:36
  So that's like hurdle one.
• 15:41
  This year I'm also making seven blocks in vineyard, same row, everything.
• 15:48
  It's gonna be really exciting to see the two year difference.
• 15:50
  The chemistry is obviously different already from the labs that I've gotten back, so it'll be fun to see how one year tastes compared to the next.
• 15:58
  I mean, some blanks aren't really meant to be an aging wine, but it'll certainly hold well in the bottle for 3 or 4 years, so it'll be fun to have a nice little library of them to bring it out on the road with me, for sure.
• 16:09
  I'm also making a sparkling version of it.
• 16:11
  Oh, yeah. That'll be good.
• 16:13
  I know I've been telling everyone I talk to a vendor like, this is my new exciting project.
• 16:17
  Yeah, well, everyone loves a little bubbles, too.
• 16:19
  It's just nice. Yeah.
• 16:22
  And there's not a ton of sparkling South Blanc on the market either.
• 16:25
  I've seen.
• 16:26
  I've seen putting out, there's a a producer who.
• 16:30
  His wine was like a pretty big inspiration to me.
• 16:32
  I can't say his brand name to save my life, though, because it's French.
• 16:36
  But he has I pet Nat home and there's a sparkling canned version of it that I've seen.
• 16:46
  But, yeah, I'm gonna do a force card.
• 16:47
  That'll be awesome. When is, when are you planning?
• 16:49
  That'll come out next spring. Oh, okay.
• 16:51
  So I was still, in a sparkling.
• 16:53
  And then, I just brought in some Sirah grapes, too, which I got into this, like I'm only gonna make white wines and roses.
• 17:01
  I'm not really a red wine drinker.
• 17:03
  And, like, the further you get into this wine thing, eventually.
• 17:06
  Yeah, it catches another challenge to you.
• 17:08
  You're like, well, yeah, how do I do this on?
• 17:11
  How are you sourcing your grapes?
• 17:13
  Like, how did you decide where to get your grapes from?
• 17:16
  So I made that really great connection with OSU last year.
• 17:20
  Just organically, I saw that they were doing some farming there, and I was like, that's kind of cool.
• 17:26
  Like, I love education.
• 17:28
  I've spent way too much time in the classroom.
• 17:30
  So it's like if if I can also support what they're trying to do by buying my grapes from them.
• 17:36
  I think that's really cool.
• 17:38
  Yeah.
• 17:38
  You know, that money goes right back into their research, which should, in theory, just make our wines better.
• 17:44
  And then the, Pinot Noir rosé I sourced from, I can't remember how we made the connection, but it was a gentleman who had just bought a home with a vineyard and didn't know what he was doing, and I was like, I'm a new winemaker and I don't know what I'm doing, so let's figure this out together.
• 18:03
  And it was really fine. Like, he like, wrote up a contract for me and that seems like it's a very unusual experience in this business.
• 18:12
  Everyone's just kind of like taking I'll send you a bill a couple months later and the end times, they forget and you have to remind them.
• 18:19
  And yeah, we were like very official, like full of contract and deposit and yeah, it was fun. But.
• 18:29
  Speaking of like all the education pieces, do you have any mentors in this space or people that you lean on for advice?
• 18:36
  So part of that incubator program, I was afforded some mentors.
• 18:42
  For the first year and now going into the second year, so Cristina Gonzalez of Gonzalez Winery, based in Portland and, Corey from Corey Schuster from jackalope, also based in Portland, where my mentors both are like 15 years into this industry, have been making their own wine for for quite some time, have worked in wineries.
• 19:03
  I mean, they have a lot of a lot of experience of their own.
• 19:06
  So they were great.
• 19:08
  And now going into this season, we now have a new winery manager, Don crank, who has worked for, like, Willamette Valley Vineyards.
• 19:19
  I can't remember where he just came from.
• 19:21
  I want to say Red Hawk.
• 19:23
  Oh. Okay.
• 19:25
  But, yeah, he's been really awesome.
• 19:26
  He's like a food scientist, so he can, like, nerd out on words that I don't understand.
• 19:33
  Actually, yes.
• 19:34
  He he's also making some Sara.
• 19:36
  So it's it kind of gave me the confidence to be able to make that this year, having him do it side by side with me because otherwise I'd be like, I have no idea what I'm doing.
