November 16, 2023 • 41 mins
Kristin Olszewski is the visionary founder and CEO of Nomadica Wines. Kristin's journey from being a sommelier to becoming an entrepreneur in the wine industry is not only inspiring but also a testament to her unwavering passion for wine and her mission to redefine how we perceive and enjoy it.
Throughout the episode, Kristin shares her experiences, challenges, and triumphs in the world of wine. From the inception of Nomadica Wines to navigating the tumultuous waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, she offers invaluable insights into what it takes to build a successful wine company.
One of the key takeaways from this episode is Kristin's commitment to making wine more accessible and approachable, especially for younger generations. She recognizes the importance of authenticity in branding and marketing, a concept that resonates deeply with today's savvy consumers. As she aptly puts it, consumers now possess a "B.S. detector" that can instantly detect inauthenticity.
The discussion also touches on sustainability, a core principle of Nomadica Wines, and the exceptional quality of canned wine. Kristin's passion for sustainability and her dedication to offering a top-notch product are evident in every aspect of her business.
Overall, this episode of The DRINKS.COM Podcast is packed of wisdom for wine enthusiasts, aspiring entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in the intersection of wine, marketing, and authenticity. Kristin Olszewski's passion, authenticity, and dedication shine through, making this episode both informative and truly enjoyable. Tune in to discover the fascinating world of wine through Kristin's eyes and uncover the secrets to building an authentic and successful brand in today's competitive market.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, thank you for listening to the
drinkscom podcast the businessof online alcohol.
I'm your host, brandon Amoroso,and today I'm talking with
Kristin Olszewski, founder andCEO of Nomadica Wine, a Samae
(00:22):
curated, premium, sustainablypackaged wine company.
Thank you for coming on theshow.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Brandon, I'm just so impressed with your
pronunciation of my last name.
You said it one time before andthen it just it rolled off your
tone.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I, you know I'll take the credit where I can get it.
I'm gonna say beginner's luckon that one, though.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So the person who actually married my husband, and
I did not say my name correctlyduring my wedding ceremony, so
I just want to say you're betterthan him.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, maybe I have a future then in a, whatever that
term is in, and that wasefficient.
Yeah, exactly, or I can helpwith the pronunciation, but
thank you so much for coming on.
Before we dive in here to someof the topics that we want to
cover, can you give everybodyjust a quick background on you?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Absolutely so.
I have been a sommelier inMichelin restaurants for my
entire career before startingNomadica.
I actually ended up droppingout of med school to become a
sommelier because I love wine somuch.
My family has still notforgiven me, but spent a lot of
time at restaurants like AustriaMosa.
(01:33):
I was the beverage director forSean Brock at Husk and
Nashville and you know was byCoastal for a while between and
again home Springs, and thenworked in San Francisco at
restaurants like Stason and Sonsand Daughters.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So I have been around and what sparked that initial
sort of passion for wine?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So it's funny, I was doing my internship at Dana
Farber Cancer Hospital, which is, you know, the best cancer
hospital in the US, and everyday I would walk in there and I
would feel like I was stealingmyself to.
You know, do something I didn'twant.
And I think at the time, youknow, in my early 20s, I was so
concerned with people perceivingme as intelligent.
(02:19):
I was the first person in myfamily to ever go to college and
I've always been one of thoselike gold star humans, like
incredibly competitive, justalways, like driven to get the
checkmark or the, you know, thehonors program or the gold star,
just without a lot of thoughtbehind it.
(02:40):
And I paid for school bywaitressing on this little
island off the coast ofMassachusetts named Nantucket,
which is where, you know, mobyDick is set, it's where the 1%
vacations.
And I worked at a restaurantthat Julia Childs actually
opened and it had a very deepBurgundy and Bordeaux seller.
(03:02):
I mean, they had been justcollecting Bordeaux since the
60s.
So the opportunity to tastewines that you know, I haven't
even seen in years, to be quitefrank, was just unparalleled.
And it was a very generousguest.
Who that was present there.
That was just like okay, I'mopening up this.
Pony Montrache, do you want tohave the bottle?
(03:24):
I'm only going to take a glass.
And I really caught the winebug there.
And then when I went back toBoston, there was this one wine
bar near my school, the mostincredible owner.
She was the first person toreally expose me to Alta P Monte
and Austrian wines, and reallyoutside of the traditional
(03:46):
Burgundy Bordeaux champagneroute that many, some ways take
at first.
And unfortunately she gotdiagnosed with ALS and that was
a really big impetus for me tochange my life.
Because seeing somebody so fullof joie de vives, so young,
(04:07):
with so much passion, who, frommy perspective, kind of had her
life stripped away from her,made me aware of you know how
short my life can really bewithout my knowledge and I just
decided to say, screw it, I'llbe a psalm, like who knows where
my wine career will take me.
Being a doctor is such a moreclear path.
(04:30):
Like you, just put one foot infront of the other and then you
get to your goal.
But stepped into this world andhere I am running a wine
company.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And what was the evolution like?
From you know, Samae, todeciding that you wanted to
start your own business, whichprobably has even less defined
path than being a psalm?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think I really didn't know what I was getting
into and I think many youngentrepreneurs would never have
started their businesses if theyknew what it actually entailed.
I think you know, coming fromthe restaurant industry, I've
always been used to long hours.
I've always worked really hard.
That is something that you know, my family instilled in me from
(05:13):
a very young age.
Like you, work hard and it wasnever the hours.
I think I was not prepared forthe level of stress and anxiety
that a company is being anentrepreneur, like people talk
about it but, man, it overtakesyour life.
But so I was like, oh, I'lljust start a wine company.
And when I looked at it becausethe impetus really came from
(05:36):
the fact that when I was workingon the floor of restaurants
like Moza, people my own agewould come into the restaurants
so excited to eat.
You know they just watchedNancy Silverton on chef's table
it that that exposed a wholedifferent audience to Michelin
restaurants, which is reallyexciting.
But they'd come in and they'ddrink tequila and they wouldn't
order wine and such a miss.
(05:57):
I mean nothing is going to pairwith your food like a bottle of
wine will.
Wine will accentuate and upliftyour meal Also.
There's just something soromantic it's a living beverage.
You're sharing it with yourdining partner.
And I would notice that thesecond I walked over to these
young people, particularly youngwomen, and brought them into my
(06:17):
world, didn't make them feelbad for their pronunciation or
judge for not knowing anythingabout wine.
Let them taste by the glasswines to get a feel for what
they wanted.
You know, didn't try tooversell them, found them a
great bottle at a great price.
They were hooked.
And I wanted to do that on alarger scale, because I think
that there's a huge issue facingthe wine industry right now.
That's not just my problem,it's everyone's problem, which
(06:39):
is that young consumers are notdrinking wine.
You know, every day a winedrinker dies and they're not
replaced.
So Started in Nomadico toreally solve that problem.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean I don't.
Most of my friends and aroundmy age they don't drink wine.
They definitely don't buy winelike at a store and collect it
at all, and so I feel likethere's also competing.
You know alternatives that arecoming to the market, whether
it's in, you know, lower no-alkor cannabis or whatever it may
(07:13):
be that are, I think, morerelevant at the lower price
points than necessarily thehigh-end price points.
You're not substituting, Idon't know like 25-year-old
Japanese whiskey for you know aquick RTD from the store.
But there's definitely a lot ofcompetition coming in as well
and competing for that youngergeneration.
(07:33):
So it's like how do you makewine cool?
I think is a challenge as well.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's been the biggest challenge.
And you know we talk a lotabout the damp lifestyle and I'm
such a big fan of the low andno-alcohol movement.
You know I, as a Somalia, haveseen a lot of people in my
industry, a lot of colleagues,fall prey to alcoholism.
It is definitely something tobe aware of, but I think that's
(08:02):
also the beauty of Nomadica.
