East Bay Business Times
July 4, 2008
Whether being made in the Livermore or Suisun valleys or the warehouses of Oakland and Berkeley, East Bay wines are gaining a reputation for quality. The Business Times checked in with several winemakers to get insight into the business, its challenges and its future. Their comments have been edited for brevity.
Rhonda Wood
Wood Family Vineyards, Livermore
www.woodfamilyvineyards.com
Rhonda Wood, a former US Airways pilot, is also one of a small group of East Bay women winemakers. After making beer in her Fremont home, she decided to switch to wine and planted 18 vines. In 1995, she and her husband, Michael, the CFO of Pacific Coast Trane, purchased a Merlot vineyard in Livermore and began making wine, with the first commercial release in 2000. Since then they've produced a variety of wines, including Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Wood Family Vineyards is a true family business. Their 16-year-old son delivers wine, and he and his 14-year-old brother both help out at events.
What was the best thing you did?
The development of our name and logo (the back of a Woody with two surfboards sticking out and a vineyard in the background). Our neighbor Darcy Kent painted our logo. Being able to see our personality and put it in a painting was great. There's so much the Woody personifies - the classic car, pack it all up and take off for the weekend. People can have a great label, but you have to have great wine. So to have both is nice. We also started small, with 168 cases, then 330, 660 and 880 and now do between 1,200 and 1,400 cases, depending on the year. That's the capacity of the building right now. In order to increase we'd have to build another building.
What was your biggest mistake?
Not building a big enough building for winery production purposes. The doors are not big enough. We can get a forklift in there, but it's a warehouse forklift.
Giselle Vezer
Operations manager, Vezer Family Vineyards, Suisun Valley
www.vezerfamilyvineyard.com
After immigrating from Canada, Frank Vezer started a general industrial contracting business and settled in Fairfield. He and his wife, Liz, bought a farm with vineyards and built a winery, while selling grapes to other wineries. They produced their first vintage, a Zinfandel, in 2003 and since then have produced several reds and one white, Verdelho. The couple purchased a group of historic buildings at Mankas Corner, using them for their tasting room and a café and deli. They will open their second winery, the Blue Victorian Vineyards, in September. It will be the first winery in Suisun Valley with indoor event space and will accommodate up to 200 for banquets.
What was the best thing you did?
Listen to Liz. Liz Vezer does all the blendings and tastings, and she's an amazing talent. And also a great cook. The best thing we ever did was listen to her and a little less to some of the experts that were telling us what to do.
What advice can you offer to others who might want to make wine?
Never forget why you're doing it. For a lot of people after a while, it turns into a pour and ignore situation. It's really all about the enjoyment of wine and company and good food. It's about taking your time in your wine tasting. Don't rush people in and out. Make people feel welcome. Treat wine tasting as if it's a special experience. Without them and without them purchasing your wines, you won't be able to succeed. (In some wineries) the relaxed atmosphere is being lost. It's a lost art.
Carolyn Wente
President, Wente Vineyards, Livermore
www.wentevineyards.com
Carolyn Wente is part of a family that has become a household name in wine. Their winery is also the oldest family-owned, continuously operated winery in the state and is now managed by the fourth and fifth generations. With an annual production of 300,000 cases, Wente Vineyards is the largest winemaker in the East Bay and produces 10 different wines using grapes from Livermore Valley and Aroyo Seco (Monterey). The company's most popular wines are its Riva Ranch Chardonnay, Morning Fog Chardonnay and Southern Hills Cabernet.
You've been in the wine business for a long time. What are the biggest changes you've seen?
The number of wineries. In California there were a handful of wineries in the 1970s - fewer than 100. Today there are over 1,700. Also, the rise in northwest wineries during that same time. The second thing is the consumption rate in the U.S. and how wine has surpassed beer. That happened two years ago.
What are the greatest challenges Wente faces these days as a winemaker?
The continuing competition for the consumer's share of wine. Thirty years ago consumers were very brand loyal and now they're very trial-oriented and not so brand loyal. It's changed the way we market our wines and how we connect with the consumer. It's one of the things that has led to the lifestyle businesses we have created - from the restaurants to the concert series to the golf courses. People can come to the wine country, taste your wine and connect with you.
Herb Houston and Debbie Gebeyehu
Enat Winery, Oakland
www.enathoneywine.com
Creating a market for an unusual kind of wine is almost as difficult as making the wine itself. Just ask Herb Houston and Debbie Gebeyehu, who have been making the Ethiopian honey wine known as Tej since 1999. "The bad part of this business is that it's a whole new type of wine. It's an acquired taste. People have to go to Ethiopian restaurants and then they look for it," said Gebeyehu. They launched the business with Gebeyehu's mother, Enat's, recipe and now sell about 200 cases a month to restaurants and specialty-wine stores across the United States and in London.
What was the best thing you did?
There are two things. We followed my mother's recipe. And we purchased the warehouse we're in.
What was your biggest challenge?
The supplies are expensive. We didn't have too much money for marketing, and resources are mainly geared toward the big wineries. There's not too much for small mom-and-pop types. We had to do a lot of shopping around to get supplies. Also, we're doing it all ourselves, and as we need help, we get some temporary help.
What advice can you offer to others who might want to make wine?
Start small and ensure the quality stays the same. You can't industrialize. You can't expand rapidly. It has to be really controlled. Stay natural. We're not into chemical additives.
Adam Nelson
Two Mile Wines, Berkeley
www.twomilewines.com
Eight guys, most in their mid-30s - a couple work in biotech, a business strategist, two chemists and a behavioral consultant among them - decided to get together and have a good time, and make some wine. That was in 2002, and the wine became so popular among their friends that the group decided to take it commercial in 2006. They began by sharing a warehouse in Berkeley with A Donkey and Goat Winery, but recently moved into their own space, an old screw factory on San Pablo Avenue. Now one of them, Adam Nelson, runs the business part time and another runs sales. One serves as lead winemaker and another assistant winemaker and a third handles financial matters.
What was the best thing you did?
Keep the right pace. The trick is to make sure you're not growing too quickly or too slowly. Staying below 2,000 cases is very important for being successful. We're at 1,000 now. Our plan is to not exceed the 2,000-case limit, because then you need more capital. It's important to focus on a few wines. Building a brand around a few wines. Our 2006 vintage produced five, and we did three in 2007 and 2008. Those are the wines we're building our brands on. It also was good rooming with another winery when we started. We learned a lot.
What was your biggest mistake?
Where should I begin? It was a mistake to make so many wines the first year we went commercial, but I'm afraid my biggest mistakes are yet to be revealed to me.
East Bay Business Times
