March 4, 2025 • 33 mins
In episode thirty-five of the Napa Valley Insider podcast, Andrew sits down with Charlie Wagner, fifth-generation Napa Valley vintner and a driving force behind the evolution of Caymus Vineyards. Charlie shares the Wagner family's rich history, from their early days homesteading in St. Helena to becoming one of the most recognized names in American wine. He discusses his role in expanding the family's winemaking legacy, his perspective on the evolving Napa Valley landscape, and how he's carrying the torch into the future.
Episode Highlights:
- The Wagner Family Story: How Charlie’s ancestors shaped the Napa Valley wine industry over five generations, from humble beginnings to a globally recognized brand.
- Building on a Legacy: The evolution of Caymus Vineyards and how Charlie and his sister are expanding beyond Napa to explore new varietals across California.
- Caymus-Suisun and Innovation: Why the Wagners saw opportunity in Suisun Valley and how they built a hospitality experience designed for modern wine lovers.
- The Changing Wine Industry: Charlie’s thoughts on Napa’s rising costs, consumer trends, and how wineries must adapt to keep engaging younger generations.
- A Different Approach to Hospitality: How Caymus’s tasting rooms blend accessibility, hospitality, and innovation—including offering coffee to guests.
This episode is brought to you by Cuvée, the go-to app for planning your Napa Valley experience. Follow @NapaValleyInsiderPodcast for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Napa Valley Insider podcast.
(00:04):
I'm your host, Andrew Allison, chief growth officer of Preferably, the leader in wine,
spirits and food recommendations.
This show is brought to you by Cuvée, the Napa winery guide app.
Download the Cuvée app today and start planning your wine country adventure.
All right, all right, all right.
Welcome back to another episode of Napa Valley Insider.
(00:26):
I am so excited to introduce our guest today.
Who are you and what do you do?
Well, thank you for having me, Charlie Wagner from Caymus Vineyards.
Sir, your family is of legend, a very, very small intersection.
My grandparents planted Cabernet in the 80s.
And the family story is your father came up and knocked on my grandfather's door back
(00:50):
in the 80s and said, hey, that's some nice Cabernet out there.
Can we talk about buying it?
And so that was the first time the Wagner's crossed our path.
But we sold we sold fruit to you guys, I think, for a smaller brand.
Was it Liberty Schoolhouse?
Yep, Liberty School.
Liberty School was the second label to Caymus Vineyards.
(01:11):
The label still exists.
It's operated out of Paso Robles.
Liberty School was a schoolhouse on the Caymus Vineyards property.
So there's some cool history there.
And by the way, we still do knock on doors.
So I mean, if it was back in the 80s at that time, the vineyard must have been so young.
(01:31):
I mean, you must have had fruit rights on our vineyard before it was even ready.
And so I think the it's the hard 10 property now for those that don't know it's no longer
in our family.
But so so very cool to meet somebody that's been a multi generational family.
So can you just share a little bit for those that don't know what is the Wagner family
(01:55):
origin story?
And how do you fit into that?
So I'm a fifth generation Napa Valley.
My first ancestors great great grandfather came here in mid 1850s.
And homesteaded above what is now called Bell Canyon Reservoir in St. Helena.
(02:16):
And the homestead is still there.
It's a pile of rubble, really.
They weren't in the wine business nor nor was the second generation once they moved
here.
After that, my great grand great grandfather was a winemaker at a wine called winery called
Brunnen Schacht's winery or Brunnen Shea, which is now Ladera and now Kate, actually.
(02:37):
So he he made wine.
He was the first one of the the winemakers in our family three generations ago.
Wow.
Out on Howell.
Yep.
That's amazing.
I thought we have some great black and white photos.
That's so interesting.
Recently we've done a recording with the the Hoxie family.
And obviously there's very few people that own as much land as your family and they too
(03:01):
are a fifth generation family.
How do you think about the role that you play in the family business and how has that changed
from your father's generation?
Well, I think it's changed.
It seems like it changes every year even.
But generationally, I think my father's generation, California wasn't very well known for wine.
(03:23):
Napa Valley was just kind of getting what you're referring to.
I would say 60s, 70s and then early 80s.
It was really kind of a day trip from people that came from San Francisco.
A lot of the wines were made in the style to compete with Bordeaux and about mid 90s,
(03:45):
that kind of switched.
Riper styles, more fruit forward wines started to be made and Napa was kind of carved off
as its own little specialty.
And so I think in a nutshell back 60s, 70s, people were trying to scrape by.
And now we live in a beautiful place that has worldwide attention.
(04:07):
I think with every generation that goes by, my dad is 73, very forward thinking.
He relies on my sister and I to kind of keep our ears to the ground for the younger generation,
younger than us.
I'm in my mid 40s, so I'm not considered young anymore.
But I think it's never evolving.
(04:28):
I think hospitality is a big one now.
People come here and we have a captive audience.
They want food, they want wine, they want activities.
And that's what Napa has become in the best way possible.
I think there's a few observations that I don't know are common knowledge that over
the course of just a few conversations with you that really stood out.
(04:51):
What do you think were the most transformative learning moments of learning the family business
for you?
Well, excuse me, I grew up in the vineyards and shoveling tanks when I was five.
It was fun to me.
Is that how you raise your children now?
Yep, they love it.
(05:12):
It's fun.
It's really just a fun way of life.
I think it got kind of serious when I was in high school.
Where it became more of a responsibility.
Became a responsibility.
I was actually my counselor at the public high school in St. Helena, let me take every
other Friday off to drive down to Salinas Valley where we had a Chardonnay Vineyard.
(05:33):
So I was 16, making wine, not able to drink it.
My whole past is actually I need to help the family business.
It was very cool.
Mrs. McCollum, if you're out there, shout out.
It was great because I think she saw that I was continuing in the family business and
I did go to college, but that didn't last long.
I couldn't wait to get back to work.
(05:53):
So that was kind of when it hit home.
And yeah, now I think every day it seems like things are changing and we're very nimble
being a family business.
I think being able to work with my dad and my sister on a daily basis, we're together
every day at some point, that really just cements it, that it's generational and it's
(06:14):
fun and we still love what we do.
How would you describe the fingerprint that your father has put on this business?
And how do you think the fingerprints that you will put on this business or still yet
to put on this business are different?
Well I think the most obvious one would be that Caymus is a Cabernet producing winery.
(06:40):
That's what Caymus is known for and that's really what my dad and my grandpa, he was
older at the time, but my dad really wanted to drive Cabernet home.