I think one reason why a lot ofpeople don't drink wine as
their kind of, you know,Thursday night drink is because
when you open a whole bottle youfeel immense pressure to
consume it all, and sometimesyou just want a glass of wine,
but a lot of what's in thesingle-serve landscape is not
(08:22):
quality, and so we really solvethat problem.
For somebody looking to, youknow, consciously consume or
drink a little bit less.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That makes a lot of sense and making it more
approachable.
In that way, like for me, whenI go to a restaurant, I just
refuse to get a glass because Iknow I'm paying more than what I
should be if I was just gettinga bottle.
But also, especially being inMiami, I always just bring my
own wine because the lists areoffensive when it comes to the
(08:53):
markups that they put on.
But that discovery aspect isreally important and you know,
hopefully you're not killing abottle by yourself every night
and you're having a can insteadand testing and trying new
things, which I think is reallyimportant.
I don't understand people whoare like I only drink Pinot Noir
or I only drink Malbec, that'sso.
(09:14):
It's so boring.
You need to expand the palettea little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I know, I agree.
I think that is part of why Igot into wine, because it's
really a rabbit hole thatthere's no end, to always learn
something new about.
You know, my specialty isItalian wine.
And then, of course, because Imake wine in California, I'm so
lucky to be part of such adynamic scene of young vintners
(09:40):
who are really changing thelandscape of what we think of
when we say California wine.
But, man, there's so much moreto learn.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
When jumping into the actual business of Nomadica
itself.
When did you start it?
Was it like 2017, 2018?
Six years ago, Six years.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Six years ago so, I would say, but our first real
year in business was 2020.
That's when I left the floor ofMoza at the end of 2019 and
went full time Nomadica inNovember of 2019.
Of course, we were launchingand opening up 10 new states at
(10:15):
the beginning of COVID.
So what a fun experience thatwas to survive such harrowing
times that we made it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
What I mean.
You, when you went to, it wasan interesting time for you to
start the business, for surebecause of COVID.
So I guess, how did you thinkabout starting it and expanding
and growing and how did you haveto pivot because of COVID?
And then, like now, how are youthinking about it?
As well, as you know, onlineand retail sort of you know, go
(10:44):
back and forth in terms ofprioritization for both alcohol
brands, but even, just, you know, regular brands in the space
that I talked to.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I am an idealist and so, like, my undergraduate degree
is in sustainable agricultureand when I found out that a
majority of the carbon footprintand a bottle of wine comes from
the actual glass bottle itself,I was horrified.
You know, so much of my careeras a sommelier has come from
telling stories about greatfarmers and I always felt so, so
(11:17):
impassioned by that.
I was like what other industryyou know, are you supporting
great farmers and greatagricultural practices and
started Nomadica to lessen that?
As you know, we only usealuminum that's 100% recycled.
We use BPA free liner in ourcans.
Like and it's true, there isreally no difference in the
(11:39):
quality of our can Like you puta $20 bottle next to our can and
blind taste it 99%.
Sure we'd come out ahead onthat, but really, really
challenging.
I had to go convince a bunch offamous winemakers to partner
with me because I needed theirbuy-in on the process.
So a bunch of people said noand that I was insane and that
(12:03):
it would never work.
And Bob Lindquist from Coupe,who's, I think, one of the most
legendary winemakers inCalifornia you know, he's one of
the Rhone Rangers, he's one ofthe Vittners responsible for the
growth of Sira and Grenache onthe Central Coast.
Like he was the first person tosay yes to me and one of the
(12:23):
first wines we did was FrenchCamp Sira in a can and I got
Bob's buy-in on that and thenraised a friends and family
round from my regulars at MozaCause again like I grew up in a
well-connected network and sothese people who I had been
doing their wine for years werelike okay, they'll support you,
(12:46):
I'll throw like 50K into that.
Like let's go.
And then just startedsurrounding myself with great
people, great advisors, whohelped me open up distribution
across the US, and originally Ithought you know where can I go
that these big wineconglomerates can't?
And that was in the on-premiseso bars, restaurants, hotels,
(13:07):
places where you would be hardpressed to find another wine and
can, just because I knew ourquality was better than anyone
else and because I'd spent 10years working in that industry.
Like that that expertise andthose people were my colleagues,
not just gatekeepers.
And so you know, we got anational deal with the W Hotel.
(13:28):
That was kind of our first bigbreak.
Or, back in the day, RyanBailey, who's now the owner of
Kato, which is an incredibleTaiwanese tasting menu
restaurant in Los Angeles.
It's a one Michelin star.
He was the first person to takeme in at the Nomad Hotel and it
was incredibly validating forus and for Can Wine at large.
(13:51):
But we had to pivot pretty hardduring COVID.
We had not set up D2C, whichwas a huge miss.
It took me six months to get itup and running in 2020.
Oh my God, it was awful, and wedidn't even have like any
retail set up.
We were in a few independentsbut no chain retail, and so it
(14:12):
was a catch up game, for sure,and a matter of grit and kind of
holding on.
But now we're more focused onthe natural, organic channel and
then e-commerce retail.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Got it okay.
And just I assume retailsupports e-com and sort of vice
versa as well.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Exactly.
I mean, omni Channel iseverything.
You hear it from everyone.
Our CMO, shrey Joshi, who wasat HealthAid before starting his
own agency Good Peeps.
I jokingly call him the King ofOmni Channel, but he is the
reason why my face is all overTikTok talking about wine,
(14:55):
because one hand really doesfeed the other.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I feel like that's been a struggle in the
alcohol industry, though, tohave that mindset sort of
trickle through, especially inorganizations where you have
those that are incentivizedpurely off of sell through in
stores and then those that areincentivized purely off of the
sell through online and you havethese like competing interests
(15:19):
that have been createdinternally when really it should
be like the rising tide liftsall boats type of deal, and
consumer habits change all thetime.
You see, with COVID, crazye-com spike, then people rush
back into stores.
Now it's sort of like settlingoff again.
You really do need to beeverywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Exactly and you need.
I just feel like awareness iseverything I mean.
You hear it as often as I doattention is the best currency
at the moment, and so that'sreally my focus is how do we
communicate all of our messagingand get it out to the young
consumer.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And what are some of the ways that you are capturing
that attention?
You mentioned TikTok, like.
What are other ways that brandsthat are listening should be
thinking about when trying tocapture that awareness and
attention from potentialcustomers?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think obviously just organic, social, is the
best, especially for a brandlike us.
Very few wine startups are runby women and also somebody with
industry expertise.
We're really taking a lot ofnotes from the beauty industry,
(16:36):
like some of my favorite brands,like do skincare just glossier,
even started by experts oraficionados who use their
expertise as a way to crack openthe door, and so we are giving
our customers a chance to learnabout wine with me and become
(16:59):
many sommeliers through the actof interacting with our content
and drinking our wine.
Real life activations are alsoreally important for us.
There's no better way to getyour product out there than
actually getting liquid to lips,and I think Aiden Duffy, our
creative director, myself, havereally thought about what is the
(17:21):
most authentic to us and ourbrand, and so we do artist
partnerships.
For each can, we have theartist's name on the back of
each can and a link to theirInstagram, and we pay our
artists, which I really like tooveremphasize.
It's not just hey, we'll dothis for exposure.
I kind of think that's bullshit.
(17:41):
But we activate in galleryspaces.
We love to support our artists.
We love to partner with chefsand brands that are our friends,
that align with our ethos.
We did a dinner in LA recentlywith Osma, which is a
sustainable clothing companythat my friend Chloe Cooks did
(18:03):
all the food for, and it's allfarm to table like incredible
apparel style spread and justshowing up in an authentic way
and getting people to try yourproduct who are in your
community and your network isessential.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And how do you tie out, like doing those in-person
activations and translating thatover into you know real sales
or longevity of a customer,versus these sort of flash in
the pan moments of the in-personactivations?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, that's a jury question.
That's one of the mostchallenging things, I think.
