Waking Up the Wine Industry

Hello everybody. Welcome to Drink Up. I have my friend from way down under, Priscilla, here that I connected with on LinkedIn, believe it or not. And she talks a lot about the wine business and how the wine business needs to wake up, or maybe I'm saying that, but, uh, for some reason you're one of the first people that pops up in my feed when I get up in the morning. There you are. So I don't know how the algorithm's working, but somehow I connected with you. It's been wonderful. I read your information. I've been in the wine business for 38 years. You know, I started with Gallo Winery actually in California. So I just, you know, thank you for coming on to Drink Up and, and maybe tell me a little bit about who you are and what it is you do and why you're so passionate about why the wine business needs to change.

That's a very good question. I love that, Samuel. Um, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very happy to just talk to you, you know, like we have been chatting online for a little while and, you know, it's always great to be able to be, see face to face and actually be talking, um, about those issues. I guess for me it's because I was on the blind side for so long. I've been in the wine industry for 13 years, not as much as you. But I see lots of people in my age is not engaged with wine and don't want to drink wine. And it's, it seems like very sad for me because, you know, I'm so passionate about the wine industry. Um, and the last job I had, I worked in the bottle shop and then went to retail. I was a wine merchant for one of the biggest retailers in Australia, Dave Murphy's, with like 240 stores in Australia. And, you know, like my team, most of them, uh, my, one of my struggles is just to get my team to taste wine. They just said, You know, I, I don't wanna taste it, Priscilla. That tastes terrible. I don't like wine. And they all work in the wine business, you know. It was so hard to do that staff training because people don't engage with the wine industry. And it's that, you talk with consumers, that we have about 7,000 consumers per week. And then it just seems like, for me, it was like, oh my God, what's going on? So, you know, I, what is going on? Like no one interested and no one is interested about the Tokyo I was talking about, like scores, points, James Holliday. People didn't know anything about those things at all. And it surprised me. I was selling wines that have been told is terrible. Like I sell lots of 90 Grimes, I sell lots of non-alcoholic wines. In my mind, before I work at the retailer.

Yeah.

That, that was like all bad. You know, we don't talk about in the alcoholic ones. In alcoholic ones, it's bad. We don't talk about 90 crimes or anything like that because it's bad. But that's what I was told. And then for me, it was like so confusing. It's like, why? Why? And I start to, and it started to be like my 2-year-old girl, daughter, is like, why? And I ask myself why and why and why. And it became that confusing in my mind. I was so lost. It was like, all right, I need to rethink. And that's how I created the Rethink the Wine Industry newsletter. Because I was just asking myself, why? Why we do this if the customer's doing that? Why we, we just see, why are we keeping? And I was doing masterclasses because, you know, we wanna teach about wine to the customers. We wanna educate customers. I had no one sign up. No one wanted to be part of these masterclasses I want to organize. And then, you know, I, I was like, well, let's try something different. And I tried to do events like Wine Fest and I had 250 people sign up. Oh, wow. Wow. It was like, well, that's worked better because Wine Fest was not like anyone teaching. You're just going there to drink, have fun.

Yeah. Why? So why? So it's experiences, right? I talk about it actually on your post, believe it or not, that when you, I started to think about like, well, people don't buy brands anymore. They buy experiences. They want to experience it. Right. So maybe the generations you're talking about, cause I thought about this as well, Gen Z, millennials, and my daughters, like they're 30 years old this year. That's how old I am. I'm an old man, but they don't drink wine. They drink actually hemp-based products. THC products is where they've gone to because wine is just, um, they may have it at dinner to be fair, but, but it just seems very difficult. Hard.

Yes.

A little bit of snobbery, uh, to it, you know, and then it seems like the industry, and you talk about this, approaches it with education. Maybe I don't need to be educated about The type of varietal and what region it came from, and it's from Paris or it's from Australia. Maybe I just need to know that that wine tastes good and I'm gonna enjoy my friends and family.

Yes.

