XChateau Wine Podcast
Robert Vernick, Peter Yeung
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Top 10 XChateau Wine Podcast Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best XChateau Wine Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to XChateau Wine Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite XChateau Wine Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Library Release - Getting Inside Bordeaux w/ Jane Anson, janeanson.com
XChateau Wine Podcast
06/23/23 • 57 min
Accidentally filling the big shoes of Michael Broadbent and Steven Spurrier, Jane Anson, wine critic, author of Inside Bordeaux, founder of janeanson.com, and former Bordeaux correspondent for Decanter for nearly 20 years, is one of the world's foremost experts on the wines, history, and region of Bordeaux. Having lived in Bordeaux since 2003, Jane shares her deep insights into how Bordeaux became as famous as it is, how the systems of La Place de Bordeaux and En Primeur work, and the complex terroir of the region. She gives us insight into the content of janeanson.com and how it will be a unique look into Bordeaux, focusing on the drinkability of the wines and many of the unique features to be released.
Detailed Show Notes:
Bordeaux Overview
- A port city far enough inland to be a safe port
- 12th century - duchy of the English crown, wines were sold in the London market
- The system of chateaux, merchants, and negociants was built for export
- Terroir is very complex (which may be why it's not talked about much), e.g., of the 61 wines in the 1855 Medoc classification, all of them are on 2 specific gravel terraces (#3 & 4) of the 6 terraces of the Medoc
- Mostly clay underneath with gravel on top
- Lots of micro terroirs
- St Emilion - has pure limestone, clay, and gravel
Issues that have hurt Bordeaux
- Every vintage is not great, though Bordelais often say that
- Frustrate people based on the prices they ask (e.g., 2009/2010 vintages - many people who bought lost money)
Advantages of La Place de Bordeaux
- Business to business, sell to merchants that sell to consumers
- Virtual marketplace - enables access to 10,000 clients globally
- Includes chateaux, brokers, and negociants
- Sells wine into every level of the food chain - has specialists for on-trade, off-trade, hotels, corner shops, supermarkets, etc.
- It doesn't build your brand but makes sure it gets everywhere
- Good at giving the illusion of scarcity
- Can use La Place for specific markets - La Place has expertise in the Asian markets (e.g., China, Vietnam, Japan)
Disadvantages of La Place de Bordeaux
- Creates a very competitive environment - low-end wines compete with each other
- It protects Bordeaux well, and merchants need to buy in bad years to get allocations in good years
- No direct contact with consumers for wineries
- Less effective for small guys that aren't established brands
Non-Bordeaux wines selling on La Place
- Gone from nothing to 60 wines 5 years ago to 90 wines in 2021
- Provides access to global markets - shows wines next to the great wines of Bordeaux
- Opus One - the 2nd non-Bordeaux wine on La Place (after Almaviva), has sold wines since 2004 and opened an office in Bordeaux.
- Barriers to joining La Place - need enough volume to get everywhere, need to do your own brand-building work, and meet customers
- The increase in overseas wines has hurt smaller Bordeaux estates -> negociants have limited budgets and drop them
En Primeur
- From the early 1980s, Parker injected excitement into the En Primeur system
- People used to make money, but now they are often better off waiting until wines are in bottle with certain exceptions (e.g., tiny production Pomerols)
- No longer has the same sense of urgency
- Tranche system - release a small amount of wine at one price, then release more later at higher prices
- non-Bordeaux wines price more consistently than Bordeaux wines
- Latour dropping out of en primeur, they wanted to store wines and release them when best for consumers
- Chateau Palmer - sells 50% en primeur, 50% 10 years later
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Wine Influencer Overview: Juliana Colangelo, Colangelo & Partners
XChateau Wine Podcast
09/09/20 • 49 min
XChateau is a podcast about all things wine, from vine to your glass. We tackle the business of wine and keep you up to date with new and exciting developments in the wine industry.
In this episode, Robert Vernick and Peter Yeung interview Juliana Colangelo, Vice President of Colangelo & Partners’ San Francisco Office. Colangelo & Partners is an integrated communications agency for food, wine, and spirits brands. Robert and Peter discuss how wine brands should plan, execute, and measure the results of social media influencer campaigns, covering details like budget, how to find the right influencers, and what to expect from the campaign.