Again, going back to theattention, content is key here.
So, however we can for example,the Osmo thing we were able to
get a slew of contact, someincredible photos, and then we
can ship out through email andSMS recipes from that to our
(19:02):
entire subscriber list.
So it's like, okay, you don'tlive in LA, but you love this
clothing company.
Make this anchovy dish at homeand pair it with our sparkling
white wine, the same way thatwe're doing at this event in LA,
and bring it home with you.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Got it, so being able to have that take home.
Next step, and then do youleverage I assume you're pushing
them towards e-com after thefact as well and leveraging
email and texts to reengage withthem.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Doing all the things.
Also, we're really focusedright now at driving people to
Whole Foods.
Of course, it's our retailerthat we love the most and we
launched our orange wine inpartnership with them this past
July, and it's just the rightchannel for us.
It's the right consumer.
Whole Foods has really strictparameters in place with how
(19:54):
they source their wine, andthat's our ethos, as well as all
of our wines are sustainablyfarmed no chemical manipulation,
low sulfur, because we justdon't need it when you're
canning wine.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Would you say that your price point lends itself
and also the packaging lendsitself better to in-person and
the retail environment thannecessarily e-com?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yes, I do.
I feel like people buy our winebecause they like how it looks.
I think most consumers purchasebased off the label, and
everything about our packagescreams premium.
Our creative director has donean incredible job of
communicating how great thequality of our wine is, although
online there is so much contentto engage with that you don't
(20:49):
get at the store level.
This has been a big challengefor us because our demo is a
young female 25 to 35 year oldfemale and so online you see my
face, you know it's female,founded, you know it's founded
by an expert.
I can talk you through thetasting notes and the quality of
(21:09):
it and talk about how it'sfermented dry so there's zero
grams of sugar, whereas on theshelf it's been more challenging
to communicate all of thosevalue props and reasons to buy.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Got it, because that's an interesting point,
because I actually think it'sthe reverse problem for wineries
, like when I went to Napa thissummer and went into the tasting
room, they did like aphenomenal job, since they're
there, like of explaining theproduct and the unique
differences behind it and thehistory and whatnot, but then
(21:42):
you go to their online websiteand you're like I don't even
know what this is Like.
It just is not tied together inany way whatsoever.
And I think it's interesting.
Brands like yourself, whereyou're coming at it more from a
digitally native standpoint andvery, you know, social media
savvy, but you don't have, likeyou know, the vineyard that you
(22:03):
have people coming and visitingand in the tasting room, and
then you have the other end ofthe spectrum, which is those,
those businesses, and there'sthis gap.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Right now, I feel like 100% and I think it's it's
kind of the biggest issue rightnow.
That's why I'm I've been soinspired by this recent string
of acquisitions by Gallo thispast summer.
You know Bev Rohnbauer andMastakin like wow, what in?
(22:36):
What an interesting series ofbusiness decisions there.
And I think Bev has done such agreat job of being a digital
native brand and talking to theyoung consumer and showing up on
the internet when people wererolling their eyes about it
within the own industry, provingthat it does matter.
And same thing with Mastakin.
(22:57):
I mean, two years ago he cameout with like his own drink
emojis and he did NFTs and hasjust he is.
He is crossed over into spacesthat you know traditionally
wineries don't, and it's just soinspiring to see.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, the those acquisitions have been
interesting and it also, I think, sheds light to what the bigger
players in the industry arefocused on.
Or are, you know, lookingoutwards, ahead of?
Because I don't know any ofthose businesses, you know
financials or anything like that, but I could just about
(23:37):
guarantee that they didn't buythem because of the revenue or
they didn't buy them because oftheir profitability.
They bought them because oftheir ability to, you know,
connect to customers.
To get all of that first andzero party data, to be, you know
, trendsetters.
And then you know, by mergingthe two of all the resources of,
like, the larger business, butthen you know the creativity and
(23:58):
the social savviness of the ofthe more digitally native brands
, they'll be able to actually goafter the younger generation in
a way that you know clearly isnot actually happening right now
, like I've yet to see atraditional winery really tap
into, you know 30 and under in away that is in any way relevant
(24:19):
whatsoever versus all theaforementioned brands and that
you said as well as yours.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So 100% I'm.
I am excited to see how itchanges as a whole.
I do feel like everyone isshook right now.
Like, I don't know if you saw,chateau Saint-Michel is not
buying the quantity of grapesthat they bought in the past.
I think they are only taking 40or 60% of what they bought in
(24:47):
the past.
Like the wine industry iswaking up and I think a few
years ago, where they were, youknow, rolling their eyes at wine
influencers and all the socialcontent around it, now they're
realizing that it's a necessityand they're they're running to
jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah.
So you know, outside of thosesort of key things, when it
comes to social activations,what are you most excited about
going into next year for?
For Nomadica, like there,anything that you, if you had to
pick three, I would say?
(25:28):
Or you know, what are you mostexcited about?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I'm the most excited about the launch of our boxed
wine, which is happening inearly October, and we're doing a
small launch and expanding, youknow, and scaling up as it, as
it grows.
I really see boxed as thefuture and I'm very excited
about it as an opportunity.
I'm also, we launched OrangeWine in July.
(25:58):
We kind of reverse engineeredour, our perfect orange wine.
So my expertise is in Italianwine, which you know.
That's kind of how skin contactwine reemerged in the market.
Obviously, of course, it is atraditional style of winemaking
that the Georgians have done forthousands of years but was
(26:19):
reintroduced in Friuli andNortheastern Italy in the 70s.
And so I sent our winemaker myfavorite examples of Italian
skin contact wines that I thinkhit all the benchmarks in terms
of fruit, low tan, in high acid,approachability.
So that if you're an orangewine lover, you'd love this, but
(26:39):
if you're just having yourfirst skin contact wine, it's
not going to, you know, blowyour face off with a volatile
acidity or anything.
And so we settled on PallobeaSintakiaura being like our wine,
which I like if you can, if youcan find it, drink that right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I'm not literally, I think I bought it.
I have it pulled up on my, onmy, on my browser here, because
I just got a case of itdelivered yesterday, so which I
only yeah, because I onlydiscovered it at Kisbaka.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So we're just yeah, we're like ships in the night
here.
I think that's a perfect winein my book, so I sent that to
our wine maker, coriel Berry,who is so talented and really
comes from the vineyardmanagement side.
So again, we love farming andwe made a skin contact
(27:34):
Chardonnay, albarino, griner,certified organic fruit from
Potter Valley in Mendocino.
That is our California homageto Palo Bella.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
OK, well, I'm going to have to try it then.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yes, Multiple big buyers have said it is one of
the best orange wines thatthey've ever had in bottle or
can, which is such a testamentto me.
And then I'm also.
I'm really excited about socialLike.
I was so afraid to put my faceon the internet and our CMO has
(28:11):
been mean to me about it.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I'm like make a video .
Speaker 2 (28:15):
What's wrong with you .
And then you know, every time Imake a video he's like why are
you doing this weird lip thing?
And I'm like, what are youtalking about?
But we hired an incredibleperson to come on board and
she's, you know, young, reallyexcited, gets it and has been
working with me to make all ofour content and the response has
(28:38):
been tremendous and I'm justexcited to make more of that.
I, like want to be the PiedPiper for young people and wine
on the internet, so that's anawesome to see a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That's an awesome way to put it.
I'm going to have to tap intomy younger generation roots and
get back on TikTok then so I canget some of these, some of
these, some tips.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, you need to be engaging with my content,
Brandon Come on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I'm terrible.
I, like you know I can't standTwitter or X.
I, you know, haven't everreally gotten into TikTok.
I'm like I'm like my mom, likeI'll send Instagram real memes
to people and that's about itand that's my, that's my level
of social engagement, but now itis.
It is very important andespecially in, you know,
(29:27):
categories like wine.
