November 8, 2023 • 21 mins
"Quintessential" means “the best of its kind.” For Steve Sr. and Dennis Kreps, it meant focusing on small, family-owned wineries to establish Quintessential in 2003. Based in Napa, this family owned/operated import, marketing and sales company represents independent multi-generational winemaking families around the world. That’s currently 30 families and 41 wineries in 11 countries. The cofounders share the company’s quintessential milestones over the last 20 years. www.quintessentialwines.com
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET.
The Connected Table Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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(00:03):
Welcome to the Connected Table SIPs oniHeartRadio. We are your insatiably curious culinary
couple Melanie Young and David Ransom.We bring you the dynamic people who are
front and center and behind the scenesin food, wine, spirits and hospitality.
Ours is a delicious life and wewant to share it with you.
(00:26):
The word Quintessential means the best ofits kind. For Steve Senior and Dennis
Krepp's that means focusing on small,family owned wineries. When establishing Quintessential in
two thousand and three, based inNapa, this family owned and operated import,
marketing and sales company continues to representindependent, multi generational wine making families
(00:51):
around the world. That's currently thirtyfamilies and forty one wineries in eleven countries.
We're joined by Steve Senior and DennisScraps, who are going to share
Quintessential's vision and thoughts about the winebusiness today and a few Quintessential milestones from
the last twenty years. Welcome,Thank you for having us. First of
(01:11):
all, congratulations on twenty years inbusiness. That's so amazing. Quintessential focuses
exclusively on working with independent, familyowned and operated wineries as we said in
eleven countries, who were some ofthe first family wineries you started working with.
Well, everything was actually done bydesign, you know. When we
first started to put this company together, I had been in the business for
(01:34):
just a little over twenty nine years, so I felt like I was starting
to get a grasp on what thewine industry was all about. And one
of the things that we thought thatthere was a big void in and the
people that were getting left out werethe small family wineries around the world.
So we decided to really focus onthem and give them the opportunity to get
to market. The two of thefirst wineries and I have to make it
(01:57):
too, because we had a firstone, which was Semen Sig from South
Africa, and within the next twomonths we added Valentine Yankee from Argentina.
And we wanted one wineries that werecharacteristic of the area that they come from
and very high quality image at thesame time making the varietals that are characteristic
of that particular appellation. Simon Sikfit that bill, and so did Valentine
(02:23):
Biyankee. We also wanted to puttogether a portfolio of people and wineries that
would complement what we were going toextend our company to be down the road,
and that is a group of verynice people who really have a passion
for making great wine and want tomove forward into the future with their next
generation. So semen Seg and ValentineBiyankee fit into our portfolio perfectly. So
(02:46):
we're a little more unique than manycorporate structures. It is a relationship business,
as we all know. And thankyou for that little bitty deep dive
Steve, and then the founding ofQuintessential. It's really a a important to
understand that so many wineries are ownedby families, right David, Absolutely,
and it's important because it is multigenerational. Yeah, what do you feel
(03:07):
are some of Quintessential's milestones in thelast twenty years since you took on the
first two wineries, you know,I would say there's probably four or five
major milestones. The first one waswhen we added Luca Bossio and his family
winery to the portfolio in two thousandand eight. They weren't really an established
brand in the US at the time, and we really started working with him
(03:30):
in a very small way. ButLuca had just taken over the business from
his family. He was twenty threeyears old. At the time, so
very very young, very innovative.We developed brands with him, and some
of our most successful brands are producedby Lucas. So that was probably,
you know, one of the reallyfirst major events that happened with our portfolio
that really grew it. But afterthat, in twenty ten, we added
(03:52):
Bodegos Muriel from Rioha. Javier storyis funny. We used to have an
office right off of a highway twentynine, an old pink building that it
had had his own little exit,and Javier was on vacation with a friend
of his in the Napa Valley,saw our sign that said imported distributor,
turned around and walked in the frontdoor and asked if he could talk to
the wine buyer. And I heardhim say it, and I leaned down
(04:14):
my door and took a look,and I saw this guy standing there with
messy hair braces, a wrinkled dirtyshirt, shorts and flip flops, and
I went, oh, you knowwhat, I'm going to talk to him,
and I sat down, and withinabout two minutes I understood that he
and his father had an incredible businessand something that we could really grow.
And we've grown that brand to oneof the most established Rioha brands in the
US. From there, we addedIronstone from Lodi with the Couch's family,
(04:39):
they owned eight thousand acres of vineyards. Their business had been really big at
one time and had come down quitea bit, and we re established it,
we rebranded it, we repackaged it, and that was our first kind
of major entry into the domestic winebusiness and that's been very successful. And
then in twenty fifteen we hadded Georgeto Book and that was one of those
brands that everybody in the world knows. Everybody in the US knows every wine
(05:01):
drink or everybody in the trade knowsGeorge the Books, being the king of
Beaujelaie. We picked it up,we turned their business around, we've kind
of relaunched neu Veaux, we've relaunchedtheir Baujelat village, and we've grown the
business from where it was. Soit was exciting, but it was also
a brand that kind of got alot of people's attention for Quintessential. And
then lastly, in the last regionwe really wanted to get into that we
(05:21):
weren't with Champagne. In twenty twenty, we had a Champagne Palmer, and
I think that really it rounds outthe portfolio. It adds some prestige to
our portfolio, and I think kindof puts the cherry on the top.