Other topics covered in this episode include:
- Why use influencers?
- 74% of people use social networks for purchasing decisions
- Reach younger audience - 44% of Gen Z drinking more during COVID
- Build brand awareness
- Influencer marketing a convergence of earned (journalist driven) and paid media advertising
- Influencer platforms
- Mostly Instagram - IG reels (new) are like TikTok
- TikTok and YouTube a little
- Web blogs
- Content - what are you trying to say about your brand?
- Get real-life situations with brand
- Own the content and can incorporate into brand social and web strategies
- Outcomes - brand awareness, build a social following, email signups, sales
- Based on the brand business model - availability of DTC, etc
- Tracking - UTM codes in links with story swipes, follower counts around a campaign
- Budget - based on the size of influencers and campaign
- By influencer following
- Nano - 1.5-2.5k followers
- Micro - 2.5-15k followers; ~$250/post
- Mid-tier - 20-100k followers; ~$750-1,000/post
- Macro - 200k+
- Celebrities - start at $250k
- Some influencers post organically (just for the product)
- Some influencers have media kits with pricing
- Other costs
- Agency to manage campaign - find target influencers, negotiate influencer contracts
- Product and shipping
- Optional: Advertising behind social media strategy
- Normally at least 5 influencer partners, around the same time to create buzz
- By influencer following
- Goals - smaller wineries target general brand awareness, larger wineries often want to promote a specific wine or new campaign
- Types of influencers - 50/50 on non-beverage vs beverage influencers, depending on the audience the brand is trying to reach
- Types of content
- Posts
- Stories - usually 3-4 frames, usually cheaper than posts since they are less produced and more casual
- Video (YouTube, other) - more expensive
- Web blog - more permanent, hits SEO
- Finding influencers - Colangelo uses DoveTale
- Look at the following and engagement rate
- Content subject (e.g. - have they posted about wine before?)
- Tone of content
- Production quality
- Longer-term relationships - can be like a brand ambassador, multiple touchpoints for consumers
- The brand direction of content
- If only sending product - no control
- Paid contract - can have brand guidelines (hashtags, tone of voice, keywords, can ask to see content before posted)
- Calls to action: follow the brand page, swipe up, promote events/ticket link, donate for fundraising/auctions
- Best campaign: Prosecco DOC for Prosecco week - did video content, food pairings, partnered with ~350 retailers and 15-20 influencers
If you loved this episode, we would love for you to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, cheers!
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Building brand ambassadors through hospitality w/ Meaghan Frank, Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery
XChateau Wine Podcast
10/18/24 • 46 min
As the pioneer of Vitis Vinifera in the Eastern US, Dr. Konstantin Frank is one of the key leaders of the Fingers Lakes region in New York. Meaghan Frank, a fourth-generation vintner, has been leading the charge to evolve its hospitality program to create brand ambassadors for the winery and the region. Its 1886 Wine Experience has won Best Wine Tour by USA Today in the last two years. Meaghan breaks down their hospitality program and its impact on their business.
Detailed Show Notes:
Finger Lakes region, NY - 150 wineries (of 400 in NY), NW NY State - 5 hrs from NYC
- Skinny, deep lakes that moderate weather
- Glaciers left diverse soils
- Tourism-driven, seasonal visitors (spring to fall) for lakes, hiking, close to Niagara Falls, Corning Museum of Glass
Dr. Konstantin Frank - PhD in Viticulture from Odesa, Ukraine; a grape scientist; fled to NY during WWII
- 35 years of cold climate grape growing experience when moved to NY
- 1st to plant vinifera in Eastern US
- Planted experiment station in the 1950s - 68 varieties, including Furmit, Pedro Ximenez, and Touriga Nacional) to research what would work best
Dr. K Frank Winery
- 17 vinifera varieties → 40 wines
- 60% wholesale, 40% DTC
- 40 states, 9 export markets (5%, incl Japan, Aruba (lots of NY visitors), UK)
- DTC 60% e-commerce (driven by wine club), 40% hospitality
Hospitality program
- The goal is to create brand ambassadors and loyalty, get the word out about the Finger Lakes
- Inspired by Australian hospitality programs - private, educational