It was one wine, it was Cabernet.
There's some other little Sauvignon Blancs and stuff that are made for the tasting room.
I think more recently we've gone out, my sister and I, to grow other varietals in other parts
of California and very close to here, right over the hills, Sassoon Valley, Monterey County,
(07:06):
San Benito County.
We've found interest in those other varietals that I think are very interesting.
We all know what Cabernet tastes like.
I love it, love Cabernet, but I also love Grenache and I love Chardonnay and red blends
and white blends and stuff like that.
So I think it's that kind of focusing on maybe California as a whole more than just Napa
(07:27):
Valley.
And when you think about the things that have made Caymus successful, what are some of the
things that have been the right things in the recipe that you're very glad your father
did that still hold true today?
I think it's from beginning to end, from growing grapes to making wine to selling wine.
(07:52):
I think-
Controlling the full vertical.
And that full control, and that really is the exciting part.
We have, you know, you can buy grapes.
We do buy grapes from growers.
We like to have some sort of control if it's not our property.
We do a lot of the, we make all the calls on pruning and stuff like that.
(08:14):
I mean, from the very beginning all the way to bottle.
And I think that's probably the biggest one.
Caymus also got awarded Wine Spectator Wine of the Year two times, which I think we're
still the only winery to have to have been awarded that great award twice.
That really put Caymus on the map.
What was the first year?
(08:36):
It was, gosh, late 80s and early 90s.
I can't remember the years that they were awarded, but they're a few years apart.
So that was really, that was a big deal.
That was the social signal.
That was when, you know, and critics are great.
When you get a great rating, you love critics.
(08:56):
And you take and you talk about it.
I think maybe now critics are maybe a little less important because everybody's a critic
and everybody has a device and they all, you know, everybody has an opinion.
So it's great in that sense too.
But I think that was really it.
That was the signal that Napa Valley was coming up, not Caymus vineyards in general, but Napa
(09:18):
Valley as a whole had the spotlight on it.
And it was a very exciting time.
What was the first time you made a business decision that positively impacted Caymus?
Well I think probably the first one was early 2000s when I built a winery down in Monterey
(09:42):
County for white wine production.
So we had a small barrel room.
We had to expand.
We couldn't expand here.
Most of the grapes were grown down south in Monterey County anyway.
And that kind of alleviated a lot of the stress here in Napa.
So we took out a lot of white wine production, brought it down to a white wine only facility
we have in Monterey County.
It's called Conundrum Winery.
(10:04):
That was kind of the first time that we stepped out of our comfort zone, a three hour drive
away.
It's not that close.
And have a separate facility down there.
And that kind of showed me and showed I think our whole family, our whole organization that
we could do stuff like that.
And home base is still always Napa.
But to have some other stuff outside of Napa County kind of started the diversity of our
(10:26):
wine brands.
Was that the proving grounds to then what gave you the confidence to do Caymus so soon?
That was.
Although there's no hospitality down there.
It's production only.
But really what happened was that I think that's accurate to say that we had that was
kind of that was out of necessity to build a winery down there.
(10:47):
You just need a capacity.
We need a capacity.
Caymus so soon.
We need capacity.
And also it's a beautiful place.
Why not bring in hospitality too?
Yeah.
So let's talk through the business decisions.
How did the idea of Caymus so soon come about?
And who brought it to the family table?
We've been growing grapes out there for 11 or 12 years now.
(11:10):
So you knew the land.
We knew the land.
We knew the quality was there.
The quality is very similar to Napa.
Cabernet, if you taste blind, we have some Cabernet lots that are incredible.
For those that don't know, Soosoon is known for Petite Syrah.
That would be everybody's flagship wine is a Petite Syrah.
But a lot of other great stuff grows there.
(11:32):
Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Grenache.
We have some Amarone varietals.
We have some Greek, a Sertico white Greek varietal.
All these things grow great.
Stuff that we would never really experiment with here in Napa because land values are
so high here.
We know we do best.
It's Cabernet.
Let's go to the next county over 45 minute drive away and have some fun.
(11:53):
It's still an AVA that's almost as old as Napa if I remember correctly.
I think it's one year older than Napa.
So it's been a place that's transitioned from what was mainly apricots and nuts to
grapes.
So, pretty interesting to see how Napa used to, after Prohibition, during Prohibition,
(12:13):
people ripped out vineyards and planted prunes and walnuts and then eventually went back
to grapes.
Over there it was just a different landscape 30 years ago.
So let's get back on that question.
So you felt confident in the land.
You guys worked the land and you knew the community.
(12:34):
How did you have the gumption to row the boat on the size of facility that you built?
What other indicators made you believe it would work?
Well two things happened kind of at the same time.
Number one was we eventually outgrew Napa for production.
So we went over to a town called Cordelia, which is right behind the Budweiser Brewery
(12:57):
on Highway 80, built a production facility that's production only.
Beautiful production facility right on a big highway where there's a lot of...
I mean there's a reason Budweiser is there.
High access thoroughfare.
It's great.
It's beautiful.
Other side of the highway is the Ag Preserve that's the Sisson Valley.
(13:19):
So first came the need for production.
So we built the winery there, kept a ton of traffic off of Napa roads by doing that because
a lot of our labor force lived in Solano County.
So then we decided to...
We didn't have a home for the Caymus Sassoon wines.
So we have a Caymus Sassoon Petite Seurat.
We call it Grand Dureef.
And then a Caymus Sassoon, it's called the Walking Fool.
(13:40):
It's a red blend.
So we needed a home for those wines.
We built what is the Caymus Sassoon Winery, a hospitality center.
A small amount of production is there too.
And we just kind of wanted to see who would show up.
And it's very interesting to see.
It's a lot of day trippers and it's a really accurate slice of what the state of California
(14:02):
looks like.
And the access to Sisson Valley is quite literally high access.
You're one hour from major metros or less.
You're one hour or less, I should say.
Exactly.
That we're less than an hour from Sacramento.
We got Walnut Creek, Danville, some East Bay, Oakland.
(14:24):
It's very accessible.
For those that haven't been to the Caymus Sassoon property, can you just tell me a little
bit of the thought that went into it?
What's the size and shape?
So the tasting room kind of resembles an Apple store.
It's a glass building.
The idea for that was to basically be inside when the doors have to be closed, be inside
(14:48):
but still feel like you're outside.
We also designed the whole facility to play with the weather and the weather.
Sassoon means wind out of the west or westerly wind in the native language.
So we can open up the walls of this glass building and allow wind to come through, cool
you off without turning on the AC.