• 19:45
  Yeah. Want to tell people to do it with somebody else? Yeah for sure.
• 19:47
  So he actually just sent me like a 40 bullet point list.
• 19:51
  Oh my gosh.
• 19:52
  After the chemistry, you came back in like, here's what I think we should do.
• 19:56
  It's like, I'm gonna have to really study this email later okay.
• 20:00
  Yeah.
• 20:00
  Link it back to that one tomorrow. Yeah.
• 20:02
  For sure.
• 20:04
  So yeah.
• 20:05
  And then I have also been involved with, Women in Wine.
• 20:09
  And they have a mentor mentee program.
• 20:12
  And I was working with Leah from Erath for the last six months.
• 20:16
  Like, we just had like a monthly visit where we would grab a beer and talk about life and what challenges I was facing at the current time.
• 20:25
  And, I mean, she has a ton of experience.
• 20:28
  So it's just nice because sometimes being an entrepreneur or doing a business like this can feel siloed.
• 20:35
  Oh, you're very alone, especially when you're a smaller production and you don't have employees and things like that.
• 20:41
  So it must be really nice to be able to reach out to some of the vets in the industry and just get their $0.02, like, am I crazy or is this normal?
• 20:49
  You know?
• 20:49
  And for them to be like, you're not crazy, that's totally normal.
• 20:52
  Yeah. It's been, it's been really nice.
• 20:54
  And I think everyone in the industry is, like, more than willing to help.
• 20:56
  I mean, obviously everyone has their, like, limitations of time and money and all of that, but, I mean, anyone who's at the winery is willing to sit and chat with you for 15 minutes about what they're working on or whether challenges are, you know, whatever is going on in the time. So, yeah, it's been really welcoming.
• 21:20
  It's very unique.
• 21:21
  Yeah. I love to hear that.
• 21:22
  I know right now you're like, showing up at, like, pop ups in different markets and things like that.
• 21:28
  How can people find you or find your way in, like, do you have a website that they can resource or you're I know you're on Instagram.
• 21:34
  Yeah.
• 21:35
  So I have a website day or daisy.com.
• 21:38
  I have mostly Instagram.
• 21:41
  Digger Daisy I have a Facebook.
• 21:43
  I try not to go on there. Yes.
• 21:46
  So crowded. Yeah.
• 21:48
  He was like, I go here for a purpose.
• 21:50
  And then I get like sucked into like some other.
• 21:53
  That happens to me even on Instagram.
• 21:55
  I'll be like, oh, I need to post about the podcast or whatever.
• 21:58
  And then an hour later it goes by and I'm like, oh, I totally got sucked into reels or something.
• 22:02
  Yes, I mean, all of that stuff is like such a huge distraction.
• 22:05
  I also have ADHD diagnosis, like, yeah, it is just such a time suck, like going into those apps, but you have to do it to get your name out there. So, yeah, I post most of my pop ups and stuff on Insta and yeah, I've been doing farmer's markets, little pop up wine events here and there.
• 22:27
  The first few months, was like kind of challenging to get stuff on the schedule and book things when you're a one woman show, too.
• 22:36
  So like the loading and loading out all the scheduling.
• 22:39
  Oh, yeah.
• 22:39
  And like you said, you do have a day job.
• 22:41
  So that's like a lot of calendar management.
• 22:43
  It is. Yeah.
• 22:43
  My calendar is a pretty hectic, but now that I'm like, I released my wines in May, now that I'm a few months in, like, things are just kind of falling in my lap, which that's awesome.
• 22:57
  Like any business, like, you put in so much effort and then eventually you get those returns, you know?
• 23:02
  So it's been really exciting, like this week alone, like being at the winery during harvest, being so busy.
• 23:10
  And I'm just like getting emails after email after email for events.
• 23:13
  And I'm just like, this is so awesome. Yeah.
• 23:15
  Like it's all coming together. Yeah.
• 23:16
  No, I love that so much.
• 23:18
  Do you have a goal to be in stores or to be in certain restaurants, or do you like the pop up model?
• 23:25
  You know, I'm trying to not put too much pressure on myself for that.
• 23:32
  I mean, distribution would be fabulous, but I know that that is a really high hurdle.
• 23:36
  And it's also not all it's cracked up to be.
• 23:39
  Sure.
• 23:41
  Yeah, it'd be great if, you know, you can just offload cases and cases of wine and get paid for it, but that's not always how it works out.