So is that what you talk about when you think of—

Yes. And definitely that's how it works. And I can tell you, like, because that's why in my life, and I have the experience to be able to talk with consumers, I try to do many different things. So to see what is actually interesting then. So we have an event about champagne and I was actually hosting, um, 3 different brands of champagne. And it was like, do you know what? I'm gonna do a test here. I'm gonna talk about each champagne differently and let's see what is actually sticking in their mind. See what they actually see the face and see what they actually, you know, The answer, like what the reaction is going to be for the customers. One, I talk everything about terroir. Champagne terroir, soil, blah, blah, blah. The other one, I went for winemaking process. How you make champagne. Said, you know, they make champagne that have this bubble, so that's why champagne is different. This Prosecco and blah, blah, blah. Teaching about that. And another one, I put a lot of emotion on the side, uh, On the side of the story of the, the lady lost her husband and then she lost the business and then she was absolutely destroyed and blah, blah, blah. But she got so like, but then she did this, she did that, called like all the challenges on the way. And then she finally got money enough to pay the business back and then she did that and she did that and blah, blah, blah. You see the reaction, the face of the guys was like, oh my God.

So the engagement, you got engagement. People want to hear stories. It's funny you say that. So I work for a little company called Altamar Brands and Altamar Brands has a 5th generation Brown that founded the company, right? So I tell his story and I say, hey, Lyons Brown III, his dad, Lee Brown, founded Woodford Reserve and his grandfather actually did the deal with Lynn Motlow. in 1951 and brought Jack Daniel's into Brown-Forman. And his great-grandfather actually developed and created Old Forester. And Lyons left Brown-Forman 20 years ago. And he created this business because he wanted to make 3 things: good distillate, promote distiller, and talk about the homeplace. They don't want to hear about the mash bill of the product. They want to know about Lyons. Yeah.

And I agree. And then that's exactly what people, people like it to be somewhere like engaging or touchy or, you know, and then that's the thing, like every, and then there's the other thing as well. On that same event, I have a, uh, 3 friends went to, to actually the champagne tasting and then she's Then my 3 friends is actually was someone else and then they came, then they end and they coming back to me to do the tasting. And I start to, to use the same stories.

Right.

And when I get to my last story, it was actually storytelling approach. She said like, oh yeah, when you taste it in somewhere else here, the customer was talking about that story. Oh, that's very cool. I just already heard about this story. So when she's coming to me, she already heard the story because the other customer tasted with me before was telling the story to around their little tasting. So it's sticking in their head so much and they actually was telling themselves about the same story. Was the story actually sticking in the whole tasting? Because we have like about 7 tables of champagne and then The customers who come to my table went to another table to tell them the story I told them.

Yeah, that's interesting.

So you see, like, it's power of storytelling. So they actually sticking in their head and they wanna talk about it.

You're talking customers, you're talking consumers, right? Are you talking customers that sell?

Yeah.

So consumers, because I think there is a big difference and you might've talked about this, is if I'm talking to like a somm at Capital Grille. They're probably going to know the first 2 classes that you went through.

Okay.

Where is it made? What's the soil? What is the vintage? What was the wine score? I think they want to know that. But my wife and I are out to dinner. I don't really care. Is the Chardonnay really good? What does it taste like? Well, tell me about, maybe like, who's the producer? Tell me a story about it. And that's it. And it doesn't have to be wine. It could be beer. It can be spirits. It can be wine. is we're so caught up in the industry to talk about, like in whiskeys, it drives me nuts. Well, it's a 5-year-old and it's 51% corn and it's, you know, 10% malt barley and, you know, 39% rye. It's a high rye. And by the way, it comes from Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Do I really care?

No.

As a consumer?

Right.

So how do you, so what are you doing to, I guess you're an evangelist obviously for the industry. Have you gotten a lot of pushback, positivity, the combination of both?

Well, I think, I think I got a lot of great feedback, I guess. At the beginning I was very scared, I would say, because, you know, I always feel like everyone has the same fears. The fears is in everyone. All of us, it's the need to go over overcoming the fears. Um, because the first time I was feeling like I don't like it is its score, highest score points for this, for that, for that.

Yeah.