I see it in other categorieswhere maybe it's real estate or
things like that, where thosehave just been inundated with
all these quote unquoteinfluencers and and it's like
you know, what's real, what'snot, there's a lot of crap, but
within the wine space, thatdoesn't really feel like anybody
is doing what you're, whatyou're doing, at least not at
(29:51):
scale or not definitely not onthose types of platforms either,
maybe like YouTube per se, butmuch more formal and traditional
, not like your short clips thatare fun and catchy and, you
know, educational to a differenttype of audience.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Totally yeah.
I mean, when I'm asked aboutour motes and biggest pieces of
defensibility, you know I'mnumber one.
I don't think anybody else inmy space can show up with the
type of authenticity that we canyou know, I didn't start
(30:26):
Nomadica to become abajillionaire.
I started it because I love wineand want to share my love of
wine with people, and I thinktoday's consumer, today's young
consumer, is incredibly savvy,brutally savvy.
I think they can see through,you know, greenwashing and all
(30:51):
the, all the lives and marketingtricks that a lot of businesses
have historically used to getconsumers, and so it's created
the really great opportunity forus.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, now that.
Yeah, what I've seen in otherverticals is the.
The brands that have theauthenticity but also have the
founder who can be the face ofit are more successful,
especially when it comes tosocial.
Like you know, customers don'tshop from brands anymore, they
really shop from people and thefounders behind them, unless
(31:23):
you're like I don't know, nikeor something like that, but
that's sort of a different case.
All the you know startups onShopify that I've seen become
very successful for the mostpart are very founder led, where
the founder's story is bakedinto the product.
The founder is.
On social, the founder is, youknow, sending out the SMS
marketing message with, like aselfie of them in the warehouse,
(31:46):
like all that breeds aconnection that's more
one-to-one.
You even see it in likeLinkedIn.
If I post something, you knowit could get great engagement.
If electric posts something ordrinks post something, it gets,
like you know, one-tenth of theengagement, because people don't
connect to the company or tothe brand in the same way that
they can connect to a person100%.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I mean, I've been so amazed with what Jeremy Kim has
done and Nectar Hardseltzer.
I am obsessed with that brandand obsessed with their entire
team and how they just activateand bring like the digital into
the real life.
He'll have people lined up atHEB in Texas to meet him and be
(32:30):
in a video with him and grabsome seltzers and he just he
shows up as his most authenticself on the internet and it
really resonates with people.
It's just great to see.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And the BS detector of consumers is like through the
roof now.
So you can't get away with, youknow, anything that's not
genuine, and I think it's betterfor the long run.
But I got a couple of funquestions for you before we wrap
things up here, first being,what is your favorite wine
(33:01):
memory?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
See you, david.
Okay, so I think my favoritewine memory is it's going to
sound like so annoying andsomelier, but I love Barolo.
I guess Italian wine expertworked at Moza and the first
(33:26):
time I had Conterno 14.0, whichis kind of thought of as the
best Barolo ever on the planet,and it was 2002 vintage, which
was a really difficult year inBarolo.
A lot of producers did not maketheir single vineyard wines and
Conterno did it.
(33:48):
And I could wax poetic about mylove of Conterno's Barolo
forever, but we'll save that foranother day.
And I just remember I grew up inMassachusetts and Western
Massachusetts like very ruralfarmland.
My family are all farmers andagriculture has just been such a
(34:10):
big thing in my life andobviously the seasonality of
Massachusetts like follows ourseason.
You know, if anyone's ever seenlike Gilmore girls, like that's
the appeal of the show.
It's like cozy fall time.
You know the beautiful foliage,the brickline street and my
first time smelling Moza 14.0like brought me back to fall
(34:34):
fields, like people just likewould build these huge piles of
leaves and burn them and it justit brought me back to through
like walking on an early morningdamp field.
You can smell the burned leaves, you can smell the wet earth.
There's like this crispness inthe air.
(34:56):
You know, apple trees areeverywhere and it felt like
being home for a second.
And I've lived in Californiafor a decade plus and I always
was just amazed at how the senseof smell in a wine can take you
back to a whole other spot.
And it's always been amazing tome that, especially a wine like
(35:17):
Barolo, which, neveolo, is justthe most aromatic, flirtatious
grape on the planet that a winecan have so much depth to it
that you can just sit there andwant to smell a wine for 30
minutes straight.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So that actually leads me to one question Since
people are having your wine outof a can, do you recommend that
they pour it into a glass, orare they drinking it out of?
The can Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
So drink it.
However, you want to drink itagain.
This is like my wine philosophyis no pretentiousness.
Like I want to reallyrecalibrate what we think of as
a traditional song because, likeI'm not a traditional song, I'm
a woman, I'm like, I havetattoos.
I like to talk about wine in anapproachable way.
I don't want to be pretentiousabout it.
I don't want to make peoplefeel bad, want to rewrite that
(36:10):
narrative.
I think there are no rules forwine.
However, I do suggest that, ifyou are able to, if you are at
home, pour it into a wine glass.
It will taste better and we donot need to hide behind the can.
If I like to say.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Another good tagline.
I hope that makes sense.
Second, if you had to pick onebottle and to drink, and then
who would you be drinking itwith?
But you can't pick Palbeabecause you already covered that
one, so that has to besomething different.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Oh no, If I get to pick one bottle, it's Crue Grosé
.
Okay, Like period.
I think I have one bottle in mycellar and I'm like when am I
ever going to drink this?
I'm like too scared to open it.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You got to go find a second one so that you feel
comfortable drinking one of them.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I know, true, I.
You know, moa Hennessy, ifyou're listening to this, I will
accept the bottle of Crue Grosé.
And who would I want to drinkit with?
Man?
I feel like you know that is, Ithink, my favorite thing about
being a founder and I really tryto remind myself about this a
lot because obviously founderswere out there raising money a
(37:28):
lot and, especially as a femalefounder, it is a lot more
difficult for us to raisecapital.
People who say that it's notare just liars.
The data speaks for itself thefact that female founders have
raised it was 2% and now it's1.5% this year of all allocated
capital.
But I have been so in love withhow many interesting people I've
(37:52):
met on this journey and that'swhy I try to remind myself in
any fundraising conversation,like, if this goes nowhere, at
least I got to talk to aninteresting person for 45
minutes that I would have othernever wise met.
So I think would I even want tomeet?
I don't even know.
Oh, I do know it would beCarrie Brownstein from Sleeter
(38:12):
Kinney.
It's like my favorite band.
I was an a riot girl band allthroughout high school and in
college and she's just the best.
She's also like later on in herlife, you know, was on
Portlandia and became kind of acomedian, but she's like they
were the first band I ever sawlive, like ninth grade.
You know.
You buy the shirt at the doorand throw it on over your shirt
(38:34):
because you're just so obsessedwith that band and I like read
all of their biographies and Iused to have like a blog online
about them.
So I would want to drinkcruegrosé with Carrie Brownstein
.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, that is definitely the one of the more
interesting answers I would say,but the common theme throughout
all of them is that you knowthe wine itself is special, but
the people that you're drinkingit with, or you know the scene
or whatever it may be, is reallywhat makes it a complete you
(39:07):
know sort of experience, which Ithink is unique to wine, in a
way that you know othercategories and other products
don't have 100%.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I mean, we even were talking about starting, like how
fun would it be to do nomadic,a speed dating where you share a
can of wine with somebody andthe date only lasts as long as
that can of wine?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, if that orange wine is as good as the Palo dea,
I'd be at that date for 15seconds, and then I'd have to
move on to the next.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'll invite you to our first one.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Perfect, I'll post about it.
On TikTok, I'll get Shreda.
You know, go my TikTok game upa bit.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
We'll get you on TikTok at the end of this.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Amazing.
Well, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Before we hop off, though, canyou let everybody know where
they can find you and Nomadicaonline?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
So our socials are, of course, nomadica on Instagram
, nomadica wine on TikTok.
