There are a bazillion people that have wine labels that don’t own, nor will they ever own, a brick and mortar winery.
There’s a certain fantasy that people want to have about making wine. They want you to own your own vineyards. They want you to own the winery. I like to keep that magical thought going, I do. But, I’m a Southern Baptist preacher’s kid and I don’t have the money to do that. Maybe some day I will, but for now I work super close with the growers and stay intimately involved. That’s the way you do it if you want to make great wine on a shoestring. Some of our largest competitors start with $40 million plus in their bank account. That ain’t us.
I’m a farmer, mad scientist and CEO in a pair of blue jeans.
When I’m speaking in a restaurant in front of 35 folks, that job description is something I talk about when I don’t want to bore the shit out of people with wine talk. It really is a product of what I do.
One day you’re a farmer. You’re in the vineyard working with the guys pruning or whatever, and you’re in full farmer mode. Most good farmers have dirt under their nails—at least until they shower.
When you come out of the vineyard and head into the cellar, then you really are a mad scientist. Hopefully, less mad and more scientist. You sit with the barrel thinking about what you can do better, how you can take what you’ve learned and put it in the wine. Some things you try are guesses or intuition or something, and it’s like pixie dust—you don’t know where the idea came from. With winemaking there’s a lot of magic going on. Seriously.
Finally, when the magic’s in the bottle and ready to drink you put on your blue jeans and head into town to sell your wares. Actually, I wore slacks for a thing a while ago and the guy putting it on goes, “We’re so disappointed you’re wearing slacks. We thought you’d be wearing jeans.”
Which is part of what makes this whole deal so amazing—it’s a cool job no matter what role that day makes you take on. I mean, who wouldn’t apply to a Craigslist ad looking for a farmer/mad scientist/CEO?
This is not some stuck-up version of a job. You might be in a high-end restaurant enjoying a killer plate of food and a great glass of Manifesto!, but, honestly, that’s not what this job is at its roots. It’s a blue-collar life. I might switch from jeans covered in dirt and grapes to something more presentable to join you for dinner. But, they’ll still probably be jeans and you might see some dirt under my fingernails while we talk about how the vibrant nose of citrus peel, grapefruit and pine needles marries perfectly with our plate of oysters…