Speaker 1: But we do have a great segment to wrap up
Speaker 1: the day and the wild week that was. We're talking wine,
Speaker 1: which we like to do from time to time. In
Speaker 1: our next guest we're focusing on was named the company
Speaker 1: for the Babylonian goddess of wine, sa Doory. Absolutely, pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here. Well, it's so great. It's family owned,
Speaker 1: began back in the early nine nineties, love of Pinot noir.
Speaker 1: And so that voice you just heard is Matt Revelette.
Speaker 1: He's wine maker for Sidury Wines, and lucky for us,
Speaker 1: he's joining Paula myself here in our studios. How are
Speaker 1: you cheers? Great, it's a beautiful day here in New York.
Speaker 1: The market was actually up. We have wine in the studio.
Speaker 1: Nothing really beautiful day. So pleasure to be here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. Well, tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your business and how you came to be with them.
Speaker 1: Of course, So Sidury Wines named after the Babylonian goddess
Speaker 1: of wine, which in the Epic of Gilgamesh had an
Speaker 1: ale house at the edge of the world, which I've
Speaker 1: just exhausted all of my Epic of Gildermesh stories with
Speaker 1: that sentence. But what we do is we source Peano
Speaker 1: wir from up and down the West coast, as far
Speaker 1: south as Santa Barbara County and as far north as
Speaker 1: the Lamott Valley in Oregon. So it's about a thousand
Speaker 1: miles stretch. So I came to find Saiduri Gosh. I
Speaker 1: got into winemaking being from Kentucky actually working on a
Speaker 1: vineyard during the summers as a summer job, basically driving
Speaker 1: and posting it is Bourbon countries. Yes, I got distracted,
Speaker 1: but I eventually fell in love with winemaking through those avenues.
Speaker 1: Of course, I graduated in o A during the recession
Speaker 1: with a philosophy degree, which presented another unique set of challenge.
Speaker 1: Yes it did, it did, And one of those thoughts
Speaker 1: was why not take a chance. It's a good timing
Speaker 1: for it. I found an internship at a winery in
Speaker 1: Cinema County, California, and it just took off from there
Speaker 1: and eventually found Saiduri. When I found the founder, Adam Lee,
Speaker 1: was looking for somebody to take the reins and thought
Speaker 1: that'd be a lot of fun, and it certainly is
Speaker 1: all right. What's it talked to us? I like the
Speaker 1: s business owners, people that really have feet on the ground.
Speaker 1: What's what's your business been like over the last two
Speaker 1: and a half three Things have been good. Of course,
Speaker 1: COVID presented a unique set of challenges to us all
Speaker 1: but but things have been good. Things are steady. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, of course there's some restaurant accounts, retail accounts
Speaker 1: and switching back and forth with who's open, who's closed.
Speaker 1: But things have been really good and we've had we've
Speaker 1: had some nice harvest on the heels of that well
Speaker 1: and like good well, No, I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in northern California, and I know the wildfire issue
Speaker 1: affects everybody. It's almost no one is immune. And I
Speaker 1: know you're part of the world and that region of
Speaker 1: the state has really been impacted. Given some kind of
Speaker 1: some your experiences, it does. It's it's challenging, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult because there's also human elements. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't want to expose people to danger smoked from wildfires,
Speaker 1: things of that nature. And of course it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to make wine when you're under evacuation orders from the winery. Um,
Speaker 1: there are challenges. Climate change is definitely a real thing.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it more every year, but it makes us
Speaker 1: more and more grateful for when we don't have those
Speaker 1: challenges and wildfires is absolutely fantastic. It was a good deal.
Speaker 1: What if there's one thing that climate change has caused
Speaker 1: you to change in terms of either strategy or how
Speaker 1: you um developed cultivate wine? What is it? Sure? So um,
Speaker 1: we're looking into farming methods called regenerative agriculture, basically hearing
Speaker 1: more and more of the long term trials to eventually
Speaker 1: make vineyards carbon sinks. Um. So fewer disking passes um
Speaker 1: perfect a disking What is that? Basically um, taking a
Speaker 1: tractor through and plowing the soil, so eventually you might
Speaker 1: lose lots of top soil erosion, things of that nature.
Speaker 1: So we want to have less inputs in the vineyard
Speaker 1: and actually eventually have them be carbon sinks. All right,
Speaker 1: So is that something that the industry embraces or is
Speaker 1: it something that maybe you have some old fashioned winemakers
Speaker 1: and now I'm doing the way we've done it forever.
Speaker 1: There's there's some of both, but it takes you know,
Speaker 1: a few brave folks to really lead the way on that.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're happy to be you know, part
Speaker 1: of leading the charge on that. So we're very very happy.
