[Originally written in 2014, edited in 2024]
My fiancé, Marisa, and I visited two small wineries in Napa. We went expecting to taste good wine, but we ended up getting a heavy pour of wisdom from a couple owners of small producers.
At small wineries, you can talk directly with the person calling the shots. You learn about their history, why they chose to start a winery, how they make their wine and how their style differs from the others in the area. At large wineries, the head honchos generally do not interact with customers, so the learning experience isn’t as robust.
Don’t get me wrong. You can still learn a ton from the staff, but for me it’s not the same experience as when you talk to the person who believed in themselves, took the risk and built the business.
At winery A, we walked the grounds tasting tomatoes from the garden, watched birds scare off critters, smelled the different herbs and checked out the croquet court built for special events.
As we walked with the owner Chris, who is about 70yrs old and a former surgeon, I got a sense of his calmness and contentment plus his drive for making a quality product. He walked at a very slow pace with his hands behind his back.
He told us about his decision to focus more on producing the highest quality wine for club members rather than maximizing distribution to restaurants and stores. He gave up distributing to Per Se and a slew of Jean-Georges’ spots in NYC.
This man commits to running a smaller shop focusing on quality. He’s made a conscious decision to NOT maximize profits. Not something you come across everyday.
Chris understands if he sacrifices quality, he may make more money today but he may stand to lose a majority of his customer base later. That would change his job title to becoming a marketing/salesperson. Instead, he focuses on his current clients rather than trying to get new ones.
I love this attitude. He knows his strengths. He’s content. He does what he enjoys and makes a profit. That allows him to keep doing what he likes.
A few days later at winery T, we sat with owner Bill at a white plastic table in his front yard overlooking the hills of Sonoma. Immediately, I sensed I could learn a lot from Bill so I start asking questions.
I lead off with, “We just came from a tasting at a bigger winery down the road (15k cases/year) and the wine sucked. The winery seemed very motivated to ramp up production rather than wine quality. Is there an inverse relationship to production quantity versus its quality?”
Bill said he didn’t think so since there are some large wineries that do make great wine, but some come to suffer from “house pallet syndrome”. They get used to the same old tastes that they lose their ability to detect deficiencies in taste, body, etc.
This isn’t specific to wineries, but people in general. Naturally, we get lazy. Profits can lull us into thinking about them more and more. We forget the important part of the business — product quality.
To recap, here are some of the things I learned spending time with Chris and Bill.
1. Play your game and don’t compare yourself to others. Do what you like to do and go full bore. Half-committing leads to frustration and regret. You may have to put blinders on to what your competitors are doing. You can’t control them and you aren’t running their business, but yours.
2. Be honest about your product. Keep asking questions, learning and experimenting. Maybe nothing really needs to be done, but you might make a valuable discovery every so often.
3. You can learn from everyone, especially in unexpected places.
4. Not all wise people have social media followings. Some of the wisest people aren’t rich or famous. They often appear and disappear subtlety. Often times they’re right under our noses, but we’re too busy scrolling. Don’t let the next opportunity slip away.