That is the cherry on top,very very impressive, and we know those
brands and love those brands. It'sreally a top of the line category in
a very competitive market. So youkind of touched on how you've expanded the
(05:46):
portfolio over time to a two partquestion. You said, Dennis, at
the end of the day, you'reall salespeople, and I think we have
to all remember that you run amajor company. But the end of the
day, it's sales, and it'sgetting that brand into the buyer's interests and
radar, whether it's on or offpremise. How has that changed over the
years And do you find that withQuintessential there's certain wine regions you tend to
(06:10):
focus on more than others for thatreason, or do you focus on everything.
When we first started, we startedoff with Semumsig and Valentine Bianchi and
then we slowly moved into Luco ballseal and we had some experts in the
industry come to me and say you'redoing this wrong. Importers need to be
specialist. You need to decide areyou a specialist in South America? Are
you a specialist in South Africa?Are you going to be a specialist in
(06:31):
Italy? Figure out what you're goingto be and then specialize. My dad
and I's response to that was,we are specialists in the accounts. We
focus on white tablecloth restaurants and highquality restaurants that you know, serve wine
and tell a story and are lookingfor unique, eclectic selections. We focus
on fine wine retailers that have winestewards that that hand sell wines, and
(06:55):
we focus on grocery stores that havewine stewards that also hand sell. So
we built a portfolio around those accounts. So our focus has always been family
owned and operate a multi generational buildingfor future generations, because our unique point
of difference is we take those storiesto the storytellers in the accounts. So
we've built the portfolio of lines thatare focused on a certain kind of trade
(07:17):
channel more so than focusing on aparticular category. And you know, the
one thing sometimes we say something aswe don't is one of the most important
things we do is we focus onworking with good people. Our point of
difference is telling that family story,because that's the one thing we all have
in commonist family. You both comefrom selling and you're in the business of
selling, but you also have tosell well to your customers. Let's talk
(07:39):
about that a little bit and talkabout how you train your salespeople, what
you expect out of them, andhow you want them to focus on doing
their job. So as far assales training goes, it all depends on
the person. We want to hiregood people, we want to hire hard
working people, and then we makesure they understand how we go to market,
meaning we're going to focus on theaccount, We're going to focus on
(08:00):
the consumer. But we need toget to know that salesperson. Each every
one of them has different strengths andweaknesses. Some of them will be really
really strong administratively, so they canmanage pricing and inventory and programming great,
but they're a little rough around theedges when it comes to calling on a
final line restaurant, or maybe theydon't quite understand grocery and Nielsen numbers.
So it's understanding that salesperson where theirweaknesses are and trying to develop that while
(08:22):
taking advantage of their strengths. Butthe one thing we always really focus on.
I think this is something that's verydifferent than a lot of the other
companies that do what we do isour people's efforts are about being in the
street. They have maybe one reportthey'll fill out a month, it's a
one pager. Otherwise their time isdedicated to be in the street five six
days a week. We want themall doing at least one consumer events a
(08:45):
week because we want them touching theconsumer, we want them helping their accounts
sell the wine, and we wantthem telling those family stories to the consumer
and to the trade. That's sointeresting because we read a lot of how
a lot of people from on premiseor transitioning out of the restaurant us into
sales to try something new and havea little more flexibility. But it is
very hard work and you do needthe training. It's good to see that
(09:05):
Quintessential really invests in their people.So we'd like each of you to respond
to this next question. What doyou feel are the most important trends,
both the good and the challenging inthe wine world today. Steve, let's
start with you. Well, Ithink the question that we're constantly asked and
something that Dennis has going on inthe first quarter of next year. We're
(09:28):
asked constantly for those products that aresustainable, biodynamic, organic. So what
Dennis has done is in the firstquarter of twenty four is he will be
running an organic, biodynamic, sustainableprogram nationally. In twenty twenty four,
we will also be dedicating as wehave had in the past, if consumer
(09:52):
goes to our web page, they'llsee our wineries by winery, our wineries
by varietal, all the typical categories. In our next edition of our web
page, we're also going to havea section that they can go to that's
just sustainable wines, bio dynamic wines, and organic wine. And I think
that'll be a big aid to theconsumer and too many of the buyers out
(10:15):
there who are looking for wines inthat category. And actually forty five percent
of our wineries are already in thisbusiness, so we've got a pretty good
compliment of wines in this category.We touched on a little bit earlier.
Another big piece of it is thatfamily story authenticity. The wine business is
becoming more and more corporate every day, and as it becomes corporate, the
consumers, you know, previously theyweren't as informed. They didn't have the
(10:39):
Internet. They couldn't google a brandand see that it was owned by a
corporation or owned by a private equitycompany. Now they can dig in into
it and see if it's a madeup label or a bottle with a label
slap on it with a marketing story, or there's a real family behind it.
So the information technology that's really happenedin the last ten years has been
great for our business because we've gotthese wonderful family stories and the consumer wants
(11:03):
to connect with the producer that it'sthat kind of craft wave. They want
to connect with the producer. Sothat's another big one that we've really seen
is the family stories. The authenticityfits perfectly into our portfolio and our little
niche being a history nut, whichI am. When you take one of
our wineries like Gusta Lorenz, it'sa lot of fun to be with.
(11:26):
That married couple was George and Ingrid. George is very very French and Ingrid,
on the other hand, is veryvery German. Now, how typical
can you get for a winery inall says when you take the history of
this wine growing area that was firstconquered by Julius Caesar in one hundred BC,
(11:48):
and you go through the history andthe different hands that this cut little
area has been swapped between France andGermany and everyone else in the world.
And to think that this family hasstayed together owning this winery for seven generations
and all their family stories that goalong with the world history. These things
(12:09):
are quite amazing, and it's thosestories that we like to tell. There's
a couple other trends, and we'llcall them trends because you were seeing them
a lot in the news these days. They're not so much trends for us
because we've been focused on them forquite a while. But there's a low
alcohol trend right now, at leastthere's a low alcohol trend in the press,
and you're hearing a lot about it, and people are developing low alcohol
lines. Our first most successful brandinitially that kind of launched our business was
(12:33):
a brand called New Age. ANew Age we launched in two thousand and
five. There's a white wine fromValentine Bianchi out of Argentina, a little
effervescent. We'd serve it over icewith a slice of lime, so kind
of the wine and cocktail. Lowalcohol trend that's happening now. We were
on it in two thousand and fiveand we built it and built it and
built it and had a lot ofpeople copy it since then. In twenty
(12:56):
ten, we launched what is nowour most successful brand called Tropical Mists Gatto
with Luca Bassio. That's a ninepercent alcohol wine I'm infused with natural fruit.
And then lastly, Brigid, whichis one of our newest entries,
is from New Zealand. It's namedafter John Forrest and his wife Brigid.
They're both doctors worldwide. They havea brand called The Doctors and it's kind
(13:18):
of the most highly rated, highlyreviewed low alcohol line around the world.
That we couldn't use the doctor's brandin the US for trademark reasons, so
we named it after Brigid and it'slow alcohol, low calorie. But the
big difference with this wine is it'sdone in the vineyards. It's done by
managing the canopy and managing the rightnessof the fruit versus reverse osmosis machine or
(13:39):
adding water. So it produces areally really nice wine at about nine percent
alcohol and about eighty calories are serving. So there's trends that people are talking
about. But I think we werereally cutting edge and we're on them ten
years ago and we have very developedbrands behind them, very interesting and we'll
be talking about Brigid shortly, sotwenty years as those significant amount of time,
(14:01):
two decades, and during that time, many winery owners are passing the
baton to the next generation. Wesee this over and over again. How
do you feel the younger generations approachto making and selling wines is different today?
You know, as far as makingand selling them, we're still dealing
with a lot of the original generationthat we began working with. When we
(14:22):
started working with a lot of producers, they were late twenties, early thirties,
so they're still very active. There'sa little bit of a transition.
But the change that's happened in winemaking since we started Quintessential has been a
lot more wine showing, a lotmore elegant, a lot more finess,
a lot more sense of place.When we first started, wineries were really
focused on a couple of trade magazinesand their big scores. You know,
(14:43):
that fell off a bit, andthe consumers much more focused on kind of
peer reviews. You know, whattheir peers think, what their friends think
what influencers think. It's much morelocalized. But as far as how wine
makers are making the wine, they'relooking for a lot more elegance, a
lot more balance, and a lotmore sense of place. We'd love it
if each of you would share aquintessential wine moment from your past. Steve,
(15:05):
why don't we start with you?Well, you know, this is
one thing that Dennis and I havetalked about off and on over the years.
You know, what is our bestmoment, what is the best glass
of wine? And we keep comingback to the same thing every time we
sit down with one of our families, whether it be in Germany at our
European meeting or at their winery,it's sitting down and working out the plan
(15:26):
for the next year, enjoying eachother's company, doing something fun together,
and building the camaraderie that we've builtfor the last twenty years. And I
think that's really I mean, wemight have had spectacular moments in our past,
but this is really the essence ofwho we are and that's what we
enjoy the most. Dennis, youknow, I'll just speak more to that.
(15:46):
We grew up in wine. WhenI turned twenty one, I knew
about Barolo and Burgundy and counties,and wine was a part of meals,
it was a part of life.There wasn't ever that I was a beer
drinker, and then all of asudden, Wow, it Wine's unbelievable wine.
It's a wonderful beverage. It's awonderful part of life. What kind
of gives me goose bumps is whenwe can sit with a family and help
build their business and help be importantto what they're doing for their next generation.
(16:11):
And it's good for us as well. The fact that we can build
the brands and tell their story andthat they know when we represent their winery
we consider it our own. Wemanage their business like it's our own business.
That's what really makes it personal,what really drives us, and that's
where the passion is is taking careof these great families. I love that,
you know, it gives us goosebumps. Is learning about the story behind
(16:33):
the wine from the land and thepeople and how they work together and those
relationships and sitting down and enjoying thatbottle of wine is just the icing on
the cake to a much bigger,wonderful experience. And speaking of you kind
of have to send us two winesthat represent the essence of Quintessential, which
is the best of the best.Let's head to New Zealand and talk about
(16:56):
Bridgid all right. Bridgid is ournewest Ida to the portfolio. We added
it in beginning of twenty twenty threeand it's really kind of culmination of trying
to find the right partner in NewZealand forever. And we discovered the Forest
family, worked with them to comeup with a plan over about six eight
months. And their best selling wineworldwide was a brand called The Doctors,
(17:18):
which I mentioned previously, but therewas a trademark problem in the US,
so we couldn't sell The Doctors andwe wanted to come up with something unique
and fun, and John and Forrestestablished the Forest Winery. Their daughter Beth
is the general manager and winemaker now. But Bridget's a character. She wears
wild colors, she's got big glasses, she's just all smiles all the time.
It's like, well, well that'sa story we can really tell.
And the wine making behind Bridget iswhat's so important. John developed a process
(17:42):
in the vineyards. Most low alcoholwines, low alcohol, low calorie wines
are made in the winery. They'reeither made by spinning off alcohol or adding
water. We're legal, and they'reusually less than interesting. He developed a
process in the vineyard via canopy management, and that's about his men details he'll
give us where he manages the canopyto reduce the sugars in the grapes,
(18:04):
but he still gets really ripe flavors. So he's produced a low alcohol,
low calorie New Zealand Salvinium blanc thattastes fantastic. It tastes like New Zealand
Salvonian blanc. It's crisp, it'srefreshing, and it's very very innovative.
There's nothing else out there like itin the US market. We tasted this
wine and it is unique. Itis New Zealand and it is amazingly fresh,
(18:27):
which is we were taken by.And as you reference, it's a
lower alcohol which is very interesting ninepoint five percent. So it appeals to
that trend that you referenced, Dennis. So the next one we want to
talk about is one that you've hadin your stable for quite some time.
Actually, I believe it was thefirst wine that you took on, which
is the Simons sig and we havein front of us the Cops Vuncle Cape,
(18:48):
classic rose, sparkling mind. Sowhy don't you tell us about that?
Yeah, thank you, David.As you can see, import and
ready to go. And just togive you a little history about what happened
in the last fifteen then this wasthe last bottle I had in my cellar.
Here too. My wife saw thatI opened it, she poured me
my glass for our presentation with youknow, and she took off with the
bottle to go meet her friends forlunch. This has always been a little
(19:11):
favorite for us and our family.When we first took on Semens say,
you know, you're talking about athird generation wine ring. The wine that
we fell in love with immediately wasthere Shennon Blanc, and they also have
a higher end with aged Shennon blank. Their penotage was excellent and much different
from many of the other ones,and we thought, okay, we'll give
it a try. We tried thewines, we fell out in love with
(19:33):
the process of what Johannamlan was doing. We immediately took on the wine and
it's been a very good success forus ever since. It's a blend of
Munyang Pin and no wire and twentythree percent penotage, much different from a
lot of wines that she'll try.The cidity runs about seven percent, which
is good for me. I hatetoo many champagnes or sparkling wines, I
should say that are too high ina cdity. This one is very soft,
(19:56):
very elegant, and it's been avery good success. Spars. We
are big fans of this sparkler.We've had it before. We have actually
talked to Joanne Mollin in the past. Terrific producer, great history and story
behind that family, and we feelthat the Cape Classics sparkling wines are terrific
fines. They really are. We'dlike to see more people sipping them,
(20:18):
and we recommend them all the time. Oh, thank you very much.
Absolutely well. This is a goodone to toast to your continued success,
Steve and Dennis. I mean,twenty years is a big achievement, but
we hope that you'll have twenty moreyears and more at Quintessential Melanie and David,
we appreciate this interview and we appreciateyou. For all of our listeners
(20:38):
who'd like more information, we recommendvisiting Quintessentialwines dot com. It's a very
nice website. I know you're addingthis kind of exciting sustainability section to it.
It's easy to navigate and there's someterrific stories on there, and we
loved sharing your story today on TheConnected Table SIPs. You've been listening to
(21:02):
The Connected Table SIPs with Melanie Youungand David Ransom. To listen to more
in depth features with the movers andshakers who shape the wine, food spirits
and hospitality industry, tune into ourcompanion show, The Connected Table Live.
You can tune into the live broadcaston Wednesdays at two pm Eastern Time on
W four CY Radio, easy tofind at ww dot W fourcy dot com,
(21:29):
or listen to all our shows anytimeat iHeart dot com and on the
iheartapp. Connect with us on Twitterat Connected Table, and follow us on
Facebook and Instagram under the Connected Table. And remember always stay insatiably curious.
Welcome to the Connected Table SIPs oniHeartRadio. We are your insatiably curious culinary
couple Melanie Young and David Ransom.We bring you the dynamic people who are
front and center and behind the scenesin food, wine, spirits and hospitality.
Ours is a delicious life and wewant to share it with you.
(00:26):
The word Quintessential means the best ofits kind. For Steve Senior and Dennis
Krepp's that means focusing on small,family owned wineries. When establishing Quintessential in
two thousand and three, based inNapa, this family owned and operated import,
marketing and sales company continues to representindependent, multi generational wine making families
(00:51):
around the world. That's currently thirtyfamilies and forty one wineries in eleven countries.
We're joined by Steve Senior and DennisScraps, who are going to share
Quintessential's vision and thoughts about the winebusiness today and a few Quintessential milestones from
the last twenty years. Welcome,Thank you for having us. First of
(01:11):
all, congratulations on twenty years inbusiness. That's so amazing. Quintessential focuses
exclusively on working with independent, familyowned and operated wineries as we said in
eleven countries, who were some ofthe first family wineries you started working with.
Well, everything was actually done bydesign, you know. When we
first started to put this company together, I had been in the business for
(01:34):
just a little over twenty nine years, so I felt like I was starting
to get a grasp on what thewine industry was all about. And one
of the things that we thought thatthere was a big void in and the
people that were getting left out werethe small family wineries around the world.
So we decided to really focus onthem and give them the opportunity to get
to market. The two of thefirst wineries and I have to make it
(01:57):
too, because we had a firstone, which was Semen Sig from South
Africa, and within the next twomonths we added Valentine Yankee from Argentina.
And we wanted one wineries that werecharacteristic of the area that they come from
and very high quality image at thesame time making the varietals that are characteristic
of that particular appellation. Simon Sikfit that bill, and so did Valentine
(02:23):
Biyankee. We also wanted to puttogether a portfolio of people and wineries that
would complement what we were going toextend our company to be down the road,
and that is a group of verynice people who really have a passion
for making great wine and want tomove forward into the future with their next
generation. So semen Seg and ValentineBiyankee fit into our portfolio perfectly. So
(02:46):
we're a little more unique than manycorporate structures. It is a relationship business,
as we all know. And thankyou for that little bitty deep dive
Steve, and then the founding ofQuintessential. It's really a a important to
understand that so many wineries are ownedby families, right David, Absolutely,
and it's important because it is multigenerational. Yeah, what do you feel
(03:07):
are some of Quintessential's milestones in thelast twenty years since you took on the
first two wineries, you know,I would say there's probably four or five
major milestones. The first one waswhen we added Luca Bossio and his family
winery to the portfolio in two thousandand eight. They weren't really an established
brand in the US at the time, and we really started working with him
(03:30):
in a very small way. ButLuca had just taken over the business from
his family. He was twenty threeyears old. At the time, so
very very young, very innovative.We developed brands with him, and some
of our most successful brands are producedby Lucas. So that was probably,
you know, one of the reallyfirst major events that happened with our portfolio
that really grew it. But afterthat, in twenty ten, we added
(03:52):
Bodegos Muriel from Rioha. Javier storyis funny. We used to have an
office right off of a highway twentynine, an old pink building that it
had had his own little exit,and Javier was on vacation with a friend
of his in the Napa Valley,saw our sign that said imported distributor,
turned around and walked in the frontdoor and asked if he could talk to
the wine buyer. And I heardhim say it, and I leaned down
(04:14):
my door and took a look,and I saw this guy standing there with
messy hair braces, a wrinkled dirtyshirt, shorts and flip flops, and
I went, oh, you knowwhat, I'm going to talk to him,
and I sat down, and withinabout two minutes I understood that he
and his father had an incredible businessand something that we could really grow.
And we've grown that brand to oneof the most established Rioha brands in the
US. From there, we addedIronstone from Lodi with the Couch's family,
(04:39):
they owned eight thousand acres of vineyards. Their business had been really big at
one time and had come down quitea bit, and we re established it,
we rebranded it, we repackaged it, and that was our first kind
of major entry into the domestic winebusiness and that's been very successful. And
then in twenty fifteen we hadded Georgeto Book and that was one of those
brands that everybody in the world knows. Everybody in the US knows every wine
(05:01):
drink or everybody in the trade knowsGeorge the Books, being the king of
Beaujelaie. We picked it up,we turned their business around, we've kind
of relaunched neu Veaux, we've relaunchedtheir Baujelat village, and we've grown the
business from where it was. Soit was exciting, but it was also
a brand that kind of got alot of people's attention for Quintessential. And
then lastly, in the last regionwe really wanted to get into that we
(05:21):
weren't with Champagne. In twenty twenty, we had a Champagne Palmer, and
I think that really it rounds outthe portfolio. It adds some prestige to
our portfolio, and I think kindof puts the cherry on the top.
That is the cherry on top,very very impressive, and we know those
brands and love those brands. It'sreally a top of the line category in
a very competitive market. So youkind of touched on how you've expanded the
(05:46):
portfolio over time to a two partquestion. You said, Dennis, at
the end of the day, you'reall salespeople, and I think we have
to all remember that you run amajor company. But the end of the
day, it's sales, and it'sgetting that brand into the buyer's interests and
radar, whether it's on or offpremise. How has that changed over the
years And do you find that withQuintessential there's certain wine regions you tend to
(06:10):
focus on more than others for thatreason, or do you focus on everything.
When we first started, we startedoff with Semumsig and Valentine Bianchi and
then we slowly moved into Luco ballseal and we had some experts in the
industry come to me and say you'redoing this wrong. Importers need to be
specialist. You need to decide areyou a specialist in South America? Are
you a specialist in South Africa?Are you going to be a specialist in
(06:31):
Italy? Figure out what you're goingto be and then specialize. My dad
and I's response to that was,we are specialists in the accounts. We
focus on white tablecloth restaurants and highquality restaurants that you know, serve wine
and tell a story and are lookingfor unique, eclectic selections. We focus
on fine wine retailers that have winestewards that that hand sell wines, and
(06:55):
we focus on grocery stores that havewine stewards that also hand sell. So
we built a portfolio around those accounts. So our focus has always been family
owned and operate a multi generational buildingfor future generations, because our unique point
of difference is we take those storiesto the storytellers in the accounts. So
we've built the portfolio of lines thatare focused on a certain kind of trade
(07:17):
channel more so than focusing on aparticular category. And you know, the
one thing sometimes we say something aswe don't is one of the most important
things we do is we focus onworking with good people. Our point of
difference is telling that family story,because that's the one thing we all have
in commonist family. You both comefrom selling and you're in the business of
selling, but you also have tosell well to your customers. Let's talk
(07:39):
about that a little bit and talkabout how you train your salespeople, what
you expect out of them, andhow you want them to focus on doing
their job. So as far assales training goes, it all depends on
the person. We want to hiregood people, we want to hire hard
working people, and then we makesure they understand how we go to market,
meaning we're going to focus on theaccount, We're going to focus on
(08:00):
the consumer. But we need toget to know that salesperson. Each every
one of them has different strengths andweaknesses. Some of them will be really
really strong administratively, so they canmanage pricing and inventory and programming great,
but they're a little rough around theedges when it comes to calling on a
final line restaurant, or maybe theydon't quite understand grocery and Nielsen numbers.
So it's understanding that salesperson where theirweaknesses are and trying to develop that while
(08:22):
taking advantage of their strengths. Butthe one thing we always really focus on.
I think this is something that's verydifferent than a lot of the other
companies that do what we do isour people's efforts are about being in the
street. They have maybe one reportthey'll fill out a month, it's a
one pager. Otherwise their time isdedicated to be in the street five six
days a week. We want themall doing at least one consumer events a
(08:45):
week because we want them touching theconsumer, we want them helping their accounts
sell the wine, and we wantthem telling those family stories to the consumer
and to the trade. That's sointeresting because we read a lot of how
a lot of people from on premiseor transitioning out of the restaurant us into
sales to try something new and havea little more flexibility. But it is
very hard work and you do needthe training. It's good to see that
(09:05):
Quintessential really invests in their people.So we'd like each of you to respond
to this next question. What doyou feel are the most important trends,
both the good and the challenging inthe wine world today. Steve, let's
start with you. Well, Ithink the question that we're constantly asked and
something that Dennis has going on inthe first quarter of next year. We're
(09:28):
asked constantly for those products that aresustainable, biodynamic, organic. So what
Dennis has done is in the firstquarter of twenty four is he will be
running an organic, biodynamic, sustainableprogram nationally. In twenty twenty four,
we will also be dedicating as wehave had in the past, if consumer
(09:52):
goes to our web page, they'llsee our wineries by winery, our wineries
by varietal, all the typical categories. In our next edition of our web
page, we're also going to havea section that they can go to that's
just sustainable wines, bio dynamic wines, and organic wine. And I think
that'll be a big aid to theconsumer and too many of the buyers out
(10:15):
there who are looking for wines inthat category. And actually forty five percent
of our wineries are already in thisbusiness, so we've got a pretty good
compliment of wines in this category.We touched on a little bit earlier.
Another big piece of it is thatfamily story authenticity. The wine business is
becoming more and more corporate every day, and as it becomes corporate, the
consumers, you know, previously theyweren't as informed. They didn't have the
(10:39):
Internet. They couldn't google a brandand see that it was owned by a
corporation or owned by a private equitycompany. Now they can dig in into
it and see if it's a madeup label or a bottle with a label
slap on it with a marketing story, or there's a real family behind it.
