Category: General

It’s that time of year again when we start to get dozens of letters and emails, even phone calls, from wine competitions asking us for entries. In the past we’ve entered the SF Chronicle’s competition. We did that mostly because a few people over the years have been less than supportive and we wanted them to know we’re still around. Spite entry actually.

This year though when the Chronicle called I had to tell them no. We don’t have enough wine to even give them 6 bottles to enter, much less the case we have to give them if we win something. So there will be no wine competitions entered this year.

I’m not sure if we’ll enter one again. Probably not I think, but we may decided to again, you never know.

Last year I had a series of postings about our results and business planning. I started with an update on the state of the wine industry that I mentioned our Q1 results in. I then followed up with our Q2 results in another post.

Those two generated a lot of conversation with regular readers and followers of the blog so I wrote two more pieces. One about our business planning and then a follow up when the plan was complete.

Stefania hasn’t totally finished closing out the books on Q4 and 2010, but she’s close enough to get me a few numbers to share. We finished the year with record revenue from wine sales (I track vineyard revenue too, but separately). We were up 61% in total. I had predicted a conservative estimate of up 40%, but thought 60% might be possible.

Wholesale sales were up 283% from 2009. I guess I was right. We could do a better job than the distributors I fired in 2009, 283% better. Everything was a new high for us in 2010, direct sales, wholesale and total.

At our meeting in September we had three options for 2011. One was to finance and build out a complete new winery operation. Option two was to build out a partial winery operation, keeping crush and fermentation at Chaine d’Or and moving storage and bottling to a new facility. The third option was to focus on debt reduction and paying ourselves back some of the money we’ve invested so far.

For right now we’re going with option three. Stef is now getting a paycheck and we’re committed to paying me back for all expenses I have in 2011. We’ll use that to pay off debt we’ve used so far to finance the winery. We’ll reevaluate at the end of Q1 and Q2 as usual and things may change if sales keep up at that high level.

The low crop levels in 2010 were a big factor. We would have been out of room at Chaine d’Or if crop levels were normal in 2010, but because they were so low we have enough room there in 2011 to meet our plans. That’s taken some of the pressure off the need to expand. We also were not crazy about taking on another $60k-$100k in debt.

We’d like to see if we can get in a position by next year where we can finance that amount on our own or with a small group of private investors. The banks we’ve talked to are most interested in tying a loan to real estate and we’re just not anxious to tie the house to the winery at this point. We think we could do better offering a real good rate to private investors in small amounts, so that’s more likely what we’d do.

In any event we’re excited that 2011 will be a good year.

Every so often we get a note from a friend that they’ve brought our wine to a big tasting or dinner and they’ll share the list of wines with us. We got one last week from a friend in Miami and the list was impressive:

2005 Bodegas Nekeas Vega Sindoa El Chaparral Old Vines Granache
1969 Chapoutier La Bernardine Chateauneuf du Pape
1995 Chapoutier La Bernardine Chateauneuf du Pape
2001 Turley Estate Petite Syrah
1989 Chapoutier Monier de la Sizeranne Hermitage
2001 Domaine Tempier Cuvee Speciale La Migoua
2003 Clos des Papes (Vincent Avril) en magnum
1985 Paul Jaboulet Aine Hermitage la Chappelle
2001 Roger Sabon Le Secret des Sabon
2003 Le Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf du Pape
2007 Chateau Mourges du Gres Terre d’Argence
1998 Guigal La Mouline Cote Rotie
2003 Chateau Rayas Reserve Chateauneuf du Papes
2007 Stefania Eaglepoint Mendicino Syrah
2000 DuMol Eddie’s Patch Syrah

A list like this always reminds me of the first time I took a barrel sample out for people to try. It was at a dinner in Maryland and everyone decided that the perfect time to try my little plastic bottle full of wine was right beside a 1999 Joseph Phelps Insignia and a 1995 Ridge Montebello. That’s a high pressure moment.

We’ve always done really well at these type of events though and we actually get lots of sign ups from people once the price comes out. Our wine is usually the least expensive by a wide margin.

I love hearing these stories now, so if you take one of our wines to an event, let us know how it did.

Our friend Noelle posted pictures from our trip on her Facebook page and I stole my favorites.

Our Group.

Our fearless leader being a dork.

Fresh shrimp in cream sauce. We cooked every night except for the night of the football game. I think we went through just under 30 bottles of wine.

View from the deck of the Space Needle. Noelle took a great video of the fireworks show on New Years Eve.

We had sunny blue skies every day.

The view over Lake Union from the balcony. Watching seaplanes was a major distraction for everyone.

We did lots of shopping in Pike’s Place Market. Lots of fresh seafood, cheese, a great duck and veggies.

It was cold for us Californians though with highs in the low 40’s. We bundled up all the time.

We also spent a day in Woodinville tasting wine.

A great trip with great friends and Stefania had another fun birthday!

Stefania and I have both had a cold since we got back from Seattle but Saturday morning we still decided to get out and prune the little church vineyard.

Santa Teresa Catholic church is around the corner from us in San Jose along Calero Avenue. We’re not sure who put the vineyard in but it’s now about 5 years old. The church is on our regular route to the Post Office, gas station and local independent coffee shop. A few years ago we notice that the vines were in terrible shape so I stopped by one day and told Father Chris I’d volunteer to take care of them.

There are just 20 plants and it’s only 20-30 hours a year we have to put in, so it’s not much of a burden to help keep the neighborhood looking nice.

Here you can see that it is a suburban vineyard, right along the street and next to the fire station. The trunks on the plants are a little funky from the first couple of years of neglect before we took over.

We have been able though to get the cordons and spurs trained properly as you can see below.