So it's really, we're playing with nature hand in hand with the whole, even though it
(15:12):
looks like a very modern building, it's very grounded.
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(15:33):
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I know you said Apple store, but it is, if a winery and an Apple store were blended,
it's truly a sprawling property that has amazing landscaping, that has a lot of thought and
a lot of future thought.
(15:54):
I did my undergrad at Sonoma in wine as well, and I have been fortunate enough to go to
a bunch of wine tastings in many places.
One of the things that I've always felt was missing in the old guard of wineries, they
want you to taste their wines under certain conditions, with a clear palate.
(16:17):
You're not wearing fragrance, et cetera, if you're doing it truly by the book.
In the middle of a wine tasting day where you've gone to a few properties, nobody wants
caffeine more than me, and you made the decision to put a coffee shop on your property.
I was just like, why is it taken 10, 15 years for somebody to put an espresso machine near
(16:42):
a winery?
After your second winery, you just want to pick me up.
You want to focus on the wines, but it's going to blow out your palate to some regard.
How did that decision come around?
That was something I saw in Australia, South Australia.
No matter what size winery, mom and pop, or a big corporate type, they always had a legit
(17:03):
espresso machine.
It was just a nice something to take away.
We don't charge for it.
It's included in the tasting or it's complimentary.
That was just for the exact reason you just stated that it's... You taste wine, you've
had five different wines, you want a little pick me up, something to go.
(17:24):
It's a nice gesture, I think, and people look forward to it.
It's a massive delight.
I'm not chewing on this point for no reason.
One of the things that Napa has gotten so wrong in the last 10 years is they have been
so prescriptive on the way that the next generation needs to consume wine.
That's like, look, I'm a millennial.
(17:45):
I appreciate this wine.
I appreciate the storytelling of the wine, but I'm also on my day off here to hang out
with my friends.
If a mid-afternoon espresso is going to help me go to one more wine tasting or experience
my friends for another couple hours with an alert present mind, give me the coffee every
time.
I thought that was the first time I thought there was some pragmatism that I had seen
(18:09):
a serious player in the wine space, like, hey, let's do something different.
You would never see a coffee shop, which effectively is what it is, at a property 10 years ago.
We also, thinking of all... You mentioned all your senses, tasting wines and not having
anything on your palate, clean palate.
(18:30):
We position the coffee shop downwind of the tasting room so you don't get the...
Yeah, for the more serious.
You could be as serious as you want here, or you could dress it down and have a nice
glass of wine, et cetera.
How do you think about your brands in national distribution?
The first time I had Cayman's Sassoon, it actually wasn't here in Napa and it wasn't
(18:52):
at your property.
I was walking through SoHo in New York and I ducked into a small wine shop to pick up
a bottle for the night.
It literally hit me with an end cap, there's a Cayman's Sassoon end cap in New York.
It took me coming all the way here to find it.
How do you think about the national distribution of Cayman's and how are the industry trends
(19:15):
going to impact you this year?
We sell 98% plus of our wine through the three tier system, so distributed through three
tier.
The other one and a half or so percent is between the two tasting rooms.
We rely heavily on that.
We don't have a wine club.
We ditched the idea of a wine club to pledge allegiance to the distributors, something
(19:37):
that is not a very common thing here in Napa.
A lot of folks rely on the DTC and understandably so.
With distributors, we also have a team of about 45 people that work for us that are
either regional managers, district managers, chain store, chain restaurant specialists
(20:02):
that work for us that a lot of the time make that placement.
There's a lot going on.
We have a big team that helps us make the placement for us.
The distributor fills the order.
We rely heavily on that.
We're very organized.
It's a different language to me still to this day.
(20:26):
Three tier sales.
Three tier system and how many specialists there are in between.
It's not like you just call a distributor, give them some wine and they sell it.
It's a very orchestrated plan these days.
How do you think the industry trends of 25 are going to change distribution?
I think that probably goes back to the consumer and how people consume wine.
(20:51):
I go to the local shop here in Yachtville and buy specialty wines, buy some European
wines.
I also buy wine at the grocery store.
That's something that 20 years ago wasn't so common.
The wines you get at the grocery store weren't of the caliber.
That's changed.
I mean, even you look at Costco, they're massive.
(21:13):
You go into the Costco and see what wines they have placed there.
It's an awesome place to buy wine.
I think that really depends on the consumer.
I still love to go to a winery or a wine shop to buy wine.
I still also go to the grocery store and buy wine.
Do you think national trends and where consumers actually purchase is going to really impact
your business in that regard?
(21:33):
To me, it seems that grocery stores are only going to be coming stronger and more important
for wine sales.
One stop shop, you're getting your food, you're getting your paper products, whatever else,
and your wine.
How are you thinking about the way that visitation is going to change, either here in the North
(21:55):
Bay between your two properties or for Napa Valley at large?
What's the most interesting thing that you think is going to happen this year?
Well, I think there's an underlying issue in its prices and it's becoming so expensive
to taste at, to taste in a winery.
(22:16):
It's a hundred bucks, could be up to 200 bucks for a tasting per person.
And you couple that with staying at a hotel if you're coming to Napa, going out to one
of the well-known restaurants for a weekend for a couple five grand.
It's out of reach for a lot of people.
That's what I think that there almost will be a check that goes on where people will
(22:41):
start lowering their prices so they don't have empty seats.
I think that's a big deal.
There's other parts of California that people may switch to.
Go to Paso Robles, another hotspot right now, pretty cool.
Sonoma County, very spread out county, but awesome, beautiful place.
I do think that we have visitation because we have a following.
(23:04):
We're also kind of medium to low on the per person tasting fee.
Matter of fact, if you buy a bottle, we waive the fee, so we encourage you to buy a bottle.
But I think that the pricing is a big issue and I think it's not just the wine business,
it's all businesses.
Everyone should be able to come to Napa once in their life and enjoy this place.
(23:26):
It's just you start weighing what a $5,000 weekend could cost versus another part of
the world you could go to.
Yeah, not to be overly dramatic, but a $5,000 weekend in Napa is kind of table stakes when
you can go to some of these other markets and get three, four, five weekends out of
that same juice.
How are you hoping to see the interaction between the figurehead brands, the ones that
(23:55):
have national grocery distribution like yourselves, and some of these indie brands?
How do you think about your brand development on some of your sandbox projects, some of
your off labels or new varietals or things you want to try versus what you show to the
grocery category?
How do you try and make and develop new brands?