Speaker 1: So when you look at um and we've got about
Speaker 1: forty seconds, then we're going to take a break and
Speaker 1: come back some and drink some wine and actually talk
Speaker 1: some more. But when you think about your customer base,
Speaker 1: who is it that you guys are going after? There's
Speaker 1: so much wine and wineries. Absolutely so, we'd like to
Speaker 1: think that we can make um Peano noirs an affordable
Speaker 1: price to where you don't have to be an expert
Speaker 1: and you do have a nice price point of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so standard retail price, you know, thirty to forty dollars
Speaker 1: on most of our products, and we do offer a
Speaker 1: slew of Vineyard Designate series wines which we retail for
Speaker 1: seventy dollars, a lot smaller production on those, and a
Speaker 1: lot more geeky wines. I guess you could say, Matt,
Speaker 1: there we go. So absolutely so. The first wine we
Speaker 1: have at one of our ah, that looks good. That's
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite sounds. Of course, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Um So, the first one I
Speaker 1: brought is a vineyard desgnit Pean noir from Gary's Vineyard
Speaker 1: and the St Lucia Highlands, so Monterey County, very cold,
Speaker 1: very windy, place to grow. Peter Noir Um Gary's is
Speaker 1: a farming team of two friends, both named Gary, that
Speaker 1: have been farming in the St. Lucia Highlands. I'm serious,
Speaker 1: childhood best friends as well. So great stories, So lucky
Speaker 1: to be Um sourcing grapes from this vineyard tends to
Speaker 1: be a pretty robust Peter Noir. The fruit holds its
Speaker 1: acid really well in our studio all of a sudden, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you like a full bodied, kind of rich
Speaker 1: ripe style, this is right up your alley. Who is
Speaker 1: it's It looks beautiful. I mean, explain to me that
Speaker 1: designate business like versus your grapes versus somebody else's grapes.
Speaker 1: Is that sure? It's basically just a closer look of
Speaker 1: doing one vineyard only what does this one vineyard do
Speaker 1: in bottle? So we do vineyard designated wines, but we
Speaker 1: also do larger what we call Appalachian blends that encompassed
Speaker 1: several vineyards. So this is just kind of a micro
Speaker 1: look at what one vineyard can do in one vintage. Well,
Speaker 1: and I was freaking like on the website, you guys
Speaker 1: talk about minimal intervention in the wine making process. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about what that means and maybe how that
Speaker 1: distinguishes you from some other Babsolutely, so Peanot noir is
Speaker 1: what we call a wine growers grape. Um. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really liked high touch in the winery. If you get
Speaker 1: the farming right, if you get a good vintage, if
Speaker 1: you pick on the right date, it's pretty minimal intervention.
Speaker 1: So a couple of punch downs to keep the cap wet,
Speaker 1: then you go to barrel and that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't like having a lot of fingerprints on it,
Speaker 1: and the vineyards really shine with minimal intervention in the winery.
Speaker 1: We kind of make them all the same and keep
Speaker 1: our hands off. Carol opened a twist cap versus a cork.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a day when we would all
Speaker 1: be like, what exactly put to rest? Or give us
Speaker 1: your opinion on that. So, yes, I do have opinions.
Speaker 1: So Sidary was one of the early adopters of the
Speaker 1: screw cap. Oh my god, this is very nice, nice legs. Well,
Speaker 1: I you enjoy it. Um. So with the screw cap
Speaker 1: we transition in oh seven oh eight, after years and
Speaker 1: years of trials. We found the wines age better, they
Speaker 1: age more consistently. Uh. There's really no bottle to bottle
Speaker 1: variation and you don't ever end up with cork taint
Speaker 1: or t c A. So it ensures that our customers
Speaker 1: get the product in the form that we intended it
Speaker 1: to get to them. That's interesting, and it doesn't you
Speaker 1: see it as a plus obviously, right, absolutely it is.
Speaker 1: There still a hard sell in the marketplace, and so
Speaker 1: we're starting to see a lot of that change. There
Speaker 1: are the die hards. There's a lot of great uh
Speaker 1: wine traditions. I don't think all of them are completely
Speaker 1: necessary at least in our eyes, and Corps is one
Speaker 1: of those. So it just helps our customers get the
Speaker 1: wine in the best possible form. Want to ask you
Speaker 1: about labor, because I when I think about again, I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time in the center, out of
Speaker 1: the rain, around cornmell money a lot, you know, I see,
Speaker 1: you know for various types of agriculture, just armies and
Speaker 1: armies and our so people talked to us about in
Speaker 1: your business labor Yeah sure, so, so labor is tight. Um.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of regions that have are heavily
Speaker 1: tourism based Napos and m and North Bay. Housing is
Speaker 1: certainly an issue. You know, the housing costs are are
Speaker 1: very expensive, so it's something we're cognizant of. We're lucky
Speaker 1: to have really talented teams out in the field for us,
Speaker 1: really good leadership as well. And but yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to be a pinch point in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. And it's it's been going on for quite
Speaker 1: some time. So does that mean, like, just following on
Speaker 1: what Paul said is it doesn't mean that sometimes you
Speaker 1: can't get the workers you need or want, because we
Speaker 1: we don't really have an issue keeping our teams together. Um,
Speaker 1: there are some you know, horror stories about you know,
Speaker 1: people getting paid a dollar more and then leaving that
Speaker 1: day when they're supposed to go pick grapes or something
Speaker 1: like that. Fortunately, we have not found ourselves in those situations.
