We just got some new wine glasses in the tasting room. They are not the bulbous, fabulous beautiful Riedel wineglasses. In fact, they are pretty plain and not very exciting.

I am a bit of a wine geek myself, and understand the need for nice glassware. I have it at home and that’s pretty much all I use when imbibing in the sweet nectar of the gods. We used to have really nice Riedel tasting glasses. And you know what happened—people took them. We traded down to another, less expensive brand….but still really nice. And people still took them. To give you an idea of our wine glass loss over just the last 3 months—we have had to reorder 400 glasses. At $4 a pop (and $7 for the Riedel), we are talking about a pretty serious loss.

It kills me that at some of our bigger events, we are now using plastic glasses (although we do advertise that people are more than welcome to bring their own glassware) or guests can purchase a glass for $7. But in order to continue to keep our doors open to make great wine and host fun events, I have to keep the expenses and the costs in check.  These days our margins are so thin—glassware walking makes them non-existent.

If anyone has any really good ideas to keep people from stealing glasses, I am all ears. Until then, ordinary looking is what we have (they are still very thin at the top--so tasting is a good experience). We even tried to make them uglier (like Range Golf balls at a golf course) by etching pour lines (1 ounce for tasting, 3 ounce for half a glass, 5 ounce for full glass) on them. Pretty snazzy. Not.

At all of our wine dinners, special events and weddings, we will continue to use our Riedel glassware. And we will take  fingerprints beforehand, just in case.

I saw a post from Steve Heimoff this morning about a blog he read by Oded Shakkedt at Longboard Vineyards.  Oded was on his soapbox regarding buying locally. I am in complete agreement and wanted to showcase his thoughts and add a few of my own.

How many of you are taking the time to find locally grown produce, dairy, meats and eggs? It’s important to me—not only health-wise (organic/sustainable farming practices are usually done by smaller farms, which are found closer to me) but I want to keep my dollars (and taxes!) as close to home as possible.  Especially here in California, where our state is in a financial crises—keeping my money here is only helping schools, roads and public programs in the long run. Also, local businesses support local communities. They donate their time and wares to local schools and other fundraisers.

I know there are a lot of people that think like me. The Farmer’s Markets are packed. Restaurants brag on their menus when all the ingredients on their menus are sourced from less than 25, 50 or 100 miles away.  But yet they also brag about their French, Spanish, and Italian wine lists.

Are US citizens proud of their wines from the United States?   When I try to sell my wine in Europe, it is very, very difficult because the locals are so geared to buying wine locally. In Bordeaux, they drink Bordeaux….and they are arrogant about it. Ask anyone from Bordeaux, and they will tell you that Bordeaux wines are the best wines in the world. Period. Try selling California Chardonnay or Pinot Noir in Burgundy. You would NEVER even find a California wine on a restaurant list in France’s wine country.  

I am all for trying wines from all over the world—but in times like these (remember “Freedom Fries?) we should hunker down and support our local producers. Whether its milk, lettuce or wine.

There are approximately 88,000 people in San Martin, Morgan Hill and Gilroy (all within 10 miles of Clos LaChance). We make approximately 80,000 cases annually. If everybody locally bought just one case of wine every year, then we are DONE. San Jose is 20 miles away and there are 1,023,083 people in San Jose. That’s just 1.06 bottles per person in San Jose.  Is that too much to ask?  Okay, well maybe those totals include kids and those under 21, but you get the idea.

We grow here, we employee people here, we support local schools with donations and fundraising events. That $5 Malbec from Argentina—I bet they didn’t donate a 2 bottle gift pack and Tour and Tasting for 10 to your kid’s school for their annual fundraiser. Just this past weekend we raised $6,300 for Cal Fire of Santa Clara County at a Chili-Cook Off. So, community out there, support us and drink our wines. Whether you buy it here, in the local market or at a restaurant, I don’t care….just support your local vintners. We could use it right about now.

It is a bittersweet couple of weeks for me. My beloved Sales and Marketing Assistant is leaving me for a new job. It is hard to see her go, but she is ready for a new challenge—and I understand that completely. It is always difficult to transition from one person to another—especially in this role. The job calls for assisting me, our National Sales Manager and running most of our direct sales business. In addition, Melanie  managed all the other marketing admin tasks (samples coordination, material development, social media, etc ). Big shoes to fill. Sigh.

It is hard, but I am trying to look at this as an opportunity to get someone in here with new ideas and ways of managing the craziness that is Clos LaChance. I posted a search on WineJobs.com and have received some great resumes. A lot of people have a ton of marketing experience in other fields, which what I am looking for. The “wine thing” is easier to teach then a marketing and sales mentality. Also, I think the wine industry is sheltered from traditional marketing because of various restrictions (the “sin” of alcohol, exorbitant costs and limited manpower resources), but there are always new and interesting ways to do things. So the search begins for the perfect person.

