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!!

It's going to rain tomorrow. Actually, its going to storm tomorrow.

As of last week, our harvest was still under 50% complete.

What happens to wine grapes when it rains? They get wet.  If the rain only lasts for a day or two, the grapes will dry out and the harvest can continue. However, it the rain lasts for more then a day or two, the grapes are susceptible to rot. Also, the ground is wet and the tractors carrying the picking bins can't get into the vineyard. 

This one looks like a 2 day storm. That's what we are banking on here. So we will be back in the fields collecting the grape bounty on THURSDAY.

My dad, typical of the high tech executive that sees a problem and wants to come up with a resolution, sends an email to one of our winemakers this morning saying "It's going to rain tomorrow. What's the plan?"

Our winemaker's answer? "Pray."

New stuff is fun. A few of the new things we have going on around here this month:

-New Web site header....we finally changed it to a little cleaner, more modern look. What do you think?

-New events: Time for Wine Live is coming to a close next week. We will have two more Time for Wine Happy Hour events this year, but with a twist:

October 15--Time for Wine Raw, featuring Bill the Oyster Man.  You guessed it...live and bbq oysters for $1.50 each. We will also have special wine flights that pair well with oysters and Bill's amazing sauces.

October 29: Time for Wine BOO, featuring the Harvest Zombies. Who says adults can't have fun on Halloween too? Come in costume and prepare to be judged for the costume contest. Flashlight tours of the winery--be prepared to be scared. And wine flights paired with your favorite Halloween candies.

-New cool tool on our bottling line: this may not seem like a big deal, but  to us it is the best thing ever. We got a case printer tool for our bottling line. There is certain information that legally needs to be on the outside of a case....(same that is on a label). We were printing one extra label per case for all our wines. In addition, there are certain distributors, accounts, countries that need what is called an SCC code on the outside of the case as well. Ugh...it was a giant pain to put labels on these cases just for these customers. SO, the investment in the case printer made sense. And it makes things a lot easier for everyone.

Harvest is still underway. The crew is getting really busy since it was so hot last week. But it is supposed to cool down this weekend. Interesting, long season this year.

Its our Annual Investor's Dinner tonight. This is what we are eating, thanks  Le Papillon (www.lepapillon.com).

Clos LaChance Investor’s Dinner
With Le Papillon Restaurant
September 21, 2009

……………………………

 Roasted Tomato Gelée with Parmesan and Balsamic Caviar
Lobster Tartare on Brioche
Minced Quail Tart with Tart Apples and Truffle Glaze
Gougeres
Cucumber-Elderflower Water
&
Clos LaChance Tasting

 …………………………… 

Slow Poached Alaskan Halibut with Toasted Milk Puree, Preserved Lemon and Confit Grapes
&
2007 Liebeler Chardonnay

……………………………

Duck Ravioli with Sour Cherry and Duck Skin Brittle
&
2006 Biagini Pinot Noir

……………………………

 Berkshire Pork Tenderloin with Hibiscus Reduction, Smoked Maple and “Chicharones”
&
2006 Lila’s Cuvee

……………………………

 Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Coffee Jus and Meritage Braised Plum
&
2005 SSS Meritage

 ……………………………

 Gorgonzola Dolce Soufflé with Poached Figs
&
NV Zinfandel Port

 ……………………………

 Fresh Peaches with Jasmine Tea Custard and White Chocolate Torte
&
2006 Nectar

Wow, its September 1 already. After a few drips and drabs of Sauvignon Blanc that came in last week, the heat this past weekend (106 in San Martin...yikes!) made everything jump about 2 degrees brix. Now all the Sauvignon Blanc is perfectly ripe at about 23.5 degrees Brix. We should have it all in the winery by Saturday.

We think there will be a bit of a lull until the end of next week. Then we should be picking the Viognier and Muscat Blanc. We think a few of the smaller Pinot Noir vineyards will be ready to come in as well. We will probably be crushing and pressing all at once! We expect the harvest crew will be going full force starting next week. Time for the office to bring you guys/gal lunch, no?

In terms of yield, the Sauvignon Blanc came in exactly on target at 5.5 tons per acre. And "on target" almost never happens. Go figure. Are we in for that "normal" vintage that we keep waiting for?

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet with a visiting wine writer and her photographer husband from the UK (remind me to come back in my next life as a wine writer. She has been all over the world...drinking wine. That is my kind of life). We tasted the fermenting (almost done) Sauvignon Blanc juice we brought in last week, straight from the tank. Really great flavors and incredible acidity. I asked Jason about it today and apparently that block is the "acidity" component of our Sauvignon Blanc. It came in around 20 brix. The grapes we are harvesting this week are the Musqué clone, which is even more aromatic and flavorful then the grapes we brought in last week. I can't wait to try it.

The Lockeed Fire in the Bonny Doon area of the Santa Cruz Mountains has me thinking about smoke taint in grapes. The fire has been raging for over a week (it’s close to being contained, thankfully) and even though we are located more in the valley, the skies are smoky. I am certainly not worried about our Estate Vineyard—the fire is definitely too far away. However, our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vineyards in the Mountains may be affected.

Last year there were a ton of fires all over the state. We even had the Hummingbird Fire right here on property. Thankfully, nothing was damaged and the wines so far show no smoke taint. The wind was blowing the other way…and there was very little smoke in our valley here.

Others are not so lucky. I was talking to a winemaker from a Mendocino winery (Mendocino was hit with fire pretty hard last year) a few weeks ago and he is basically considering throwing out an entire lot of 2008 wine. He said that it smells and tastes like an ashtray. He was trying reverse osmosis and all kinds of other flavor profile types of things to try and fix it, but was not seeing much success. That is scary to me. Because if you throw away the wine you lose the vintage. Of course the revenue is important as well, but if the wine is something that is sold in the broad market—and all of a sudden the winery is out for a year? What do you think happens to all those wine list, byt the glass and retail shelf placements? GONE. And then when the next vintage actually becomes available—it’s like starting all over.  However, on the other hand, if the subpar wine is bottled, the damage to a brand could be catastrophic.

The fires in 2008 were definitely more substantial then they have been this year. Last year, it felt like the whole state was on fire for 2 months. The  fires this year seemed to come later in the growing season (post verasion and closer to harvest vs. prime time cluster development in 2008).

In any case, fire is devastatingly scary…..and our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by the Lockheed Fire this year. I remember the long night our family had last year when the Hummingbird Fire was burning through the hills right across from the winery. We had no information and the roads were closed. Tom, facilities manager to the stars, actually got past the road block and hiked in around midnight to check on the building. We were very fortunate.

A quick update from Jason, one of our superstar Assistant Winemakers.

We think harvest is going to start with Sauvignon Blanc grapes coming in maybe as soon as next week (if this heat holds up). 

 Jason is discussing here what the production team is doing now and until the grapes start coming in.

My PR agency, the awesome Benson Marketing Group, suggested that I do a meet and greet with some local wine bloggers....to get the CLC name and wines out there (really an ongoing, never ending quest to build a brand). I have been working with my family winery for over 10 years now, but prior to this job (not really a job anymore as it is a LIFE), I used to work at a PR agency. Up until last night, I felt like I had a handle on how the media and PR works. Granted I was an Account Manager for software, networking and other high tech stuff that I really didn’t care at all about. And wine is much more fun. But it got me thinking about how different things are when working with journalists and writers then it was “back in the day.”

-Liza (from wwwbrixchicks.com) was tweeting and posting pictures throughout the evening. So basically, we were broadcast live via her twitter. Melanie (from CLC) and I also posted pics and tweeted. Sarah, our fearless PR rep from Benson tweeted too. Back in the day, the meeting would happen, I would follow up with said writer and then we would wait. And follow up. And wait. Weekly pubs were good, cause the client would see immediate (within a week or so) results from the meeting. But monthly long leads. Ugh….3-4 months later sometimes before we would see anything. Twitter has changed all that, making everything LIVE. And ANYONE can tweet, not just the journalist. And immediately after the meet and greet, Amy from www.cookingwithamy.com posted something about us on her Twitter.  