And then I am.
It sounds so dumb when I haveto say it out loud instead of
texting it, but it's Kristen.
Underscore, underscore,underscore.
Oh, kristen with an iron.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
And then you can buy our wine online at
explorenomadicacom or at selectWhole Foods around the country.
We have a stock list on ourwebsite.
If you want to put in your zipcode, it'll tell you everywhere
that you can get it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Awesome.
Well, we'll include that in theshow notes so that everybody
can reach out and then alsostart following you on TikTok
for all that interesting behindthe scenes and experiential
tasting stuff.
But again, thank you forjoining us.
For everybody listening, thisis Brandon Amoroso.
You can find me at drinkscomand we will see you next time.
Hey everyone, thank you for listening to the
drinkscom podcast the businessof online alcohol.
I'm your host, brandon Amoroso,and today I'm talking with
Kristin Olszewski, founder andCEO of Nomadica Wine, a Samae
(00:22):
curated, premium, sustainablypackaged wine company.
Thank you for coming on theshow.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Brandon, I'm just so impressed with your
pronunciation of my last name.
You said it one time before andthen it just it rolled off your
tone.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I, you know I'll take the credit where I can get it.
I'm gonna say beginner's luckon that one, though.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So the person who actually married my husband, and
I did not say my name correctlyduring my wedding ceremony, so
I just want to say you're betterthan him.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, maybe I have a future then in a, whatever that
term is in, and that wasefficient.
Yeah, exactly, or I can helpwith the pronunciation, but
thank you so much for coming on.
Before we dive in here to someof the topics that we want to
cover, can you give everybodyjust a quick background on you?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Absolutely so.
I have been a sommelier inMichelin restaurants for my
entire career before startingNomadica.
I actually ended up droppingout of med school to become a
sommelier because I love wine somuch.
My family has still notforgiven me, but spent a lot of
time at restaurants like AustriaMosa.
(01:33):
I was the beverage director forSean Brock at Husk and
Nashville and you know was byCoastal for a while between and
again home Springs, and thenworked in San Francisco at
restaurants like Stason and Sonsand Daughters.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So I have been around and what sparked that initial
sort of passion for wine?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So it's funny, I was doing my internship at Dana
Farber Cancer Hospital, which is, you know, the best cancer
hospital in the US, and everyday I would walk in there and I
would feel like I was stealingmyself to.
You know, do something I didn'twant.
And I think at the time, youknow, in my early 20s, I was so
concerned with people perceivingme as intelligent.
(02:19):
I was the first person in myfamily to ever go to college and
I've always been one of thoselike gold star humans, like
incredibly competitive, justalways, like driven to get the
checkmark or the, you know, thehonors program or the gold star,
just without a lot of thoughtbehind it.
(02:40):
And I paid for school bywaitressing on this little
island off the coast ofMassachusetts named Nantucket,
which is where, you know, mobyDick is set, it's where the 1%
vacations.
And I worked at a restaurantthat Julia Childs actually
opened and it had a very deepBurgundy and Bordeaux seller.
(03:02):
I mean, they had been justcollecting Bordeaux since the
60s.
So the opportunity to tastewines that you know, I haven't
even seen in years, to be quitefrank, was just unparalleled.
And it was a very generousguest.
Who that was present there.
That was just like okay, I'mopening up this.
Pony Montrache, do you want tohave the bottle?
(03:24):
I'm only going to take a glass.
And I really caught the winebug there.
And then when I went back toBoston, there was this one wine
bar near my school, the mostincredible owner.
She was the first person toreally expose me to Alta P Monte
and Austrian wines, and reallyoutside of the traditional
(03:46):
Burgundy Bordeaux champagneroute that many, some ways take
at first.
And unfortunately she gotdiagnosed with ALS and that was
a really big impetus for me tochange my life.
Because seeing somebody so fullof joie de vives, so young,
(04:07):
with so much passion, who, frommy perspective, kind of had her
life stripped away from her,made me aware of you know how
short my life can really bewithout my knowledge and I just
decided to say, screw it, I'llbe a psalm, like who knows where
my wine career will take me.
Being a doctor is such a moreclear path.
(04:30):
Like you, just put one foot infront of the other and then you
get to your goal.
But stepped into this world andhere I am running a wine
company.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And what was the evolution like?
From you know, Samae, todeciding that you wanted to
start your own business, whichprobably has even less defined
path than being a psalm?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think I really didn't know what I was getting
into and I think many youngentrepreneurs would never have
started their businesses if theyknew what it actually entailed.
I think you know, coming fromthe restaurant industry, I've
always been used to long hours.
I've always worked really hard.
That is something that you know, my family instilled in me from
(05:13):
a very young age.
Like you, work hard and it wasnever the hours.
I think I was not prepared forthe level of stress and anxiety
that a company is being anentrepreneur, like people talk
about it but, man, it overtakesyour life.
But so I was like, oh, I'lljust start a wine company.
And when I looked at it becausethe impetus really came from
(05:36):
the fact that when I was workingon the floor of restaurants
like Moza, people my own agewould come into the restaurants
so excited to eat.
You know they just watchedNancy Silverton on chef's table
it that that exposed a wholedifferent audience to Michelin
restaurants, which is reallyexciting.
But they'd come in and they'ddrink tequila and they wouldn't
order wine and such a miss.
(05:57):
I mean nothing is going to pairwith your food like a bottle of
wine will.
Wine will accentuate and upliftyour meal Also.
There's just something soromantic it's a living beverage.
You're sharing it with yourdining partner.
And I would notice that thesecond I walked over to these
young people, particularly youngwomen, and brought them into my
(06:17):
world, didn't make them feelbad for their pronunciation or
judge for not knowing anythingabout wine.
Let them taste by the glasswines to get a feel for what
they wanted.
You know, didn't try tooversell them, found them a
great bottle at a great price.
They were hooked.
And I wanted to do that on alarger scale, because I think
that there's a huge issue facingthe wine industry right now.
That's not just my problem,it's everyone's problem, which
(06:39):
is that young consumers are notdrinking wine.
You know, every day a winedrinker dies and they're not
replaced.
So Started in Nomadico toreally solve that problem.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean I don't.
Most of my friends and aroundmy age they don't drink wine.
They definitely don't buy winelike at a store and collect it
at all, and so I feel likethere's also competing.
You know alternatives that arecoming to the market, whether
it's in, you know, lower no-alkor cannabis or whatever it may
(07:13):
be that are, I think, morerelevant at the lower price
points than necessarily thehigh-end price points.
You're not substituting, Idon't know like 25-year-old
Japanese whiskey for you know aquick RTD from the store.
But there's definitely a lot ofcompetition coming in as well
and competing for that youngergeneration.
(07:33):
So it's like how do you makewine cool?
I think is a challenge as well.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's been the biggest challenge.
And you know we talk a lotabout the damp lifestyle and I'm
such a big fan of the low andno-alcohol movement.
You know I, as a Somalia, haveseen a lot of people in my
industry, a lot of colleagues,fall prey to alcoholism.
It is definitely something tobe aware of, but I think that's
(08:02):
also the beauty of Nomadica.
I think one reason why a lot ofpeople don't drink wine as
their kind of, you know,Thursday night drink is because
when you open a whole bottle youfeel immense pressure to
consume it all, and sometimesyou just want a glass of wine,
but a lot of what's in thesingle-serve landscape is not
(08:22):
quality, and so we really solvethat problem.
For somebody looking to, youknow, consciously consume or
drink a little bit less.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That makes a lot of sense and making it more
approachable.
In that way, like for me, whenI go to a restaurant, I just
refuse to get a glass because Iknow I'm paying more than what I
should be if I was just gettinga bottle.
But also, especially being inMiami, I always just bring my
own wine because the lists areoffensive when it comes to the
(08:53):
markups that they put on.
