July 29, 2025 • 59 mins
When I was approached by a PR firm to interview the Stephen and Jennifer McPherson, I gladly agreed not knowing a thing. Podcasts guests are not hard to find in the industry...but good podcasts guests...that is a different story.
I am about the story. That is what I am pitching in the world of wine; innovation in marketing and packaging are important, but what is that innovation centered on? The story.
And here is a story, what started as a promise between spouses, became a reality and one that they, as many life changes perform, they wish they had started earlier.
If you ever wondered what happens when a top entertainment exec swaps red carpets for rolling vineyards, Stephen and Jennifer McPherson’s journey will uncork your imagination. On this episode, you’ll hear firsthand how passion trumped the allure of Hollywood glitz, beckoning Stephen from ABC to the grape-stained heart of Napa Valley—all because of a vow made to Jennifer on the eve of their wedding. You’ll be invited into the world of Promise Winery, a boutique operation run by this husband-and-wife team with just three employees and a steadfast commitment to staying small, authentic, and deeply personal. Get ready to learn what it takes to follow a dream in an industry that, while brimming with camaraderie and collaboration, is anything but easy. The McPhersons peel back the layers of their calling, sharing stories that reveal why wine is far more than a business—it’s an expression of emotion, a vehicle for connection, and a labor of genuine love. You’ll laugh at the tales of pigs, homemade prosciutto, and kitchen experiments, and come away touched by their philosophy that great wine is born not in boardrooms but through personal relationships, intention, and joy. As you listen, you’ll pick up intimate details about wine’s power to unite, the changing landscape of Napa, the eccentricities of wine marketing, and the importance of sticking to your values when trends and algorithms tempt you otherwise. This isn’t just a tasting—it’s a tour of the soul behind the bottle, with wisdom for anyone dreaming of a life built on what matters most.
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Promise Winery
Website: https://www.promisewine.com -
Wine of the Month Club
Website: https://www.wineofthemonthclub.com -
Rombauer Vineyards
Website: https://www.rombauer.com -
Goldman Sachs
Website: https://www.goldmansachs.com -
Naked Wines
Website: https://www.nakedwines.com -
Winc (formerly Club W)
Website: https://www.winc.com -
Chateau Coutet
Website: https://www.chateaucoutet.com -
Colgin Cellars
Website: https://www.colgincellars.com
#WineTalks #PromiseWinery #NapaValley #WinePodcast #WineIndustry #WinePassion #WineStories #Winemaking #BoutiqueWinery #WineLovers #WineCommunity #WineExperience #WineTasting #FamilyBusiness #WineJourney #WineAndFood #WineEmotion #WineEducation #WineCulture #AuthenticWine #paulkalemkiarian #winetalkspodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We know ourselves and each other and
our brand and what we stand for by now. That ultimately,
at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and cents choices,
but if you have the luxury of making a choice
based on does this feel true to us? That's always
going to prevail. Sit back and grab a
(00:22):
glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, beautiful
Southern California, about to have a conversation with Stephen and Jennifer McPherson of the
Promise Winery. Introductions in just a second. Yes, I am the guy
that tasted 100,000 wine in his career and sold 17 million
(00:42):
bottles all by myself. But now, while we're here, here to have
a conversation with Stephen. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
me. Call yourself co founders. I mean. Yeah, yeah, we
really started it together and have been running it together. You know,
we've stayed small over 20 years. It's. It's us and three employees. I
can't believe it's from 20 years. And thank you for the visit there, by the
(01:04):
way. It was pretty amazing perspective on the wine
trade in Napa, which is in a little bit of turmoil right now with, you
know, prices being. Trying to try to hold your prices, but.
But the industry sort of a dip. Yeah. And here's this
full on, or I'm going to call it organic experience at the Promise
Winery. You know, and everybody's gonna say, what's the promise mean? You know, that's certainly
(01:27):
a question. And I understand that this was. Yeah. Tell me the story.
You want to start with that? Yeah, go ahead, babe. Well,
Steve was pretty successful in the entertainment
business, but I could see that his spirit
was dwindling and just being
sucked dry. And every time we would go to Napa Valley,
(01:50):
which was frequently, I would say at least three
times a year, four times a year, he was a different
person. He was more alive. He was. He was himself.
He was truly just connected.
And I said, one day, one
day, Steve, we need. This needs to be in our lives
(02:13):
forever. So promise me you're going to pursue your real
passion and you're not going to. You're going to keep dreaming
and you're going to promise yourself
and us that you're going to have this. We're going to
do this. You're going to. You're going to figure out a way to. To
(02:34):
keep this part of you. Forever.
And he made that promise. Yeah, he made that promise on our wedding. Well, and
it's, you know, we dated for almost four and a half years.
And, you know, I was. I was a type. A kind of
competitive businessman. And I would. For years, I would say,
honey, I looked at the strap planning sheet, this is a bad business. You know,
(02:54):
you're making a product, you're putting it in the closet for three years. And she
was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And it. It really. It took.
It took all that time, I think, you know, for me to really see
that she was right. And, you know, the Promise was
really on the eve of our wedding, you know, that weekend.
And we. We had no idea really what that meant. It's not like the
(03:16):
promise was, listen, in 20 years, we want to have a winery that produces
X. And, you know, but it was enough to push me
over the edge to take that chance. And we
just. That fall we got married in. In. In June, and
that fall we bought some grapes from a friend of ours, and
the rest is history. I mean, not only did you tell. You make a promise
(03:39):
to your wife, but you told her she was right. Some of that. Yeah,
exactly. Set the
president. Yeah, yeah. Good way to start the
marriage. Yeah, that is a good way. I mean, I'm still struggling with that 35
years later. It's an interesting.
It's an interesting perspective because it does take that long, and it is a difficult
(04:02):
business, and it's very hard to make money. And not unlike
owning an airplane is not a profitable thing generally, it's very
hard to run a business like that. And wine is the same. So it
does really just take an amazing amount of passion. And
clearly, when we visit the Promise Winery, that's what's built into this,
into the landscape of Napa Valley. But
(04:25):
you can't do it without that, can you? No, you really can't. And
I think we say now, 21 years into the business,
it has not been easy. And I wouldn't change my perspective
of this is a great business to make money at, but
it's an amazing business if you love it.
(04:45):
And it makes us enormously fulfilled. And
it's become life. Life's work for us
to some extent. But that's, you know, I think
there's so many. There's always a million reasons why not to
pursue your dream or that harder road or that,
you know, that kind of, you know, quest project
(05:07):
that you might have. And I think, you know, that's who I was, you
know, for four and a half years. And then once. But once you get
into it, you know, if you face problems, you face drought, you
face recession, you face. You Know, mountain lions eating your goats.
You know, stuff. You get through it. You get through it.
Whereas, you know, if you don't love it, then, you know,
(05:30):
dealing with, you know, something that is
really problematic and challenging in a business, if you. If you're not
invested and love that business, it's really hard. It's really hard to do. But
every morning I walk on the beach. When I met Hermosa, we walk all the
way to her Manhattan pier, come back, and it's, you know, three miles, and they
go in the water. Promised myself I would do that. But the night before, we'd
(05:51):
watch La La Land, which I think is a great movie. Great movie. Yeah.
My wife loves musicals, so, you know, but really, I came away
again, and I just love the end of it. And it's controversial, you know, people
always argue about what. What it meant. But when you're chasing
your dreams, you know, you. At any age, at any time in your life,
if you have that chance. And I did this sort of Instagram thing. I
(06:13):
said, you got to chase them. I'm chasing one right now. This podcast is a.
Chasing something to do with wine
and tell the stories of the wine business. Because there's so many. Your story
is one of them. The passion it takes to do this is
purely required. And the question is, why? Not expecting an
answer, necessarily, but why did you light up when you showed up in
(06:35):
Napa Valley? And why did you notice that? And what. You know, what is it
about wine that makes you do this? Is it some kind of connection to the
earth, Some kind of soulful, you know, and there's maybe no
answer. I think it's a. For me, it's a lot of things
with my entire life put together.
You know, I was fortunate when. When I was 10 years
(06:57):
old, my dad became the headmaster of the American School of Paris. So
it was life changing. We moved there, and I lived grade school and
high school there. And he, you know, it was
1976, so it was just after the French tasting. My
dad was taking classes at Spurrier's place. Really? Wow.
Yeah. So wine became part of, you know, who we were.
(07:20):
And they just love. Both my parents just loved France and Europe.
So we never came back for visits until each. Each
kid got one visit for college choices.
But then secondarily, I was playing soccer in the
French leagues and at school, and so I was never home for
dinner. So my mom, at about age 13, was like, Listen,
(07:43):
I'm not cooking two meals a day for the family, so let me
show you how to cook Basic things. And I just fell in love with
it. And ever Since I was 13, I've
loved to cook. And you fantasize about being a chef
and just love restaurants and all that. And
so it kind of. You know, it. It kind of started
(08:05):
back then, and then it's just. Just kind
of continued to. To roll forward. I mean, I went to college and we only
drank beer, but kind of immediately after college, when.
When I started to make just a little money, you know, started
to collect a few bottles here and there, and it just
became like a real. It was a passion, and it is a
(08:28):
passion. And, you know, then when you get involved in it, you get even
more deeply involved in it. Farmer. And you become,
you know, a viticultural big purveyor. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. That's an interesting
leap from, you know, an American lifestyle to living in Paris, and particularly
1976. I had Steven Spurrier on the show before he passed away, just before.
(08:51):
Oh, cool. We met him once in Naples. Really nice guy. Then
I went into Cob de Madeline in. In the District, and she goes, this is
not the same one that you think it is. My God. I
thought I was taking the history here, but know,
culturally, wine was in the 70s, right. When this picture was taken in
1975, Jim Barrett used to come into the store. And in fact, when he won
(09:12):
the judgment, he came in and said, you know, would you mind? He actually asked
my father to carry the wines because everybody's asking for donations.
Like he said, just go down to PB Liquor. But.
But what an amazing time for the wine trade. And
is there a chasm between that lifestyle that you. That you witnessed in
Paris and going to school in Paris to what you
(09:36):
felt like you had experienced as an American kid? Like, did you before then?
Yeah. Well, I mean, my dad, you know, he. He passed last
fall. But we used to laugh, you know, before we went to France,
wine was, you know, Lancers in the old. Yeah,
we used car. Yeah, Lancers and Chianti in those big
things because the kids liked it. But, you know,
(09:58):
so, yeah, I mean, there was a giant difference between the two. And
I. I look back and I think, boy, I, you know,
would I have been that interested in wine had I never gone to France, but
then moved to California and Napa? Was there? Probably not.
What about your experience with wine, Jennifer? Did you. So,
interestingly, my. Sorry, mom. My mom was a
(10:20):
horrible cook, but my dad
was a great. Was a great chef and really passionate about
cooking. First generation Italian.
So every. Every Sunday, it was an
occasion. And it was a time where we would all
gather in the kitchen or we would at least kind of come together
(10:43):
as a family. That was kind of short lived.
But then later on in life I started working in restaurants.
And wine was not a big thing in my life, my
childhood, growing up at all. I do remember,
you know, some, like, neighbors drinking box wines, etc.
And I remember certain, like I looking up to a
(11:06):
certain neighbor, the fact that she had a Chablis. I was very
interested, like, ooh, what's Chablis? Gallo, Chablis or regular? Probably
Gallo. I mean, it's, you know, New Jersey. I'm not a lot longer
though. But I remember when my dad came
home, just like he would come home with records or he would come home with
books, or he'd say, hey, need to watch this movie. He started
(11:28):
coming home with wine. And, you know,
when my dad did something, I just perked up a little
bit. So that was my first interest. And then the restaurants,
and then I finally got an upscale waitressing job where you got
to, they, you know, got, gave you the chef's meal ahead of
time and the wine pairings that went with it. So that was when I was
(11:50):
a student at NYU and other
jobs like. Which is a hotbed of food. Yeah. And I also,
when I was pursuing a career in
theater during my NYU days, I also
temped at Goldman Sachs. And a lot of those,
(12:10):
they're mostly gentlemen at the time, were all into wine.