(24:18):
That's interesting because we just last week are going to take one of our labels out of
circulation for the three tier system.
It's a sparkling wine my sister makes that'll be tasting room only.
We have some of those, what you're just talking about, some of the off labels or experimental
labels that we sell just through the tasting rooms.
(24:39):
That's the reason to go to the tasting room to buy the old vine garage from Australia
that we make stuff like that.
We have a certain amount of shelf space when it comes to grocery with our wines.
You fight hard to keep it.
I fight hard to keep it.
We don't want to burden the accounts with too many skews.
(25:03):
We still have our fun.
We sell those wines through the tasting room or direct to consumer.
We can call up and we ship them, but we have the core wines that are distributed.
We're very careful with what's out there.
We used to make, we had at one point four different conundrums.
We had two sparkling, one white, one red.
We brought that back down to a white and red because an account's not going to take four
(25:24):
shelf spaces and give them to you.
That was the strategic and that worked for us.
Yeah, that's super interesting.
If you were going to take a pass at describing some of the best practices that make your
tasting room successful, what would you tell somebody opening a tasting room today?
(25:47):
Well, we run it like a restaurant, but without food.
I think that's maybe the most simple way to put it.
In the morning, there's a meeting with the manager and the people that are on staff that
day.
And the restaurant will call that family meal.
Exactly.
That's at nine o'clock, 915.
Who's coming?
(26:07):
Who's expected to come?
VIPs, down to where they're sitting.
They're requested to sit over in the Palm Grove or whatever it was.
I think that our team truly likes each other too.
You see it on their faces.
They're happy.
They love coming to work.
But I think the restaurant mentality, which we don't run a restaurant, but we have that
(26:28):
mentality, it's the inner workings of how these things, how people interact.
And there's, you know, our team will, they can tell if a couple's sitting down, they
don't really want to hear too much about the wine.
They just want to be poured wine.
They'll pour them and kind of leave them alone.
But more often than not, people want to interact.
And yes, I think that's really the staffing and all the great people that we have here
(26:49):
in Napa.
It's made it special.
How are you hoping to work through some of the brand development challenges as the stewardship
burden switches from your father's generation to you and your sister?
How are you positioning yourself to be ready to carry the torch in full-time capacity?
(27:13):
Well, no decision is made without us three right now.
So we have, you know, there's not really a passing of the torch, I guess.
That's not really how official this kind of stuff is.
But what we do is, you know, we evaluate everything we do monthly or every six months or once
(27:36):
a year, big decisions.
Whatever they may be.
Whatever they may be.
If we need to discontinue a wine or we need to, you know, rebrand something or redesign
something, that's really from us and communication with our sales team.
What works and what doesn't work.
We do look at trends.
We don't really try to follow the trends.
We try to, you know, we do a lot of things that just feel right and shoot from the hip.
(28:00):
It sounds off-guard to say such a big brand doesn't have a wine club.
But when you understand your business as the way you've explained it, the idea of the volume
of visitation you have is great.
But in the grand scheme of things, your relationship with your distribution is so important to
the business that it's, you called it a pledge, it's like an homage to understanding your
(28:22):
partner's business.
Exactly.
And the tasting rooms become a home for the wines and visitors want to come and visit.
We have people ask us, you know, I can go to Costco and buy your wine for $8 cheaper
than I could buy it for, from you here.
And I don't have to pay to ship.
We tell them, go to Costco.
I mean, as one example.
(28:45):
But yeah, there's, you know, yes.
So three tier system, very important to us to be at the volume of wine that we make.
We need to be there and it's working for us very well.
What are some things outside of the family business that you're involved with here in
town?
So four buddies and I, we have a, it's called the Napa Valley Car Club.
(29:09):
It's a, actually it's kind of morphed into a social club in downtown Napa.
So it's a membership club members only you can bring guests and it's car centric, but
you don't have to be a car fan to, to be part of it.
It's a workspace.
If you're independent winery, no tasting room, we could use our spot as a tasting room, rent
(29:30):
it for parties.
But it's, it's kind of, I think the first of its kind outside of a country club, it's
a true social club.
Yeah, it's a multipurpose venue for the hospitality industry.
Exactly.
And it's like minded people we've met.
It's really, really interesting and so fun to go in there and not recognize any face
(29:51):
and then within an hour, you're friends with other members.
I mean, that's actually how, how we connected.
I was, I was down there hanging out with Ms. Adi and he's like, Hey, have you met Charlie?
I think the couple of things I'd love to just hear, what would you tell somebody young coming
(30:12):
up in the industry?
You've had such an interesting perspective because it was literally a multi-generational
family, but somebody wanting to break into the industry, how, how would you do it?
I would, well, I think it'd be tough to get into Napa right now with prices as they are
(30:33):
as a, as a startup without money backing you.
I think that's a, that's a big one.
So I guess my advice would be another, another area besides Napa with less of a spotlight
on it, maybe Sisson Valley, maybe Paso Robles, Monterey County.
And you're talking as a, as somebody making a brand, making a brand.
(30:54):
I think what about somebody who just wants a career in the industry?
Where would you start?
Wow.
I think probably working at a harvest with somebody, just see if you like it.
That's the fun work.
They're long hours, but I think the indoctrination of, you know, until you've had a chance to
work on a bottling line or until you've had a chance to prune a row, you're just not going
(31:19):
to be truly understanding of some of the comings and goings.
That's it.
That's it.
I think, and all that is fun work.
It's, I mean, I grew up doing it.
I guess I'd guess fun is relative.
I was on the bottling line when I was 12, you know, whatever, and saved up to buy a
dirt bike just at the end of summer, like that kind of stuff.
But you put your work in and, but I do think that there are also so many different layers
(31:45):
to the wine business, all different types of hospitality.
And Napa in my lifetime, I've seen it change from what was tasting rooms with, I mean,
when I was a kid, our tasting room was two barrels with a door laid over it.
And that was a tasting bar, $2 a tasting, $2 a person.
You got the glass to go home.
Wine was basically free.
(32:06):
And now it's turned into this industry where there's all these different layers, whether
it's food, whether it's a health spa, the great resorts and stuff like that.
So there's a lot to it.
I'm so very grateful you jumped on to share a little bit about your family story.
I think the last question I would have for you is how can people follow your work?
(32:27):
Maybe you could name some of your social handles or plug your two tasting room locations, but
please share a little bit about the buy the glass programs versus the flights at both
locations.
I think that's so unique and I think that's a great way to close.
That is a fun one.