Speaker 1: What's the you know, Karl's mentioned that it just seems
Speaker 1: like there's so many wine labels out there. What is
Speaker 1: the competitive landscape? Like you do you just try to
Speaker 1: find a little niche and then excel or do you
Speaker 1: try to take on some of the bigger you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really just about UM, connecting with people over
Speaker 1: our wines, sharing the stories, um, you know, relating to them,
Speaker 1: and being accessible to the last thing I would want
Speaker 1: to do is for have Siduri Wines to be inaccessible.
Speaker 1: So that's why you make are kind of our lower
Speaker 1: priced entry level lines. If you're curious about Peano Noir
Speaker 1: or chardon ay uh. We source from so many different
Speaker 1: areas Oregon down through the central coast of California down
Speaker 1: to Santa Barbara that we think we might find something
Speaker 1: you like. You know, it's interesting that you say that.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're talking with Matt revelet why, maker
Speaker 1: of Saduri Wines here in our studio. I do feel
Speaker 1: like over the last couple of years, I feel like
Speaker 1: there is a theme of people saying, listen, you don't
Speaker 1: have to spend a ton of money for a great
Speaker 1: bottle of wine. And I find it too that I,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got those that I love and a
Speaker 1: little bit priced here, but I'll go in and I
Speaker 1: can find some great wines at great price points. And
Speaker 1: there's something that's happened in the industry where that's a
Speaker 1: good thing and an acceptable thing that you don't have
Speaker 1: to shell out at Yeah, so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: something to be said about that is that we're we're
Speaker 1: getting better at it. We're figuring out our places more,
Speaker 1: We're figuring about where to plant in certain grapes a
Speaker 1: little bit better. It takes a long time to really
Speaker 1: figure out if something is going to work vineyard wise,
Speaker 1: goes into the ground, then it really takes ten years
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on through vine health, vine
Speaker 1: age and vintage variation. So I think we're all getting
Speaker 1: better at it. So that helps with the price point, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's different. How's that? How's the wine industry doing relative
Speaker 1: to other spirits or beer and that type of thing.
Speaker 1: Are people drinking more wine less wine? People are still
Speaker 1: drinking a lot of wine. Definitely. We drink peanut no
Speaker 1: wars almost all the time. Yeah, absolutely, So you're a
Speaker 1: target market, So thank you exactly. You're welcome. UM. And
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, I heard from you know, word of
Speaker 1: mouth that people may have been drinking a little bit
Speaker 1: more there. Yes, yes, yours truly might have been included
Speaker 1: in that, UM. But yeah, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, stalking up from retail outlets, so we saw
Speaker 1: some of the channel shift of course, of with restaurants
Speaker 1: being closed, there is a lot more of what we
Speaker 1: call off premise accounts uh, and a lot of activity there.
Speaker 1: So things shifted but still stayed really steady. Have you
Speaker 1: been hurt by restaurants that didn't come back and still
Speaker 1: haven't come back? Are you okay? We're okay. It's just
Speaker 1: it's it's tough seeing our friends in the restaurant business
Speaker 1: in the situation that they are in and Slash have
Speaker 1: been in for quite some time. Um. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's painful for us too, because there there are partners.
Speaker 1: All right, we are bloomberg. I mean I have to
Speaker 1: ask this. I don't don't don't everybody roll your eyes. Um, recession,
Speaker 1: no recession. Are you worried a little bit about the outlook?
Speaker 1: I am cautiously optimistic. It's because you have as yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's Friday afternoon, and it's it's a beautiful day
Speaker 1: in New York, So cautiously cautiously optimistic. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: does feel like things are moving forward? I mean, we've
Speaker 1: had more guests in studio than in a long long time.
Speaker 1: I'm really just in the last couple of weeks. So, Matt,
Speaker 1: what a treat, What a pleasure. Um, you've got the chardonney,
Speaker 1: you've got the peenot noir, and the chardony is kind
Speaker 1: of new right. Oh yes, so sidury has traditionally been
Speaker 1: all peino noir, but if you think about Burgundia and
Speaker 1: grape varieties, peano chardonnet. So my predecessor Mr Adam Lee
Speaker 1: was really good at feigning ignorance about a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and charinet was one of them. All right, good stuff
Speaker 1: for gonave it on that Max Revelent. He's one maker.
Speaker 1: Saduri wines. What a great way to end up. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming, Pat, Pat. It doesn't take much wine
Speaker 1: for me to be gone. I'm such a cheap date.
Speaker 1: False Sweeney, thank you so much. It was fun as
Speaker 1: have a good and safe evening, everybody. This is Brudberg.