We all wish Melanie well. She started at Clos LaChance as a harvest intern 5 years ago. She moved to an admi/office position after her internship, then into sales and marketing a few years ago. She will be missed.

Also had the opportunity to connect with a Clos LaChance alum last night, my “other” beloved Sales and Marketing assistant. Made me think back to all those great people who have since moved on to new opportunities—Colleen, Kevin R, all the Matts (We have had 4 Matts here over the years, 3 of them in the vineyard!), Todd, Greg, Beth, Abby, Dominic, Paige, Steve…there have been quite a few wonderful faces here over the years. A few not-so-wonderful, but the majority of people who have worked here have been amazing.

So I plod on, reluctantly looking for a new face to help me organize and implement all my crazy ideas. Best of luck to Melanie!  You will be missed.

I love web sites where I can view other people’s reviews of products or businesses. I  love how on Amazon when I am buying something I can look at customer reviews of toys or sheets or books or whatever. On Athelta, one of my favorite web sites to buy yoga stuff and bathing suits, people review the fit and fabric etc. I have made a ton of buying decisions based on that. We allow people to post reviews of our wines on the clos.com site as well. And Yelp—I never go anywhere without reading a review on Yelp first.

With that said, I wanted to address something that a Yelper recently said about Clos LaChance. I know that as a business I can respond to this guy, but I have so much to say, I thought I would take it up here.

First, here is the review in question:

“The grounds here are easily the most picturesque in the SC Valley, but that was the only thing that really impressed me. I could see this being a great wedding venue, but I have some philosophical differences with the way they do things here.

The tasting room is large and modern, but the wine was pretty ordinary.

Whenever I go to a winery and I see three tiers of labels, it bothers me. It says, here's something affordable to the masses that it is made cheaply with cheap grapes from wherever. Here's something that's made with a little more care, as we grow the grapes ourself. And finally, here's where we're really going to gouge you because this is what we gave the most attention and care to. And gouge you they will, at $50 bucks a bottle.

I like my wineries to give 100% effort and care on everything. Instead of making 900 different wines, focus on making a few great ones. I guess they want to be like the Ferari-Carano or Mondavi of Santa Clara. No thank you. More power to you if you want to be a billionaire, but I'll give my money to the little guys.”

Now I am fine if people say they do not care for our wine. Everybody has different tastes…and if what we make is not for you, then hey, thank you for trying and I hope you find something you like. But when people question our business model without having the faintest idea how this industry works—well, then I might just have something to say about it.

This is the paragraph that bugs me:

Whenever I go to a winery and I see three tiers of labels, it bothers me. It says, here's something affordable to the masses that it is made cheaply with cheap grapes from wherever. Here's something that's made with a little more care, as we grow the grapes ourself. And finally, here's where we're really going to gouge you because this is what we gave the most attention and care to. And gouge you they will, at $50 bucks a bottle.

A three tier product strategy is definitely not uncommon in this industry and pretty much what has to be done to stay in business these days. You see, my Yelper friend, distributors buy about 70% of our wine. These distributors are the ones that sell the wine to restaurants and wine shops. Distributors, especially those that are in states in the “middle” don’t carry things like Viognier, Petite Sirah and Malbec. They want Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc….because those are the things that sell. They also want wines at a certain price.  If you have taken a look at the economy lately, well you may have noticed that it sucks. People are not going out to eat all that much. So restaurants are not buying a lot of wine. Especially expensive wine. You see, Wall Street banker expense accounts don’t exist anymore (okay, bad joke). So the $200 bottles of wine on a list are few and far between.

So the first tier of products…called our Hummingbird Series..mainly goes to restaurants and wine shops. Yeah, we sell a little in our tasting room, but we find that people who come to our winery want things that are different…and more limited.  Our second and third tier is called the Estate Series (wines made from grapes grown 100% on our Estate) and the Special Selections Series (usually vineyard designate wines). They are made with more expensive barrels, they are stored longer in these barrels, the labor to make them is more costly (smaller lots) and the package is more expensive (when you buy 100 cases of labels vs 1000 cases, the price is much higher). Sometimes we have to buy the grapes. Because we spend more, we charge more. I don’t believe that we are gauging people at $50 a bottle. In fact, we only have three wines (out of 20) that we sell for $50 a bottle. Each are very limited (less than 200 cases made) and they are hard to make. And they sell at that price because people who appreciate them think they are worth it. We have plenty of other wines here that sell starting from $5 all the way to $50 a bottle. Most range in the $18-$30 range. I do not believe we are gauging people at all. In fact, almost every week, we have an amazing deal on something in the tasting room (last week we had a bottle of Zinfandel for $5!) If you don’t want to spend $50 a bottle, then there are PLENTY of other options.