So you don't need to come in and do the big, the sit down tasting, which is an hour, hour
(32:48):
and a half, which is five or six wines.
You can come in and get a glass.
And that's so atypical.
It's not common in Napa.
I think that we, it's interesting to see, you know, the entry fee there for a glass
of wine is 10 or $12 and it's, and you just treat it, treat it as a wine bar.
I think that's kind of, we have some repeat customers out in Cayman, I think Red One Lady,
(33:13):
I think has been out there 60 something times.
So Thursday night.
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I think both locations we, we, we've love reservations and or walk-ins.
So come and visit at either place.
Sir, thank you very much for jumping on today's guest was Charlie Wagner of the Caymus family
(33:33):
or the Caymus family of brands.
But thank you.
Thank you.
Cheers.
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Cheers.
Welcome to the Napa Valley Insider podcast.
(00:04):
I'm your host, Andrew Allison, chief growth officer of Preferably, the leader in wine,
spirits and food recommendations.
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All right, all right, all right.
Welcome back to another episode of Napa Valley Insider.
(00:26):
I am so excited to introduce our guest today.
Who are you and what do you do?
Well, thank you for having me, Charlie Wagner from Caymus Vineyards.
Sir, your family is of legend, a very, very small intersection.
My grandparents planted Cabernet in the 80s.
And the family story is your father came up and knocked on my grandfather's door back
(00:50):
in the 80s and said, hey, that's some nice Cabernet out there.
Can we talk about buying it?
And so that was the first time the Wagner's crossed our path.
But we sold we sold fruit to you guys, I think, for a smaller brand.
Was it Liberty Schoolhouse?
Yep, Liberty School.
Liberty School was the second label to Caymus Vineyards.
(01:11):
The label still exists.
It's operated out of Paso Robles.
Liberty School was a schoolhouse on the Caymus Vineyards property.
So there's some cool history there.
And by the way, we still do knock on doors.
So I mean, if it was back in the 80s at that time, the vineyard must have been so young.
(01:31):
I mean, you must have had fruit rights on our vineyard before it was even ready.
And so I think the it's the hard 10 property now for those that don't know it's no longer
in our family.
But so so very cool to meet somebody that's been a multi generational family.
So can you just share a little bit for those that don't know what is the Wagner family
(01:55):
origin story?
And how do you fit into that?
So I'm a fifth generation Napa Valley.
My first ancestors great great grandfather came here in mid 1850s.
And homesteaded above what is now called Bell Canyon Reservoir in St. Helena.
(02:16):
And the homestead is still there.
It's a pile of rubble, really.
They weren't in the wine business nor nor was the second generation once they moved
here.
After that, my great grand great grandfather was a winemaker at a wine called winery called
Brunnen Schacht's winery or Brunnen Shea, which is now Ladera and now Kate, actually.
(02:37):
So he he made wine.
He was the first one of the the winemakers in our family three generations ago.
Wow.
Out on Howell.
Yep.
That's amazing.
I thought we have some great black and white photos.
That's so interesting.
Recently we've done a recording with the the Hoxie family.
And obviously there's very few people that own as much land as your family and they too
(03:01):
are a fifth generation family.
How do you think about the role that you play in the family business and how has that changed
from your father's generation?
Well, I think it's changed.
It seems like it changes every year even.
But generationally, I think my father's generation, California wasn't very well known for wine.
(03:23):
Napa Valley was just kind of getting what you're referring to.
I would say 60s, 70s and then early 80s.
It was really kind of a day trip from people that came from San Francisco.
A lot of the wines were made in the style to compete with Bordeaux and about mid 90s,
(03:45):
that kind of switched.
Riper styles, more fruit forward wines started to be made and Napa was kind of carved off
as its own little specialty.
And so I think in a nutshell back 60s, 70s, people were trying to scrape by.
And now we live in a beautiful place that has worldwide attention.
(04:07):
I think with every generation that goes by, my dad is 73, very forward thinking.
He relies on my sister and I to kind of keep our ears to the ground for the younger generation,
younger than us.
I'm in my mid 40s, so I'm not considered young anymore.
But I think it's never evolving.
(04:28):
I think hospitality is a big one now.
People come here and we have a captive audience.
They want food, they want wine, they want activities.
And that's what Napa has become in the best way possible.
I think there's a few observations that I don't know are common knowledge that over
the course of just a few conversations with you that really stood out.
(04:51):
What do you think were the most transformative learning moments of learning the family business
for you?
Well, excuse me, I grew up in the vineyards and shoveling tanks when I was five.
It was fun to me.
Is that how you raise your children now?
Yep, they love it.
(05:12):
It's fun.
It's really just a fun way of life.
I think it got kind of serious when I was in high school.
Where it became more of a responsibility.
Became a responsibility.
I was actually my counselor at the public high school in St. Helena, let me take every
other Friday off to drive down to Salinas Valley where we had a Chardonnay Vineyard.
(05:33):
So I was 16, making wine, not able to drink it.
My whole past is actually I need to help the family business.
It was very cool.
Mrs. McCollum, if you're out there, shout out.
It was great because I think she saw that I was continuing in the family business and
I did go to college, but that didn't last long.
I couldn't wait to get back to work.
(05:53):
So that was kind of when it hit home.
And yeah, now I think every day it seems like things are changing and we're very nimble
being a family business.
I think being able to work with my dad and my sister on a daily basis, we're together
every day at some point, that really just cements it, that it's generational and it's
(06:14):
fun and we still love what we do.
How would you describe the fingerprint that your father has put on this business?
And how do you think the fingerprints that you will put on this business or still yet
to put on this business are different?
Well I think the most obvious one would be that Caymus is a Cabernet producing winery.
(06:40):
That's what Caymus is known for and that's really what my dad and my grandpa, he was
older at the time, but my dad really wanted to drive Cabernet home.
It was one wine, it was Cabernet.
There's some other little Sauvignon Blancs and stuff that are made for the tasting room.
I think more recently we've gone out, my sister and I, to grow other varietals in other parts
of California and very close to here, right over the hills, Sassoon Valley, Monterey County,
(07:06):
San Benito County.
We've found interest in those other varietals that I think are very interesting.
We all know what Cabernet tastes like.
I love it, love Cabernet, but I also love Grenache and I love Chardonnay and red blends
and white blends and stuff like that.
So I think it's that kind of focusing on maybe California as a whole more than just Napa
(07:27):
Valley.
And when you think about the things that have made Caymus successful, what are some of the
things that have been the right things in the recipe that you're very glad your father
did that still hold true today?