• 23:47
  And you're selling at a discount.
• 23:48
  Well, I know a lot of winemakers like that's not their goal.
• 23:51
  They want it to be very boutique or like more exclusive and stuff.
• 23:55
  Yeah, I would love to have like a handful of like really quality placements that make sense.
• 24:03
  Those opportunities haven't presented themselves yet. So, you know, hopefully in year 2 or 3, that'll be where I'm for sure.
• 24:11
  But I would love to do more in Salem.
• 24:14
  I mean, we have wineries in Salem, but, I don't know that we have like a ton of representation.
• 24:21
  Right?
• 24:22
  Most people are like, I can go 15 minutes this way and I'm in wine country.
• 24:25
  Like, why would I go to Salem for wine?
• 24:26
  So I live downtown, I love downtown, I think I just saw we have a new wine bar.
• 24:32
  Yeah, I saw that too when I was driving in, and I was like, what is this?
• 24:35
  I know, I think that whole building is, like, very wine centric.
• 24:39
  I think they have another restaurant on there that's very wine focused, too, so I need to call that.
• 24:43
  But yeah, for sure.
• 24:47
  But yeah, I will continue.
• 24:51
  I'm very introverted, but I've been really enjoying going out and doing the events and talking with people about my wine and wine, something you put so much time and energy into, it's probably nice to share it and to see other people enjoy it.
• 25:06
  Yeah, sure.
• 25:07
  It's it's a lot of fun.
• 25:08
  I did a cheese event last weekend and like, I had a table that was just like sitting and like they kept coming up and getting glasses of wine.
• 25:14
  There's having like such a great time.
• 25:15
  I just like sitting there observing that.
• 25:17
  I'm like, so cool.
• 25:18
  Yeah, I feel like I made that. Yeah.
• 25:21
  And it's a great day and they're making really cool memories and like, I'm a part of it.
• 25:25
  Even a little tiny part of it. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:28
  It's is the goal to ever be winemaker full time.
• 25:32
  Or do you think you'll always do it more as a hobby?
• 25:35
  You know, I could see that happening.
• 25:41
  Maybe, it's not necessarily a goal.
• 25:46
  But if it happened, I wouldn't be mad.
• 25:46
  Okay.
• 25:48
  Yeah, it's a possibility.
• 25:50
  Yeah, I, I have a very demanding business that's taking up a lot of my time that I.
• 25:57
  I'm kind of a glutton for punishment.
• 25:59
  Like, once I do something for like, 7 or 8 years, I'm like, I'm bored.
• 26:03
  I need to do something else. Like, right?
• 26:05
  When things are starting to get easier, money starts flowing in.
• 26:09
  Then I'm like, this sucks.
• 26:09
  I want to do something else.
• 26:11
  Oh my gosh, I have that reputation too.
• 26:13
  Like real estate spend my longest tenured.
• 26:16
  But I have changed roles or I took on coaching or I started doing different trainings or things like that, but otherwise, yeah, I was the same as like, well, okay, what's next?
• 26:26
  What's next?
• 26:26
  It's like the Seven Year Itch.
• 26:28
  You're like, okay, now what I'm gonna do with my life, I need to try something different.
• 26:33
  I do think that winemaking will keep me busy for, well, it's going to change every year or two depending on the grapes and the variety.
• 26:39
  And, like, everything that's going on for sure.
• 26:42
  Yeah, it's.
• 26:43
  And I mean, being two years into a winemaking, I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface of wine in general.
• 26:51
  So like, yeah, there's a lot to learn.
• 26:54
  Still and a lot to discover and also places to explore.
• 26:58
  And yeah, so many things. Definitely.
• 27:01
  What would you say to somebody that was like, oh, you make wine?
• 27:03
  I've always wanted to do that.
• 27:05
  Like how do you respond to that?
• 27:05
  That's like, say that.
• 27:08
  That's like every person that comes up to me.
• 27:09
  Yeah, I think they think it's like so romantic and they don't realize like what all goes into it. They do. Yeah. I, I feel like in my first production class, I had to make it, I felt very fish out of water kind of vibe when I realized how cold and how wet it is.
• 27:29
  And I was like, I don't know if I could do this.
• 27:31
  At that time, I had no intentions on becoming a winemaker.
• 27:34
  I was just like, okay, you were just wanting to learn more.
• 27:37
  Yeah.
• 27:39
  There are fixes for that, you know, warmer clothes, wool socks.
• 27:42
  Yeah, that kind of stuff.
• 27:43
  But, I remember just being like, wow.
• 27:46
  Like, this is really uncomfortable.
• 27:49
  Well, yeah, it's a lot messier, too.
• 27:51
  Yeah. Like, I love Wisconsin for a reason.
• 27:54
  I don't like being cold.
• 27:57
  But I would definitely if I mean, if someone's actually serious about wanting to do it, I would encourage them to intern somewhere.
• 28:05
  I, I feel like I kind of got that internship kind of approach while still making my own label.
• 28:14
  Of course we were just making wine.
• 28:17
  We weren't farming.
• 28:18
  I think a lot of the internships you're going to be expected to do both.
• 28:22
  Which, you know, if I was in a different place in my life, I think they'd be really fun to go do.
• 28:26
  But I'm 38 and I.
• 28:29
  Responsibilities, right.
• 28:31
  Just like up and leave for a couple months.
• 28:34
  But if you have the opportunity to do it, I think that's the way.
• 28:37
  Yeah.
• 28:38
  I just met a student who works at a winery in Dundee, and she, Well, I say, I just met her.
• 28:44
  I was like 4 or 5 months ago, but she spent the whole summer in New Zealand to harvest and like.
• 28:49
  Yeah, but she's like, oh, I'm just going to pop over there for a little bit.
• 28:51
  And I was like, oh, I wish I could do something like that.
• 28:56
  Maybe someday.
• 28:56
  Yeah, I have a good friend who, which am I going to has like a sister program with a school in Bordeaux.
• 29:05
  And I have a good friend who from Jamaica who just went over there.
• 29:08
  I think she's like in her mid 40s.
• 29:11
  And she just like, am I nuts. No.
• 29:13
  I think it really has to do with like where you are in life.
• 29:16
  Like for me right now I have a ten year old on my family, my ten year old for four months to go play with grapes. Yeah.
• 29:21
  Even though it sounds super fun days.
• 29:23
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:23
  But like when she's in college and she's like, bye mom.
• 29:26
  I'm going to be like, okay, then that would be the perfect time for me to do something like that for sure.
• 29:30
  Yeah.
• 29:31
  But I, I was encouraging her to go like.
• 29:34
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:36
  And I wasn't sure if she was going to.
• 29:37
  And she just laughed recently. Yeah.
• 29:39
  She sent me pictures and I'm just like, man, so envious.
• 29:42
  Yeah.
• 29:42
  That's amazing. Yeah. I love that so much.
• 29:47
  What is next?
• 29:49
  I know you have a couple of wines coming out.
• 29:50
  Do you have any like five year goals, ten year goals?
• 29:53
  Or are you just kind of taking a day by day right now?
• 29:56
  I mean, when I got into this, I sat down and wrote a business plan and did rejections.
• 30:04
  I've been an entrepreneur my whole, well most of my life, and I never do those things.
• 30:09
  I just kind of start doing things in all that works.
• 30:12
  Well, yeah, hope it works out and sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
• 30:16
  And so like I, I've never actually sold a product before.
• 30:20
  I've always been in the service space industry.
• 30:22
  So I was like, this is so cool.
• 30:23
  Like I can make a spreadsheet and I can figure out how much this cost.
• 30:27
  And like, granted, I might be a little bit off, but you know, once you get into the actually get into the details, you're like, okay, I've got to make wine.
• 30:35
  I don't have time to like, do spreadsheets all day. But, yeah, when I did start, I kind of had a goal of where I wanted to be.
• 30:45
  I mean, you don't want to just make wine and not make any money, like, it costs a lot of money to make so.
• 30:53
  And time and time too. Yeah.
• 30:55
  And I mean, I'm really guilty of not accounting for my time and how much that cost, you know, and this business is a very good example of not, counting my time and how much it costs, for sure.
• 31:09
  It's for the love of the game.
• 31:13
  So, yeah, I would like to continue, like, just making a small growth every year.
• 31:18
  So in my first year, I did produce two tons.
• 31:21
  This year I produced three.
• 31:22
  So like, that feels really good. Yeah.
• 31:24
  For anybody that doesn't know how much wine goes on a ton.
