NorthBay biz looks at the last 35 years in the North Bay wine industry—whether it’s changing trends, refocused branding or emerging technology, success comes down to knowing your consumer and staying true to the region.
The learning curve
“What doesn’t that period cover, when it comes to the wine industry here?” says Honore Comfort, executive director of the Sonoma County Vintners. “It’s the short history of wine. The important thing is that wine has evolved, it’s come so far in terms of quality and recognition. And that is, I think, because we understand the place so much better. We’ve come to understand that Chardonnay does best here, Cabernet does best there, Zinfandel is thrilling in that little nook. When we make Pinot Noir, it’s no longer a shadow of Cabernet. It’s different. It’s unique.”
She talks of chatting with Louis Foppiano, who showed her a county map from the early 1980s. “I don’t think there were 20 wineries depicted on that map!” she says in wonder. “I was talking with Nick Frey [director of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission], and he says there are 450 wineries in the county today, and that 250 of those are routinely open to the public. That’s an astonishing amount of growth. And think of the number of appellations that are recognized now: More than 190 AVAs in the United States today, and we have some new ones in the application process for Sonoma County.
“Know, too, that these newcomers bring an increased savvy in marketing and an increased overall sophistication to our business. Wine, in the past, has been slow to adopt new marketing and distribution techniques, but that’s all changed. It used to be a cottage industry, a small family industry. The newcomers bring corporate America experience, business expertise, research and forecasting knowledge to bear, and everything changes for the better. It’s not just in the larger wineries. Everybody benefits. We’re listening to the consumer more and reacting more quickly to the knowledge we’ve gained. The whole of the wine industry has shifted. We’re not just a local business anymore. It’s not just Sonoma County or even just California. We’re a global business, with global pressures and global opportunities. Our wineries are reaching out to Canada, the United Kingdom, Asia and the rest of the world. It’s an exciting time.”
Comfort grew up in Oakland and earned her bachelors degree in art history from UC Berkeley. “Oh, we’re all Golden Bears in my family!” She then took her MBA and MAA (master of arts administration) at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (“It was the only school that offered both”) before embarking on a career that melded her love of the arts with a keen sense of marketing. She was director of print media for Macy’s West in San Francisco, worked as director of marketing for Pezzi King Winery (Dry Creek Valley), as group brand manager for Foster’s (the Penfolds and Wynn’s brands, from Australia), and was brand manager for Rosemount Estate for Southcorp (another Aussie outfit).
As such, she suggests one of the biggest shifts over the last 35 years has come from the explosion of direct-to-consumer sales. “This has created a great opportunity, especially with the recent economic downturn. The impact of using the tasting room more effectively, implementing a website and starting a wine club has created a connection to the consumer that you can’t get in any other way. And that’s vital in an industry that prides itself on having its customers ‘know’ its producers, the winemakers. The wine club is the Holy Grail. It’s a game changer. Consumers like them, because they’re recognized and they’re rewarded. They get that ‘inner circle’ feeling. Add social networking to the mix—Twitter, Facebook and the like—and wineries can really use them to their advantage. It’s very easy and it’s very personal. People want to know the people behind the wines. Hey, it’s a personality-driven business, now more than ever before, and people want to know the choices the growers and winemakers have made to create each wine.”
What that gets you to is brand loyalty, and nothing is more important in a business that’s made up of so many small parts. “Yes, brand loyalty is a difficult point to get to,” says Comfort. “When you walk into a retail store you see a virtual wall of wine. How do you get to where you stand out from all the others? Over the last 10 years, especially, we’ve tried to make it more about the people than the product, and that creates brand identity. Remember there wasn’t much wine press before The Wine Spectator was started back in 1976. So the access to information was quite limited. Now customers have all sorts of access. They know what other wines are out there. And, just as people are increasingly interested in learning about the people who grow their food, they want to know who grew the grapes and who made the wine. Giving them that information is how you build your brand identity.”
Making connections
Terry Hall is the communications director for the Napa Valley Vintners, a nonprofit trade group that now has more than 370 winery members. “We added more than 100 wineries in the four years I’ve been with the association, 40 this year alone,” says the Southern California native who’s been in various aspects of the hospitality industry since before his graduation from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1981.
“What I like most about this job is spreading the word about all the good things that are happening in this valley. I like the work, I like the team I work with, and I like the story there is to tell. We have America’s first ag preserve (established in 1968), which strengthened agriculture’s place here. We have the charitable work that’s done through Auction Napa Valley each year. We expanded the definition of what ‘Napa Valley’ means as an appellation, the work that’s been done to protect that identity and the inclusion of the nested appellations within the greater one. Mostly, I enjoy talking about the fact that nearly all of Napa Valley’s producers are family businesses, with family stories to tell. I know there’s the ‘Disneyland’ misperception of what this place is, but Napa Valley has chosen to keep the roads two-lane so we don’t impinge any further on our agricultural heritage. People look at the numbers, and see we have a little more than 400 wineries. But, as Rob Pecota once pointed out to me, the Alsace region in France is about the same size as we are, and it has more than 900 producers. So there you are.”