I like my wineries to give 100% effort and care on everything. Instead of making 900 different wines, focus on making a few great ones. I guess they want to be like the Ferari-Carano or Mondavi of Santa Clara. No thank you. More power to you if you want to be a billionaire, but I'll give my money to the little guys.”

We give 100% to every wine that we make. Some are made with less expensive ingredients (grapes that are cheaper to grow (more grapes per vine) and packaging—but it doesn’t mean that they are bad. There are many wines at different price points out there in the world. Some people may want an Everyday Chardonnay or Cabernet for $15 or less. Others may want a special occasion Pinot Noir for $50. And I personally, as a consumer, appreciate when wineries make more unusually varietals that cannot be found in stores or restaurants. Our wine club members like it too. Otherwise, you may never get to try a Grenache or a Marsanne Roussanne blend. Having small lots of different, eclectic varietals gives our winemakers a chance to experiment and come up with new and interesting things.

 I guess they want to be like the Ferari-Carano or Mondavi of Santa Clara. No thank you. More power to you if you want to be a billionaire, but I'll give my money to the little guys.”

This makes me laugh a little—comparing us to Mondavi…who makes MILLIONS of cases. We make 60-80K cases annually. That is TINY compared to Mondavi. And billionaire…ha. When my mom and I stop driving our Chevy’s, I will let you know. It is not easy to make money as a small/mid-sized family-owned winery (yes, we are under 100K cases annually and are still considered barely above a small winery).  This industry is really hard, especially right now. We have a nice place and people have a great time when they are here. It’s not a public park…we do have to pay money to keep this place looking good and running well. And if you choose to give us your money, we won’t gauge you. Your wine will be worth every penny.

Wine tastings are an interesting phenomenon. As the winery rep behind the table at a trade tasting (where wineries and wine shops come to try and hopefully buy our wine), it is very serious work, talking about the wines and gathering lead information on each account to follow up on later. If the tasting is well attended, then time flies and I leave with a stack of business cards and a bunch of new contacts to follow up with. Trade tastings are also a really good chance to touch base with fellow wineries, taste their wines and sneak a peek at their current marketing materials.

Working behind the table at straight consumer tastings as a wine professional is interesting, to say the least. In all honesty, most consumers are there to drink—not to learn anything about the wines. About 10% of consumers that are there are truly interested in the wines for purchase later….but those folks are few and far between.

And there is nothing wrong with that—consumers pay a decent amount of money to get in, and they should get their wine and have a good time. However, as a sales and marketing person and partial proprietor of a winery, there is nothing that is more painful than a consumer tasting…especially towards the end of the night when people are a little sloppy. Although it can be total entertainment too.  I have seen people that fall flat on their faces and have to be carried out. No joke.

Here are the top 5 things I love/hate about pouring at consumer wine tastings:

5. HATE: Consumers who think they know it all. Last week, I was trying to tell someone not to rinse her glass with water going from a Pinot to a Merlot. It waters down the next wine. If you must rinse a glass, take a tiny bit of wine, swirl and dump. And that’s pretty much only if you are going from a red to a white, or if the previous wine was faulty. But she got all pissy at me for trying to give her some expert (I have been doing these things for 11 years so consider myself fairly knowledgeable) advice and (politely of course) explain how she could enjoy our wine better. She walked away in a huff, saying she didn’t like the wine. Well duh, it was watered down you moron.

4. HATE: Consumers that spit all over the table. At a large wine tasting, spit buckets are necessary. But regular non-trade people just do not know how to spit. I always wear black to tastings because these people back-spray on me. And why do wine tastings always have white table cloths? It’s down right gross at the end of the evening.

3. HATE: Consumers that hold their glass out for a pour, and then pull it back really fast saying “oh that’s enough” while I am pouring. People, hear this. I am pouring you wine. If you pull back your glass, I will spill it. And I will probably spill it on you. Just let me finish my pour. If it is too much, that’s cool!  Take a sip, and dump what you don’t want. I am used to that from trade tastings. We all sip, spit and dump.