- ~40k visitors/year (#1 PA - 1 hour away, NJ, OH, NY core markets) - all seated, paid
- Pre-pandemic - ~80k visitors/year for free bar tastings
- Moved to an experience-driven program with wine educators, take advantage of lake view
Three experiences:
- Eugenia’s Garden - modeled after great grandmother’s garden, most casual, can do a la carte glasses/bottles/flights; enables people to enjoy the day; targets a younger demographic
- Signature Seated ($15pp) - most popular, educational, 1 hr, 6 wines, 5 different themes that are part of the winery’s story (e.g., traditional sparkling, Riesling pioneer, groundbreaking grapes, red wines)
- The 1886 Wine Experience ($75pp) - only May-Oct, 2-2.5 hrs, led by wine educator, a tour of the vineyard, sparkling and still wine cellars, seated tasting of 4 wines with bites, followed by additional tastings; won best wine tour by USA Today last 2 years; lots of 1st-time visitors book 1886 due to unique nature
- Lessons learned - used to do 6 wine flight w/ bites, which was too many; did themed months (e.g., sparkling) - did not work with mostly tourists
- Differentiators - spend lots of time, has a separate private space for 1886
Wine club evolution
- Used to have people pay upfront for the year - bigger barrier to signing up, always feel like “playing catchup” to ensure value delivered, concentrated work during shipment periods
- Moved to more subscription model - quarterly, 3 wines w/ default package, fully customizable, no upfront fee, 20% discount on wines, and get free tastings (no limit)
- 8% club conversion - the only way to get free tastings now, used to waive w/ 4 bottle purchase
- Locals small portion of the club - pickup option only 10%, PA #1
- Avg tenure 1.5 years, seeing it extend with the new club model
Popular wines
- Hospitality - Rkatsiteli #1, traditional method sparkling
- Wholesale - #1 & #2 - dry & semi-dry Riesling
- Riesling 60% of production, traditional method growing
Increasing issues around climate change - 2023 had the largest spring frost in history, increasing water issues
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Marketing Evolution
XChateau Wine Podcast
06/29/20 • 29 min
XChateau is a podcast about all things wine, from vine to your glass. We tackle the business of wine and keep you up to date with new and exciting developments so you always know what goes into your bottle.
In this episode host Robert Vernick and co-host Peter Yeung wrap up their series on standing out from the crowd. This episode will focus on the evolution of brand marketing and what wineries should be doing to keep up with trends.
Stay tuned to hear Robert and Peter’s thoughts on the current stage of evolution, how Covid-19 is accelerating that evolution, and which marketing techniques are trends versus fads.
Topics covered in today’s episode:
- How Covid-19 is accelerating the adoption of new technology.
- Why you have to understand your audience to effectively leverage influencers.
- Creating a successful brand campaign: Understanding your persona and creating virality.
- The importance of utilizing multi-channel marketing.
- Is text messaging the future of consumer engagement?
- Why the adoption of a live chat feature on websites can be helpful.
- Understanding the basics of digital marketing: SEO and SEM.
- Is augmented reality a viable future technology for the industry?
- Expanding experiences and engendering connection to your brand.
- Taking experiences to the consumer.
- How persona can transcend product quality and which brands have done it.
- Resurgence of old techniques: Mailers, phone calls and why lockdown has increased their effectiveness.
- The success of incentivizing referrals.
- Trends and fads: What will still be here in the future?
If you loved this episode, we would love for you to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, cheers!
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Alentejo the Last Frontier of Europe w/ João Gomes de Silva, Sogrape and Herdade de Peso
XChateau Wine Podcast
06/02/21 • 52 min
“The last frontier of Europe,” “A pristine region,” “A mosaic of soil varieties and temperatures” are all ways João Gomes de Silva, Board Member of Sogrape, describes the Alentejo wine region. João tells us about the evolution of Portugal’s wine industry, the complexity of the Alentejo wine region, and how the industry has been promoting and building the brand of Alentejo wine. From “seasoning” to amphora, there’s plenty to get excited about with Alentejo and its wines!