And I remember helping plan trips for them. And just,
I just, just these little pockets of interest all started
coming together at once. And that was my
early 20s. And it was just,
it was, it was a curiosity, it was a, it
(12:33):
was something that I wanted to learn more about. And so when Steve and I
met in what was 2000, that was my mid,
my mid to 20s, late
20s. We, I mean, he was
more, you know, he's a little older than me, so he's, he's got a couple
years ahead of experience. And so
(12:56):
he, we, we started, you know, he started teaching me more and we were,
we were tasting more together. And my love for
wine grew with our relationship. But I almost,
I almost killed the relationship early on because I went over to her
apartment and there was a Wine Spectator on the
coffee table and like a, you know, just an idiot
(13:17):
guy. I go, like, whose is this? As if it couldn't
possibly be hers. Oh. And she's like, it's mine.
Idiot, comma. Yeah.
You know, it's a fascinating industry and sometimes it
does Take that sort of time and
(13:38):
many different inputs for it to come around. I did this for 15 years,
probably, and I just. It was just a businessman. I just sold it, and I
did the best I could at making margins and selling good things. Of course, that's
how we stayed alive. But probably, like, 20 years
ago, it hit me that there's something very unique and special about this
brevage that. That can't be defined that way. It can only be
(13:59):
defined in the passion you get when you talk to people that
try to understand it, because we're never going to understand it.
So. Sorry, go ahead. We were recently in Burgundy, and we were
meeting with this particular winemaker, and his
young. His English was. Was great, actually.
And by the third time he mentioned the word
(14:22):
emotion, it just. The light bulb kind of
went off, and I was like, of course. This. This is why we're
all in this business. He kept saying, like,
my wines express emotion. And I was thinking, well,
all great wine, if you taste a great wine and
everybody's great wine is different, but when you open it, when you taste
(14:45):
it, you feel something. And
we're in the business of feeling. We're striving
to produce a product that. That
excites people, that moves people, that awakens people,
that brings joy and
appreciation and connection. And how do you not want to be a
(15:08):
part of that? It's such an undefinable piece of
what wine is. All those wines behind you, all the wines my dad
sold, it doesn't come from 19 crimes in apothec Red. And
that's fine. We need those wines to get entry into the industry,
so people do. But my. My typical premise is every
generation at different points of the generation. The baby
(15:30):
boomers were probably into wine before. The
millennials are, though. My millennials at my home drink plenty,
and my depletion is much faster than I expected it to be.
And. And then the Gen Z's, which is the huge topic of current
marketing issues in the wine business, will be a little bit later.
But I think the indefinable thing about what you just said is
(15:54):
that will unite everybody. I was just at a tasting, you
know, Duclo, which is a Christian Moex moex
distributor in LA, and they have a lot of Bordeaux tastings.
12 people get invited every time. And he
poured a bar sack. Chateau Coutet, this is only a couple weeks
ago. And that was the word I used. I looked
(16:17):
at the presenter, I said, this is the most emotional wine I've
smelled in years. And who knows why he goes the previous. He
completely agreed. He goes, the previous vintage was not like this. And
then the guy next to me hits me with. He goes. He goes, right. You
know, because whatever it was that just jumped out of the glass and
made your brain go spinning in different directions was.
(16:39):
And that. That's the part that's really. Isn't that fantastic when you have that kind
of a moment? It's the connect. Yeah, absolutely. And I. And
how do we tell everybody about this? How do you guys go about with the
promise, expressing that passion
to the public? You know, I think it's a
challenge. One of the reasons that, you know, we
(17:00):
have stayed small and aren't
in distribution is because ideally, we
want to. Make some money because you can't do it the other way.
We'd like the experience of introduction to promise to be the one
that you had where you come and you spend, you know, a couple
hours and you're really being introduced not only to the
(17:24):
wine itself, but the story behind the wine. The
why are you doing it? Who are the people behind it? And,
you know, when you. When it's on a list at a
restaurant or hotel or liquor store,
you know, it's just. It's another bottle on the shelf. And
so I think that it is a challenge. We talk about it all the time.
(17:47):
I think that, you know, my hope going back a little bit to
this new generation, one of the things that I hear about them that I
love is the idea that they really. They're
interested in wine, but they want to know more than just like, oh, it's
false scarcity, or it's the most expensive wine.
They want us, like, who's behind the wine? Why is these people
(18:09):
making the wine? You know, what's this grape? What does that mean?
What is the story behind it? So, you know, I'm hopeful that that will actually
lead to a deeper connection to win.
I know everyone gets worried about kind of the sober, curious,
you know, generation and. And all that. But.
But, yeah, I think that's. That's part of the challenge of how do you. How
(18:32):
do you introduce and sell wine to people in a personal
way and. And convey that connection? I would
add to that that. Well, because our brand is so personal,
we do kind of lead you to that emotional place
with. With the names of our wines. You know, if you. That's
true. And we did that very purposefully because
(18:57):
we want to. We. We as a
couple, always want to keep ourselves,
remind ourselves of what we're here on this planet to do.
Experience, joy, live. Live a Life of
gratitude. Have intention.
(19:17):
Be in love. Yes. Share love. Give love.
I mean, I always, you know, I always tell my kids, like, keep your heart
open. It's just those are the, that's what
we decided to name or to kind of announce
each wine we have with an affirmation
that we, we want it always share.
(19:39):
You know, it's a. Your success at the
entertainment industry, I think. How long were you? About
26, seven years. And you ran CBS or ABC?
ABC TV? Yeah. Okay, this is where Chapter got it wrong. I knew it was
abc, but it says, I'm not kidding you, it says
what lessons you learn at cbs. That's, that's funny.
(20:02):
Yeah, because, you know, we were, we were Disneyland with the kids, my
grandkids. And we went to the Goofy's kitchen and one of the
chipmunks came over. You know, this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the names
Chip and Dale. And so I asked Chap GT which one is Dale?
Which one's Chip? And it was wrong. So it comes over and I said, hey,
Chip. And he goes, no, I'm Dale. You know, you can't say anything. But he's
(20:23):
like, no, no, no. But 25 years
in an industry like that, that's so fast paced and so much pressure and so
much going on that this must be an amazing departure from that. But
did you bring, were there lessons to come over from corporate
America into. Good question. Managing. Managing a winery.
I mean, to be honest, the first lesson was not a good lesson.
(20:45):
I mean, it wasn't a good lesson about the entertainment business. To
me, one of the biggest, just right up front differences about the
industries is the wine industry is unbelievably
collaborative and people are generally in it
because they love it. The entertainment industry is
unbelievably mean spirited, cutthroat. And
(21:08):
there's a lot of people who don't love the industry. They're just
feeding off of other people who, you know, are
actors or directors. And, you know, there's eight layers of
publicist and manager and agent
and, you know, just taking money. And so
for me, when we first, you know, started Promise,
(21:29):
you know, people like Ann Colgan being, you know,
unbelievably generous and nice and, you know, kind of helping us. Colonel
Rumbauer, you know, it really
was an awakening of like, oh, so
you can, you can be in a business that is not
about, you know, beating the other person. Yeah, that's
(21:51):
interesting. That was, that was a huge difference. There's so much generosity of
spirit in, in the Valley, especially in Napa
Valley. It's so refreshing and
it's. It's interesting. It's a great community. I
wonder if. I wonder if that's because
every product, the honest wines are so uniquely different
(22:14):
that the competition really is not about who makes the best
wine. It's who's making the wine that expresses who they are, where they're from,
and that you really don't butt heads. You might. You might. For the marketing
dollar, if you're on the shelf at Ralph's, you know, you're.
I don't know if you've been to Ralph's lately or Safeway, but there's a shelf
talker and a thing on every single bottle. No way of understanding.
(22:35):
A consumer has no chance. Yeah. To figure something out. But in this case,
like, you know, airtime and. And Nielsen ratings, all the things that
you chase, all the metrics you chase in entertainment, it's cutthroat. Yeah. I
want to be a star. I'm gonna do everything I can to climb to the
top. Performance. And there's. There isn't climbing to the top. It's also
so much. I mean, the entertainment business is so much about the dollar. Yeah. I
(22:57):
mean, you know, people are in it just because the money is there.
But I think you're right. I mean, wine. Everybody's
wine is different. And, you know, I think everyone
is in it for, you know, their own good
reason. And, yeah, we. We've just been
kind of so. So struck by
(23:20):
not only the generosity of just in general, but, like, when bad
things happen, when fires happen, when droughts happen, people
literally giving, you know, fruit and giving barrels
and giving winery space to other
winemakers. And. And I think it goes around the world. We love to travel,
and we go to wine regions whenever we can. And there.
(23:42):
There's a. There's a. A collaborative and camaraderie
in Burgundy. There's one in Italy. There's, you know, it's true.
Something very different. Completely true. I tell
people that we did sell 17 million bottles of wine here, and we
did taste 100,000 wines every Tuesday. We tasted wines
forever. And that has. That
(24:05):
credential, was great for consumerism, but it's the
credential of this podcast that we tell the stories. And I bring these people on
the show, like you, that when I travel to different parts of the wine region,
how we are received, like in the vineyard with
Monsieur Clouet at Chevalon. Yeah. I mean, that would
have never happened because I was selling 20 wines out of the Wine of the
(24:26):
month club. Right. But because I'm part of the process to tell the stories and.
And understand and show the public what's behind a good bottle of wine.
It's become a different reception. Yeah. No, you're part of the love affair that
we all have. Everybody, in their own way, has with this business.
It's kind of interesting you're talking about the camaraderie, because if you listen to the
old timers about the original Napa Valley Business association,
(24:49):
you know, certainly there's camaraderie there. There's a woman named
Joanne dupuis. She's probably 96 now.
Incredible lady. She was. She was tapped by Spurrier to deliver
the wines from Napa to. To Paris. There was no
way to do that back then. It's still it, really. And so she put them
in her suitcase because she's traveling. Oh, my God. Tennis thing that she was doing.
(25:12):
And she says it's very funny because this bottle of Freemark Abbey
broke on the carousel, and there's this red wine dripping onto the.
Onto the thing. But the reason I brought that up was that there is a
camaraderie there. And I'm dealing a lot with the Armenian wine industry right now,
which is. Which is an incredible story because it's 6,000. We know
it's 6,000 years old, minimum, because they found the winery that's 6,000 years old.
(25:35):
And so. But it got stalled by socialism and the ussr
and so they're kind of like the newest, oldest wine region in the world. Right.
Because now they finally have technology. They're making great wines, but they can't get along.
And anybody sat there from the industry will. Will agree with me. So I'm
not throwing anybody under the bus here. But they don't have that
association. And they do look at it because we're Armenians and we're Middle
(25:57):
Eastern merchants as competition. Interesting. I don't think it. I don't think
it changes the industry until there's some kind of
camaraderie. There's some kind of relationship built
amongst them. To promote each other. Yeah. Because.
Well, to promote the region. Right. It's the same issue as it would be with
Napa. You know, the wines are going to be different. So you're really not going
(26:18):
head to head because. Yeah, going out to the world with a new region
and a new grape that no one's ever heard of is not going to be
easy on your own. Right. It's just not going to happen. Anyway, The. The.
The mood, what you did and what we did at the Promise. Let's talk about
the winery for a second, because you treated my wife and I with an
incredible experience with Beth. Getting there was a fun drive. You
(26:40):
know, it's not far from Silverado Trail. You just take a little trip up and
you go into the mountains, and you end up in this really cool location with
beautiful facility and hospitality. And
so much, I think, of wine is
moving back to what is the experiential part of it. And we talked
about it a little bit. The Internet. It started with. I'll just give you a
(27:01):
little history. The marketing of One Month Club started with a handshake at a
show. My dad started this idea, and I
took it over. We grew because we shook hands
with everybody that walked up. Anybody that joined this club, I had shaken their hand.
There was no mail order. Then it was at a show.
We went to the Taste of. You know, there was Festa Italia at
(27:24):
3rd Street Promenade. There was the Taste of the Garlic Festival. There was all these
things going on. I did 75 shows a year. That's one and a half
a weekend. Wow. So. But the point was, that was an experience
for the people that shook our hands. Right. They met the guy.
I had salespeople, too, but they did it. And then we got away from that
with Groupon, started this whole trend of things
(27:45):
and the cheapest thing you can find and, you know. Right. And. And
we had people taking advantage of our offers started that way. And then the Internet
came, and we. We were on 1997. We started. And that changed the way
consumerism is. And I think. I think that
there's been enough. Not deceit, but enough problems with the
crap that's being sold on the Web and the clubs that offer
(28:07):
six, you know, 12 bottles for $60 in free shipping. Right.
That the consumer's gotten tired and that we want to go back
to that handshake and that experience and
a person behind the product. Yeah. I think you're just. What you're saying
is there's hundreds and thousands of ways you can
buy any kind of product over
(28:30):
the Internet. But I think you're
onto something for us anyway, which is it takes away
a lot of the experience of
why we drink wine, which is to connect with people
and to meet people and to
build relationships. I remember Colonel Rumbauer said to me, you know,
(28:54):
when people come to Napa, everyone can go into a tasting room and they
go, this is 37 cabernet, and it's 12% this, and it's de
stemmed and this. And he was like, introduce Yourself just say,
hey, I'm Steve McPherson, and get talking. And, you know,
you'll talk about the wine. That's the best part of the business. You know, I
mean, like, you probably had that experience with Beth. It's like she's not in
(29:15):
there selling wine. She's there to show you the place, show you the wines,
hope you enjoy yourself and, you know, understand what they're about.
Do you think the trade self propagates the aristocracy of, you know, the
perceived aristocracy of one by doing that, by. By going to a tasting room and
have some person who's just learning talk about the bricks and
the alcohol content and the. I mean, I. To me,
(29:37):
it's off putting because I feel like we. We
often say, like, when people come to promise, it's like, no snob zone. Like,
you know, like, you know, and I think that,
you know, Parker was great for people who
were intimidated by wine. And, you know, okay, I feel better.
It got a 92 or 93 or whatever, but I think
(30:00):
it made people who don't have all the semantics of the
sommelier and don't maybe have the knowledge, who cares?
Did you enjoy it? You know, what wine do you like?
It doesn't matter that it's so and so's pick. You know,
it matters what you love. And so I love it when people come in
and, you know, you'll have couples and, you know, one will like
(30:23):
one of our wines and one will like another one. And I'm like, that's
fantastic. Like, that's what the way it should be. You know, it's not
that that one's the most expensive. So if you don't like that, then you're not
knowledgeable. It's ridiculous. There's no right. Yeah, there's
no right. You want people to say when they pour the wine
at home, oh, this is the McPherson family's
(30:45):
wine, and this is their thing, and they make their own prosciutto over there.
So let's talk about that. I mean, of all the experiences there, there
is to have in wine. And I've always told
as a consultant, when I talk to people like, you want people to sit
at the dinner table and tell your story when they open the bottle, you don't
want them talking about how they got it for five bucks on Groupon. That's not
(31:07):
the story. Right? And so, man, going to. Going to the Promise,
it's in a beautiful room, and then she brings out,
you know, home cured prosciutto. I mean, that is a real
organic approach to what she has to. Doing
the hen house. Yeah. Right. And the, you can, I mean, she shows
us how the eggs roll down the, you know, the astroturf there. Isn't that a
(31:29):
great. That's like, that's a really cool thing. What spawned
that part? Like, you could have opened a tasting room. You could have been weddings.
You, you're building the barn where you're going to put all kinds of cool
venue type things. But what spawned this? Now
she's laughing already. Well, I just think I'm just remembering
when he came home and he's like, I bought a couple pigs.
(31:52):
I was like, and where are we? You know, your marriage is pretty good though.
That. Yeah. Survives that, right? Because I would say I bought a couple cars.
That's what I actually always say. I'm like, well, it could be worse. He could
be buying, you know, sports Ferraris and whatever. But no, my
husband likes to foreign hogs. Well, you saw the
designer pigs, the Burkle slicer in the, in the tasting room.
(32:15):
Beautiful. I joke that that is my midlife crisis
Porsche. Like, that's what I buy. I mean, probably costs about the
same. Yeah. I love, I mean, I love all
sorts of food. Yes. And I love, you know, I love
the idea of artisans of any kind. If
somebody makes the best butter in Vermont,
(32:37):
great. Let's, you know, do that. If somebody makes the best,
you know, prosciutto, like, I want to find out.
And you know, people say, well, how did you learn to do that? Because I,
I'm obsessed with it. I love it. And I, you know, I literally research pigs.
We originally had Asaba pigs, but we decided
that the genetics just weren't the same. And then we got the
(32:58):
Mangalitsas. And then I was lucky enough when a herd of
Iberians went belly up. I was able
to get, you know, two of those. But it's really just
a passion. And you know, we, we
do it with our, you know, our prosciutto, the,
you know, the, the chickens. While our daughters will only let us
(33:20):
use them on property for eggs. They're bluefoot chickens, the
poulet breast from France. And they're the best chicken
world for meat. And so we do, we have a
partnership with the Montessori school, and so we do raise some of them there
and you feed them corn and milk for the final three
months of their lives. But it's all that stuff.
(33:43):
We have a partnership with the chocolatier that we make bean
to bar chocolate. And I just love their passion about it.
They make to me the best chocolate, you know, that
I've ever tasted. And, and they make it in their own way. They, each
chocolate has a little salt and cinnamon added and they have, they like
a certain bean from Ecuador and those kind
(34:06):
of food passions. You know, you're talking about your daughter
in, you know, upstate New York, buying the vegetables from
the farmer. I mean, you know, one of the, one of
the toughest things, moving away from France and coming
to the US and we went with our daughters later in life too. We,
we took them when they were younger for a full school year.
(34:29):
But you know, in France, you know, there's the butcher and it's probably
a third or fourth generation guy and there's a
vegetable guy and there's the fish guy. It's a Whole
Foods. It's. Yeah, it's not a Whole Foods and a huge
mass, you know, Bristol Farms. And they're passionate about what they
do. Right. I mean, I would go in, you know, one night thinking I'm going
(34:51):
to get a hanger steak and the guy would be like, you're not getting that.
Like, you know, that's not good today. And this is what you're getting.
And you're like, okay, seems, seems like a good bet. There's,
that's the interesting part. And clearly
your European lifestyle has evolved and that explains
a lot of what we saw at the Promise Winery because
(35:13):
you are what you eat, eats, right? There's a professor of
Yale names Paul Friedman. His,
his lectures are about medieval servitude,
okay. But his passion is the evolution of food in America.
Really. He's written two or three books. One of them is called the 10 Top
Restaurants, the Influential restaurant in America. And they're nothing what you think they are.
(35:36):
And the other one, I can't remember the name of it, but it's about how
America, with the freeway system and the Howard Johnson's of the
world have homogenized the regional foods.
Like you can get Texas chili in New Hampshire and etc. Etc.
And it sort of dumbed everything down. And I think that's changing. I think it's
changing for the passion that you guys have to making sure people
(35:57):
understand it. Having lived in France, you know, they protect their butter, they
protect their cheese, obviously they protect their wine. And I think, I think
we're learning that, you know, like my daughter's learning, you
know, like I took the grandkids and we picked apples. I mean it was unbelievable.
What a, what an organic experience. I hope that
we can figure out a way to have these small
(36:20):
production Whatever it is, whether it's apples or
pigs, that we can figure out how to keep the
doors open and monetize it. Because, I mean, you. This
is why we've grown to become a commercialized
production facility, because it's really difficult
financially to. To keep it going. Well, they say, you
(36:42):
know, we butchered our farms. The. The book, the Third
Plate, by Dan Barber, the chef of Blue
Hill Farms. You know, when he wrote that book, actually, probably
organic farming was difficult to feed the masses. It wasn't producing as
much. But that's changed a lot. Right. And. And I
think people like to go down the street to get their fresh bread. I think
(37:04):
there's a cultural evolution. It's very slow. I mean, we only
changed food in America in the 80s, you know, from. From frozen
steak and, you know. Yeah. Oh, when we moved to
France, cheese before, that was Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Right.
So great. So now you have
a list of customers. Right. They're members. You join the
(37:27):
Promise. Yeah. Is not open to the public, generally. Correct. Maybe
by appointment, if somebody wants to do it. But. And then how does. So they
visit, they make an appointment, they come see Beth, They.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, we're not open to the public, and
so they have to know somebody, you know, know a friend or be a friend.
And we, you know, we only see
(37:49):
one party at a time because we really want that experience to be,
you know, personal. And we. We try not to see, you know,
parties over 8 or 10 because want,
you know, it to be intimate and. And be
a certain kind of experience. Are there plans for weddings,
engagements? You know, No, I. I think
(38:12):
we do. You know, people do get engaged there
sometimes, and there's. There's a lot of people who.
Who will buy the wine for a wedding or for an engagement or to
give as a gift. And that's great. That's, you know, that's become part of
what Promise is and. And what the story is. But,
(38:32):
yeah, it's. It. It's a. It's a really personal
experience, and I think that's becoming
much more important to people out there in wine.
Clearly, the picture of my dad, actually, this patch, this is
Les Amie Divines. It was. It was an organization. I've
(38:52):
talked about this on the show before, but it's an organization in America. It was
150 chapters. You had to have a wine shop to own a chapter, but it
was about the experience. So my dad would put on dinners at Marineland,
and they go down there, and the women would Wear their minks. And this is
a big event. Robert Mondavi would speak. Balzer, all the famous critics would
speak. And it wasn't about the aristocracy of the wine. It was just the experience
(39:13):
of wine. And I think what you're doing is critical to
the industry to grow and get away from.
I think all this non alk stuff and lox stuff and White Claw and all
those competitive. There's always been competitive beverages to the wine trade.
They've just evolved a lot more now, though. Yeah, there are a few more now.
But I've had people sit there and try to tell me that they have this
(39:35):
brilliant idea to put wine in a 375 with a, you know, a
Voss bottle like thing. Right. Like, that's. That's not.
What possible marketing angle can you take with the
beverage that's six. At least 6,000 years old and change it.
It's the same beverage as it was when Noah landed his ark on the. Yeah.
Mount Ara. Yeah. Right. It may taste a little better than. That, but
(39:57):
no, I think all those gimmicks are just that they're gimmicks. They'll
come and go. Yeah. I mean, White Zinn was a mistake. Yeah. Right. We
still get people who think they don't like rose because of White
Symphony. You know, they think that's what rose is meant to
be. So that's an evolution, I guess, of generations we have to suffer through.
I spent 25 years here with my wife. I worked 10 years at the one
(40:20):
month I made more money when she wasn't around. But she's a licensed cpa and
all of a sudden I had to follow the rules
to this day. You guys worked together before
you joined together in this. No, no, we didn't.
You got up, went to work every day and. Yeah, yeah, was. She
was very separate. She was slinging hash of the restaurants. Yeah.
(40:43):
She has another career. I. I briefly thought maybe I wanted to
work in the entertainment industry, but I. I jumped ship on that
pretty early on and I went back and got my master's in psychology.
Oh, wow. So I practice psychotherapy still, currently. Yes.
And so is there a lesson to learn working
together or. Because you still have sort of separate. You have your own career
(41:07):
that takes time away from the wine together because my wife and I would sit
next to each other. I finally learned I should not put a window between our
offices. Yeah. I mean, you know,
it's interesting the. The place where. Because, you know, we.
We live in Los Angeles for the most part. We have lived
in Napa as well, but for our children's education.
(41:29):
Live in Los Angeles. And that. That gives a little bit
separation because I. I do spend more time.
We have some more space. Yeah, that's good. But I mean, you know,
in la, the only place that it really caused a problem is that our kids
at some points have said, honestly, can we not talk about business,
(41:49):
like at dinner? You know, because if you mentioned. Yeah, if you
guys talk about the wine industry, we're. We're getting up and having dinner in the
other room. Okay. That's really funny. Yeah. My kids haven't gotten there
yet. Maybe because I'm the guy. I have the purse strings when it comes to
the bottle of wine, so they don't get cut off. But they're still, you know,
they're 17 and 19, almost 18 and 20 now. They're just. And they're,
(42:10):
by the way, their palates are great. They're an incredible cooks. They
love to cook. Yeah. And I think they're. They're just coming around to
enjoying wine. But, you know, they've seen.
They've seen how bumpy a road it can be. And,
you know, I think at some point, one frustrated moment,
one child said to one water tank,
(42:34):
why can't you have a normal job like everybody else's parents?
Yeah, that's really funny. A normal job. Yeah. Like, what is
that exactly nowadays? Yeah. Well, if you look,
you can't see this picture, but the. The actual beer box was behind
this display. And that was the first display of the wines of the month. So
that's where I spent most of my time when I worked at the pharmacy in
(42:55):
the wine shops was in that beer box. And then.
But, you know, it's interesting because maybe, maybe it is.
Maybe the timing of what you're doing, it coincides with the sort of the
timing of when my dad started in the 70s and
wine became popular in American
culture. And now the experience coming back to wine is
(43:17):
what we need to show the public. And that's what you guys are putting together.
Ear. Lips to God's ears, to everybody. I mean,
wine has gotten. I don't understand, you know, now they're trying to
medically substantiate why it's bad for you. The media
has kind of seemed. Seems to want to go after
it a little bit. That's true. I don't know why that is.
(43:40):
And the teetotalers, the pro neo prohibitionists are back.
Yeah. Rather than talk about the
beauty and the history and all
the benefits which there are, those
studies being Done. But the media doesn't seem to want
to talk about that angle anymore. Well, the media has changed
(44:03):
so much. I mean the media is now there is no news,
it's all entertainment. It's all driven by clicks and,
and so, you know, being negative unfortunately sells.
And so I think people find things to go after and,
and find, you know, it's, you're going to get a lot more clicks with
(44:23):
nobody's drinking wine ever again. Then, hey, here's a really
cool region, Armenia, that's just starting out and
it's been around for 6,000 years. I mean it just unfortunately it doesn't
get the same amount of attention. But I
think it should, I think all these things should.
So we have to find a bridge and an
(44:46):
invitation and
some kind of way to include the TikTok generation and
into enjoying wine. Well, it's a,
it's damned if you do and damn if you don't when it comes to social.
Because if you don't do it then you, you look this. Not square but not
contemporary. Exactly. Where else do you mark. There's no such thing as, as
(45:07):
Larry Tate PR anymore. Right. You know, that doesn't exist. You can't go into
a PR to say and what the PR agency is going to do today is.
Right. Go to the web and go to the social. That is what it is.
Right. But I think, I think philosophically you just have to stay the
course. And I tell this to a lot of miners I speak with,
it'll ebb and flow. And if you're not true to what you are and what
(45:28):
you're doing, then all you're doing is cheating yourself and you're not going to
be able to control what the market does for you anyway. So you might as
well just stay true to your story and, and represent what you are.
And I think that honesty. Yeah, in all products.
Right, exactly. All passion comes out. When you talk about the health benefits. I
mean that book right there, that's the Morally Safer's, you know, the result of the
(45:49):
morally safers. 199060 minute display
of the Mediterranean lifestyle, which includes a heavy steady
diet of wine is part of it. It's certainly not the
criminal part of somebody's lifestyle. I forget the new.
There's a, there's, there have been a few of them and there's one
that's like just published within the last year or two as
(46:11):
well. So it, there are, it's kind of. Like
if you don't, if you, you know, where history repeats itself and
sometimes we don't learn the lessons. And I'm going to talk about climate change for
a second. Not a political show. But, you know, I had somebody criticize my
show because I said that, well, Paul should be talking about policies.
But, you know, there's been Paul's your show. You could talk about whatever the hell.
(46:33):
You want to talk about. That's true. But, you know, I don't want to ruffle
any feathers when it comes to that. I'll have to ruffle wine feathers. You're gonna
ruffle somebody's. Yeah, but you know, there was a cold snap for 15
years in the late 1700s. You know, champagne suffered
drastically for it. And that's, you know, that's just the way it goes. It happens.
Before I was reading about Barcelona,
(46:54):
there was, oh, there's a new book out from the Cladstrups
who wrote Wine and War. If you haven't read that book, you must read it.
And then they also wrote Champagne Charlie. And then they just. She
just released a book called Eugenie, which is the
story of Napoleon III's wife when they
created the 1855 classification. Got it. And the clad strips
(47:17):
are brilliant people. They live in Paris, they're Americans. So I was
reading that book and they were talking about in Barcelona because she was
princess or the family was from Barcelona, that there was
massive drought and then
massive flooding, destroying like. Sounds familiar, you
know? Yeah, it sounds very familiar. Right? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That was like 18
(47:39):
something. Yeah, yeah. So just. It ebbs and flows. But
so I'm going to do. So we're almost out of time. It's
unbelievable. That's like one of the fastest. Yeah,
no, it's been great. This is a, this is
fun. Since we're talking about the health
benefits, this is a book by Dr. Murray,
(48:01):
who is a French doctor in the 70s. He was an MD as well as
a homeopathic doctor. And this is Wine is the
best medicine. Now, the answer to the question I'm going to ask you is going
to be a French district or a French varietal. Yeah, but.
And by the way, if I ask give you three answers,
only 33% of the people get it right. But
(48:23):
it's kind of like the Master of Wine and Master Psalm test in
that the answer is important, but we kind of want to know what you're thinking
to get to that answer. Got it. Okay. So. So don't be
embarrassed. No, no. So there's. I'll give you an ailment and
I'll give you three potential cures or at
least symptom relievers for that. So we could
(48:45):
do. Let's just say we have a fever. We could
have a grave or a dry
champagne or a coat de bone
to handle our fever. What do you think it is and why
you think it is? I'll
accept two different answers from two different people. A champagne.
(49:09):
A what kind of champagne? A dry champagne. Dry champagne. Cote
de Bonne Burgundy. As you know, essentially the
first place I go is. Is. Is the alcohol content.
And whether you want. You want to have more alcohol for a
fever or you want to have less alcohol for a fever. But that's. That's
only one element. Certainly.
(49:33):
I think just my. My. My
gut is champagne. Because
I find champagne to be the most festive
of what you've. You know, what you've given me in terms of the
choices and kind of uplifting in that sense.
And it is lower alcohol. So maybe if that is. If that
(49:56):
is a way to go. But, yeah, I think I would go champ.
A nice, like, blanc de blanc. I mean, what occasion doesn't improve
with. Yeah, well, I think that's the answer to all of them. Right.
To help you. At least you feel better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's a dosage
with this. So you're right. You're part of the 33.
Oh, my God. And almost the. The reason is because these wines
(50:19):
contain, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person.
Phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating. Sulfur
in sulfate of potassium form, whose detoxifying
action on the body has been established. Huh. That's really interesting.
What do you think the dose would be? It might be enough. In my
room, two bottles. And call me in the morning. I split the
(50:41):
difference. There's a bottle a day.
Honey, we got to switch doctors. He's got some YouTube stuff you
can find. But you speak French, obviously, so it's got. It's in French. Yeah. I
bought both versions. This and the French version. That's. I found this, My
dad's library. That's fun. So I want to touch on one thing. Sure. Before
(51:02):
we go, that you said, which I think is so important
and so dead on. It's about staying
honest to what you're doing. If you're chasing
the buck, you know, and for me, personally. So if you're chasing
the buck in the entertainment industry, because that's seductive,
it doesn't matter how successful you are. It won't
(51:24):
be fulfilling. I mean, you hear all these stories about these
really bitter and disgruntled and
unfulfilled people. Who are unbelievably successful in the
entertainment industry. And it's true. And I believe that
I'm happier now. I mean, I made a
lot of money, I was successful, I had power. But
(51:46):
I'm so much more fulfilled holding a bottle of my
wine than being able to take credit for
some piece of work, because it's
honestly what I love to do. And we put
our heart into every bottle every year. We're trying to
make a better wine. We're learning something more about
(52:08):
agriculture, we're learning something more about viticulture. We're learning
something more about winemaking technology.
And, you know, just having fun doing it. Yeah, it just.
I really, you know, my dad had a simple piece of advice which is really
hard to follow, which is find out what you love and then find out how
to make money at it, because he was a realist. But
(52:31):
I think what you said is so important for people. And
I, you know, you see the Internet, I think one of the things that
the Internet has done for. For the
younger generation is this idea that, like, you can be a billionaire.
Okay, well, yeah, but if you're a billionaire because you're making,
you know, something that's hurting humanity, like, or
(52:55):
is controversially, you know, that's never
going to be fulfilling no matter how many G5s you buy. That's
just. That's right. That's really interesting thought. I can use two examples, which
I won't say publicly popped in my head as soon as you said that.
Yeah. But I think staying the course on what you believe is
only thing you can do in any business. And it's hard. It's hard to do
(53:18):
because you're in the influences to go other directions and to change
the narrative is too easy. Yeah. It's too easy to chase. Chase
a dollar and not. Yeah. You know, a lot has to do with. Especially
younger kids who see Internet
influencers, you know, who knows if those stories are real about
what they do and how much they make. But if you chase being an influencer
(53:40):
and not chase what you're influencing. Yeah.
It's. It's empty. And I can tell you this with this podcast.
I love doing it. I love processing it. I love putting it together,
hearing the stories, love telling the stories. And not that I didn't love
what I did at the wine trade, but there were so many moving parts
to selling a bottle of wine. And like, my last full
(54:03):
year, which was 2022, I sent 33 million
emails. Oh, my God. Wow. And that would. That would only produce Enough
sales that maybe selling 10 years earlier, a million emails would have produced
twice as much, if not more sales than that because of the way it's been
diluted. 33 million. 33 million. Which means I had to
produce at least 300 pieces of content, 300
(54:25):
graphics, 300 promotion codes, 300 angles.
How do you. How do you create 300 different ways to sell? Right.
You know, the Bordeaux group or the Chianti group. I would have the Napa Valley
Cabernet. You know, just whatever I could muster up to get catch people's
attention. Yeah. And that ended up being 33 million emails. Wow.
So that part of it was hard. The
(54:48):
passion that drove it was really, truly finding
interesting wines that people could experiment with and understand. Yeah. And that
started to change, too, because
my competitors who came into the marketplace like naked wines and wink
and all these guys were buying this crap from 50 Cent. A liter
wines from who knows where. Yeah. Garbage punches
(55:11):
landing in. In New Jersey,
bottling it in a billion brands and shipping it out as something different. And it
wasn't. And I was not being forced to, but they were coming through my door
now, like in the old days. I just got off the show with August
Sebastiani, and I'm talking to him. I slapped myself on the head.
I said, oh, my God. I did a wine. I did two big slugs of
(55:33):
their wine. A Cabernet Franc and a Merlot. And I told him. I said,
there was this crazy label that you guys found in the back of your
warehouse. And there was like, I bought like, seven or 800 cases of each. He
goes, yeah, that was my sister. She was three years old, and she had drawn
on the whiteboard. And we took a picture of it and became the label. We
never sold the wine, but the wine was great. And so I
(55:54):
go, that's the stuff. Why? The Month Club used to find interesting little things
when it came. Bulk juice from Europe. Yeah. And those. That's what I was
getting for the price I could pay. That's when the passion died.
Yeah. You know, you get away from what you love. You
get away from what you love. But the premise is still real. The guy that
bought it, they're already selling it. It's only been two years.
(56:16):
Yeah. And it's not because they're making too much money. Yeah. Right.
So, yeah, no, it's a. It's. It's tough. Yeah, it's
tough. But you guys, so much fun to have a chance to hear your
story, and I'm sure we'll do it again. One day. Because there's so much more
to talk about. Yeah. And, you know, as you. As it progresses that you talked
about, there's new influences. And one of the things I do want to talk about,
(56:38):
maybe it'll just take five minutes, which is like, what is that?
Like, you have to make a lot of decisions when you do this. When it
comes to packaging experience, Beth,
who knows what comes on your plate? There must be some overriding
philosophy that you have the back of your head, like, default to,
like, okay, I'm not sure what to do here, but because we represent
(57:00):
an expression of time and place or whatever, this is what we're going to do.
Is it a conscious thing? Well, that's a good
word to use. Is it a conscious thing? Because I was going to say it's.
At the end of the day, it's trusting our guts and
what feels right. You know, we've
(57:21):
definitely kissed a couple frogs that we
wish we didn't kiss. That's a good expression.
But I think
we know ourselves and each other
and our brand and what we stand for by now. That the,
the. Ultimately, at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and
(57:44):
cents choices, but. But if you have the luxury of making a choice
based on does this feel true to us? That's always
going to prevail. Yeah. And we, you know,
I. I think we. We have always gone with, you
know, we're very meticulous, and we take. I mean, we had the
wine, our first bottles of wine, you know, our
(58:07):
47 cases in that it was literally in the barrel for almost
two and a half years before we knew what the label would be. We knew
it was going to be called Promise, but we didn't know it was going to
be my wedding ring, which is what the circle represents.
But the other thing I would say is people. It really,
you know, as she said, we. We've kissed a few frogs, but it's really about
people. And, you know, I. I've been
(58:30):
successful in Wall street, in entertainment,
in wine, when I'm in business with
great people. And I think, you know, after
21 years, I feel like, you know, we have an amazing
small team of people that we truly consider
family. And it's not a. It's not a, you know, a cliche
(58:52):
that we say that. I mean, Beth has to tell our story,
and when you are entrusting somebody to tell your story,
that's a. That's a really personal and powerful thing. And she does it
so well, and we trust her to do that. And our
winemaker is a good friend and somebody who is an
educator, and we, we chose him partly because of that. He
(59:15):
makes world class wine. But we want to learn, we want to talk, we
want to walk the vineyards, we want to sit there in the dirt and, and,
and spend time. And so it's a. I, I think if
you get in business with great people, you know, that's a
big step. Well, thanks again for being on the show, and we hope to see
each other soon. Thank you so much, Paul. This is amazing. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.
We know ourselves and each other and
our brand and what we stand for by now. That ultimately,
at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and cents choices,
but if you have the luxury of making a choice
based on does this feel true to us? That's always
going to prevail. Sit back and grab a
(00:22):
glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, beautiful
Southern California, about to have a conversation with Stephen and Jennifer McPherson of the
Promise Winery. Introductions in just a second. Yes, I am the guy
that tasted 100,000 wine in his career and sold 17 million
(00:42):
bottles all by myself. But now, while we're here, here to have
a conversation with Stephen. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
me. Call yourself co founders. I mean. Yeah, yeah, we
really started it together and have been running it together. You know,
we've stayed small over 20 years. It's. It's us and three employees. I
can't believe it's from 20 years. And thank you for the visit there, by the
(01:04):
way. It was pretty amazing perspective on the wine
trade in Napa, which is in a little bit of turmoil right now with, you
know, prices being. Trying to try to hold your prices, but.
But the industry sort of a dip. Yeah. And here's this
full on, or I'm going to call it organic experience at the Promise
Winery. You know, and everybody's gonna say, what's the promise mean? You know, that's certainly
(01:27):
a question. And I understand that this was. Yeah. Tell me the story.
You want to start with that? Yeah, go ahead, babe. Well,
Steve was pretty successful in the entertainment
business, but I could see that his spirit
was dwindling and just being
sucked dry. And every time we would go to Napa Valley,
(01:50):
which was frequently, I would say at least three
times a year, four times a year, he was a different
person. He was more alive. He was. He was himself.
He was truly just connected.
And I said, one day, one
day, Steve, we need. This needs to be in our lives
(02:13):
forever. So promise me you're going to pursue your real
passion and you're not going to. You're going to keep dreaming
and you're going to promise yourself
and us that you're going to have this. We're going to
do this. You're going to. You're going to figure out a way to. To
(02:34):
keep this part of you. Forever.
And he made that promise. Yeah, he made that promise on our wedding. Well, and
it's, you know, we dated for almost four and a half years.
And, you know, I was. I was a type. A kind of
competitive businessman. And I would. For years, I would say,
honey, I looked at the strap planning sheet, this is a bad business. You know,
(02:54):
you're making a product, you're putting it in the closet for three years. And she
was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And it. It really. It took.
It took all that time, I think, you know, for me to really see
that she was right. And, you know, the Promise was
really on the eve of our wedding, you know, that weekend.
And we. We had no idea really what that meant. It's not like the
(03:16):
promise was, listen, in 20 years, we want to have a winery that produces
X. And, you know, but it was enough to push me
over the edge to take that chance. And we
just. That fall we got married in. In. In June, and
that fall we bought some grapes from a friend of ours, and
the rest is history. I mean, not only did you tell. You make a promise
(03:39):
to your wife, but you told her she was right. Some of that. Yeah,
exactly. Set the
president. Yeah, yeah. Good way to start the
marriage. Yeah, that is a good way. I mean, I'm still struggling with that 35
years later. It's an interesting.
It's an interesting perspective because it does take that long, and it is a difficult
(04:02):
business, and it's very hard to make money. And not unlike
owning an airplane is not a profitable thing generally, it's very
hard to run a business like that. And wine is the same. So it
does really just take an amazing amount of passion. And
clearly, when we visit the Promise Winery, that's what's built into this,
into the landscape of Napa Valley. But
(04:25):
you can't do it without that, can you? No, you really can't. And
I think we say now, 21 years into the business,
it has not been easy. And I wouldn't change my perspective
of this is a great business to make money at, but
it's an amazing business if you love it.
(04:45):
And it makes us enormously fulfilled. And
it's become life. Life's work for us
to some extent. But that's, you know, I think
there's so many. There's always a million reasons why not to
pursue your dream or that harder road or that,
you know, that kind of, you know, quest project
(05:07):
that you might have. And I think, you know, that's who I was, you
know, for four and a half years. And then once. But once you get
into it, you know, if you face problems, you face drought, you
face recession, you face. You Know, mountain lions eating your goats.
You know, stuff. You get through it. You get through it.
Whereas, you know, if you don't love it, then, you know,
(05:30):
dealing with, you know, something that is
really problematic and challenging in a business, if you. If you're not
invested and love that business, it's really hard. It's really hard to do. But
every morning I walk on the beach. When I met Hermosa, we walk all the
way to her Manhattan pier, come back, and it's, you know, three miles, and they
go in the water. Promised myself I would do that. But the night before, we'd
(05:51):
watch La La Land, which I think is a great movie. Great movie. Yeah.
My wife loves musicals, so, you know, but really, I came away
again, and I just love the end of it. And it's controversial, you know, people
always argue about what. What it meant. But when you're chasing
your dreams, you know, you. At any age, at any time in your life,
if you have that chance. And I did this sort of Instagram thing. I
(06:13):
said, you got to chase them. I'm chasing one right now. This podcast is a.
Chasing something to do with wine
and tell the stories of the wine business. Because there's so many. Your story
is one of them. The passion it takes to do this is
purely required. And the question is, why? Not expecting an
answer, necessarily, but why did you light up when you showed up in
(06:35):
Napa Valley? And why did you notice that? And what. You know, what is it
about wine that makes you do this? Is it some kind of connection to the
earth, Some kind of soulful, you know, and there's maybe no
answer. I think it's a. For me, it's a lot of things
with my entire life put together.
You know, I was fortunate when. When I was 10 years
(06:57):
old, my dad became the headmaster of the American School of Paris. So
it was life changing. We moved there, and I lived grade school and
high school there. And he, you know, it was
1976, so it was just after the French tasting. My
dad was taking classes at Spurrier's place. Really? Wow.
Yeah. So wine became part of, you know, who we were.
(07:20):
And they just love. Both my parents just loved France and Europe.
So we never came back for visits until each. Each
kid got one visit for college choices.
But then secondarily, I was playing soccer in the
French leagues and at school, and so I was never home for
dinner. So my mom, at about age 13, was like, Listen,
(07:43):
I'm not cooking two meals a day for the family, so let me
show you how to cook Basic things. And I just fell in love with
it. And ever Since I was 13, I've
loved to cook. And you fantasize about being a chef
and just love restaurants and all that. And
so it kind of. You know, it. It kind of started
(08:05):
back then, and then it's just. Just kind
of continued to. To roll forward. I mean, I went to college and we only
drank beer, but kind of immediately after college, when.
When I started to make just a little money, you know, started
to collect a few bottles here and there, and it just
became like a real. It was a passion, and it is a
(08:28):
passion. And, you know, then when you get involved in it, you get even
more deeply involved in it. Farmer. And you become,
you know, a viticultural big purveyor. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. That's an interesting
leap from, you know, an American lifestyle to living in Paris, and particularly
1976. I had Steven Spurrier on the show before he passed away, just before.
(08:51):
Oh, cool. We met him once in Naples. Really nice guy. Then
I went into Cob de Madeline in. In the District, and she goes, this is
not the same one that you think it is. My God. I
thought I was taking the history here, but know,
culturally, wine was in the 70s, right. When this picture was taken in
1975, Jim Barrett used to come into the store. And in fact, when he won
(09:12):
the judgment, he came in and said, you know, would you mind? He actually asked
my father to carry the wines because everybody's asking for donations.
Like he said, just go down to PB Liquor. But.
But what an amazing time for the wine trade. And
is there a chasm between that lifestyle that you. That you witnessed in
Paris and going to school in Paris to what you
(09:36):
felt like you had experienced as an American kid? Like, did you before then?
Yeah. Well, I mean, my dad, you know, he. He passed last
fall. But we used to laugh, you know, before we went to France,
wine was, you know, Lancers in the old. Yeah,
we used car. Yeah, Lancers and Chianti in those big
things because the kids liked it. But, you know,
(09:58):
so, yeah, I mean, there was a giant difference between the two. And
I. I look back and I think, boy, I, you know,
would I have been that interested in wine had I never gone to France, but
then moved to California and Napa? Was there? Probably not.
What about your experience with wine, Jennifer? Did you. So,
interestingly, my. Sorry, mom. My mom was a
(10:20):
horrible cook, but my dad
was a great. Was a great chef and really passionate about
cooking. First generation Italian.
So every. Every Sunday, it was an
occasion. And it was a time where we would all
gather in the kitchen or we would at least kind of come together
(10:43):
as a family. That was kind of short lived.
But then later on in life I started working in restaurants.
And wine was not a big thing in my life, my
childhood, growing up at all. I do remember,
you know, some, like, neighbors drinking box wines, etc.
And I remember certain, like I looking up to a
(11:06):
certain neighbor, the fact that she had a Chablis. I was very
interested, like, ooh, what's Chablis? Gallo, Chablis or regular? Probably
Gallo. I mean, it's, you know, New Jersey. I'm not a lot longer
though. But I remember when my dad came
home, just like he would come home with records or he would come home with
books, or he'd say, hey, need to watch this movie. He started
(11:28):
coming home with wine. And, you know,
when my dad did something, I just perked up a little
bit. So that was my first interest. And then the restaurants,
and then I finally got an upscale waitressing job where you got
to, they, you know, got, gave you the chef's meal ahead of
time and the wine pairings that went with it. So that was when I was
(11:50):
a student at NYU and other
jobs like. Which is a hotbed of food. Yeah. And I also,
when I was pursuing a career in
theater during my NYU days, I also
temped at Goldman Sachs. And a lot of those,
(12:10):
they're mostly gentlemen at the time, were all into wine.
And I remember helping plan trips for them. And just,
I just, just these little pockets of interest all started
coming together at once. And that was my
early 20s. And it was just,
it was, it was a curiosity, it was a, it
(12:33):
was something that I wanted to learn more about. And so when Steve and I
met in what was 2000, that was my mid,
my mid to 20s, late
20s. We, I mean, he was
more, you know, he's a little older than me, so he's, he's got a couple
years ahead of experience. And so
(12:56):
he, we, we started, you know, he started teaching me more and we were,
we were tasting more together. And my love for
wine grew with our relationship. But I almost,
I almost killed the relationship early on because I went over to her
apartment and there was a Wine Spectator on the
coffee table and like a, you know, just an idiot
(13:17):
guy. I go, like, whose is this? As if it couldn't
possibly be hers. Oh. And she's like, it's mine.
Idiot, comma. Yeah.
You know, it's a fascinating industry and sometimes it
does Take that sort of time and
(13:38):
many different inputs for it to come around. I did this for 15 years,
probably, and I just. It was just a businessman. I just sold it, and I
did the best I could at making margins and selling good things. Of course, that's
how we stayed alive. But probably, like, 20 years
ago, it hit me that there's something very unique and special about this
brevage that. That can't be defined that way. It can only be
(13:59):
defined in the passion you get when you talk to people that
try to understand it, because we're never going to understand it.
So. Sorry, go ahead. We were recently in Burgundy, and we were
meeting with this particular winemaker, and his
young. His English was. Was great, actually.