I think it's from beginning to end, from growing grapes to making wine to selling wine.
(07:52):
I think-
Controlling the full vertical.
And that full control, and that really is the exciting part.
We have, you know, you can buy grapes.
We do buy grapes from growers.
We like to have some sort of control if it's not our property.
We do a lot of the, we make all the calls on pruning and stuff like that.
(08:14):
I mean, from the very beginning all the way to bottle.
And I think that's probably the biggest one.
Caymus also got awarded Wine Spectator Wine of the Year two times, which I think we're
still the only winery to have to have been awarded that great award twice.
That really put Caymus on the map.
What was the first year?
(08:36):
It was, gosh, late 80s and early 90s.
I can't remember the years that they were awarded, but they're a few years apart.
So that was really, that was a big deal.
That was the social signal.
That was when, you know, and critics are great.
When you get a great rating, you love critics.
(08:56):
And you take and you talk about it.
I think maybe now critics are maybe a little less important because everybody's a critic
and everybody has a device and they all, you know, everybody has an opinion.
So it's great in that sense too.
But I think that was really it.
That was the signal that Napa Valley was coming up, not Caymus vineyards in general, but Napa
(09:18):
Valley as a whole had the spotlight on it.
And it was a very exciting time.
What was the first time you made a business decision that positively impacted Caymus?
Well I think probably the first one was early 2000s when I built a winery down in Monterey
(09:42):
County for white wine production.
So we had a small barrel room.
We had to expand.
We couldn't expand here.
Most of the grapes were grown down south in Monterey County anyway.
And that kind of alleviated a lot of the stress here in Napa.
So we took out a lot of white wine production, brought it down to a white wine only facility
we have in Monterey County.
It's called Conundrum Winery.
(10:04):
That was kind of the first time that we stepped out of our comfort zone, a three hour drive
away.
It's not that close.
And have a separate facility down there.
And that kind of showed me and showed I think our whole family, our whole organization that
we could do stuff like that.
And home base is still always Napa.
But to have some other stuff outside of Napa County kind of started the diversity of our
(10:26):
wine brands.
Was that the proving grounds to then what gave you the confidence to do Caymus so soon?
That was.
Although there's no hospitality down there.
It's production only.
But really what happened was that I think that's accurate to say that we had that was
kind of that was out of necessity to build a winery down there.
(10:47):
You just need a capacity.
We need a capacity.
Caymus so soon.
We need capacity.
And also it's a beautiful place.
Why not bring in hospitality too?
Yeah.
So let's talk through the business decisions.
How did the idea of Caymus so soon come about?
And who brought it to the family table?
We've been growing grapes out there for 11 or 12 years now.
(11:10):
So you knew the land.
We knew the land.
We knew the quality was there.
The quality is very similar to Napa.
Cabernet, if you taste blind, we have some Cabernet lots that are incredible.
For those that don't know, Soosoon is known for Petite Syrah.
That would be everybody's flagship wine is a Petite Syrah.
But a lot of other great stuff grows there.
(11:32):
Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Grenache.
We have some Amarone varietals.
We have some Greek, a Sertico white Greek varietal.
All these things grow great.
Stuff that we would never really experiment with here in Napa because land values are
so high here.
We know we do best.
It's Cabernet.
Let's go to the next county over 45 minute drive away and have some fun.
(11:53):
It's still an AVA that's almost as old as Napa if I remember correctly.
I think it's one year older than Napa.
So it's been a place that's transitioned from what was mainly apricots and nuts to
grapes.
So, pretty interesting to see how Napa used to, after Prohibition, during Prohibition,
(12:13):
people ripped out vineyards and planted prunes and walnuts and then eventually went back
to grapes.
Over there it was just a different landscape 30 years ago.
So let's get back on that question.
So you felt confident in the land.
You guys worked the land and you knew the community.
(12:34):
How did you have the gumption to row the boat on the size of facility that you built?
What other indicators made you believe it would work?
Well two things happened kind of at the same time.
Number one was we eventually outgrew Napa for production.
So we went over to a town called Cordelia, which is right behind the Budweiser Brewery
(12:57):
on Highway 80, built a production facility that's production only.
Beautiful production facility right on a big highway where there's a lot of...
I mean there's a reason Budweiser is there.
High access thoroughfare.
It's great.
It's beautiful.
Other side of the highway is the Ag Preserve that's the Sisson Valley.
(13:19):
So first came the need for production.
So we built the winery there, kept a ton of traffic off of Napa roads by doing that because
a lot of our labor force lived in Solano County.
So then we decided to...
We didn't have a home for the Caymus Sassoon wines.
So we have a Caymus Sassoon Petite Seurat.
We call it Grand Dureef.
And then a Caymus Sassoon, it's called the Walking Fool.
(13:40):
It's a red blend.
So we needed a home for those wines.
We built what is the Caymus Sassoon Winery, a hospitality center.
A small amount of production is there too.
And we just kind of wanted to see who would show up.
And it's very interesting to see.
It's a lot of day trippers and it's a really accurate slice of what the state of California
(14:02):
looks like.
And the access to Sisson Valley is quite literally high access.
You're one hour from major metros or less.
You're one hour or less, I should say.
Exactly.
That we're less than an hour from Sacramento.
We got Walnut Creek, Danville, some East Bay, Oakland.
(14:24):
It's very accessible.
For those that haven't been to the Caymus Sassoon property, can you just tell me a little
bit of the thought that went into it?
What's the size and shape?
So the tasting room kind of resembles an Apple store.
It's a glass building.
The idea for that was to basically be inside when the doors have to be closed, be inside
(14:48):
but still feel like you're outside.
We also designed the whole facility to play with the weather and the weather.
Sassoon means wind out of the west or westerly wind in the native language.
So we can open up the walls of this glass building and allow wind to come through, cool
you off without turning on the AC.
So it's really, we're playing with nature hand in hand with the whole, even though it
(15:12):
looks like a very modern building, it's very grounded.
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I know you said Apple store, but it is, if a winery and an Apple store were blended,
it's truly a sprawling property that has amazing landscaping, that has a lot of thought and
a lot of future thought.
(15:54):
I did my undergrad at Sonoma in wine as well, and I have been fortunate enough to go to
a bunch of wine tastings in many places.
One of the things that I've always felt was missing in the old guard of wineries, they
want you to taste their wines under certain conditions, with a clear palate.
(16:17):
You're not wearing fragrance, et cetera, if you're doing it truly by the book.
In the middle of a wine tasting day where you've gone to a few properties, nobody wants
caffeine more than me, and you made the decision to put a coffee shop on your property.
I was just like, why is it taken 10, 15 years for somebody to put an espresso machine near
(16:42):
a winery?
After your second winery, you just want to pick me up.
You want to focus on the wines, but it's going to blow out your palate to some regard.
How did that decision come around?
That was something I saw in Australia, South Australia.
No matter what size winery, mom and pop, or a big corporate type, they always had a legit
(17:03):
espresso machine.
It was just a nice something to take away.
We don't charge for it.
It's included in the tasting or it's complimentary.
That was just for the exact reason you just stated that it's... You taste wine, you've
had five different wines, you want a little pick me up, something to go.
(17:24):
It's a nice gesture, I think, and people look forward to it.
It's a massive delight.
I'm not chewing on this point for no reason.
One of the things that Napa has gotten so wrong in the last 10 years is they have been
so prescriptive on the way that the next generation needs to consume wine.
That's like, look, I'm a millennial.
(17:45):
I appreciate this wine.
I appreciate the storytelling of the wine, but I'm also on my day off here to hang out
with my friends.
If a mid-afternoon espresso is going to help me go to one more wine tasting or experience
my friends for another couple hours with an alert present mind, give me the coffee every
time.
I thought that was the first time I thought there was some pragmatism that I had seen
(18:09):
a serious player in the wine space, like, hey, let's do something different.
You would never see a coffee shop, which effectively is what it is, at a property 10 years ago.
We also, thinking of all... You mentioned all your senses, tasting wines and not having
anything on your palate, clean palate.
(18:30):
We position the coffee shop downwind of the tasting room so you don't get the...
Yeah, for the more serious.
You could be as serious as you want here, or you could dress it down and have a nice
glass of wine, et cetera.
How do you think about your brands in national distribution?
The first time I had Cayman's Sassoon, it actually wasn't here in Napa and it wasn't
(18:52):
at your property.
I was walking through SoHo in New York and I ducked into a small wine shop to pick up
a bottle for the night.
It literally hit me with an end cap, there's a Cayman's Sassoon end cap in New York.
It took me coming all the way here to find it.
How do you think about the national distribution of Cayman's and how are the industry trends
(19:15):
going to impact you this year?
We sell 98% plus of our wine through the three tier system, so distributed through three
tier.
The other one and a half or so percent is between the two tasting rooms.
We rely heavily on that.
We don't have a wine club.
We ditched the idea of a wine club to pledge allegiance to the distributors, something
(19:37):
that is not a very common thing here in Napa.
A lot of folks rely on the DTC and understandably so.
With distributors, we also have a team of about 45 people that work for us that are
either regional managers, district managers, chain store, chain restaurant specialists
(20:02):
that work for us that a lot of the time make that placement.
There's a lot going on.
We have a big team that helps us make the placement for us.
The distributor fills the order.
We rely heavily on that.
We're very organized.
It's a different language to me still to this day.
(20:26):
Three tier sales.
Three tier system and how many specialists there are in between.
It's not like you just call a distributor, give them some wine and they sell it.
It's a very orchestrated plan these days.
How do you think the industry trends of 25 are going to change distribution?
I think that probably goes back to the consumer and how people consume wine.
(20:51):
I go to the local shop here in Yachtville and buy specialty wines, buy some European
wines.
I also buy wine at the grocery store.
That's something that 20 years ago wasn't so common.
The wines you get at the grocery store weren't of the caliber.
That's changed.
I mean, even you look at Costco, they're massive.
(21:13):
You go into the Costco and see what wines they have placed there.
It's an awesome place to buy wine.
I think that really depends on the consumer.
I still love to go to a winery or a wine shop to buy wine.
I still also go to the grocery store and buy wine.
Do you think national trends and where consumers actually purchase is going to really impact
your business in that regard?
(21:33):
To me, it seems that grocery stores are only going to be coming stronger and more important
for wine sales.
One stop shop, you're getting your food, you're getting your paper products, whatever else,
and your wine.
How are you thinking about the way that visitation is going to change, either here in the North
(21:55):
Bay between your two properties or for Napa Valley at large?
What's the most interesting thing that you think is going to happen this year?
Well, I think there's an underlying issue in its prices and it's becoming so expensive
to taste at, to taste in a winery.
(22:16):
It's a hundred bucks, could be up to 200 bucks for a tasting per person.
And you couple that with staying at a hotel if you're coming to Napa, going out to one
of the well-known restaurants for a weekend for a couple five grand.
It's out of reach for a lot of people.
That's what I think that there almost will be a check that goes on where people will
(22:41):
start lowering their prices so they don't have empty seats.
I think that's a big deal.
There's other parts of California that people may switch to.
Go to Paso Robles, another hotspot right now, pretty cool.
Sonoma County, very spread out county, but awesome, beautiful place.
I do think that we have visitation because we have a following.
(23:04):
We're also kind of medium to low on the per person tasting fee.
Matter of fact, if you buy a bottle, we waive the fee, so we encourage you to buy a bottle.
But I think that the pricing is a big issue and I think it's not just the wine business,
it's all businesses.
Everyone should be able to come to Napa once in their life and enjoy this place.
(23:26):
It's just you start weighing what a $5,000 weekend could cost versus another part of
the world you could go to.
Yeah, not to be overly dramatic, but a $5,000 weekend in Napa is kind of table stakes when
you can go to some of these other markets and get three, four, five weekends out of
that same juice.
How are you hoping to see the interaction between the figurehead brands, the ones that
(23:55):
have national grocery distribution like yourselves, and some of these indie brands?
How do you think about your brand development on some of your sandbox projects, some of
your off labels or new varietals or things you want to try versus what you show to the
grocery category?
How do you try and make and develop new brands?
(24:18):
That's interesting because we just last week are going to take one of our labels out of
circulation for the three tier system.
It's a sparkling wine my sister makes that'll be tasting room only.
We have some of those, what you're just talking about, some of the off labels or experimental
labels that we sell just through the tasting rooms.
(24:39):
That's the reason to go to the tasting room to buy the old vine garage from Australia
that we make stuff like that.
We have a certain amount of shelf space when it comes to grocery with our wines.
You fight hard to keep it.
I fight hard to keep it.
We don't want to burden the accounts with too many skews.
(25:03):
We still have our fun.
We sell those wines through the tasting room or direct to consumer.
We can call up and we ship them, but we have the core wines that are distributed.
We're very careful with what's out there.
We used to make, we had at one point four different conundrums.