Detailed Show Notes:
- João’s background
- Family is in agriculture and farming
- João is a wine lover
- Worked in food retailing
- Lived in Italy and Latin America
- Sogrape background
- Founded in 1942 by Fernando van Zeller Guedes and launched with Mateus Rose
- A family business where they work as a professional team
- Combination of concept wines (e.g. - Mateus) and fine wine estates (e.g. - Barca Velha, Sandeman)
- Mateus Rose - Sogrape’s founder said it had to stand out
- Unique bottle shape - shaped after WWI cantil (soldiers’ water bottles)
- The label has a picture of a manor house in North of Portugal, which was to look like a French chateau
- Portuguese Wine History
- Early-mid 1990’s - Portugal joined the EU, lots of investment in the wine industry and a surge in domestic demand
- 2005-2010 era - a lot of modernization happened in the wine industry
- 2010+ - a boom in tourism in Portugal led to a boom in demand for Portuguese wine
- Covid - demand for Portuguese wines did not dip
- Alentejo as a wine region
- South of Lisbon, between Lisbon and the Algarve (a beach area popular for tourists)
- The same size as the state of Maryland, but with only 700,000 people - a sparsely populated farming area
- One of the last areas dominated by the Moors (until the 13th century)
- Traditionally the breadbasket of Portugal, lots of cereal, grain growing
- Dry, warm climate (>100F in summer)
- During Roman times, made wine in clay amphora to preserve temperature during fermentation
- 8 sub-regions
- Portalegre - north part of the region, the influence of the mountains (a colder, wet climate)
- Eastern area near Spanish border - very dry, arid, pre-phylloxera vineyards
- A mosaic of soil types, climates, and grape varieties
- The notion of “seasoning” important in the region (e.g., using small amounts of different grapes varieties to blend)
- Grape varieties - a mix of traditional and international
- Traditional - Aragones (Tempranillo), Trincadera, Moretto, Arinto, Tourigal National
- International - Syrah, Alicante Bouschet - the star of the region
- Vinho de Talha - wine made in the traditional Roman way in clay amphora, the only region in Portugal that has this regulation
- Wine style - fruit-forward, rounded tannins
- Current consumers - wine explorers and hedonists who know what they like
- Alentejo Wine Consumption
- Domestic - 80%
- Export - 20%
- Brazil - 30%
- US, France, Poland, Switzerland - ~10% each
- Canada, UK, Angola, China - ~5% each
- Entry-level pricing ~$7-9 USD
- The sweet spot is ~$20 USD to really show terroir
- Marketing messages
- A unique, single message (especially for US/UK markets) - “taste of the last frontier of European wine,” a pristine region
- Brazil - talk more about individual producers as people already know Alentejo
- Journalists / somms - talk more about winemaking techniques, bringing people to Portugal
- Consumers - the experience at the estate or virtually tends to grab them
- Broad / “Generic” promotion - through Wines of Portugal and CVRA (Alentejo region wine marketing body)
- Herdade do Peso - invests in social media
- Being closer to the distributor (and owning them) helps - has been important to the success of brands
- Herdade do Peso, a Sogrape winery
- Sogrape’s founder believed he could change the Alentejo industry
- Introduced Alicante Bouschet to the region, blended it with Touriga Nacional
- “A mix of man’s ingenuity, dream of a family, and the natural conditions found there”
- 16 soil types, 160...
Charting the Wine Media Landscape w/ Natalie MacLean, nataliemaclean.com
XChateau Wine Podcast
07/21/21 • 44 min
Natalie MacLean, a podcaster and writer based in Ottawa, Canada, has been bringing people into her wine world for over 20 years. With two books, a newsletter with over 300,000 subscribers, a mobile app, and the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, Natalie’s main focus is on perfecting her food and wine pairing courses - The Wine Smart Course and an upcoming course on wine and cheese. Natalie tells us about how she built her personal brand, the most effective marketing channels she’s used, and where her primary revenue drivers are. If you’re interested in navigating how to be successful in the world of wine, Natalie’s journey provides key insights.