And I wanna post that and I was like, mm, I don't think I can post it because if I post, what are people gonna think about me? What's gonna be, who's gonna react to it? And then, you know, it's all that fear to be able to talking some things that you know is not quite right. It's, it's taking time and. And I received some messages of people like that as well. They say like, Chrissie, I know what you're doing and I know it's much needed, but I can't really be involved because, you know, it's completely contrasting industry. And I, I'm just afraid to be judged. I'm just afraid to, to, to, to be able— I, I, I'm silently reading all your posts. I receive lots of messages like this. I silently read all of your posts, but I don't comment. I don't put a like. I just sit silently. engage with you because I, I don't know, I wanted to have a job in like that. Like I still wanted, you know, I don't know what people's gonna think about me. And then I think that fear, I think that's the feedback I received the most. I think people just scared to do something different because they don't know the rejection they're gonna receive. The rejection fear is a fear like everyone had, and I had that as well. So I understand that they pay. But yeah, I think it. Until we change our mindset to embrace innovation and say like, it's all right instead to judge people by doing this, by doing that, by not following the rules, we, we, we're going to be on this transition where people have a lot of fears. I do have, the most of the feedback I have is actually just, yeah, silent people say like, keep going, I'm watching you, keep going, keep going. I know what you do. It's gonna be beneficial for the, for the wine industry. Keep going. Keep it going. Look, of course they have very old people that don't wanna change it for their reasons, for their old beliefs. We gotta have those people. It's always gonna be there. But at least the people around me, it's, it's more on the positive side. So that's making me more motivated as well.

So you're gonna have some people that are gonna question what you do. They're gonna say, hey, I can't be part of this. I'm gonna silence you. Then you're gonna have supporters that like, okay, I support you. Then you're gonna have the old people like, this is just the way it is. I get what you're doing, but it's never gonna change. You talked about it actually.

Yeah, I have it that as well.

Yeah, you, you talked about it though. You posted a picture of a sangria party and I commented on that sangria party.

That was shocking everyone. That was a very shocking one. They wanted to disagree with Petrus. Yes, somewhat.

Yeah. So what kind of reactions did you get on that one?

That was such a great post. I, I did like, it was very divided post because I, I had actually very good people say like, yes, I love the idea because I don't, don't drink sangria because obviously make it with bad wines, but with Petrus, probably delicious.

Yeah. Well, I.

Some people actually was like, yes, let's do it. Free, mate. Yeah, let's do it. It'll be more important he's drinking wine. It doesn't matter what he does. But we have these people who say like, oh, he's just spending the money and then just to show off with the money and things like that. It's like, if people show off in drinking, well, Petrus with caviar, it's like the same. For me, it's the same feeling because if you pay that much in the wine and you're putting your social media. People are going to judge you. You show off anyway. So it doesn't matter if you're doing Petrus with sangria or if you drink with caviar, the same feeling is you show you have money.

Well, and the other thing is the experience, right? I guarantee you the people that did that party are— that's memorable. It's like when I went to a party when I was working for Gallo, uh, we were district managers in Southern California and we went out and we drank a lot of Gallo wine, but we got, um, grappa. You know what grappa is, right? And it was some expensive grappa. I can't remember the name of it, but we were all drinking grappa and celebrating. And I think I woke up on the floor the next day. But you know what? That was like 38 years ago. And I still remember that like it was yesterday. So I guarantee you, you talked about earlier when we were talking about the experience of it. So I, you know, look, I mean, you know what? I think I responded to one of your posts where I talked about luxury versus You know, like mid-range or whatever. Maybe there's certain wines that, you know, maybe Grange. I don't know if you really wanna put Grange, you know, in, um, in a, uh, sangria, but you know, if someone wants to do it, well, who are we to question them on the experience of it? That's where I think it really comes down to is you should be supportive of how people wanna consume your brand and their experiences.

Yes.

And Mike, why don't you come and say, what was your experience with my brand? How did you consume it? What would you like for me to actually communicate to you? Or what can, what can I provide you for my brand? Like, are we really not that open? I would think that brand marketers within the wine industry want to hear from their consumer and what they want. Do they or don't they?

But just if you, like anyone here listening to this podcast, enjoy social media for You know, um, just watching a little bit. Like I, I sometimes just see getting in Instagram and TikTok, it's just to see what people doing with wine. Most of the engaging posts is actually making fun of wine.

Yeah.

Like putting a glass, drink it like all the time, like open on the wrong way. Yesterday I was looking, there was one actually putting like upside down and opening the bottle on the bottom, on the bottle, you know, and drink. And they have like millions of likes, millions of, of, of it, you know. And then that's, this is the thing because people don't wanna to, to on this path of wine needs to be drank like that. And because that's, that is not what consumers of my generation want to.

Yeah.

They don't, they, they think that's boring.

Yeah.

They think that's boring. So, and then that's why they make so much fun with wine and then social media. If you see like how many videos you have available today in social media with wine making fun. It's incredible. And I think that's just gonna be the start for changing the behaviors of consumers because I think consumers just don't want it to be on this narrow perspective of how the wine should be. You know, they don't want it to be, they just telling us by just watching the social media, they don't want it to be educated. They don't want it to be in the classroom. They want it to be fun. They wanted to enjoy, they wanted to just understand it like a What is gonna be good for their mood? I think they're interested more about their mood than actually for the, the how the grape varieties or terroir, soil, climates, or the wine come from. Because when people come to me and they're at a day in my office, they then come to me and say like, I wanna like a winey tasting plum, but also with a little bit of the hits of strawberries, but high tannins with like a medium plus acidity. Yeah. They're coming to me, it's like, Christy, I want like a wine. I have like a barbecue with some of my friends. I have like a football game tonight. Can I just recommend a wine? $20. Anything like great enough to just watch football. Uh, I have a Tinder tonight. I just wanted to impress her with some wine. Can you just recommend a wine that's gonna impress her? Because, you know, first date, you know, you know how it looks like. I was like, yeah, no, I know.

Yeah. It was like, so that's what people come to you to. So Sutter Home, Sutter Home, Cinque Terre owns, right?

Sutter Home.

is Build a Better Burger program is exactly that. I'm going to have a barbecue and make some hamburgers and I'm going to have some good wine with it. Like you're speaking to the, I'm having a party, I'm bringing people over. Now, obviously there's special occasions we all have. Like I have a couple, couple bottles of Hewitt from my Diageo days that I lay down and I keep, and I'm like, I'm saving it for the moment. Hey, when I first had my first grandchild, let's pop up a bottle of Hewitt. It's Thanksgiving. I'm going to have this special package, but guess what I'm saying is first grandchild. It's Thanksgiving. Maybe the type of wine I buy is based on the occasion that I'm talking about. Right. So occasion-based marketing in terms of like promote the occasion, you want to open up Hewitt when it's your grandchild's first birthday. You want to open up, you know, Grange when you retire, you know, have that special bottle, but it's about the occasion, about the experience.

Okay.

But I'm going to bring that luxury wine to it. I'm not gonna say, well, this is a vintage 2005 and it came from the soil over here and the type of cork and, and you know, this is a single vineyard wine. No, I mean, I'm probably—

And, and the, and the, yes, exactly. You're very cool. You nailed on this. Yes. Spot on.

So how do you work? So do you, do you have like wine clients that you work with, like suppliers, and you help them reposition? How they go to market. So what is it that exactly you do? I'm not supposed to ask that. I guess I wrote an article today. You're never supposed to ask anybody what they do, but I did. So anyway, the cat's out of the bag.

I guess I think that's the most embarrassing question I have been lately. Like people like I don't know what you do. So like you just give me everyone.

Yeah, everybody's upset at you on the internet. They No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, so you provide a service obviously, right? To people in the industry, you're trying to get people to change their mindset. So you get people to engage with you. So you get this brand. I'm like, you know what, Priscilla, I saw your, your, your post. It resonates with me. My revenue has been cut in half this year and I got to reposition my brand or I'm not going to be around. Can you help me?

Yeah. I work with lots of globally scale now. Like I said to you, like I, I, because we are, we pretty much help each other. So we, we know each other, help each other. I help other people as well to get some business for them. They get some, like a, like when we talking privately before this conversation. So that is how community work. That's how collaborative work. And that's really one of the spirits I wanted to bring to the wine industry. Is actually to be more, you know, like if you're not competing with each other, we can make a better job because I help you, you help me, it's both growth.

Yeah.

But I think that, that I'm, uh, so many people don't understand the business in that way. They understand the business, I do the same as you do, and then I see you as a, you know, as a competition and I don't want to talk to you. I wanted to make things better. I want to beat you all the time. And then, you know, when these people doing that way, I let them do it because more important what I do, what I have, what my heart say to do.

Yeah.

And then that's for me, easy just to be nice with everyone, help everyone I can. Like if I can give you my hand and I don't chase money, I chasing, um, I like actually people happiness, I want to people and then just the great jobs I do, it just the consequences coming money, but not chasing the money, and that is not what I do. And then I think that's what most people try to do in the wine industry, and that is why they go wrong. Because when you chase so much money, that is how you start to thinking you don't give value to customers. You know, I think everything you need to do, you need to say to like, how much value I can add in people's life, in the community, and the world, and anything like this. I'm more worried about how much value I can add in your life than how much money I can make. But unfortunately, the brain of most people is like, how much money I can make from you?

Yeah. If you're a giver, you're a giver. Yeah. You're a giver. And you know what?

I just, I just think, I just think we need to change the mindset that we are here in the world to give value, to help each other, to collaborate. It's not about chasing money when you do things. good, the destiny or the world give you double, triple. Don't chase money, chase helping people, give value to people. And that's my message all the time. And that is why I really think the wine industry, what they need to do is collaborate each other, not be this like, oh, my wine is great and your wine is terrible. No, because that's what they do when they say, like, I, I hate it when you see this marketing. strategy when people say my wine is $20, it's better than wine, like, get the same scores or the same taste of wine spending like $100.

Yes.

And then that's making me, it's like, what do you do with your competition? So you're telling like your competition's bad, so just so you can stand out? That is not unfair. It's not fair. This is not fair for the wine industry at all. We can't not keep fighting in this way. We need it to be more collaborate— collaborative space. And that's what makes me feel like, oh my God, we need to change this. We need to change this mindset. We can't be making ourselves good by making the other people bad.

I love, I love that. I love that competing together for success. I did a post several months ago. My daughters were cross-country athletes and they ran Division 1 cross-country, uh, for track cross-country, but they were really good cross-country. I did a post of them running together. They're twins and it's competing together for success. They weren't trying to beat each other that way. They were competing against themselves for their times. And they were rooting for each other. Maybe certainly, maybe one got first place, one got second place, one got third place, whatever. But all these women are out there running cross-country and guess what? Every one of them are rooting for each other. And it just makes better for collaboration. What you're saying is there's an opportunity for the wine industry. Certainly there's a battle for shelf space and position and for features and ads. I'm going to get on the menu. I get it. I mean, that's real, but there's a bigger problem that you've identified in the industry. And the problem is the consumers. And actually I did a post because of you. I started talking about the consumer and what the consumer wants, like sustainability. Actually, did you know 70% of Gen Zs will actually spend more money For a brand that's sustainable. Now, a lot of people do talk about that, but they need to talk about that a little bit more, right? And maybe that their experience when they go out to the winery and stuff, they should talk about their sustainable practices. I'm just trying to be creative here in the conversation, but it needs to be more than just education. It should be more about, I'm a brand. This is what I stand for. Here's my founder or my winemaker. This is what I stand for. This is my story. Yeah. How I experience my wine, and I love that you have you started a conversation that's gonna have to. I think I believe it's waking up the wine industry. I see the number of followers you have. You have excellent engagement on LinkedIn. I'm not sure if you're on other social media apps, but you certainly people are listening. What's been your most been your most successful story? I guess you know through this outreach, anything that. You can share a story or something that really resonated with someone like, wow, this really made an impact on someone.

Yeah, I guess, I guess the most impactful thing for me to do what I do, um, it is actually to have my private messages. They are incredible. I love when people send me private messages because that's how they truly say things, say how they're feeling. And then I think the private messages I received, they say like, Priscilla, I was thinking that way. I was pretty much very narrow. I was thinking I need to teach people and I was thinking like this and like that. And you just opened my eyes, gave me a different perspective. I am absolutely very grateful about what we have done and then how the process is coming along. And that's how I can see things very differently than what I saw a few months ago. That for me is the most valuable. Uh, things I do for my— that's all keeping me motivated. That's why I wanted to spending time is to, to, to do stories because that's, that's what we do. We write stories to resonate with people, to try to get people understanding new perspectives, or like what we need to, to see, um, that we may not talking about it. But I think that's for me, that's the most touch me. I almost cry when I read these messages like, oh my God, that's good to give like, um, A different perspective for people's life. I could create critical thinking for someone else. And that, that for me, it is actually say like, okay, I'm gonna keep doing this. I'm gonna keep doing this because I want more people with critical thinking in the wine industry. Because I'm sure, like, I'm sure, I don't know how many people thinking on that ahead, but we're gonna have like a, um, with the AI come to our lives, it's gonna change your work. It's gonna change it. How we live, it's going to change, um, you know, like it's going to be lots of information there. And we needed to be able to be prepared to be more critical thinking, more emotional intelligence, and, you know, learning about those things to be able to not— to be better prepared for the future, you know, to prepare for the other things that's coming, to be able to be better. And the jobs that we do today can maybe not be there anymore. We need to be doing things different. And then, you know, we needed to start to get on that because We, we are gonna have like information war because AI is gonna create lots of stories and people talking a lot of things. And because we have information so available for everyone to listen, we needed to be able to ask ourselves, this is true, why? Let's go like where they come from. That's it. There is something like, this is actually why he guy said these things, you know? We needed to be able to get this habit to To verify the information before you just keeping talking to ourselves.

Yeah.

And then that's exactly what the wine industry have done for so long. You're like, we never verified any information we actually teaching people. We just keeping doing. We never, we never see like if it worked or not work. We just keeping doing like the same thing. And then, and then that is gonna be even worse if the tech and AI is coming to our lives and change everything. So we needed to. Be aware.

Yeah.

Like, things is gonna change and then we're gonna change it much quicker than what we think. And I don't know, I don't know, like my feeling, it's we, we more open to hear new things now, but we still have lots of people behind in the wine industry. And I think that's, that's the mission. And I can't do this on myself. I need you to collaborate with me. I have Nick, I have Robert Joseph, I have Courtney. I have everyone to try to help it, to give the voices and to help it to get the message. And that's why we created that collaborative group where everyone can talk and can give the message and you can all together, we can help more people to know, to be prepared for the next stage in your life. So I really think that's the way we could do, collaborate more, help more. give you more value and everyone is going to be absolutely happy again. And then that's what the society want to build. And more in the wine industry where we see people complain so much and so much negativity messages in there. I think we need to change it for the brighter, for looking how the future is going to be amazing, you know? And like, if you do things, smaller things, smaller actions, and thinking different, um, you know, I think that's just going to be the next step for us. And, and I do think, I do think we only be able to do that if we together on this mission. You know, I don't think there is only one person to do it. I think they need to be many with the voice there to be able to help as many people as we can. And then I just be very grateful to meet you, to be honest, and then to be your voice there. I really love your videos. We have such a unique content. And then I really love it because when I'm much better on text. Like writing, you're actually better on the video.

Yeah.

So I think that's exactly what we need. We need different skills that, you know, it's like we are football game, you know, we have many people who need to play with each other to their different talents to be able to make, you know, to win on this next step in the progress. We are football game. So that's what we need to see. We are, you know, we are big and large puzzle. And we are all different pieces with different skills. And, and that is how we should see the wine industry, not as a competition. We don't need to compete each other. We need to find strategies to not compete with each other. We just see, you know, Samuel does these things and I do these things. I have my clients because they wanna like this. Samuel have his customers because he doing something different. And I think that's what we need to build in the wine industry. We need to stop competing. We can't just see. You know, help each other to grow together. I think that's, that's my last post if you saw. And then that's pretty much, it's, it's, it is something I, I really have a very big thought for, like thinking about it long.

Yeah.

Lately. And I think that's probably the way we should move. