Offhand, anyone know what the biggest case volume is produced by a winery relying almost entirely on DTC?
KB is already offered (by the glass) at Mastros in Costa Mesa; priced at something like 100 bucks a pour… Cant remember what vineyard.
Just a WAG but Navarro?
Yeah, that’s a a good possiblity.
Funny side story, I was there years ago during an Anderson Valley visit. When the guy giving my group a tour found out I was in the trade I had about 30 seconds of feeling like I was going to be shot as a spy before I could reassure him I knew about their model and just wanted to check out the wines while I was in the neighborhood.
V Sattui has to be up there. But they’re obviously playing a very different DTC game than KB.
This follows the existing trends in winery and vineyard ownership. There are people and groups with so much money they can pay outrageous prices that are tough or impossible to turn down.
Imagine you created your brand without a winery nor vineyard but with good connections to purchase grapes and custom crush facilities at hand. You do a good job, get accolades and an offer to buy your brand for say 315 million and a paycheck to make the wine for the new owner. Do you sell, get a paycheck and start a new brand?
Navarro is 95% DTC… they get pissed when you sell to retail, especially their juices…
John,
I am still the winemaker at Siduri – but have started a new, very small venture of my own called Clarice Wine Company. 3 wines, 625ish cases total. Picked less ripe than before, a lot more whole cluster, and a couple of sections from vineyards picked at the same time. There are a couple of threads here about it – and www.claricewinecompany.com is the website.
Sorry for the commercial.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
Wow did the CEO really say their model is to create demand first and supply second! Mindblowing. This make sense if you are manufacturing a product that can be easily scaled.
Or not. It’s always better to turn people away at the door than to have an empty house. Not being able to get something makes it that much more desirable. Isn’t that the entire point of most waiting lists, mailing list allocations, etc?
And Tesla?
Meomi?
That’s a pretty outrageous price for a first vintage.
And I seriously doubt it will be as good as Copain’s version…
TTT
Observation series sounds interesting
This sounds more like a business coming in to run a winery. I’m skeptical anytime there’s that lengthy a discussion of specific wines without a single mention of quality of characteristics. It’s all about brand and positioning. Or perhaps they think the qualitative reasons are implied. Still … those are getting to be some hefty tariffs!
What are Dan and Michael up to these days?
J
Kosta Browne’s ‘The Gallery’ to open in Sebastopol
Guests will have the chance to taste the new label — Observations Series — produced by winemaker Nico Cueva.
There an easy to understand observation here:
To help the PE maintain revenue stream with their significant investment, while selling X number of cases at FOB, offset by selling new wine productions at higher retail. $145 for Cerise is a near perfect balance Without knowing the number of cases on each side of the equation, it makes sense to do so, regardless.
Simple, logical approach to obtain the growth and the stability advantages of wholesale relationships.
After all, dtc can be a vintage fickle proposition should there be several poor quality vintages close together, even with today’s technological advantages to help minimize problematic vintage quality variations.
I think Michael is doing the Cirq wines. But not sure if that’s the only project. Unsure what Dan is working on. I thought I saw it in an article a while back but can’t seem to locate it. In short, I’m not much help!
Michael Browne posted on WB within the last month or so to help clarify Cirq, KB, and Cirq II. Can do a search to find it if so desired .