Detailed Show Notes:
- Natalie’s background
- Has an MBA, did consumer packaged goods (“CPG”) marketing at P&G and tech
- She took a sommelier course and fell in love with wine, as a full-bodied experience
- Started as a writer - cold-called editors, then wrote books, and now publishes a podcast - Unreserved Wine Talk
- She didn’t drink alcohol until she was in her late 20’s
- Brunello was the wine that got her into wine
- Current focus - online food and wine pairing courses
- Focused on 2 courses only - believes in doubling down on the Unique Selling Proposition (“USP”), wants to perfect courses vs. add more
- #1 - The Wine Smart Course
- Lifetime access to materials
- 5 modules
- Pre-recorded videos (on-demand, all “snackable” - 7-9 minutes in length, 70-75 videos)
- Live webinars via Zoom - bi-weekly tastings
- #2 - Beta: Wine & Cheese Pairing
- Appeals to both consumers and hospitality and trade professionals b/c of the focus on food and wine pairing
- It starts with food, then pairs the wine
- Leverages some research from Tim Hanni, MW
- Free wine and food pairing guide
- Core audience - vast, similar to the general population
- Newsletter / website
- 300k email subscribers - free to join, C$3/mo for access to wine reviews
- Has pairing tips (more depth in courses), a lot of free videos
- It started as an email to friends and family
- Uses LCBO pricing
- Wine scores
- People use them as a shorthand for quality, to calculate the quality to price ratio (“QPR”)
- People requested it, and now it’s a service for readers
- Passion is writing
- Mobile app
- Free to download
- Scans front label and bar codes
- Integrated liquor store pricing and inventory across the country (Canada) via API’s to provincial liquor control boards
- Features - virtual cellar, wishlist, buy lists
- US wines in Canada
- CA, WA, OR, NY well represented
- #1 export market for US wines
- During Covid - premium wines (C$20+) have done well, benefiting US wines
- Canadian wine palate - driven more towards cool climate wines, Canada’s heritage is beer and whiskey
- Marketing Natalie’s brand
- Built over 20 years, started the website in 2000
- Started with the books (Red, White, and Drunk All Over; Unquenchable) - published by Randomhouse, book tour, Amazon’s bestseller list - led to broad reach and TV and other media appearances and “exploded” newsletter subscribers
- Podcast a core channel now
- Podcast listeners stay with you, and most listen 80-100% through
- Podcast listeners and paid online courses have the strongest overlap
- Leverage and cross-purpose content to broaden the reach to many channels
- Podcast videos for FB Live
- Social media - gets people over to newsletter or free wine and food pairing guide, low commitment, usually not paying
- Nothing beats email
- Always strives to deliver value first - drive to something free (e.g., free class/webinar), then promotes paid courses
- Main revenue drivers
- #1 - online courses
- #2 - wine review subscriptions
- #3 - online advertising
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The Quintessential American Wine: Madeira w/ Bartholomew Broadbent
XChateau Wine Podcast
03/24/21 • 48 min
Used to celebrate the drafting of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Madeira wines are the ultimate in American wines, though not made in America. Originating from shipping goods from Europe to America and being born from wines traveling that route, it became the most prominent wine in the US pre-prohibition. History, culture, and the wines' versatility benefited their relaunch in the 1990s by Bartholomew Broadbent, Owner of Broadbent Selections, which imports an array of wines from emerging regions and has its own line of Madeiras, Ports, and other wines. Learn more about the history and the journey of reintroducing a long-lost style of wine back to America in this episode of XChateau.
This episode is sponsored by Repour, the simple, effective way to preserve your wine...without planning ahead. Extensively used by top sommeliers, wineries, and wine students, Repour prevents wasted wine and saves money. Please find out more at repour.com and listen to Episode 24, where CEO Tom Lutz gives us all the details on Repour.