Hall worked in hotel and beverage management at Yosemite during and after college, then moved to food and beverage management at the Westin Maui. “I also spent some time in Tahoe at Squaw Valley Inn and in Alaska, managing a group of hotels in Denali. When Janet Trefethen hired me for a project, I looked around the valley and decided this was the place for me. Wine—after hotel and food-and-beverage work—seemed the logical next step. I stayed with Trefethen for nearly nine years directing marketing, public relations and all of the direct-to-consumer channels. When this job became available four years ago, it seemed to offer new opportunities, so I jumped at it. From all my hotel and restaurant experience, I know what buyers are like; I know what they’re looking for. I was at Yosemite when they started the Vintner Holidays. At the time, they were just a means of filling a near empty time slot before Christmas, but now they’re a hot ticket.”
He notes the biggest problem for consumers today comes from the vast expansion of brands. “There’s so much for people to know about, and it can be pretty confusing,” says the avid hiker and backpacker. “It was simpler 35 years ago, and a little later when I was in college. There were fewer brands around the world, and way fewer here. But, with the expansion of styles and choices comes a spectacular improvement in quality and diversity. And it’s interesting to me that all those years ago, we were looking to technology as the way of the future, with mechanical harvesting and the like. Now here we are, farming has gone more and more to hand-oriented techniques. We used to be in the vineyard three times: to prune, to sucker and to pick. Now we have people in among the vines 20 or more times through the growing season, to the point of going through to harvest three or four times to ensure we’re bringing in the fruit at its veritable peak of flavor maturity. All of that makes for better wine! One of the great writers, Gerald Asher, once put it to me this way regarding Napa Valley: ‘We’ve almost gone from agriculture to horticulture.’ Everything now is so precise, because all that extra care makes for demonstrable improvements in quality. Simple as that.”
Hall reminds us that Napa Valley, while accounting for barely 4 percent of all California wine production, makes up fully one-third of the state’s economic valuation. He suggests the marked improvements in the wines prompted new and better restaurants in the valley. “Look at the interest Michael Chiarello has drawn, first with his restaurant, then with his television shows, finally with his marketing of Napa Style foodstuffs.”
That’s why so many people make the trek from San Francisco. “We see more visitors today who are fully informed about and interested in the sense of place our growers and producers have created,” concludes Hall, “from the quality of the wines to their admirable commitment to sustainability in farming and the preservation of agriculture. Each visitor becomes an ambassador for Napa Valley. It’s like they’re visiting a trusted friend. Remember that Beringer ad a few years ago? What’s the way to the Napa Valley? Visit your corner wine shop and grab a corkscrew. Easy.”
Looking to the future
Jennifer Kopp Putnam, executive director for the Napa Valley Grapegrowers, says, “When you look over the past 35 years in the Napa Valley wine industry, what stands out is a progression toward increased quality. Napa Valley put the American wine industry on the map at the 1976 Paris Tasting, and we haven’t looked back since. Grapegrowers here are unique in that they consistently embrace the advances in viticultural technology and have been early innovators in supporting the research efforts at UC Davis and other campuses. One thing about the wine industry that makes it so interesting and different from other industries is the willingness to share information to push the entire field forward. I think this has contributed to its overall success and worldwide recognition over the last 35 years.”
A fancier of Morgan horses, Putnam earned her bachelors degree from Humboldt State in 1995 and then a masters from UC Davis, studying viticultural and agricultural systems. She ran the Highland Ranch in Philo and worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Sierra National Forest prior to joining the Napa Valley Grapegrowers in 2003. When I asked where she was in 1975, she laughed out loud. “I was four years old!” I then asked what she liked most about the job: “It’s wonderful to work with people who tend the land and preserve it for future generations, and who create a product that’s intended to be shared among family and friends and to celebrate good times and good health. I’m tremendously encouraged by the industry’s emphasis on sustainability and its leadership in advancing these practices in our communities. Some industries don’t make great neighbors; this one does.”
She points to the influence of tourism on the county: “Napa County itself has undergone huge changes in the economy over this time span, going from an industrial production region to an economy that’s now heavily reliant on the success of the wine industry. This is evident in every city in the valley, from St. Helena to American Canyon, and in the city of Napa in particular, where you now see five-star hotels and beautiful restaurants, with visitors enjoying the riverfront and cultural events.
“The changes are exciting to watch, but you always have to be mindful of the long-term vision, which was to keep that kind of appropriate development in the cities. When Napa County created the country’s first Agricultural Preserve in 1968, it set a precedent not unlike the National Park movement, whereby preserving and protecting a natural resource [prime agricultural land] became the highest and best use of the land. Of course, visitors love to come enjoy the unsurpassed beauty of our vineyards and open spaces, and what’s been protected here. So you have to remember why they’re coming and work not to overpopulate or pave that over.
“One of the things we’re most proud of is the very close attention to our vineyard workforce; we’re continually working to improve standards and conditions in the field. Annually, we conduct a Wages & Benefits Survey of and for our members, which, year after year, shows that vineyard work is probably the most progressive sector of agriculture employment. Each year, I’m impressed to see that growers here offer very competitive wages, health care, paid holidays, 401Ks and other such benefits: not just to supervisors, but to field workers, mechanics, practically everyone in the company. It’s vitally important to recognize that a stable, year-round, long-term workforce is essential to achieving the kind of quality consumers expect from a bottle of Napa wine. When employees understand how to cultivate and maintain quality in the vineyard and feel good about what they do, that comes back to you threefold. It results in a consistently better product, less training costs, and higher employee morale. In terms of social equity, it’s all that—plus it contributes to a much better community to live in.”