And by the third time he mentioned the word
(14:22):
emotion, it just. The light bulb kind of
went off, and I was like, of course. This. This is why we're
all in this business. He kept saying, like,
my wines express emotion. And I was thinking, well,
all great wine, if you taste a great wine and
everybody's great wine is different, but when you open it, when you taste
(14:45):
it, you feel something. And
we're in the business of feeling. We're striving
to produce a product that. That
excites people, that moves people, that awakens people,
that brings joy and
appreciation and connection. And how do you not want to be a
(15:08):
part of that? It's such an undefinable piece of
what wine is. All those wines behind you, all the wines my dad
sold, it doesn't come from 19 crimes in apothec Red. And
that's fine. We need those wines to get entry into the industry,
so people do. But my. My typical premise is every
generation at different points of the generation. The baby
(15:30):
boomers were probably into wine before. The
millennials are, though. My millennials at my home drink plenty,
and my depletion is much faster than I expected it to be.
And. And then the Gen Z's, which is the huge topic of current
marketing issues in the wine business, will be a little bit later.
But I think the indefinable thing about what you just said is
(15:54):
that will unite everybody. I was just at a tasting, you
know, Duclo, which is a Christian Moex moex
distributor in LA, and they have a lot of Bordeaux tastings.
12 people get invited every time. And he
poured a bar sack. Chateau Coutet, this is only a couple weeks
ago. And that was the word I used. I looked
(16:17):
at the presenter, I said, this is the most emotional wine I've
smelled in years. And who knows why he goes the previous. He
completely agreed. He goes, the previous vintage was not like this. And
then the guy next to me hits me with. He goes. He goes, right. You
know, because whatever it was that just jumped out of the glass and
made your brain go spinning in different directions was.
(16:39):
And that. That's the part that's really. Isn't that fantastic when you have that kind
of a moment? It's the connect. Yeah, absolutely. And I. And
how do we tell everybody about this? How do you guys go about with the
promise, expressing that passion
to the public? You know, I think it's a
challenge. One of the reasons that, you know, we
(17:00):
have stayed small and aren't
in distribution is because ideally, we
want to. Make some money because you can't do it the other way.
We'd like the experience of introduction to promise to be the one
that you had where you come and you spend, you know, a couple
hours and you're really being introduced not only to the
(17:24):
wine itself, but the story behind the wine. The
why are you doing it? Who are the people behind it? And,
you know, when you. When it's on a list at a
restaurant or hotel or liquor store,
you know, it's just. It's another bottle on the shelf. And
so I think that it is a challenge. We talk about it all the time.
(17:47):
I think that, you know, my hope going back a little bit to
this new generation, one of the things that I hear about them that I
love is the idea that they really. They're
interested in wine, but they want to know more than just like, oh, it's
false scarcity, or it's the most expensive wine.
They want us, like, who's behind the wine? Why is these people
(18:09):
making the wine? You know, what's this grape? What does that mean?
What is the story behind it? So, you know, I'm hopeful that that will actually
lead to a deeper connection to win.
I know everyone gets worried about kind of the sober, curious,
you know, generation and. And all that. But.
But, yeah, I think that's. That's part of the challenge of how do you. How
(18:32):
do you introduce and sell wine to people in a personal
way and. And convey that connection? I would
add to that that. Well, because our brand is so personal,
we do kind of lead you to that emotional place
with. With the names of our wines. You know, if you. That's
true. And we did that very purposefully because
(18:57):
we want to. We. We as a
couple, always want to keep ourselves,
remind ourselves of what we're here on this planet to do.
Experience, joy, live. Live a Life of
gratitude. Have intention.
(19:17):
Be in love. Yes. Share love. Give love.
I mean, I always, you know, I always tell my kids, like, keep your heart
open. It's just those are the, that's what
we decided to name or to kind of announce
each wine we have with an affirmation
that we, we want it always share.
(19:39):
You know, it's a. Your success at the
entertainment industry, I think. How long were you? About
26, seven years. And you ran CBS or ABC?
ABC TV? Yeah. Okay, this is where Chapter got it wrong. I knew it was
abc, but it says, I'm not kidding you, it says
what lessons you learn at cbs. That's, that's funny.
(20:02):
Yeah, because, you know, we were, we were Disneyland with the kids, my
grandkids. And we went to the Goofy's kitchen and one of the
chipmunks came over. You know, this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the names
Chip and Dale. And so I asked Chap GT which one is Dale?
Which one's Chip? And it was wrong. So it comes over and I said, hey,
Chip. And he goes, no, I'm Dale. You know, you can't say anything. But he's
(20:23):
like, no, no, no. But 25 years
in an industry like that, that's so fast paced and so much pressure and so
much going on that this must be an amazing departure from that. But
did you bring, were there lessons to come over from corporate
America into. Good question. Managing. Managing a winery.
I mean, to be honest, the first lesson was not a good lesson.
(20:45):
I mean, it wasn't a good lesson about the entertainment business. To
me, one of the biggest, just right up front differences about the
industries is the wine industry is unbelievably
collaborative and people are generally in it
because they love it. The entertainment industry is
unbelievably mean spirited, cutthroat. And
(21:08):
there's a lot of people who don't love the industry. They're just
feeding off of other people who, you know, are
actors or directors. And, you know, there's eight layers of
publicist and manager and agent
and, you know, just taking money. And so
for me, when we first, you know, started Promise,
(21:29):
you know, people like Ann Colgan being, you know,
unbelievably generous and nice and, you know, kind of helping us. Colonel
Rumbauer, you know, it really
was an awakening of like, oh, so
you can, you can be in a business that is not
about, you know, beating the other person. Yeah, that's
(21:51):
interesting. That was, that was a huge difference. There's so much generosity of
spirit in, in the Valley, especially in Napa
Valley. It's so refreshing and
it's. It's interesting. It's a great community. I
wonder if. I wonder if that's because
every product, the honest wines are so uniquely different
(22:14):
that the competition really is not about who makes the best
wine. It's who's making the wine that expresses who they are, where they're from,
and that you really don't butt heads. You might. You might. For the marketing
dollar, if you're on the shelf at Ralph's, you know, you're.
I don't know if you've been to Ralph's lately or Safeway, but there's a shelf
talker and a thing on every single bottle. No way of understanding.
(22:35):
A consumer has no chance. Yeah. To figure something out. But in this case,
like, you know, airtime and. And Nielsen ratings, all the things that
you chase, all the metrics you chase in entertainment, it's cutthroat. Yeah. I
want to be a star. I'm gonna do everything I can to climb to the
top. Performance. And there's. There isn't climbing to the top. It's also
so much. I mean, the entertainment business is so much about the dollar. Yeah. I
(22:57):
mean, you know, people are in it just because the money is there.
But I think you're right. I mean, wine. Everybody's
wine is different. And, you know, I think everyone
is in it for, you know, their own good
reason. And, yeah, we. We've just been
kind of so. So struck by
(23:20):
not only the generosity of just in general, but, like, when bad
things happen, when fires happen, when droughts happen, people
literally giving, you know, fruit and giving barrels
and giving winery space to other
winemakers. And. And I think it goes around the world. We love to travel,
and we go to wine regions whenever we can. And there.
(23:42):
There's a. There's a. A collaborative and camaraderie
in Burgundy. There's one in Italy. There's, you know, it's true.
Something very different. Completely true. I tell
people that we did sell 17 million bottles of wine here, and we
did taste 100,000 wines every Tuesday. We tasted wines
forever. And that has. That
(24:05):
credential, was great for consumerism, but it's the
credential of this podcast that we tell the stories. And I bring these people on
the show, like you, that when I travel to different parts of the wine region,
how we are received, like in the vineyard with
Monsieur Clouet at Chevalon. Yeah. I mean, that would
have never happened because I was selling 20 wines out of the Wine of the
(24:26):
month club. Right. But because I'm part of the process to tell the stories and.
And understand and show the public what's behind a good bottle of wine.
It's become a different reception. Yeah. No, you're part of the love affair that
we all have. Everybody, in their own way, has with this business.
It's kind of interesting you're talking about the camaraderie, because if you listen to the
old timers about the original Napa Valley Business association,
(24:49):
you know, certainly there's camaraderie there. There's a woman named
Joanne dupuis. She's probably 96 now.
Incredible lady. She was. She was tapped by Spurrier to deliver
the wines from Napa to. To Paris. There was no
way to do that back then. It's still it, really. And so she put them
in her suitcase because she's traveling. Oh, my God. Tennis thing that she was doing.
(25:12):
And she says it's very funny because this bottle of Freemark Abbey
broke on the carousel, and there's this red wine dripping onto the.
Onto the thing. But the reason I brought that up was that there is a
camaraderie there. And I'm dealing a lot with the Armenian wine industry right now,
which is. Which is an incredible story because it's 6,000. We know
it's 6,000 years old, minimum, because they found the winery that's 6,000 years old.
(25:35):
And so. But it got stalled by socialism and the ussr
and so they're kind of like the newest, oldest wine region in the world. Right.
Because now they finally have technology. They're making great wines, but they can't get along.
And anybody sat there from the industry will. Will agree with me. So I'm
not throwing anybody under the bus here. But they don't have that
association. And they do look at it because we're Armenians and we're Middle
(25:57):
Eastern merchants as competition. Interesting. I don't think it. I don't think
it changes the industry until there's some kind of
camaraderie. There's some kind of relationship built
amongst them. To promote each other. Yeah. Because.
Well, to promote the region. Right. It's the same issue as it would be with
Napa. You know, the wines are going to be different. So you're really not going
(26:18):
head to head because. Yeah, going out to the world with a new region
and a new grape that no one's ever heard of is not going to be
easy on your own. Right. It's just not going to happen. Anyway, The. The.
The mood, what you did and what we did at the Promise. Let's talk about
the winery for a second, because you treated my wife and I with an
incredible experience with Beth. Getting there was a fun drive. You
(26:40):
know, it's not far from Silverado Trail. You just take a little trip up and
you go into the mountains, and you end up in this really cool location with
beautiful facility and hospitality. And
so much, I think, of wine is
moving back to what is the experiential part of it. And we talked
about it a little bit. The Internet. It started with. I'll just give you a
(27:01):
little history. The marketing of One Month Club started with a handshake at a
show. My dad started this idea, and I
took it over. We grew because we shook hands
with everybody that walked up. Anybody that joined this club, I had shaken their hand.
There was no mail order. Then it was at a show.
We went to the Taste of. You know, there was Festa Italia at
(27:24):
3rd Street Promenade. There was the Taste of the Garlic Festival. There was all these
things going on. I did 75 shows a year. That's one and a half
a weekend. Wow. So. But the point was, that was an experience
for the people that shook our hands. Right. They met the guy.
I had salespeople, too, but they did it. And then we got away from that
with Groupon, started this whole trend of things
(27:45):
and the cheapest thing you can find and, you know. Right. And. And
we had people taking advantage of our offers started that way. And then the Internet
came, and we. We were on 1997. We started. And that changed the way
consumerism is. And I think. I think that
there's been enough. Not deceit, but enough problems with the
crap that's being sold on the Web and the clubs that offer
(28:07):
six, you know, 12 bottles for $60 in free shipping. Right.
That the consumer's gotten tired and that we want to go back
to that handshake and that experience and
a person behind the product. Yeah. I think you're just. What you're saying
is there's hundreds and thousands of ways you can
buy any kind of product over
(28:30):
the Internet. But I think you're
onto something for us anyway, which is it takes away
a lot of the experience of
why we drink wine, which is to connect with people
and to meet people and to
build relationships. I remember Colonel Rumbauer said to me, you know,
(28:54):
when people come to Napa, everyone can go into a tasting room and they
go, this is 37 cabernet, and it's 12% this, and it's de
stemmed and this. And he was like, introduce Yourself just say,
hey, I'm Steve McPherson, and get talking. And, you know,
you'll talk about the wine. That's the best part of the business. You know, I
mean, like, you probably had that experience with Beth. It's like she's not in
(29:15):
there selling wine. She's there to show you the place, show you the wines,
hope you enjoy yourself and, you know, understand what they're about.