• 31:28
  How many bottles is that normally or cases I think it's about 50 cases a ton.
• 31:32
  People keep asking me that and I haven't looked at those numbers and well, sometimes they vary too, because you don't get to put everything in the bottle and things like that.
• 31:40
  Yeah, and sometimes some of the wine is good and sometimes some of the wine is not good.
• 31:44
  Right.
• 31:44
  For my rosé, there was some wine that I held back, just because I didn't think it was good enough quality to put in the bottle.
• 31:51
  And I've had it sitting in the winery since last year.
• 31:54
  Like, what are we going to do with us?
• 31:56
  I was planning on making, like, some kind of cocktail with it.
• 32:00
  And, you know, life goes on.
• 32:01
  And then also in your next harvest is here, you're like, what am I doing with that wine?
• 32:06
  Yeah, I guess I'll make jelly.
• 32:08
  Yeah.
• 32:08
  I have a friend that makes jelly out of, like, wine that she can't use.
• 32:11
  That's fabulous.
• 32:12
  I, a good friend of mine, they, they're on, like, their third or fourth leaf of their vineyard.
• 32:17
  So they're not ready to make commercial production.
• 32:19
  But they were going to make jelly.
• 32:21
  And I was like, that's so cool. I've never had it.
• 32:23
  Well, and it's so niche in this area to be like, you know, noir rosé jelly.
• 32:28
  Like, that's so fun.
• 32:29
  Yeah.
• 32:29
  And I mean, at farmer's markets, you had a lot of people walking by that are like, I don't drink wine.
• 32:34
  Well do you like jelly. Yeah.
• 32:36
  There is one lady at one of the farmers markets that had dried, you know, grapes and dark chocolate.
• 32:43
  Oh yeah. So good. Yeah.
• 32:45
  That sounds delicious.
• 32:46
  There's also that brand like oh gosh I can't think of it.
• 32:50
  But they make beef jerky, but they use, like, Pinot noir flavored beef jerky, things like that.
• 32:55
  Yeah. It's so good and so good.
• 32:57
  Well, and it's nice on a scooter board when you're, like, having wine.
• 33:01
  Let's like other. Yeah.
• 33:02
  That's fabulous. Yeah.
• 33:03
  I actually was talking to a winemaker yesterday at my space, who is, like, very experienced, has a restaurant in Portland.
• 33:11
  And, you know, as a young land maker, it can be like a little intimidating to talk to people like that.
• 33:16
  He was like, try this wine and tell me what you think.
• 33:18
  And I'm like, oh, God.
• 33:19
  So just, well, and or what do you expect it like, am I supposed to use really fancy words or can I just be like, oh, that's really good.
• 33:25
  I like that has a good body, right?
• 33:27
  You're supposed to use like, all the technical terms. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:29
  He was looking for a technical answer, which I gave the best I could, but I started telling him about my piano that I had left over, and he was like, use it to chop your salad.
• 33:39
  And I was like, oh, my God, I know.
• 33:41
  I'm like, I never would have thought of that.
• 33:43
  I was literally about to dump it down the drain. Yeah.
• 33:46
  Then you'll have a blend.
• 33:47
  I know. Yeah, that'll be great.
• 33:49
  You don't need much wine to top. So, and Sara tends to not have that much acid or the Pino has a lot of acid.
• 33:57
  So I was like, yeah, I'm genius, but so do you ever.
• 34:00
  Yeah.
• 34:01
  Like, I'm so glad that I stopped in here. No.
• 34:03
  And take your quiz.
• 34:04
  Just have to keep talking about the things and eventually, like, ideas will come to you.
• 34:08
  Definitely.
• 34:09
  Well, I really appreciate you taking your time.
• 34:11
  I know you have such a busy schedule, and I love to hearing more about, yeah, your brand and everything that you have going on and sharing it with everyone.
• 34:19
  So we'll definitely have to keep in touch and see where you're on on next year.
• 34:23
  And I want to try the bubbles for sure.
• 34:25
  Oh yeah. And the bubbles come out.
• 34:25
  You have to let me know.
• 34:27
  I'm really excited for those.
• 34:28
  So yeah, I'll be sure to bring you bottle by Perfect Factual chair.
• 34:31
  Thanks for being on. Thanks for having me.
• 34:33
  And thank you everyone for listening.
• 34:34
  I'll see you next week. Bye bye bye.