2. LOVE: Wine Tasting Fashion. Consumer wine tastings are great for people watching. The women especially. Some people get really decked out. I did three consumer tastings this past week; two of them it was snowing out and we were at a convention center (not the fanciest place in the world, that’s for sure). Some women were very casual with jeans, a cute top, boots, jewelry. The younger set (21-29) were DECKED out. We are talking bridesmaids dress type gowns with 5 inch heels. There is no place sit at tastings, everyone eats and drinks standing up. I felt so bad for some of these women at the end of the night. Also, everyone has giant purses to carry around…along with their glass, booklet of wines and wineries and a little plate of food. Cute purses, but seriously, who needs to be weighed down with all that? My advice for a wine tasting: be cute, of course….but comfortable. Wear dark colors (see #4), shoes that are fairly comfortable—expect to be standing. And bring a small bag you can put over your shoulder.

1. LOVE: When I am pouring with someone else—usually a distributor or agent—we often play the wine “guessing game.” While one of us covers the table, the other will head out to another table with both glasses and get tastes of a wine from another winery. Bring it back to the table and we play “guess what this is.” Usually it’s simple like the varietal, but when I was in Vancouver last week, my agent was guessing varietal and growing region within California. He even had a few right guesses on vintage. I was impressed.

Clos LaChance in Edmonton, Alberta

 Clos LaChance in Vancouver, BC

One wouldn’t know it from my latest rants, but there are some things about my job that I really enjoy. We have been working on a massive “un-labeling” project for the last month.  Basically, 2,000 cases of wine are being unlabeled and uncapsuled so we can re-label them under a different brand.

Why would anyone un-label already labeled wine? Well, it’s not something that we do all the time; however, in these wonderful economic times, a sale is a sale. I need to move some wine out of our  warehouse to get ready for the next vintage. And if someone wants to buy a large quantity of our wine with a different label on it, then so be it!  I will happily un-label the wine and then re-label with whatever TTB approved label they want.

We are doing this project with Hope Services, a local non-profit organization. They provide jobs and training for developmentally disabled adults. Clos LaChance has worked with Hope before, but for much smaller projects. And I had never dealt with them personally.

The steps in this particular un-labeling project are as follows:

1. Unpack the wine from the Clos LaChance custom case box
2. Place the wine into large tubs to soak label overnight

3. Break down the Clos LaChance custom case box and place on a pallet for pick up*

4. Save 12 bottle case insert for repackaging
5. Build new unbranded case box
6. Place 12 bottle insert into new unbranded case box
7. Once labels have soaked overnight, remove bottles from soaking bin

8. Scrape labels off bottles with plastic scraper thingy (not an easy task)

9. Use a little Bartender’s Friend to get the remaining label glue off the bottles
10. Dry and polish clean bottles

11. Remove tin capsules

12. Repack bottles into new case boxes and stack on pallets

*I was really concerned with recycling 2,000 wine case boxes. Recycling is the obvious choice vs throwing them away, but I really wanted them to have a higher purpose. I tried to find a way to reuse the boxes or store them at the winery, but the wine we were relabeling was in a smaller bottle from our current bottles. And when we buy bottles, they come with a case box anyways. About a week before the commencement of the project, an old friend from high school called me. She works at Second Harvest Food Bank, and was looking for recycled wine boxes to use for food deliveries.  Perfect! Second Harvest coordinated with Hope Services—and now they have 2,000 wine case boxes, with the pretty Clos LaChance logo splashed all over them.

I went to visit the crew at Hope Services last Friday to see how the project was running. Wow, what an amazing group of people that take immense pride in their work. A few of them thanked me….and expressed how much they loved this kind of work. One of them told me how he was working to save money—in hopes of buying his dad a car for Father’s Day in 2016. I was really touched by these people and the experience over all.   

Let me start this off on a POSITIVE note, so that all my blogs don’t seem like insane industry rants. I love working in the wine business. It truly is so much fun…and the people are great. I am proud to be part of a family business and I love drinking the fruits of our labors.

With that said, there are a number of things in this business that just kill me. To name a few:

-People that come to our winery for a picnic and bring a bottle of wine—from another winery. And then get angry at us when we tell them that they have to drink our wine at our winery. Ummm, not a public park people.

-The fact that I am going to Boston for an event at Harvard and I can’t ship my wine directly to the hotel or where I am speaking. It is illegal to ship wine into Massachusetts (for now, it will soon be legal, thanks to www.freethegrapes.org).  So I have to ship it to myself in New Hampshire (fortunately my relatives live there) and then schlep it down to Boston.

-TCA and corked wine. I want to go to screw cap with our Hummingbird Series reds for that exact reason. But the market won’t really accept it yet (at least that’s what the distributors advise us…and if a distributor doesn’t like something about a product then it will not sell.)

-The 100 people that have emailed, me Facebooked me, Twittered me, texted me or told me in person that they saw one of our wines in Trader Joe’s for $4.99. More on this….

I freaking love Trader Joe’s. I go there almost once a week for a lot of staples in my house. They have these simmer sauces that I use in my crock pot with lamb and chicken. Their tri tips are awesome, cheese, yogurts and cereal. My kids love the Turkey meatballs and frozen brown rice—genius for a busy working mom that doesn’t have 45 minutes to make rice on the stove after work.

And I now love them even more because they bought over 3K cases of one of our wines. The wine they purchased was one of our most popular in restaurants around the country, especially by the glass. But the economy went to crap 18 months ago. And the restaurant business was hit hard. Off by about 40-50% I hear. Well, guess what, our sales in for the now a Trader Joe’s “deal of the century” wine were off by about 50% as well. Leaving me with….you guessed it….3,000 cases when it was time to move to the next vintage.

Let me tell you something about wine that doesn’t sell. It has to be stored. And it costs money to store it. And then it costs more money to store the next vintage that is being held up because sales of the previous vintage are sluggish. 

Despite making a huge sale and potentially getting a new customer in Trader Joe’s, the $4.99 price absolutely kills me to see. That wine is a deal at $18, which is what we retail it for here at the winery (although it’s gone now, since TJ’s took the rest of it).  As a consumer, it makes me feel really good about shopping at Trader Joe’s…because they find amazing deals for their customers. But it hurts me as a brand manager because people see that price, they get excited and stock up. And remember that price. But then they see our wines again for the regular, higher price—well, their perception has changed.

This is the way things are right now. Closeouts in retail locations are the nature of the wine industry these days. It’s tough out there people. It’s not something I would choose to do…sell our wine at a discount to move inventory. The wine is good and if the economy was normal, no problem, business as usual. But we have to keep the lights on here at the winery, pay the staff and prune the vines. All of that costs money. Money that I got from Trader Joes for buying 3,000 cases.

So, the moral to this story. If you are my friend and have seen our wine for $4.99 at Trader Joe’s (only in California), don’t mention it to me…but buy a TON of it. If you are not my friend  and you are in California, buy it anyways, cause it’s a screaming deal. And get some of the Marsala simmer sauces with those turkey meatballs to go with it.

Our Office here at the winery is comprised of all women—and 1 token male (my dad). There are 7 of us, and we are all pretty tight. We eat lunch together on most days and chat about all kinds of things.  We have this silly thing that we do when someone does something well…..we will  say to each other “You are so Smart! And Beautiful!  And Skinny!”

One out of three ain’t bad (just kidding ladies). A study came out yesterday that wine can actually be good for our waistlines. 

A quick summary: A hospital in Boston followed about 20K healthcare workers over 13 years. What they found was that those that drank alcohol in moderation (1-2 glasses per day) on a regular basis gained about 3 lbs and those that did not gained 8 or more.

What I found really interesting is that women who drank alcohol and gained less weight over time appeared to ingest more calories than those that didn’t. Hmmm, I can drink AND eat more?? Sign me up!

I drink a glass or two of wine almost daily. I think it actually helps me to eat less. During the week, I give myself a choice—wine or dessert. Umm, wine ALWAYS wins, despite my sweet tooth. If I compared the calories in a few glasses of wine vs. dessert—then the compromise is healthier with the wine anyways so YAY.

One thing in the study is that it followed women that drank all kinds of alcohol (wine, beer and spirits).  “Consumption of red wine showing the strongest link with lower weight gain, and white wine showing the weakest, but still a significant association.” Bummer. I drink white wine during the week…red on the weekends. I find sometimes that red wine makes it harder for me to sleep. Maybe I will switch to red during the week and try to build up my tolerance slowly. I do love a good Pinot or Grenache, but sleep is way too important at this point in my life.

I look forward to the study that proves that wine makes us smarter and prettier.

I wrote about this before—that we have had a couple of big distributor changes in this past year. When you move distributors, one big negotiation point with your old distributor is the buying back of inventory they have in stock. In this situation, we took back most of our inventory from our old distributor—including splitting the cost of the onesie/twosie cases of very old stock (1997 Nebbiolo anyone?) that they had laying around in their samples warehouses (a whole other topic about having to manage our own inventory at our former distributor because they kept “finding” things from many years ago).  But one thing we refused to take back was 350+ cases of dry 2007 Rosé that they asked us to make specifically for them and one particular account.  Actually, they asked us to make 1,000 cases of that particular wine and only took 400. And then they wanted us to take back the 350 cases that they had been sitting on for a year and a half.