Detailed Show Notes:
- Bartholomew’s background in wine
- Son of Michael Broadbent (led wine auctions for Christie’s, Decanter Magazine writer for decades, & leading wine author)
- Went to Australia at 18 to work harvest, Cognac as a tour guide, worked in wine at Harrod’s in London and at Harvey’s Fine Wines
- He moved to Toronto and met the Symington Family, where he spent 10 years teaching about Port & Madeira, based out of San Francisco
- He married a Virginia girl and now lives in Virginia
- Broadbent Selections
- Founded in 1996
- The goal was to create their own brand of Port & Madeira
- Started an import company as well, which focused on emerging wine regions, including:
- Portugal (now just the Broadbent brands)
- South Africa (e.g., Eben Sadie)
- New Zealand (e.g., Spy Valley)
- Chateau Musar from Lebanon
- Gusbourne from England
- Broadbent wines include Madeira, Port, Vinho Verde (single biggest selling wine), Douro, and Gruner Veltliner from Austria
- Madeira
- It was the biggest selling wine in the US until Prohibition
- Invented through shipping to America from Europe, ships stopped in Madeira (600 miles off the coast of Africa / Morocco) to re-stock; when wines accidentally made it back to Madeira and went through two journeys by sea, the wines tasted better through the heating
- Now the wine style is a cooked and fortified wine
- Lots of history around Madeira - the wine used to celebrate the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, was on the table w/ Betsy Ross sewed the American flag
- Benefited from a tax loophole, when the King taxed all European goods going to America, it did not cover Madeira
- Destruction of the Madeira market
- Phylloxera - destroyed lots of vines
- Prohibition - Prior, 95% of the wine was sent to the US, 5% to the UK and Russia
- Upon appeal of Prohibition, shipping had improved and no longer needed to stop in Madeira for supplies
- Re-launch of Madeira in the US - Bartholomew relaunched in 1989 with the Symingtons
- Production
- 8 producers of Madeira on the island, who buy grapes from ~1,000 growers
- Vines mostly grown on trellises with other crops underneath (there aren’t a lot of vineyards to see and visit)
- Two types of heating methods
- Estufa - artificial heating in tanks, 3 months at 115F, mostly for the 3-5-year-old styles of wines
- Canteiro / Traditional - left in attics of buildings to heat; Broadbent ages in 3 locations - attic, ground floor, and basement to blend and get more complexity
- 8 producers make lots of different brands, Broadbent made by Justino’s
- Island producers ~100,000 cases/year of drinking Madeira (vs. cooking Madeira), Justino’s ~55%, Henriques & Henriques ~20%
- Grape varieties
- 3 red grapes (~80%) - Tinta Negra
- 7 white grapes - incl Sercial ...
Stirring up the Conversation w/ Katie Canfield and Rebecca Johnson, The Bâtonnage Forum
XChateau Wine Podcast
03/03/21 • 35 min
Bâtonnage, the French word for stirring the lees, is now about stirring up the conversation about women and wine. The Bâtonnage Forum, founded in 2018, is creating a safe space to have difficult conversations about gender inclusivity in the wine world. Katie Canfield and Rebecca Johnson, partners at wine PR agency O’Donnell Lane, are currently carrying the baton for the forum. They tell XChateau about transitioning the forum to virtual, launching a mentorship program, and filing for 501c3 status.
This episode is sponsored by Repour, the simple, effective way to preserve your wine...without planning ahead. Extensively used by top sommeliers, wineries, and wine students, Repour prevents wasted wine and saves money. Find out more at repour.com and listen to Episode 24, where CEO Tom Lutz gives us all the details on Repour.
Detailed Show Notes
- The mission of The Bâtonnage Forum - to open up the conversation about women and wine and create a safe space to have difficult conversations
- Founded in 2018 by Stevie Stacionis and Sarah Bray
- Set up to “pass the baton” every two years
- Katie and Rebecca are the lead organizers for 2020 and 2021
- This brings in new ideas and changes to the organization
- The Bâtonnage Forum has transformed from 1 day in Napa to a robust, active community from all sectors of the wine industry
- The broad focus is a unique selling point
- It’s a platform for education and engagement
- They have gotten lots of positive, direct feedback (thank yous, emails, volunteers who want to be involved)
- The Forum
- 1st two forums held in Napa
- Went from 1 day to multi-day, multi-session virtual forum, expanding the audience to all of North America and some global participants
- 2021 - will be 3 days at the end of June
- The issue
- Only ~30-40% of wine businesses are women-owned
- Only 14% of CA wineries have female head winemakers, though this has improved some
- The Sommelier industry has meager female participation
- #metoo movement has been helpful
- How to Help