But that discovery aspect isreally important and you know,
hopefully you're not killing abottle by yourself every night
and you're having a can insteadand testing and trying new
things, which I think is reallyimportant.
I don't understand people whoare like I only drink Pinot Noir
or I only drink Malbec, that'sso.
(09:14):
It's so boring.
You need to expand the palettea little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I know, I agree.
I think that is part of why Igot into wine, because it's
really a rabbit hole thatthere's no end, to always learn
something new about.
You know, my specialty isItalian wine.
And then, of course, because Imake wine in California, I'm so
lucky to be part of such adynamic scene of young vintners
(09:40):
who are really changing thelandscape of what we think of
when we say California wine.
But, man, there's so much moreto learn.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
When jumping into the actual business of Nomadica
itself.
When did you start it?
Was it like 2017, 2018?
Six years ago, Six years.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Six years ago so, I would say, but our first real
year in business was 2020.
That's when I left the floor ofMoza at the end of 2019 and
went full time Nomadica inNovember of 2019.
Of course, we were launchingand opening up 10 new states at
(10:15):
the beginning of COVID.
So what a fun experience thatwas to survive such harrowing
times that we made it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
What I mean.
You, when you went to, it wasan interesting time for you to
start the business, for surebecause of COVID.
So I guess, how did you thinkabout starting it and expanding
and growing and how did you haveto pivot because of COVID?
And then, like now, how are youthinking about it?
As well, as you know, onlineand retail sort of you know, go
(10:44):
back and forth in terms ofprioritization for both alcohol
brands, but even, just, you know, regular brands in the space
that I talked to.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I am an idealist and so, like, my undergraduate degree
is in sustainable agricultureand when I found out that a
majority of the carbon footprintand a bottle of wine comes from
the actual glass bottle itself,I was horrified.
You know, so much of my careeras a sommelier has come from
telling stories about greatfarmers and I always felt so, so
(11:17):
impassioned by that.
I was like what other industryyou know, are you supporting
great farmers and greatagricultural practices and
started Nomadica to lessen that?
As you know, we only usealuminum that's 100% recycled.
We use BPA free liner in ourcans.
Like and it's true, there isreally no difference in the
(11:39):
quality of our can Like you puta $20 bottle next to our can and
blind taste it 99%.
Sure we'd come out ahead onthat, but really, really
challenging.
I had to go convince a bunch offamous winemakers to partner
with me because I needed theirbuy-in on the process.
So a bunch of people said noand that I was insane and that
(12:03):
it would never work.
And Bob Lindquist from Coupe,who's, I think, one of the most
legendary winemakers inCalifornia you know, he's one of
the Rhone Rangers, he's one ofthe Vittners responsible for the
growth of Sira and Grenache onthe Central Coast.
Like he was the first person tosay yes to me and one of the
(12:23):
first wines we did was FrenchCamp Sira in a can and I got
Bob's buy-in on that and thenraised a friends and family
round from my regulars at MozaCause again like I grew up in a
well-connected network and sothese people who I had been
doing their wine for years werelike okay, they'll support you,
(12:46):
I'll throw like 50K into that.
Like let's go.
And then just startedsurrounding myself with great
people, great advisors, whohelped me open up distribution
across the US, and originally Ithought you know where can I go
that these big wineconglomerates can't?
And that was in the on-premiseso bars, restaurants, hotels,
(13:07):
places where you would be hardpressed to find another wine and
can, just because I knew ourquality was better than anyone
else and because I'd spent 10years working in that industry.
Like that that expertise andthose people were my colleagues,
not just gatekeepers.
And so you know, we got anational deal with the W Hotel.
(13:28):
That was kind of our first bigbreak.
Or, back in the day, RyanBailey, who's now the owner of
Kato, which is an incredibleTaiwanese tasting menu
restaurant in Los Angeles.
It's a one Michelin star.
He was the first person to takeme in at the Nomad Hotel and it
was incredibly validating forus and for Can Wine at large.
(13:51):
But we had to pivot pretty hardduring COVID.
We had not set up D2C, whichwas a huge miss.
It took me six months to get itup and running in 2020.
Oh my God, it was awful, and wedidn't even have like any
retail set up.
We were in a few independentsbut no chain retail, and so it
(14:12):
was a catch up game, for sure,and a matter of grit and kind of
holding on.
But now we're more focused onthe natural, organic channel and
then e-commerce retail.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Got it okay.
And just I assume retailsupports e-com and sort of vice
versa as well.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Exactly.
I mean, omni Channel iseverything.
You hear it from everyone.
Our CMO, shrey Joshi, who wasat HealthAid before starting his
own agency Good Peeps.
I jokingly call him the King ofOmni Channel, but he is the
reason why my face is all overTikTok talking about wine,
(14:55):
because one hand really doesfeed the other.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I feel like that's been a struggle in the
alcohol industry, though, tohave that mindset sort of
trickle through, especially inorganizations where you have
those that are incentivizedpurely off of sell through in
stores and then those that areincentivized purely off of the
sell through online and you havethese like competing interests
(15:19):
that have been createdinternally when really it should
be like the rising tide liftsall boats type of deal, and
consumer habits change all thetime.
You see, with COVID, crazye-com spike, then people rush
back into stores.
Now it's sort of like settlingoff again.
You really do need to beeverywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Exactly and you need.
I just feel like awareness iseverything I mean.
You hear it as often as I doattention is the best currency
at the moment, and so that'sreally my focus is how do we
communicate all of our messagingand get it out to the young
consumer.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And what are some of the ways that you are capturing
that attention?
You mentioned TikTok, like.
What are other ways that brandsthat are listening should be
thinking about when trying tocapture that awareness and
attention from potentialcustomers?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think obviously just organic, social, is the
best, especially for a brandlike us.
Very few wine startups are runby women and also somebody with
industry expertise.
We're really taking a lot ofnotes from the beauty industry,
(16:36):
like some of my favorite brands,like do skincare just glossier,
even started by experts oraficionados who use their
expertise as a way to crack openthe door, and so we are giving
our customers a chance to learnabout wine with me and become
(16:59):
many sommeliers through the actof interacting with our content
and drinking our wine.
Real life activations are alsoreally important for us.
There's no better way to getyour product out there than
actually getting liquid to lips,and I think Aiden Duffy, our
creative director, myself, havereally thought about what is the
(17:21):
most authentic to us and ourbrand, and so we do artist
partnerships.
For each can, we have theartist's name on the back of
each can and a link to theirInstagram, and we pay our
artists, which I really like tooveremphasize.
It's not just hey, we'll dothis for exposure.
I kind of think that's bullshit.
(17:41):
But we activate in galleryspaces.
We love to support our artists.
We love to partner with chefsand brands that are our friends,
that align with our ethos.
We did a dinner in LA recentlywith Osma, which is a
sustainable clothing companythat my friend Chloe Cooks did
(18:03):
all the food for, and it's allfarm to table like incredible
apparel style spread and justshowing up in an authentic way
and getting people to try yourproduct who are in your
community and your network isessential.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And how do you tie out, like doing those in-person
activations and translating thatover into you know real sales
or longevity of a customer,versus these sort of flash in
the pan moments of the in-personactivations?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, that's a jury question.
That's one of the mostchallenging things, I think.
Again, going back to theattention, content is key here.
So, however we can for example,the Osmo thing we were able to
get a slew of contact, someincredible photos, and then we
can ship out through email andSMS recipes from that to our
(19:02):
entire subscriber list.
So it's like, okay, you don'tlive in LA, but you love this
clothing company.
Make this anchovy dish at homeand pair it with our sparkling
white wine, the same way thatwe're doing at this event in LA,
and bring it home with you.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Got it, so being able to have that take home.
Next step, and then do youleverage I assume you're pushing
them towards e-com after thefact as well and leveraging
email and texts to reengage withthem.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Doing all the things.
Also, we're really focusedright now at driving people to
Whole Foods.