It’s really frustrating that they still had all this wine in inventory in the summer of 2009 when we made the change over.  One thing we know about Rosé is that it only sells well during the summer months.  So after they asked us to make it for them –and they bought it—in early 2008, they just sat on it until mid 2009, almost two Rosé selling seasons had gone by. They sold less than 40 cases of the 400 bought, never mind the remaining 600 cases of the total 1,000 they asked us to make for them. Why they didn’t sell it to the account that wanted it, I have no idea. Because again—they ASKED us to make it for them.  This is why I am still selling 2008 Rosé (which I only made a couple hundred cases of). I had to move over 600 cases of 2007 Rosé last summer.  Anyone remember the sale here at the Tasting Room??

So I see this week that our 2007 Rosé is stacked in a couple of Safeways for $2.99. I happen to know that is a huge loss for the distributor, they bought it from us for $5 a bottle. So when you put Safeways margin in there, the distributor probably lost at least $3.50 a bottle on the wine.

So why does that bother me? Well, it is not great for our brand to have wine under $3 in the stores. But since I am not making Rosé anymore it’s not that big of a deal.  But if they were doing that to an older vintage wine that my current distributor was trying to sell the current vintage of, there can be a big problem with consumer perception of the brand.

So what does that mean for you, Mr. or Ms. Wine buying consumer? Go to Safeway and stock up on Rosé for the summer.  It’s a deal. And you are the one that is winning big cause the regular price of that wine is $14 a bottle (usually around $8 or $9 in the high end grocery outlets). The wine is still really good and it will be great for summer BBQ’s and beach days.  And keep an eye on wineries that switch distributors. Because inevitably there will be some kind of inventory dispute and the distributor will “dump” some perfectly good wine in the marketplace at their loss.  Don’t let it reflect badly on the winery in your mind. Think of it as the deal of the century, stock up—and then continue supporting your favorite brands at the regular price.

Thank you—that is my rant for today. And that is all.

PS: For the record, the no Rosé thing makes me very sad because I personally love a dry, crisp Rosé in the summer. It’s the best thing ever. But I can’t sell it. And my 2010 New Year’s Resolution is to only make things that SELL.

So, to make a long story short, we were fortunate to find new wholesale partners in a couple of states. One in particular was where this “funny” story originated.

We left our wholesaler in Any State, USA the last day of November. We started with our new wholesaler the first day of December. Inventory was in place and ready to go with New Wholesaler. However, it was December. Anyone who works on the supplier side or the distributor side of the wholesale industry is very cognizant of the acronym that is OND (October-November-December). In the last quarter of the year, wholesalers buckle down and just sell. They don’t present new products (for the most part), they don’t do supplier ride-withs, and they very, very rarely launch new brands. So when we started in December, we knew that a kick off would be several months later. They were just taking orders if existing accounts needed wine.

One of the reasons that we informed our wholesaler that we were leaving only the day before we started with a new distributor is that we wanted to have a chance to protect our placements. When a winery leaves a distributor, it is pretty common practice for the reps at said wholesaler to go and replace all your shelf and list placements as soon as possible. It makes sense—the wholesaler wants to keep their share of the business at accounts. If a move to a new wholesaler is planned, it must be done with precision. Timing is everything—otherwise all your placements can vanish overnight and the new wholesaler is starting off at square 1.

However, if said account wants to continue carrying the brand—some distributors have been known to not provide the account with any information about the new distributor that is carrying the wine going forward. And this is where our story gets interesting.

So, one of Clos LaChance’s regional mangers went into a small, local chain restaurant in Any State, USA  (we will call it Jo’s Grill). Jo’s Grill had been a great customer of ours for a couple of years—having one of our wines on the regional corporate list. When we switched distributors, the wine buyer at Jo’s Grill asked our former distributor where he could buy the wine. It was on his list, his menus etc. To change the wine would be an expense to the restaurant. The distributor rep told the Jo’s grill buyer, his customer, that Clos LaChance had gone bankrupt and was no longer selling wine in Any State, USA .

Something I learned in my Public Relations career—always help a journalist out when they ask you a question—even if they are working on a story that is not about any of my clients. If you can point people in the right direction, it builds trust and a stronger long-term relationship.

I know sales can be a little more cut-throat then PR because there are commissions and actual dollars involved (i.e. I have to feed my kids now, vs. build this relationship and feed them later). But in my humble opinion, downright lying to a customer is not smart.

Well, karma is a bitch. Because I heard that the wine buyer at Jo’s Grill called our former distributor and tore them a new one when he found out they had lied. And, in that same phone call, the buyer returned a bunch of wine.  And bought a bunch of our wine. And put us back on the list. And the trust he has with his sales rep from our former distributor (and really the company as a whole) is   G-O-N-E. Is it really worth the small amount of dollars received by replacing our wine? Potentially losing all your business in an account if dishonesty is discovered? And it is pretty easy for someone to figure out if a winery has truly gone out of business or is no longer selling in a particular market. The Internet has provided everyone with information at their fingertips. In addition, most local ABC’s have online lists of brands and what wholesalers represent them.