- Step 1 - acknowledge and recognize the issue, join the conversation, including at the Bâtonnage Forum
- Step 2 - improve HR and hiring practices
- Step 3 - mentoring (spread the word about the mentorship opportunities to potential mentees), education (including WSET, MW, etc....), and shaking up the conversation
- Donations (currently filing for 501c3 status)
- 2020 accomplishments
- Pivoted in-person forum (was planning to be at Sonoma Broadway Farms) to virtual due to Covid with 10 sessions, 35 speakers, and 20 winemakers and chefs for a virtual walk-around tasting
- 2021 Initiatives
- Launched Mentorship Program - Level 1 of 3
- Mentoring leads include the founders, Priyanka French, Tonya Pitts, and Mary Maher
- Sponsored by Napa Valley Vintners
- Filing for 501c3 non-profit status, targeting $10k/year for 3 years
- Launching a Bâtonnage Forum branded canned wine with Nomadica
- Want to dive deeper into uncomfortable conversations
- Launched Mentorship Program - Level 1 of 3
- Actively collaborates with other gender and under-represented inclusion groups
- Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum - bringing the various diversity and inclusion groups together to understand what each group brings to the table and avoid overlap
- Assemblage in Willamette Valley
- Wonder Women of Wine (now Lift Collective) in Texas
- Black Wine Professionals by Julia Coney
- How we’ll know when we’re “there” - when there’s no longer a place for diversity committees in organizations
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Bringing the Winery to You w/ Judd Wallenbrock, Charles Krug Winery
XChateau Wine Podcast
02/17/21 • 41 min
Art, comedy, food, movies, performance art, outdoor cabanas, food and wine pairings...are some of the draws that bring people to Charles Krug winery in Napa Valley. President & CEO of C Mondavi & Family (parent company of Charles Krug) Judd Wallenbrock tells us about the history of innovation at Charles Krug and the Mondavi family. As the first winery and first tasting room in Napa Valley, Charles Krug has spearheaded many different elements of hospitality and now drives them virtual. Hear all about their programs and what has worked in the virtual space on this episode of XChateau!
Detailed Show Notes:
- Judd’s background - 41 years in the wine industry
- He visited Napa as a 16-year-old in 1974 (Charles Krug, Mondavi, BV)
- Did stints in retail, restaurants, a winery rep, and has his own backyard winery
- 4 years ago - became President and CEO of C Mondavi
- The original Mondavi family business
- Founders - Cesare & Rosa, who settled in Virginia
- Did hospitality for miners in 1908
- Got into wine in 1928 - their saloon closed due to prohibition, and they bought and sold grapes and yeast for home wine kits
- Sons - Peter and Robert Mondavi
- 5th generation of Mondavi’s was just born
- Charles Krug Winery
- Founded in 1861, oldest winery in Napa
- 1965 - Peter & Robert split, Robert founded Robert Mondavi Winery; both were running winery before, then just Peter
- 1882 - 1st tasting room in Napa
- Charles Krug - created a legacy of innovation
- Introduced wine press to Napa, taking the idea from apple cider
- 1st to bring Cabernet to Napa
- Started the 1st wine club, took wine into San Francisco to sell wine
- Mondavi innovations - brought in French oak barrels, did cold stabilization
- Hospitality at Charles Krug
- Wedding - grandfathered in, limited to ~20 per year
- The aim is to create the cultural hub of Napa Valley - present wine as part of the arts
- Culinary, art, comedy, host the Napa Valley film festival, “SIP” - series of interesting people, like TED talks, music, performing arts
- Wine is food, but not in the restaurant business
- Provide a “teaser” for guests
- Partnership with Pete Seghesio - makes world-class salumi with C Krug wine
- Pizzas - hand made in the outdoor pizza kitchen
- Has the same sourdough starter from the 1940s from the Mondavi family
- See 40,000 guests per year, 10,000 delivered from Napa Valley Wine Train
- Small relative to ~300,000 visitors/year at Robert Mondavi winery
- Event-based marketing
- Use events as a discovery vehicle for the brand
- It gives a reason to come, confident that wines will speak for themselves
- Events ticket-based, sometimes include wine
- Some events curated but not put on by the winery
- Events targeted to break even, then winery’s job to convert people to sales and club members
- Help generate word of mouth and 3rd party endorsements
- Build customer database - for follow up marketing
- Events themselves not always a good selling opportunity, but do post-event marketing (e.g., free tasting for event attendees that come back)
- The GAME plan - a method for measuring and evaluating programs
- Goal, Activities, Metrics, Enhancements (after post-mortem)
- Key metrics for Charles Krug
- Conversion rate to sale
- Conversion to wine club
- Club retention rate
- Referrals (from all categories - events, hotel, restaurants, social media, etc....)