The plants are very low to the ground so it’s a little hard to work, but not impossible. We’ve had to replace a few of the plants that died as well and the little ones are doing good. The little spot actually produces about 250 pounds of grapes. We’ll continue to keep up on it all through the year.

In the trade magazines we get there have been lots of articles about direct marketing to your customers via the phone. It’s the latest greatest craze. All the articles say that bigger wineries should even have a full time person who calls customers to make special offers, tell them about new releases and offer wine at discounts. These articles say smaller wineries should call as well and dedicate time to the effort.

Many of the wine boards have had discussions about wineries that have called them. Usually the call is about some sort of discount or special offer. Normally the tone of these discussions is that the wineries must be desperate to make a sale. From what I’ve read though it’s just the start of a new trend of direct marketing.

We’re not going to participate in this trend. We promise.

We do ask for a phone number when people sign up. We do that because UPS and GSO ask for a phone number when we ship. In case someone has forgotten to include it on their order form we can fill the info in without bothering them.

We have also used that sign up number a couple of times to call people when we had a question about an order they’ve placed. Usually we will try email first, but once or twice we’ve had to call. The only other time I can recall us using a phone number is when we’ve been going out to dinner with someone, either them visiting San Jose, or us visiting them and we’ve needed to call to coordinate plans.

That’s it, that’s the only time we’ll use your phone number.

We also will never sell any information, emails, phone numbers, nothing to third parties. We have been contacted in the past with interest in buying our mailing list, and I’ve flat out refused to consider it. That also will never change.

We do love it though if you email us, or call, and especially when you come visit. Don’t stop that please!

Every other year Paul takes me on a trip for New Years and my birthday. This past weekend was our year away and we spent it in Seattle with 6 of our friends. What a blast!

The condo we rented on Lake Union had a gorgeous view of the Olympic mountains, overlooked the lake and had an unobstructed view of the Space Needle. At 11:59 New Years Eve they light up the Space Needle with an eight minute long fireworks display, it was fantastic!! We popped a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon to toast the new year and promptly fell asleep at 12:12 a.m.

On Sunday we attended the Seattle Seahawks vs. St. Louis Rams game. After watching the Rams stomp, squish and otherwise annihilate the 49rs just the week before I thought for sure they would win and take the championship title. What a surprise!

Not knowing that the Seahawks are hosting the Saints this coming Saturday, I wore my Saints T-Shirt underneath a newly acquired Seahawks sweatshirt to the airport on our way home. I mention this only because I told the TSA agent that no, I was not going to remove my sweatshirt, and claimed I was shirtless underneath…”you want me to pass security in my bra? I don’t think so”. I got the full female pat down, which, for the record, is faster than taking the shirt off and on and less hassle with hair, glasses, earrings getting caught, etc. I figure he must have been a Rams fan…

At the market after we got home I couldn’t help myself with a bag of fresh cranberries…with no plan on what to do with them I bought them anyway, and a fresh pineapple. After unpacking and settling in a bit, I got online and found a recipe for fresh made cranberry juice. It’s amazingly easy.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5036084_make-cranberry-juice-fresh-cranberries.html

I like that on the weblink there is a Top Five Things to Try list and 3 contain alcohol, woohooo!

Cheers and Happy New Year everyone!

We’ve been pretty quiet the last few weeks. Stefania has wrapped up shipping and that kept her busy. Last Saturday we went to the winery to top up barrels. That’s been about it.

Thursday though we’ll start in with our vineyard work for 2011. Pruning will start and as usual we’ve waited until after the full moon. We could have started Tuesday but it’s been raining and it’s really not a task to do in the rain if we can avoid it. I’ll try to get some pictures up as we work through all the vineyards. Before and afters especially and maybe a video or two on pruning techniques.

Our next major tasks in the winery won’t come until after the 1st of the year when we’ll start racking the 2010’s as well as any 2009’s that need it.

Many of you who have come to visit us over the years have gotten to meet our friend Millie. If not at the winery, then at our home over a bottle of wine.

Millie has been helping us from the very start of Stefania Wine. There is literally not a single vine nor single bottle that she has not personally touched along the way. She’s put in vineyard posts for us, planted vines, pruned, sprayed, driven the tractor a hundred times. She’s bucketed wine at the press and done punch-downs on every lot. She’s put wine into barrel and been there for bottling day.

She’s hooked up electricity when we’ve needed it and built or fixed dozen of things we use in the vineyard and winery. Her usual job at bottling was to lift every single case of glass and start it on the bottling line. She’s been covered in dirt, and sweat and wine more than once. There’s no one we owe more to than Millie.

So many of you know Millie because she is so easy to talk too, quick to make a friend and generous in her spirit. There’s nothing she enjoyed more than hanging out in our backyard and talking wine with people from all over the country.

This month Millie decided to move to Colorado to help her sister with a new house she’d purchased. We had a going away party for her and gathered friends to say good bye. We all hope that she’ll decided to come back and that her stay is just temporary. Everyone will miss her a great deal.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve gotten together with other friends and of course they’ve asked about Millie and we’ve told them about her move. Our friend from Tennessee asked Stefania and I how we’d cope with her being gone in the winery and vineyards. We didn’t have an answer for him. It was in fact the first time we’d even thought about it. For us we’ve just been completely focused on her friendship. Getting her off on her trip safely and encouraging her to come back and visit us. We’d only missed her as a friend and hadn’t thought about how it would impact the business.

We know that Stefania Wine will cope and we will figure out a way. For both Stefania and I though the personal relationship is so much more important. We wish Millie the best in Colorado. We do hope she will come back to us some day and we always will value her friendship, her great heart and all she’s done for us.

Paul and Millie.