I have only worked on the supplier side in this business, so I do not know the pressures of working in a distributor. I see it in the faces of the salespeople I know—it’s a tough job. But I believe honesty and a code of ethics are important in any business relationship.

Don’t think that I am bashing on distributors here—because we need them. They work hard and they are able to do things that we can’t.  And I find that most distributors are honest. I just thought this was an interesting story—and a lesson to accounts…especially if they have a good relationship with a particular winery. If, all of a sudden, the wine you love is not available, or the winery is not longer selling in your market….double check. Give the winery a call or drop an email (I would say that most wineries these days have a web site with contact info).

As any winery that does a majority of their business via the wholesale channel will tell you, business is tough. The number of wholesalers is shrinking due to consolidation while the number of wineries and brands continues to grow (there are over 6,000 wineries just in California now, did you know that?) The Clos LaChance brand has been growing continuously, however not as fast as we would like. The grapes are here, we have to pick them. It would be a giant waste if we didn’t process them and make wine.

So what do you do when you have a lot of wine, but can’t sell it through your existing brand’s channel? You put it under a different brand and sell it. To create a new brand and try to sell it into stores and restaurants would be counter-productive—the same wine would be competing with Clos LaChance for distributor attention. So we had the bright idea to pitch private labels to larger accounts. They get the Clos LaChance high quality wines, but under an exclusive label.

For about a year, this was decent business. And then we realized we were definitely not the only game in town doing private labels (so much for bright ideas). And frankly, larger wineries could do it cheaper and more efficiently then we could. New customers were scarce and existing customers were either not taking the wines they had promised or going with other wineries that could do it cheaper.

So, as quick as it started, we pared down our private labels —just a few select, very reliable customers/partners that take large quantities at a time.

Where did that leave us? Well, we have inventory to move. Inventory of labels that are not ours. The majority of the wine in the bottle is ours (outside of some California Merlot we bought in bulk and bottled for a large client). We have no channel to move it wholesale, so we gotta go direct.

So…if you are a fan of the Clos LaChance Chardonnay, Merlot, Meritage or Cabernet Sauvignon—these wines are a great deal. They are at least half off, some up to 75% our retail price for the SAME exact wine in the bottle.

We will ship as well. Prices start at $2 a bottle.

Here is the link online to the wines (we can’t put up what the brands are in order to protect our former customers).  We are updating these wines in real time as we sell out. Call or come down. Fill up your cellar with interesting conversation piece labels. And help us clean our cellar!

www.closlachance.com/cellarsale

You can call to place an order….or you can come to the winery and taste. There are a few wines we have limited inventory of—and they will be sold out pretty quickly.

I (Cheryl) am answering phones all day today (everyone in the office is) . If you know me, I am extension 101…call and order and say hi.

Last week, Blake Gray wrote a blog about exactly why Amazon.com pulled out completely of wine sales. It got me thinking about the long road that Amazon has gone through to come to this point. I first remember hearing about this well over a year ago….

I believe it was late last summer. I was contacted by the administrators at the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association regarding Amazon.com. Amazon had called them and was doing field work with local associations about what their plans were to sell wine on their site. I personally was intrigued about Amazon’s entry into online wine sales. I am a big fan of Amazon and buy a ton of stuff from them annually. I am  an Amazon Prime member as well, which means I get free two day shipping on things that come from them (vs. a third party retailer). This is a HUGE convenience for me. I do a ton of gift shopping on Amazon (last year, my husband and I sent a generator to his parents in new Hampshire who had been out of power for a week!) and even purchase a few things in bulk, like a certain kind of recycled paper towels I like. When my kids have a birthday party to go to on Saturday, I can buy something on Amazon on Wednesday and its at more door by Friday. A working mother’s dream, I tell you. Anyway, I digress. When I heard about the wine thing, I was excited. As a Prime Member, I would get free shipping on wine too!  And they were planning to have a huge selection of wine. Any winery that wanted to sell on Amazon could, was what I was lead to believe.

The initial meeting with the Association and Amazon.com was canceled because the main guy missed his flight. I was a little irritated by this because I left the office and drove to Aptos for the meeting. And they cancelled like half an hour before they were supposed to be there. But my love for Amazon is bigger than a missed afternoon in the office—but hey, I got to go to the beach that day instead. Maybe they did me a favor.

A few weeks later at the Annual Dinner for the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association, I met Thomas, a very nice gentleman from Amazon.com who had come to network with wineries and tell them about Amazon’s plans. We chatted, exchanged cards and that was that.