We had two sparkling, one white, one red.
We brought that back down to a white and red because an account's not going to take four
(25:24):
shelf spaces and give them to you.
That was the strategic and that worked for us.
Yeah, that's super interesting.
If you were going to take a pass at describing some of the best practices that make your
tasting room successful, what would you tell somebody opening a tasting room today?
(25:47):
Well, we run it like a restaurant, but without food.
I think that's maybe the most simple way to put it.
In the morning, there's a meeting with the manager and the people that are on staff that
day.
And the restaurant will call that family meal.
Exactly.
That's at nine o'clock, 915.
Who's coming?
(26:07):
Who's expected to come?
VIPs, down to where they're sitting.
They're requested to sit over in the Palm Grove or whatever it was.
I think that our team truly likes each other too.
You see it on their faces.
They're happy.
They love coming to work.
But I think the restaurant mentality, which we don't run a restaurant, but we have that
(26:28):
mentality, it's the inner workings of how these things, how people interact.
And there's, you know, our team will, they can tell if a couple's sitting down, they
don't really want to hear too much about the wine.
They just want to be poured wine.
They'll pour them and kind of leave them alone.
But more often than not, people want to interact.
And yes, I think that's really the staffing and all the great people that we have here
(26:49):
in Napa.
It's made it special.
How are you hoping to work through some of the brand development challenges as the stewardship
burden switches from your father's generation to you and your sister?
How are you positioning yourself to be ready to carry the torch in full-time capacity?
(27:13):
Well, no decision is made without us three right now.
So we have, you know, there's not really a passing of the torch, I guess.
That's not really how official this kind of stuff is.
But what we do is, you know, we evaluate everything we do monthly or every six months or once
(27:36):
a year, big decisions.
Whatever they may be.
Whatever they may be.
If we need to discontinue a wine or we need to, you know, rebrand something or redesign
something, that's really from us and communication with our sales team.
What works and what doesn't work.
We do look at trends.
We don't really try to follow the trends.
We try to, you know, we do a lot of things that just feel right and shoot from the hip.
(28:00):
It sounds off-guard to say such a big brand doesn't have a wine club.
But when you understand your business as the way you've explained it, the idea of the volume
of visitation you have is great.
But in the grand scheme of things, your relationship with your distribution is so important to
the business that it's, you called it a pledge, it's like an homage to understanding your
(28:22):
partner's business.
Exactly.
And the tasting rooms become a home for the wines and visitors want to come and visit.
We have people ask us, you know, I can go to Costco and buy your wine for $8 cheaper
than I could buy it for, from you here.
And I don't have to pay to ship.
We tell them, go to Costco.
I mean, as one example.
(28:45):
But yeah, there's, you know, yes.
So three tier system, very important to us to be at the volume of wine that we make.
We need to be there and it's working for us very well.
What are some things outside of the family business that you're involved with here in
town?
So four buddies and I, we have a, it's called the Napa Valley Car Club.
(29:09):
It's a, actually it's kind of morphed into a social club in downtown Napa.
So it's a membership club members only you can bring guests and it's car centric, but
you don't have to be a car fan to, to be part of it.
It's a workspace.
If you're independent winery, no tasting room, we could use our spot as a tasting room, rent
(29:30):
it for parties.
But it's, it's kind of, I think the first of its kind outside of a country club, it's
a true social club.
Yeah, it's a multipurpose venue for the hospitality industry.
Exactly.
And it's like minded people we've met.
It's really, really interesting and so fun to go in there and not recognize any face
(29:51):
and then within an hour, you're friends with other members.
I mean, that's actually how, how we connected.
I was, I was down there hanging out with Ms. Adi and he's like, Hey, have you met Charlie?
I think the couple of things I'd love to just hear, what would you tell somebody young coming
(30:12):
up in the industry?
You've had such an interesting perspective because it was literally a multi-generational
family, but somebody wanting to break into the industry, how, how would you do it?
I would, well, I think it'd be tough to get into Napa right now with prices as they are
(30:33):
as a, as a startup without money backing you.
I think that's a, that's a big one.
So I guess my advice would be another, another area besides Napa with less of a spotlight
on it, maybe Sisson Valley, maybe Paso Robles, Monterey County.
And you're talking as a, as somebody making a brand, making a brand.
(30:54):
I think what about somebody who just wants a career in the industry?
Where would you start?
Wow.
I think probably working at a harvest with somebody, just see if you like it.
That's the fun work.
They're long hours, but I think the indoctrination of, you know, until you've had a chance to
work on a bottling line or until you've had a chance to prune a row, you're just not going
(31:19):
to be truly understanding of some of the comings and goings.
That's it.
That's it.
I think, and all that is fun work.
It's, I mean, I grew up doing it.
I guess I'd guess fun is relative.
I was on the bottling line when I was 12, you know, whatever, and saved up to buy a
dirt bike just at the end of summer, like that kind of stuff.
But you put your work in and, but I do think that there are also so many different layers
(31:45):
to the wine business, all different types of hospitality.
And Napa in my lifetime, I've seen it change from what was tasting rooms with, I mean,
when I was a kid, our tasting room was two barrels with a door laid over it.
And that was a tasting bar, $2 a tasting, $2 a person.
You got the glass to go home.
Wine was basically free.
(32:06):
And now it's turned into this industry where there's all these different layers, whether
it's food, whether it's a health spa, the great resorts and stuff like that.
So there's a lot to it.
I'm so very grateful you jumped on to share a little bit about your family story.
I think the last question I would have for you is how can people follow your work?
(32:27):
Maybe you could name some of your social handles or plug your two tasting room locations, but
please share a little bit about the buy the glass programs versus the flights at both
locations.
I think that's so unique and I think that's a great way to close.
That is a fun one.
So you don't need to come in and do the big, the sit down tasting, which is an hour, hour
(32:48):
and a half, which is five or six wines.
You can come in and get a glass.
And that's so atypical.
It's not common in Napa.
I think that we, it's interesting to see, you know, the entry fee there for a glass
of wine is 10 or $12 and it's, and you just treat it, treat it as a wine bar.
I think that's kind of, we have some repeat customers out in Cayman, I think Red One Lady,
(33:13):
I think has been out there 60 something times.
So Thursday night.
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I think both locations we, we, we've love reservations and or walk-ins.
So come and visit at either place.
Sir, thank you very much for jumping on today's guest was Charlie Wagner of the Caymus family
(33:33):
or the Caymus family of brands.
But thank you.
Thank you.
Cheers.
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Cheers.
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