Of course, it's our retailerthat we love the most and we
launched our orange wine inpartnership with them this past
July, and it's just the rightchannel for us.
It's the right consumer.
Whole Foods has really strictparameters in place with how
(19:54):
they source their wine, andthat's our ethos, as well as all
of our wines are sustainablyfarmed no chemical manipulation,
low sulfur, because we justdon't need it when you're
canning wine.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Would you say that your price point lends itself
and also the packaging lendsitself better to in-person and
the retail environment thannecessarily e-com?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yes, I do.
I feel like people buy our winebecause they like how it looks.
I think most consumers purchasebased off the label, and
everything about our packagescreams premium.
Our creative director has donean incredible job of
communicating how great thequality of our wine is, although
online there is so much contentto engage with that you don't
(20:49):
get at the store level.
This has been a big challengefor us because our demo is a
young female 25 to 35 year oldfemale and so online you see my
face, you know it's female,founded, you know it's founded
by an expert.
I can talk you through thetasting notes and the quality of
(21:09):
it and talk about how it'sfermented dry so there's zero
grams of sugar, whereas on theshelf it's been more challenging
to communicate all of thosevalue props and reasons to buy.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Got it, because that's an interesting point,
because I actually think it'sthe reverse problem for wineries
, like when I went to Napa thissummer and went into the tasting
room, they did like aphenomenal job, since they're
there, like of explaining theproduct and the unique
differences behind it and thehistory and whatnot, but then
(21:42):
you go to their online websiteand you're like I don't even
know what this is Like.
It just is not tied together inany way whatsoever.
And I think it's interesting.
Brands like yourself, whereyou're coming at it more from a
digitally native standpoint andvery, you know, social media
savvy, but you don't have, likeyou know, the vineyard that you
(22:03):
have people coming and visitingand in the tasting room, and
then you have the other end ofthe spectrum, which is those,
those businesses, and there'sthis gap.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Right now, I feel like 100% and I think it's it's
kind of the biggest issue rightnow.
That's why I'm I've been soinspired by this recent string
of acquisitions by Gallo thispast summer.
You know Bev Rohnbauer andMastakin like wow, what in?
(22:36):
What an interesting series ofbusiness decisions there.
And I think Bev has done such agreat job of being a digital
native brand and talking to theyoung consumer and showing up on
the internet when people wererolling their eyes about it
within the own industry, provingthat it does matter.
And same thing with Mastakin.
(22:57):
I mean, two years ago he cameout with like his own drink
emojis and he did NFTs and hasjust he is.
He is crossed over into spacesthat you know traditionally
wineries don't, and it's just soinspiring to see.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, the those acquisitions have been
interesting and it also, I think, sheds light to what the bigger
players in the industry arefocused on.
Or are, you know, lookingoutwards, ahead of?
Because I don't know any ofthose businesses, you know
financials or anything like that, but I could just about
(23:37):
guarantee that they didn't buythem because of the revenue or
they didn't buy them because oftheir profitability.
They bought them because oftheir ability to, you know,
connect to customers.
To get all of that first andzero party data, to be, you know
, trendsetters.
And then you know, by mergingthe two of all the resources of,
like, the larger business, butthen you know the creativity and
(23:58):
the social savviness of the ofthe more digitally native brands
, they'll be able to actually goafter the younger generation in
a way that you know clearly isnot actually happening right now
, like I've yet to see atraditional winery really tap
into, you know 30 and under in away that is in any way relevant
(24:19):
whatsoever versus all theaforementioned brands and that
you said as well as yours.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So 100% I'm.
I am excited to see how itchanges as a whole.
I do feel like everyone isshook right now.
Like, I don't know if you saw,chateau Saint-Michel is not
buying the quantity of grapesthat they bought in the past.
I think they are only taking 40or 60% of what they bought in
(24:47):
the past.
Like the wine industry iswaking up and I think a few
years ago, where they were, youknow, rolling their eyes at wine
influencers and all the socialcontent around it, now they're
realizing that it's a necessityand they're they're running to
jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah.
So you know, outside of thosesort of key things, when it
comes to social activations,what are you most excited about
going into next year for?
For Nomadica, like there,anything that you, if you had to
pick three, I would say?
(25:28):
Or you know, what are you mostexcited about?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I'm the most excited about the launch of our boxed
wine, which is happening inearly October, and we're doing a
small launch and expanding, youknow, and scaling up as it, as
it grows.
I really see boxed as thefuture and I'm very excited
about it as an opportunity.
I'm also, we launched OrangeWine in July.
(25:58):
We kind of reverse engineeredour, our perfect orange wine.
So my expertise is in Italianwine, which you know.
That's kind of how skin contactwine reemerged in the market.
Obviously, of course, it is atraditional style of winemaking
that the Georgians have done forthousands of years but was
(26:19):
reintroduced in Friuli andNortheastern Italy in the 70s.
And so I sent our winemaker myfavorite examples of Italian
skin contact wines that I thinkhit all the benchmarks in terms
of fruit, low tan, in high acid,approachability.
So that if you're an orangewine lover, you'd love this, but
(26:39):
if you're just having yourfirst skin contact wine, it's
not going to, you know, blowyour face off with a volatile
acidity or anything.
And so we settled on PallobeaSintakiaura being like our wine,
which I like if you can, if youcan find it, drink that right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I'm not literally, I think I bought it.
I have it pulled up on my, onmy, on my browser here, because
I just got a case of itdelivered yesterday, so which I
only yeah, because I onlydiscovered it at Kisbaka.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So we're just yeah, we're like ships in the night
here.
I think that's a perfect winein my book, so I sent that to
our wine maker, coriel Berry,who is so talented and really
comes from the vineyardmanagement side.
So again, we love farming andwe made a skin contact
(27:34):
Chardonnay, albarino, griner,certified organic fruit from
Potter Valley in Mendocino.
That is our California homageto Palo Bella.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
OK, well, I'm going to have to try it then.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yes, Multiple big buyers have said it is one of
the best orange wines thatthey've ever had in bottle or
can, which is such a testamentto me.
And then I'm also.
I'm really excited about socialLike.
I was so afraid to put my faceon the internet and our CMO has
(28:11):
been mean to me about it.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I'm like make a video .
Speaker 2 (28:15):
What's wrong with you .
And then you know, every time Imake a video he's like why are
you doing this weird lip thing?
And I'm like, what are youtalking about?
But we hired an incredibleperson to come on board and
she's, you know, young, reallyexcited, gets it and has been
working with me to make all ofour content and the response has
(28:38):
been tremendous and I'm justexcited to make more of that.
I, like want to be the PiedPiper for young people and wine
on the internet, so that's anawesome to see a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That's an awesome way to put it.
I'm going to have to tap intomy younger generation roots and
get back on TikTok then so I canget some of these, some of
these, some tips.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, you need to be engaging with my content,
Brandon Come on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I'm terrible.
I, like you know I can't standTwitter or X.
I, you know, haven't everreally gotten into TikTok.
I'm like I'm like my mom, likeI'll send Instagram real memes
to people and that's about itand that's my, that's my level
of social engagement, but now itis.
It is very important andespecially in, you know,
(29:27):
categories like wine.
I see it in other categorieswhere maybe it's real estate or
things like that, where thosehave just been inundated with
all these quote unquoteinfluencers and and it's like
you know, what's real, what'snot, there's a lot of crap, but
within the wine space, thatdoesn't really feel like anybody
is doing what you're, whatyou're doing, at least not at
(29:51):
scale or not definitely not onthose types of platforms either,
maybe like YouTube per se, butmuch more formal and traditional
, not like your short clips thatare fun and catchy and, you
know, educational to a differenttype of audience.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Totally yeah.
I mean, when I'm asked aboutour motes and biggest pieces of
defensibility, you know I'mnumber one.
I don't think anybody else inmy space can show up with the
type of authenticity that we canyou know, I didn't start
(30:26):
Nomadica to become abajillionaire.