A few days later, Thomas was in touch with more details. At this point they were reaching out to all the Associations and everyone was buzzing about it.

After looking at the marketing proposal, we were excited about it too….however the logistics were kind of a pain in the ass. We would have to re-register all of our wines with the TTB so that we could use the fulfillment house. I also believe that we would have to re-register in certain states as well. I think the total cost per wine in licensing and set up was about $450. And the margins were a little slim. But having access to Amazon’s customer base, wow, the potential could be huge. Our plan was to proceed slowly, test it out and see how things would go with one or two wines on the site.  As it turned out, through another online retailer we worked with, we already had a wine registered with the fulfillment house (the now defunct New Vine Logistics). So we decided to start with that one and see how it goes.

And then the waiting game began. Every few weeks, we would get a nice email from Amazon, keeping us in the loop…but never giving us an exact launch date of the site.

And then New Vine Logistics went down.  I figured that had to be a huge set back to Amazon—fulfillment of wine is the most important component to their involvement in the wine sector—and it is such a giant pain. 50 different sets of laws, licenses to obtain, taxes etc. Every state has a different direct shipping law.

But as it turns out, the Amazon thing was delayed by something much bigger than the wine industries own regulatory nightmare.   Internet taxes, specifically in California. Since Amazon does not have a “bricks and mortar” shop in California, they do not have to charge taxes on products shipped to the state from Amazon.com. To sell alcohol in California, the regulations are such that a retailer needs to have a some kind of retail presence in the shape of a retail store in the state (even if it is just an office with a cash register).  However, if they opened a store here, then state taxes would have to be collected on EVERTHING Amazon sold in California. Yikes.

This is even more interesting to me because my husband—who worked at eBay for years and was a media consultant for NetChoice—is very passionate about this issue. I forwarded him Gray’s blog and he had a lot to say about it in terms of e-commerce in general. He was very articulate and intelligent, however I can’t recall anything he said about it specifically besides that it is very bad for consumers and e-commerce and free trade etc. etc. (sorry honey!).

I feel bad for the winery liaison Thomas. He was a pretty good communicator about what was going on—and obviously he got caught up in a much bigger issue. I hope he is still working there with a different department. There was obviously a ton of money and resources spent on Amazon’s entry into wine sales.…and I am sure Amazon had most of the site built before it all came crashing down.

I wonder how many wineries registered all their products and are out some $$?

What I think it all comes down to is that alcohol laws + Internet taxation laws =  a complete sh*tshow.  

For more information about Alcohol Direct Shipping regulations, please visit www.freethegrapes.org.

Ugh, i just have to post this because it is so unbelievably frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, I love distributors. Certain distributors. Basically any distributor that PAYS.

As you can imagine as the economy gets tough, the small distributors are really getting squeezed. I understand that and can be somewhat sympathetic. But we are also a small company. And when we don't get paid on time, it effects our business as well. 

Said distributor is in, lets say South Dakota, since I don't have one there (even though I am mad, I am not ready to call out the accused). We have a multi-state account...a chain of really great restaurants. And we worked HARD to get that account. They have several wines By The Glass and they have a couple of our higher end wines on the lists. Several of these restaurants are in South Dakota. In order to sell to them, I have to sell to my distributor who then sells to the restaurants. This distributor has owed me money since July. And has been a notoriusly slow pay for several years. The check is always "in the mail."

If I stop shipping to them, then the account doesn't get their wine and will most likely drop it off their list. Which could effect my business in the other states as well. Wine that WE sold to them....wine that the distributor in South Dakota is just collecting their mark-up on. The business was done in another state with someone our South Dakota distributor doesn't even know. It's FREE money if they just deliver the wine on time and to the right place. And pay us on time.

Normally, if a distributor doesn't pay me on time, i will not ship to them. But I need to to keep this account. And finding another distributor is very, very difficult at this time of year....well, really at all times of the year.  The number of suppliers continues to increase while distributors consolidate.  

And it is against the law to ship direct to an account outside of the state.

So basically, to keep my account, we have to continue going into the red with this distributor.

Oh, and WE got a bill from said distributor this week for samples. Are you kidding me??

The three tier system is great when winery-distributor-account all do their job. But when one of the parts is broken, the whole thing collapses.

We are having a big sale. November 12-15. Online and at the winery.

Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay and Pinot Noir
Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petite Sirah
SSS Meritage and Rhone Blend
Late Harvest Semillon and Zin Port

and MORE.

50% off, online and here at the winery. Certain varietals are really limited...so its while supplies last. 

Thursday the 12: sale preview for Wine Club Members Only.  We will be open till 8pm that evening. Friday-Sunday, 11-5pm.

Stock up for the holidays at half the price!!