Do you think the trade self propagates the aristocracy of, you know, the
perceived aristocracy of one by doing that, by. By going to a tasting room and
have some person who's just learning talk about the bricks and
the alcohol content and the. I mean, I. To me,
(29:37):
it's off putting because I feel like we. We
often say, like, when people come to promise, it's like, no snob zone. Like,
you know, like, you know, and I think that,
you know, Parker was great for people who
were intimidated by wine. And, you know, okay, I feel better.
It got a 92 or 93 or whatever, but I think
(30:00):
it made people who don't have all the semantics of the
sommelier and don't maybe have the knowledge, who cares?
Did you enjoy it? You know, what wine do you like?
It doesn't matter that it's so and so's pick. You know,
it matters what you love. And so I love it when people come in
and, you know, you'll have couples and, you know, one will like
(30:23):
one of our wines and one will like another one. And I'm like, that's
fantastic. Like, that's what the way it should be. You know, it's not
that that one's the most expensive. So if you don't like that, then you're not
knowledgeable. It's ridiculous. There's no right. Yeah, there's
no right. You want people to say when they pour the wine
at home, oh, this is the McPherson family's
(30:45):
wine, and this is their thing, and they make their own prosciutto over there.
So let's talk about that. I mean, of all the experiences there, there
is to have in wine. And I've always told
as a consultant, when I talk to people like, you want people to sit
at the dinner table and tell your story when they open the bottle, you don't
want them talking about how they got it for five bucks on Groupon. That's not
(31:07):
the story. Right? And so, man, going to. Going to the Promise,
it's in a beautiful room, and then she brings out,
you know, home cured prosciutto. I mean, that is a real
organic approach to what she has to. Doing
the hen house. Yeah. Right. And the, you can, I mean, she shows
us how the eggs roll down the, you know, the astroturf there. Isn't that a
(31:29):
great. That's like, that's a really cool thing. What spawned
that part? Like, you could have opened a tasting room. You could have been weddings.
You, you're building the barn where you're going to put all kinds of cool
venue type things. But what spawned this? Now
she's laughing already. Well, I just think I'm just remembering
when he came home and he's like, I bought a couple pigs.
(31:52):
I was like, and where are we? You know, your marriage is pretty good though.
That. Yeah. Survives that, right? Because I would say I bought a couple cars.
That's what I actually always say. I'm like, well, it could be worse. He could
be buying, you know, sports Ferraris and whatever. But no, my
husband likes to foreign hogs. Well, you saw the
designer pigs, the Burkle slicer in the, in the tasting room.
(32:15):
Beautiful. I joke that that is my midlife crisis
Porsche. Like, that's what I buy. I mean, probably costs about the
same. Yeah. I love, I mean, I love all
sorts of food. Yes. And I love, you know, I love
the idea of artisans of any kind. If
somebody makes the best butter in Vermont,
(32:37):
great. Let's, you know, do that. If somebody makes the best,
you know, prosciutto, like, I want to find out.
And you know, people say, well, how did you learn to do that? Because I,
I'm obsessed with it. I love it. And I, you know, I literally research pigs.
We originally had Asaba pigs, but we decided
that the genetics just weren't the same. And then we got the
(32:58):
Mangalitsas. And then I was lucky enough when a herd of
Iberians went belly up. I was able
to get, you know, two of those. But it's really just
a passion. And you know, we, we
do it with our, you know, our prosciutto, the,
you know, the, the chickens. While our daughters will only let us
(33:20):
use them on property for eggs. They're bluefoot chickens, the
poulet breast from France. And they're the best chicken
world for meat. And so we do, we have a
partnership with the Montessori school, and so we do raise some of them there
and you feed them corn and milk for the final three
months of their lives. But it's all that stuff.
(33:43):
We have a partnership with the chocolatier that we make bean
to bar chocolate. And I just love their passion about it.
They make to me the best chocolate, you know, that
I've ever tasted. And, and they make it in their own way. They, each
chocolate has a little salt and cinnamon added and they have, they like
a certain bean from Ecuador and those kind
(34:06):
of food passions. You know, you're talking about your daughter
in, you know, upstate New York, buying the vegetables from
the farmer. I mean, you know, one of the, one of
the toughest things, moving away from France and coming
to the US and we went with our daughters later in life too. We,
we took them when they were younger for a full school year.
(34:29):
But you know, in France, you know, there's the butcher and it's probably
a third or fourth generation guy and there's a
vegetable guy and there's the fish guy. It's a Whole
Foods. It's. Yeah, it's not a Whole Foods and a huge
mass, you know, Bristol Farms. And they're passionate about what they
do. Right. I mean, I would go in, you know, one night thinking I'm going
(34:51):
to get a hanger steak and the guy would be like, you're not getting that.
Like, you know, that's not good today. And this is what you're getting.
And you're like, okay, seems, seems like a good bet. There's,
that's the interesting part. And clearly
your European lifestyle has evolved and that explains
a lot of what we saw at the Promise Winery because
(35:13):
you are what you eat, eats, right? There's a professor of
Yale names Paul Friedman. His,
his lectures are about medieval servitude,
okay. But his passion is the evolution of food in America.
Really. He's written two or three books. One of them is called the 10 Top
Restaurants, the Influential restaurant in America. And they're nothing what you think they are.
(35:36):
And the other one, I can't remember the name of it, but it's about how
America, with the freeway system and the Howard Johnson's of the
world have homogenized the regional foods.
Like you can get Texas chili in New Hampshire and etc. Etc.
And it sort of dumbed everything down. And I think that's changing. I think it's
changing for the passion that you guys have to making sure people
(35:57):
understand it. Having lived in France, you know, they protect their butter, they
protect their cheese, obviously they protect their wine. And I think, I think
we're learning that, you know, like my daughter's learning, you
know, like I took the grandkids and we picked apples. I mean it was unbelievable.
What a, what an organic experience. I hope that
we can figure out a way to have these small
(36:20):
production Whatever it is, whether it's apples or
pigs, that we can figure out how to keep the
doors open and monetize it. Because, I mean, you. This
is why we've grown to become a commercialized
production facility, because it's really difficult
financially to. To keep it going. Well, they say, you
(36:42):
know, we butchered our farms. The. The book, the Third
Plate, by Dan Barber, the chef of Blue
Hill Farms. You know, when he wrote that book, actually, probably
organic farming was difficult to feed the masses. It wasn't producing as
much. But that's changed a lot. Right. And. And I
think people like to go down the street to get their fresh bread. I think
(37:04):
there's a cultural evolution. It's very slow. I mean, we only
changed food in America in the 80s, you know, from. From frozen
steak and, you know. Yeah. Oh, when we moved to
France, cheese before, that was Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Right.
So great. So now you have
a list of customers. Right. They're members. You join the
(37:27):
Promise. Yeah. Is not open to the public, generally. Correct. Maybe
by appointment, if somebody wants to do it. But. And then how does. So they
visit, they make an appointment, they come see Beth, They.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, we're not open to the public, and
so they have to know somebody, you know, know a friend or be a friend.
And we, you know, we only see
(37:49):
one party at a time because we really want that experience to be,
you know, personal. And we. We try not to see, you know,
parties over 8 or 10 because want,
you know, it to be intimate and. And be
a certain kind of experience. Are there plans for weddings,
engagements? You know, No, I. I think
(38:12):
we do. You know, people do get engaged there
sometimes, and there's. There's a lot of people who.
Who will buy the wine for a wedding or for an engagement or to
give as a gift. And that's great. That's, you know, that's become part of
what Promise is and. And what the story is. But,
(38:32):
yeah, it's. It. It's a. It's a really personal
experience, and I think that's becoming
much more important to people out there in wine.
Clearly, the picture of my dad, actually, this patch, this is
Les Amie Divines. It was. It was an organization. I've
(38:52):
talked about this on the show before, but it's an organization in America. It was
150 chapters. You had to have a wine shop to own a chapter, but it
was about the experience. So my dad would put on dinners at Marineland,
and they go down there, and the women would Wear their minks. And this is
a big event. Robert Mondavi would speak. Balzer, all the famous critics would
speak. And it wasn't about the aristocracy of the wine. It was just the experience
(39:13):
of wine. And I think what you're doing is critical to
the industry to grow and get away from.
I think all this non alk stuff and lox stuff and White Claw and all
those competitive. There's always been competitive beverages to the wine trade.
They've just evolved a lot more now, though. Yeah, there are a few more now.
But I've had people sit there and try to tell me that they have this
(39:35):
brilliant idea to put wine in a 375 with a, you know, a
Voss bottle like thing. Right. Like, that's. That's not.
What possible marketing angle can you take with the
beverage that's six. At least 6,000 years old and change it.
It's the same beverage as it was when Noah landed his ark on the. Yeah.
Mount Ara. Yeah. Right. It may taste a little better than. That, but
(39:57):
no, I think all those gimmicks are just that they're gimmicks. They'll
come and go. Yeah. I mean, White Zinn was a mistake. Yeah. Right. We
still get people who think they don't like rose because of White
Symphony. You know, they think that's what rose is meant to
be. So that's an evolution, I guess, of generations we have to suffer through.
I spent 25 years here with my wife. I worked 10 years at the one
(40:20):
month I made more money when she wasn't around. But she's a licensed cpa and
all of a sudden I had to follow the rules
to this day. You guys worked together before
you joined together in this. No, no, we didn't.
You got up, went to work every day and. Yeah, yeah, was. She
was very separate. She was slinging hash of the restaurants. Yeah.
(40:43):
She has another career. I. I briefly thought maybe I wanted to
work in the entertainment industry, but I. I jumped ship on that
pretty early on and I went back and got my master's in psychology.
Oh, wow. So I practice psychotherapy still, currently. Yes.
And so is there a lesson to learn working
together or. Because you still have sort of separate. You have your own career
(41:07):
that takes time away from the wine together because my wife and I would sit
next to each other. I finally learned I should not put a window between our
offices. Yeah. I mean, you know,
it's interesting the. The place where. Because, you know, we.
We live in Los Angeles for the most part. We have lived
in Napa as well, but for our children's education.
(41:29):
Live in Los Angeles. And that. That gives a little bit
separation because I. I do spend more time.
We have some more space. Yeah, that's good. But I mean, you know,
in la, the only place that it really caused a problem is that our kids
at some points have said, honestly, can we not talk about business,
(41:49):
like at dinner? You know, because if you mentioned. Yeah, if you
guys talk about the wine industry, we're. We're getting up and having dinner in the
other room. Okay. That's really funny. Yeah. My kids haven't gotten there
yet. Maybe because I'm the guy. I have the purse strings when it comes to
the bottle of wine, so they don't get cut off. But they're still, you know,
they're 17 and 19, almost 18 and 20 now. They're just. And they're,
(42:10):
by the way, their palates are great. They're an incredible cooks. They
love to cook. Yeah. And I think they're. They're just coming around to
enjoying wine. But, you know, they've seen.
They've seen how bumpy a road it can be. And,
you know, I think at some point, one frustrated moment,
one child said to one water tank,
(42:34):
why can't you have a normal job like everybody else's parents?
Yeah, that's really funny. A normal job. Yeah. Like, what is
that exactly nowadays? Yeah. Well, if you look,
you can't see this picture, but the. The actual beer box was behind
this display. And that was the first display of the wines of the month. So
that's where I spent most of my time when I worked at the pharmacy in
(42:55):
the wine shops was in that beer box. And then.
But, you know, it's interesting because maybe, maybe it is.
Maybe the timing of what you're doing, it coincides with the sort of the
timing of when my dad started in the 70s and
wine became popular in American
culture. And now the experience coming back to wine is
(43:17):
what we need to show the public. And that's what you guys are putting together.
Ear. Lips to God's ears, to everybody. I mean,
wine has gotten. I don't understand, you know, now they're trying to
medically substantiate why it's bad for you. The media
has kind of seemed. Seems to want to go after
it a little bit. That's true. I don't know why that is.
(43:40):
And the teetotalers, the pro neo prohibitionists are back.
Yeah. Rather than talk about the
beauty and the history and all
the benefits which there are, those
studies being Done. But the media doesn't seem to want
to talk about that angle anymore. Well, the media has changed
(44:03):
so much. I mean the media is now there is no news,
it's all entertainment. It's all driven by clicks and,
and so, you know, being negative unfortunately sells.