I started it because I love wineand want to share my love of
wine with people, and I thinktoday's consumer, today's young
consumer, is incredibly savvy,brutally savvy.
I think they can see through,you know, greenwashing and all
(30:51):
the, all the lives and marketingtricks that a lot of businesses
have historically used to getconsumers, and so it's created
the really great opportunity forus.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, now that.
Yeah, what I've seen in otherverticals is the.
The brands that have theauthenticity but also have the
founder who can be the face ofit are more successful,
especially when it comes tosocial.
Like you know, customers don'tshop from brands anymore, they
really shop from people and thefounders behind them, unless
(31:23):
you're like I don't know, nikeor something like that, but
that's sort of a different case.
All the you know startups onShopify that I've seen become
very successful for the mostpart are very founder led, where
the founder's story is bakedinto the product.
The founder is.
On social, the founder is, youknow, sending out the SMS
marketing message with, like aselfie of them in the warehouse,
(31:46):
like all that breeds aconnection that's more
one-to-one.
You even see it in likeLinkedIn.
If I post something, you knowit could get great engagement.
If electric posts something ordrinks post something, it gets,
like you know, one-tenth of theengagement, because people don't
connect to the company or tothe brand in the same way that
they can connect to a person100%.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I mean, I've been so amazed with what Jeremy Kim has
done and Nectar Hardseltzer.
I am obsessed with that brandand obsessed with their entire
team and how they just activateand bring like the digital into
the real life.
He'll have people lined up atHEB in Texas to meet him and be
(32:30):
in a video with him and grabsome seltzers and he just he
shows up as his most authenticself on the internet and it
really resonates with people.
It's just great to see.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And the BS detector of consumers is like through the
roof now.
So you can't get away with, youknow, anything that's not
genuine, and I think it's betterfor the long run.
But I got a couple of funquestions for you before we wrap
things up here, first being,what is your favorite wine
(33:01):
memory?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
See you, david.
Okay, so I think my favoritewine memory is it's going to
sound like so annoying andsomelier, but I love Barolo.
I guess Italian wine expertworked at Moza and the first
(33:26):
time I had Conterno 14.0, whichis kind of thought of as the
best Barolo ever on the planet,and it was 2002 vintage, which
was a really difficult year inBarolo.
A lot of producers did not maketheir single vineyard wines and
Conterno did it.
(33:48):
And I could wax poetic about mylove of Conterno's Barolo
forever, but we'll save that foranother day.
And I just remember I grew up inMassachusetts and Western
Massachusetts like very ruralfarmland.
My family are all farmers andagriculture has just been such a
(34:10):
big thing in my life andobviously the seasonality of
Massachusetts like follows ourseason.
You know, if anyone's ever seenlike Gilmore girls, like that's
the appeal of the show.
It's like cozy fall time.
You know the beautiful foliage,the brickline street and my
first time smelling Moza 14.0like brought me back to fall
(34:34):
fields, like people just likewould build these huge piles of
leaves and burn them and it justit brought me back to through
like walking on an early morningdamp field.
You can smell the burned leaves, you can smell the wet earth.
There's like this crispness inthe air.
(34:56):
You know, apple trees areeverywhere and it felt like
being home for a second.
And I've lived in Californiafor a decade plus and I always
was just amazed at how the senseof smell in a wine can take you
back to a whole other spot.
And it's always been amazing tome that, especially a wine like
(35:17):
Barolo, which, neveolo, is justthe most aromatic, flirtatious
grape on the planet that a winecan have so much depth to it
that you can just sit there andwant to smell a wine for 30
minutes straight.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So that actually leads me to one question Since
people are having your wine outof a can, do you recommend that
they pour it into a glass, orare they drinking it out of?
The can Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
So drink it.
However, you want to drink itagain.
This is like my wine philosophyis no pretentiousness.
Like I want to reallyrecalibrate what we think of as
a traditional song because, likeI'm not a traditional song, I'm
a woman, I'm like, I havetattoos.
I like to talk about wine in anapproachable way.
I don't want to be pretentiousabout it.
I don't want to make peoplefeel bad, want to rewrite that
(36:10):
narrative.
I think there are no rules forwine.
However, I do suggest that, ifyou are able to, if you are at
home, pour it into a wine glass.
It will taste better and we donot need to hide behind the can.
If I like to say.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Another good tagline.
I hope that makes sense.
Second, if you had to pick onebottle and to drink, and then
who would you be drinking itwith?
But you can't pick Palbeabecause you already covered that
one, so that has to besomething different.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Oh no, If I get to pick one bottle, it's Crue Grosé
.
Okay, Like period.
I think I have one bottle in mycellar and I'm like when am I
ever going to drink this?
I'm like too scared to open it.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You got to go find a second one so that you feel
comfortable drinking one of them.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I know, true, I.
You know, moa Hennessy, ifyou're listening to this, I will
accept the bottle of Crue Grosé.
And who would I want to drinkit with?
Man?
I feel like you know that is, Ithink, my favorite thing about
being a founder and I really tryto remind myself about this a
lot because obviously founderswere out there raising money a
(37:28):
lot and, especially as a femalefounder, it is a lot more
difficult for us to raisecapital.
People who say that it's notare just liars.
The data speaks for itself thefact that female founders have
raised it was 2% and now it's1.5% this year of all allocated
capital.
But I have been so in love withhow many interesting people I've
(37:52):
met on this journey and that'swhy I try to remind myself in
any fundraising conversation,like, if this goes nowhere, at
least I got to talk to aninteresting person for 45
minutes that I would have othernever wise met.
So I think would I even want tomeet?
I don't even know.
Oh, I do know it would beCarrie Brownstein from Sleeter
(38:12):
Kinney.
It's like my favorite band.
I was an a riot girl band allthroughout high school and in
college and she's just the best.
She's also like later on in herlife, you know, was on
Portlandia and became kind of acomedian, but she's like they
were the first band I ever sawlive, like ninth grade.
You know.
You buy the shirt at the doorand throw it on over your shirt
(38:34):
because you're just so obsessedwith that band and I like read
all of their biographies and Iused to have like a blog online
about them.
So I would want to drinkcruegrosé with Carrie Brownstein
.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, that is definitely the one of the more
interesting answers I would say,but the common theme throughout
all of them is that you knowthe wine itself is special, but
the people that you're drinkingit with, or you know the scene
or whatever it may be, is reallywhat makes it a complete you
(39:07):
know sort of experience, which Ithink is unique to wine, in a
way that you know othercategories and other products
don't have 100%.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I mean, we even were talking about starting, like how
fun would it be to do nomadic,a speed dating where you share a
can of wine with somebody andthe date only lasts as long as
that can of wine?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, if that orange wine is as good as the Palo dea,
I'd be at that date for 15seconds, and then I'd have to
move on to the next.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'll invite you to our first one.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Perfect, I'll post about it.
On TikTok, I'll get Shreda.
You know, go my TikTok game upa bit.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
We'll get you on TikTok at the end of this.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Amazing.
Well, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Before we hop off, though, canyou let everybody know where
they can find you and Nomadicaonline?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
So our socials are, of course, nomadica on Instagram
, nomadica wine on TikTok.
And then I am.
It sounds so dumb when I haveto say it out loud instead of
texting it, but it's Kristen.
Underscore, underscore,underscore.
Oh, kristen with an iron.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
And then you can buy our wine online at
explorenomadicacom or at selectWhole Foods around the country.
We have a stock list on ourwebsite.
If you want to put in your zipcode, it'll tell you everywhere
that you can get it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Awesome.
Well, we'll include that in theshow notes so that everybody
can reach out and then alsostart following you on TikTok
for all that interesting behindthe scenes and experiential
tasting stuff.
But again, thank you forjoining us.
For everybody listening, thisis Brandon Amoroso.
You can find me at drinkscomand we will see you next time.
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