- Found more intimate and focused events do better for conversion, e.g., outdoor cabanas doubled wine club conversion
- Virtual hospitality
- pre-Covid started in-home tasting groups
- Revolved around club members in their homes, up to 20 people
- Blew away goals for sales and club membership
- Also did recruiting for next tastings
- Moved to virtual during the pandemic
- Doing virtual for consumer, distributors, and country clubs
- Building comedy and trivia night virtually
- The entertainment part is still evolving
- Corporate tasting packs for customers been a big virtual business
- Have a 360-degree virtual tour
- pre-Covid started in-home tasting groups
- Marketing virtual
- Started with the wine club
- Leveraged social media
- Word of mouth and referrals
- Not a lot of advertising, just limited digital (Facebook and Instagram)
- Digital ...
Exploring Wine Tech w/ Julien Fayard, Fayard Winemaking
XChateau Wine Podcast
06/02/25 • 46 min
Making wine in California, France, and even Serbia, consulting winemaker Julien Fayard has a broad view of the winemaking world. His constant monitoring, evaluation, and investment in winemaking technology benefit both his own and his clients’ wineries. Julien offers insight into winemaking technology on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as some of the specific technologies he utilizes.
Detailed Show Notes:
Julien’s background: French, came to the US in 2006 and worked for Phillipe Melka, started his consulting practice in 2013, built two wineries and manages three others; mostly Napa (~85%), but also makes wine from Sonoma, Sierra Foothills, Provence, Bordeaux, and Serbia
Uses trial & error to evaluate new winemaking technology
Usually, a trigger that causes each tech adoption
Hears about new tech from travel and conversations with other wineries and tech companies
French tech is mostly involved with wine contact (e.g., yeast, oak treatment), the US is mostly logistics, mechanization, automation of labor, and CA is slow to mechanize vineyard work
Monitors the slowly evolving knowledge base in winemaking - most tech innovations are slight derivatives of existing knowledge (e.g., sulfur automation)
To buy into a new tech: other people using it, company viability (and ability to scale), practicality of solution (e.g., barrel door for fermentation did not take into consideration time and the challenge to move between barrels)
ROI calculation includes cost savings, risk assessments, and quantity or quality improvements
Generally does not implement things that could move costs more than 10-20%
The most significant variable cost driver is when volume drops (e.g., waste, accidents, filtering, bulking out wine) - each tank is ~$100k of wine
Fruition Sciences did a lot of sap flow analysis, but never got mass adoption
Well monitoring technology is happening, and may be required soon
Communications modules for sensors are getting much cheaper, enabling more tech
Vinwizard (NZ) - wall winery automation
- Started with pumpover automation (temp, speed)
- Can control to avoid peak energy hours
- Can set times for tanks to make temp-sensitive additions easier
- Alarms for glycol system outages
- Arkenstone was 1st Napa winery to adopt, learned from them, a solution more complete than TankNet
- Min ~$50k cost
Innovint - winery SW management system
- Creates all work orders, does costing, compliance, and traceability
- Clients, CPAs, and compliance can see everything
- A communication tool, very user-friendly
Sentia - hand wine analyzer (VA, malic, alcohol, SO2)
- $2k/machine
- <$1/use for strips
- Uses a solid chemical reaction
- “Fragile” tech, 1 in 30 results is way off, researching this with a Phd
- Tried bungs with sensors, but requires a tech breakthrough to work
Oenofrance - a system for faster oak extraction
- Put oak blocks (closest to staves) under pressure to extract oak flavors faster
- $40k in oak to $4k (renting tech)
- Costs ~$80-90k to buy machine
Excited about new destemmers, probes for monitoring wines (for “modern natural wine,” in-ground amphora aging)
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FAQ
How many episodes does XChateau Wine Podcast have?
XChateau Wine Podcast currently has 193 episodes available.
What topics does XChateau Wine Podcast cover?
The podcast is about Food And Beverage, Marketing, Podcasts, Wine, Arts, Business and Food.
What is the most popular episode on XChateau Wine Podcast?
The episode title 'The Hardest Wine Exam in the World w/ Mark de Vere MW' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on XChateau Wine Podcast?
The average episode length on XChateau Wine Podcast is 42 minutes.
How often are episodes of XChateau Wine Podcast released?
Episodes of XChateau Wine Podcast are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of XChateau Wine Podcast?
The first episode of XChateau Wine Podcast was released on May 18, 2020.
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