-A full story about the wines, me, the winery, with pictures was posted by midnight last night by Liza (http://www.brixchicks.com/2009/07/nectar-and-hummingbirds-review-of-clos.html). Back in the day, I would follow up, a photographer would come out (if the story was slated to run) and then we would once again WAIT. There is no waiting anymore!  It was kinda cool to wake this morning and see the Google Alert on my Blackberry about Liza’s story.

-This is comparing apples and oranges—but the wine industry is so much more fun than high tech was back then (although with social networking, Apple and other cool companies, I think high tech is a lot more fun now then in 1999).  We sat around at a fun wine bar, drank wine, ate truffled popcorn and cheese and just chatted. There was no powerpoint presentation, no demos, no stress. Having a glass of wine with other people that also like wine. That’s pretty much how the evening went.

-One thing will always remain the same…..never count on the media to show up until they walk in the door. As a young PR pup, I would schedule meetings for press tours with clients, invite them to various events and schedule phone interviews. Inevitably, people would be no shows. Last night, we had 6 people confirmed to come and 2 showed. I know how it is…things come up (I have two kids….things are ALWAYS coming up). But in PR, at least one thing will always remain the same. No matter how much I or my PR folks follow up, there will always be media no-shows.  Once, when I was on a press tour in New York with a networking client (back in the day), my client was so excited about a meeting with a big wig at Fortune Magazine. And I was psyched to even get the meeting! We schlepped all the way to midtown from an analyst’s office in Soho. Got up to the office and turns out he was on vacation. Ugh, that was not fun. And then we had two hours till our next meeting. So I got to go sit at coffee with my pissed off client trying to explain what happened (I still don’t know what happened). I think I fu**ed something up big time. Probably explains why I am no longer employed by such agency.

PR is a never ending process. Someone on the agency side once told me that Public Relations is like a garden….you plant the seeds and watch them grow. But it always needs careful tending. Sounds kinda cheesey, but it resonates a little. It’s a never ending process and one that has become a lot more work lately. If I can make every meeting like last night—fun, laid back, quick (positive) results—then I am happy to take care of the garden.

As the old song says, breaking up is hard to do. We recently broke up with a distributor. For the last 8 years, we have been distributed by Regal Wine Company in the state of California ( huge portion of our overall business). In July, we made a change to Southern Wine and Spirits—the American Wine and Spirits division.

There are a number of business reasons why we made the change at this time. But what I have been thinking about is how changing wholesalers is really like breaking up with someone. Over 8 years, we made some great relationships with the sales people and management at Regal. And when we made the decision to leave….well, there is a strange awkwardness now with our former pals.  Some won’t even talk to us—which is understandable, since some of the salespeople’s livelihoods comes from selling our wine.  But business is business….it’s never personal. And we had to do what we did in order to keep Clos LaChance’s brand sustainable and growing according to plan.

The wholesaler-winery relationship is a weird one and hard to understand unless you are in the business. When I first started with CLC 10 years ago, there was much more of a “kiss up” mentality from the wholesaler to the supplier (winery/me). I was wined and dined and told all these wonderful things about what said wholesaler (I’m talking about wholesalers in general, not Regal or Southern at this time) could do for our brand. Sometimes their promises were fulfilled, sometimes not. But the love was there. Always.

These days, the tables have totally turned. There has been so much consolidation of wholesalers across the country—and a huge boom in the number of wineries and brands—both in California and Internationally (competition…at lower price points!!) Before a wholesaler will even consider taking on our brand there needs to be proof in the pudding. Numbers, media reviews, sales incentives, winery sales people and sales dollars available. We are fortunate to have a top-tier private golf course right next to us…which has been a draw for wholesalers and accounts (they ALL play golf…. I need to get better at that game…..would love to spend the day outside golfing vs. at my desk, well blogging.)  But now we need to show the love. Which I am happy to do—it’s just an interesting dichotomy to ponder.  

I will miss a lot of the people we have worked with at Regal. They were a good company and helped us a lot. But the future looks bright. I look forward to all my new soon to be friends at Southern and American.  We have been there only for two weeks so far—and the sales people are genuinely excited to be working with the Clos LaChance brand.  

Yep, breaking up sucks. But new relationships are exciting, thrilling and something to look forward to.