So the information technology that's really happenedin the last ten years has been
great for our business because we've gotthese wonderful family stories and the consumer wants
(11:03):
to connect with the producer that it'sthat kind of craft wave. They want
to connect with the producer. Sothat's another big one that we've really seen
is the family stories. The authenticityfits perfectly into our portfolio and our little
niche being a history nut, whichI am. When you take one of
our wineries like Gusta Lorenz, it'sa lot of fun to be with.
(11:26):
That married couple was George and Ingrid. George is very very French and Ingrid,
on the other hand, is veryvery German. Now, how typical
can you get for a winery inall says when you take the history of
this wine growing area that was firstconquered by Julius Caesar in one hundred BC,
(11:48):
and you go through the history andthe different hands that this cut little
area has been swapped between France andGermany and everyone else in the world.
And to think that this family hasstayed together owning this winery for seven generations
and all their family stories that goalong with the world history. These things
(12:09):
are quite amazing, and it's thosestories that we like to tell. There's
a couple other trends, and we'llcall them trends because you were seeing them
a lot in the news these days. They're not so much trends for us
because we've been focused on them forquite a while. But there's a low
alcohol trend right now, at leastthere's a low alcohol trend in the press,
and you're hearing a lot about it, and people are developing low alcohol
lines. Our first most successful brandinitially that kind of launched our business was
(12:33):
a brand called New Age. ANew Age we launched in two thousand and
five. There's a white wine fromValentine Bianchi out of Argentina, a little
effervescent. We'd serve it over icewith a slice of lime, so kind
of the wine and cocktail. Lowalcohol trend that's happening now. We were
on it in two thousand and fiveand we built it and built it and
built it and had a lot ofpeople copy it since then. In twenty
(12:56):
ten, we launched what is nowour most successful brand called Tropical Mists Gatto
with Luca Bassio. That's a ninepercent alcohol wine I'm infused with natural fruit.
And then lastly, Brigid, whichis one of our newest entries,
is from New Zealand. It's namedafter John Forrest and his wife Brigid.
They're both doctors worldwide. They havea brand called The Doctors and it's kind
(13:18):
of the most highly rated, highlyreviewed low alcohol line around the world.
That we couldn't use the doctor's brandin the US for trademark reasons, so
we named it after Brigid and it'slow alcohol, low calorie. But the
big difference with this wine is it'sdone in the vineyards. It's done by
managing the canopy and managing the rightnessof the fruit versus reverse osmosis machine or
(13:39):
adding water. So it produces areally really nice wine at about nine percent
alcohol and about eighty calories are serving. So there's trends that people are talking
about. But I think we werereally cutting edge and we're on them ten
years ago and we have very developedbrands behind them, very interesting and we'll
be talking about Brigid shortly, sotwenty years as those significant amount of time,
(14:01):
two decades, and during that time, many winery owners are passing the
baton to the next generation. Wesee this over and over again. How
do you feel the younger generations approachto making and selling wines is different today?
You know, as far as makingand selling them, we're still dealing
with a lot of the original generationthat we began working with. When we
(14:22):
started working with a lot of producers, they were late twenties, early thirties,
so they're still very active. There'sa little bit of a transition.
But the change that's happened in winemaking since we started Quintessential has been a
lot more wine showing, a lotmore elegant, a lot more finess,
a lot more sense of place.When we first started, wineries were really
focused on a couple of trade magazinesand their big scores. You know,
(14:43):
that fell off a bit, andthe consumers much more focused on kind of
peer reviews. You know, whattheir peers think, what their friends think
what influencers think. It's much morelocalized. But as far as how wine
makers are making the wine, they'relooking for a lot more elegance, a
lot more balance, and a lotmore sense of place. We'd love it
if each of you would share aquintessential wine moment from your past. Steve,
(15:05):
why don't we start with you?Well, you know, this is
one thing that Dennis and I havetalked about off and on over the years.
You know, what is our bestmoment, what is the best glass
of wine? And we keep comingback to the same thing every time we
sit down with one of our families, whether it be in Germany at our
European meeting or at their winery,it's sitting down and working out the plan
(15:26):
for the next year, enjoying eachother's company, doing something fun together,
and building the camaraderie that we've builtfor the last twenty years. And I
think that's really I mean, wemight have had spectacular moments in our past,
but this is really the essence ofwho we are and that's what we
enjoy the most. Dennis, youknow, I'll just speak more to that.
(15:46):
We grew up in wine. WhenI turned twenty one, I knew
about Barolo and Burgundy and counties,and wine was a part of meals,
it was a part of life.There wasn't ever that I was a beer
drinker, and then all of asudden, Wow, it Wine's unbelievable wine.
It's a wonderful beverage. It's awonderful part of life. What kind
of gives me goose bumps is whenwe can sit with a family and help
build their business and help be importantto what they're doing for their next generation.
(16:11):
And it's good for us as well. The fact that we can build
the brands and tell their story andthat they know when we represent their winery
we consider it our own. Wemanage their business like it's our own business.
That's what really makes it personal,what really drives us, and that's
where the passion is is taking careof these great families. I love that,
you know, it gives us goosebumps. Is learning about the story behind
(16:33):
the wine from the land and thepeople and how they work together and those
relationships and sitting down and enjoying thatbottle of wine is just the icing on
the cake to a much bigger,wonderful experience. And speaking of you kind
of have to send us two winesthat represent the essence of Quintessential, which
is the best of the best.Let's head to New Zealand and talk about
(16:56):
Bridgid all right. Bridgid is ournewest Ida to the portfolio. We added
it in beginning of twenty twenty threeand it's really kind of culmination of trying
to find the right partner in NewZealand forever. And we discovered the Forest
family, worked with them to comeup with a plan over about six eight
months. And their best selling wineworldwide was a brand called The Doctors,
(17:18):
which I mentioned previously, but therewas a trademark problem in the US,
so we couldn't sell The Doctors andwe wanted to come up with something unique
and fun, and John and Forrestestablished the Forest Winery. Their daughter Beth
is the general manager and winemaker now. But Bridget's a character. She wears
wild colors, she's got big glasses, she's just all smiles all the time.
It's like, well, well that'sa story we can really tell.
And the wine making behind Bridget iswhat's so important. John developed a process
(17:42):
in the vineyards. Most low alcoholwines, low alcohol, low calorie wines
are made in the winery. They'reeither made by spinning off alcohol or adding
water. We're legal, and they'reusually less than interesting. He developed a
process in the vineyard via canopy management, and that's about his men details he'll
give us where he manages the canopyto reduce the sugars in the grapes,
(18:04):
but he still gets really ripe flavors. So he's produced a low alcohol,
low calorie New Zealand Salvinium blanc thattastes fantastic. It tastes like New Zealand
Salvonian blanc. It's crisp, it'srefreshing, and it's very very innovative.
There's nothing else out there like itin the US market. We tasted this
wine and it is unique. Itis New Zealand and it is amazingly fresh,
(18:27):
which is we were taken by.And as you reference, it's a
lower alcohol which is very interesting ninepoint five percent. So it appeals to
that trend that you referenced, Dennis. So the next one we want to
talk about is one that you've hadin your stable for quite some time.
Actually, I believe it was thefirst wine that you took on, which
is the Simons sig and we havein front of us the Cops Vuncle Cape,
(18:48):
classic rose, sparkling mind. Sowhy don't you tell us about that?
Yeah, thank you, David.As you can see, import and
ready to go. And just togive you a little history about what happened
in the last fifteen then this wasthe last bottle I had in my cellar.
Here too. My wife saw thatI opened it, she poured me
my glass for our presentation with youknow, and she took off with the
bottle to go meet her friends forlunch. This has always been a little
(19:11):
favorite for us and our family.When we first took on Semens say,
you know, you're talking about athird generation wine ring. The wine that
we fell in love with immediately wasthere Shennon Blanc, and they also have
a higher end with aged Shennon blank. Their penotage was excellent and much different
from many of the other ones,and we thought, okay, we'll give
it a try. We tried thewines, we fell out in love with
(19:33):
the process of what Johannamlan was doing. We immediately took on the wine and
it's been a very good success forus ever since. It's a blend of
Munyang Pin and no wire and twentythree percent penotage, much different from a
lot of wines that she'll try.The cidity runs about seven percent, which
is good for me. I hatetoo many champagnes or sparkling wines, I
should say that are too high ina cdity. This one is very soft,
(19:56):
very elegant, and it's been avery good success. Spars. We
are big fans of this sparkler.We've had it before. We have actually
talked to Joanne Mollin in the past. Terrific producer, great history and story
behind that family, and we feelthat the Cape Classics sparkling wines are terrific
fines. They really are. We'dlike to see more people sipping them,
(20:18):
and we recommend them all the time. Oh, thank you very much.
Absolutely well. This is a goodone to toast to your continued success,
Steve and Dennis. I mean,twenty years is a big achievement, but
we hope that you'll have twenty moreyears and more at Quintessential Melanie and David,
we appreciate this interview and we appreciateyou. For all of our listeners
(20:38):
who'd like more information, we recommendvisiting Quintessentialwines dot com. It's a very
nice website. I know you're addingthis kind of exciting sustainability section to it.
It's easy to navigate and there's someterrific stories on there, and we
loved sharing your story today on TheConnected Table SIPs. You've been listening to
(21:02):
The Connected Table SIPs with Melanie Youungand David Ransom. To listen to more
in depth features with the movers andshakers who shape the wine, food spirits
and hospitality industry, tune into ourcompanion show, The Connected Table Live.
You can tune into the live broadcaston Wednesdays at two pm Eastern Time on
W four CY Radio, easy tofind at ww dot W fourcy dot com,
(21:29):
or listen to all our shows anytimeat iHeart dot com and on the
iheartapp. Connect with us on Twitterat Connected Table, and follow us on
Facebook and Instagram under the Connected Table. And remember always stay insatiably curious.
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