And so I think people find things to go after and,
and find, you know, it's, you're going to get a lot more clicks with
(44:23):
nobody's drinking wine ever again. Then, hey, here's a really
cool region, Armenia, that's just starting out and
it's been around for 6,000 years. I mean it just unfortunately it doesn't
get the same amount of attention. But I
think it should, I think all these things should.
So we have to find a bridge and an
(44:46):
invitation and
some kind of way to include the TikTok generation and
into enjoying wine. Well, it's a,
it's damned if you do and damn if you don't when it comes to social.
Because if you don't do it then you, you look this. Not square but not
contemporary. Exactly. Where else do you mark. There's no such thing as, as
(45:07):
Larry Tate PR anymore. Right. You know, that doesn't exist. You can't go into
a PR to say and what the PR agency is going to do today is.
Right. Go to the web and go to the social. That is what it is.
Right. But I think, I think philosophically you just have to stay the
course. And I tell this to a lot of miners I speak with,
it'll ebb and flow. And if you're not true to what you are and what
(45:28):
you're doing, then all you're doing is cheating yourself and you're not going to
be able to control what the market does for you anyway. So you might as
well just stay true to your story and, and represent what you are.
And I think that honesty. Yeah, in all products.
Right, exactly. All passion comes out. When you talk about the health benefits. I
mean that book right there, that's the Morally Safer's, you know, the result of the
(45:49):
morally safers. 199060 minute display
of the Mediterranean lifestyle, which includes a heavy steady
diet of wine is part of it. It's certainly not the
criminal part of somebody's lifestyle. I forget the new.
There's a, there's, there have been a few of them and there's one
that's like just published within the last year or two as
(46:11):
well. So it, there are, it's kind of. Like
if you don't, if you, you know, where history repeats itself and
sometimes we don't learn the lessons. And I'm going to talk about climate change for
a second. Not a political show. But, you know, I had somebody criticize my
show because I said that, well, Paul should be talking about policies.
But, you know, there's been Paul's your show. You could talk about whatever the hell.
(46:33):
You want to talk about. That's true. But, you know, I don't want to ruffle
any feathers when it comes to that. I'll have to ruffle wine feathers. You're gonna
ruffle somebody's. Yeah, but you know, there was a cold snap for 15
years in the late 1700s. You know, champagne suffered
drastically for it. And that's, you know, that's just the way it goes. It happens.
Before I was reading about Barcelona,
(46:54):
there was, oh, there's a new book out from the Cladstrups
who wrote Wine and War. If you haven't read that book, you must read it.
And then they also wrote Champagne Charlie. And then they just. She
just released a book called Eugenie, which is the
story of Napoleon III's wife when they
created the 1855 classification. Got it. And the clad strips
(47:17):
are brilliant people. They live in Paris, they're Americans. So I was
reading that book and they were talking about in Barcelona because she was
princess or the family was from Barcelona, that there was
massive drought and then
massive flooding, destroying like. Sounds familiar, you
know? Yeah, it sounds very familiar. Right? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That was like 18
(47:39):
something. Yeah, yeah. So just. It ebbs and flows. But
so I'm going to do. So we're almost out of time. It's
unbelievable. That's like one of the fastest. Yeah,
no, it's been great. This is a, this is
fun. Since we're talking about the health
benefits, this is a book by Dr. Murray,
(48:01):
who is a French doctor in the 70s. He was an MD as well as
a homeopathic doctor. And this is Wine is the
best medicine. Now, the answer to the question I'm going to ask you is going
to be a French district or a French varietal. Yeah, but.
And by the way, if I ask give you three answers,
only 33% of the people get it right. But
(48:23):
it's kind of like the Master of Wine and Master Psalm test in
that the answer is important, but we kind of want to know what you're thinking
to get to that answer. Got it. Okay. So. So don't be
embarrassed. No, no. So there's. I'll give you an ailment and
I'll give you three potential cures or at
least symptom relievers for that. So we could
(48:45):
do. Let's just say we have a fever. We could
have a grave or a dry
champagne or a coat de bone
to handle our fever. What do you think it is and why
you think it is? I'll
accept two different answers from two different people. A champagne.
(49:09):
A what kind of champagne? A dry champagne. Dry champagne. Cote
de Bonne Burgundy. As you know, essentially the
first place I go is. Is. Is the alcohol content.
And whether you want. You want to have more alcohol for a
fever or you want to have less alcohol for a fever. But that's. That's
only one element. Certainly.
(49:33):
I think just my. My. My
gut is champagne. Because
I find champagne to be the most festive
of what you've. You know, what you've given me in terms of the
choices and kind of uplifting in that sense.
And it is lower alcohol. So maybe if that is. If that
(49:56):
is a way to go. But, yeah, I think I would go champ.
A nice, like, blanc de blanc. I mean, what occasion doesn't improve
with. Yeah, well, I think that's the answer to all of them. Right.
To help you. At least you feel better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's a dosage
with this. So you're right. You're part of the 33.
Oh, my God. And almost the. The reason is because these wines
(50:19):
contain, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person.
Phosphorus, which is eminently stimulating. Sulfur
in sulfate of potassium form, whose detoxifying
action on the body has been established. Huh. That's really interesting.
What do you think the dose would be? It might be enough. In my
room, two bottles. And call me in the morning. I split the
(50:41):
difference. There's a bottle a day.
Honey, we got to switch doctors. He's got some YouTube stuff you
can find. But you speak French, obviously, so it's got. It's in French. Yeah. I
bought both versions. This and the French version. That's. I found this, My
dad's library. That's fun. So I want to touch on one thing. Sure. Before
(51:02):
we go, that you said, which I think is so important
and so dead on. It's about staying
honest to what you're doing. If you're chasing
the buck, you know, and for me, personally. So if you're chasing
the buck in the entertainment industry, because that's seductive,
it doesn't matter how successful you are. It won't
(51:24):
be fulfilling. I mean, you hear all these stories about these
really bitter and disgruntled and
unfulfilled people. Who are unbelievably successful in the
entertainment industry. And it's true. And I believe that
I'm happier now. I mean, I made a
lot of money, I was successful, I had power. But
(51:46):
I'm so much more fulfilled holding a bottle of my
wine than being able to take credit for
some piece of work, because it's
honestly what I love to do. And we put
our heart into every bottle every year. We're trying to
make a better wine. We're learning something more about
(52:08):
agriculture, we're learning something more about viticulture. We're learning
something more about winemaking technology.
And, you know, just having fun doing it. Yeah, it just.
I really, you know, my dad had a simple piece of advice which is really
hard to follow, which is find out what you love and then find out how
to make money at it, because he was a realist. But
(52:31):
I think what you said is so important for people. And
I, you know, you see the Internet, I think one of the things that
the Internet has done for. For the
younger generation is this idea that, like, you can be a billionaire.
Okay, well, yeah, but if you're a billionaire because you're making,
you know, something that's hurting humanity, like, or
(52:55):
is controversially, you know, that's never
going to be fulfilling no matter how many G5s you buy. That's
just. That's right. That's really interesting thought. I can use two examples, which
I won't say publicly popped in my head as soon as you said that.
Yeah. But I think staying the course on what you believe is
only thing you can do in any business. And it's hard. It's hard to do
(53:18):
because you're in the influences to go other directions and to change
the narrative is too easy. Yeah. It's too easy to chase. Chase
a dollar and not. Yeah. You know, a lot has to do with. Especially
younger kids who see Internet
influencers, you know, who knows if those stories are real about
what they do and how much they make. But if you chase being an influencer
(53:40):
and not chase what you're influencing. Yeah.
It's. It's empty. And I can tell you this with this podcast.
I love doing it. I love processing it. I love putting it together,
hearing the stories, love telling the stories. And not that I didn't love
what I did at the wine trade, but there were so many moving parts
to selling a bottle of wine. And like, my last full
(54:03):
year, which was 2022, I sent 33 million
emails. Oh, my God. Wow. And that would. That would only produce Enough
sales that maybe selling 10 years earlier, a million emails would have produced
twice as much, if not more sales than that because of the way it's been
diluted. 33 million. 33 million. Which means I had to
produce at least 300 pieces of content, 300
(54:25):
graphics, 300 promotion codes, 300 angles.
How do you. How do you create 300 different ways to sell? Right.
You know, the Bordeaux group or the Chianti group. I would have the Napa Valley
Cabernet. You know, just whatever I could muster up to get catch people's
attention. Yeah. And that ended up being 33 million emails. Wow.
So that part of it was hard. The
(54:48):
passion that drove it was really, truly finding
interesting wines that people could experiment with and understand. Yeah. And that
started to change, too, because
my competitors who came into the marketplace like naked wines and wink
and all these guys were buying this crap from 50 Cent. A liter
wines from who knows where. Yeah. Garbage punches
(55:11):
landing in. In New Jersey,
bottling it in a billion brands and shipping it out as something different. And it
wasn't. And I was not being forced to, but they were coming through my door
now, like in the old days. I just got off the show with August
Sebastiani, and I'm talking to him. I slapped myself on the head.
I said, oh, my God. I did a wine. I did two big slugs of
(55:33):
their wine. A Cabernet Franc and a Merlot. And I told him. I said,
there was this crazy label that you guys found in the back of your
warehouse. And there was like, I bought like, seven or 800 cases of each. He
goes, yeah, that was my sister. She was three years old, and she had drawn
on the whiteboard. And we took a picture of it and became the label. We
never sold the wine, but the wine was great. And so I
(55:54):
go, that's the stuff. Why? The Month Club used to find interesting little things
when it came. Bulk juice from Europe. Yeah. And those. That's what I was
getting for the price I could pay. That's when the passion died.
Yeah. You know, you get away from what you love. You
get away from what you love. But the premise is still real. The guy that
bought it, they're already selling it. It's only been two years.
(56:16):
Yeah. And it's not because they're making too much money. Yeah. Right.
So, yeah, no, it's a. It's. It's tough. Yeah, it's
tough. But you guys, so much fun to have a chance to hear your
story, and I'm sure we'll do it again. One day. Because there's so much more
to talk about. Yeah. And, you know, as you. As it progresses that you talked
about, there's new influences. And one of the things I do want to talk about,
(56:38):
maybe it'll just take five minutes, which is like, what is that?
Like, you have to make a lot of decisions when you do this. When it
comes to packaging experience, Beth,
who knows what comes on your plate? There must be some overriding
philosophy that you have the back of your head, like, default to,
like, okay, I'm not sure what to do here, but because we represent
(57:00):
an expression of time and place or whatever, this is what we're going to do.
Is it a conscious thing? Well, that's a good
word to use. Is it a conscious thing? Because I was going to say it's.
At the end of the day, it's trusting our guts and
what feels right. You know, we've
(57:21):
definitely kissed a couple frogs that we
wish we didn't kiss. That's a good expression.
But I think
we know ourselves and each other
and our brand and what we stand for by now. That the,
the. Ultimately, at the end of the day, sure, you're going to have dollars and
(57:44):
cents choices, but. But if you have the luxury of making a choice
based on does this feel true to us? That's always
going to prevail. Yeah. And we, you know,
I. I think we. We have always gone with, you
know, we're very meticulous, and we take. I mean, we had the
wine, our first bottles of wine, you know, our
(58:07):
47 cases in that it was literally in the barrel for almost
two and a half years before we knew what the label would be. We knew
it was going to be called Promise, but we didn't know it was going to
be my wedding ring, which is what the circle represents.
But the other thing I would say is people. It really,
you know, as she said, we. We've kissed a few frogs, but it's really about
people. And, you know, I. I've been
(58:30):
successful in Wall street, in entertainment,
in wine, when I'm in business with
great people. And I think, you know, after
21 years, I feel like, you know, we have an amazing
small team of people that we truly consider
family. And it's not a. It's not a, you know, a cliche
(58:52):
that we say that. I mean, Beth has to tell our story,
and when you are entrusting somebody to tell your story,
that's a. That's a really personal and powerful thing. And she does it
so well, and we trust her to do that. And our
winemaker is a good friend and somebody who is an
educator, and we, we chose him partly because of that. He
(59:15):
makes world class wine. But we want to learn, we want to talk, we
want to walk the vineyards, we want to sit there in the dirt and, and,
and spend time. And so it's a. I, I think if
you get in business with great people, you know, that's a
big step. Well, thanks again for being on the show, and we hope to see
each other soon. Thank you so much, Paul. This is amazing. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.
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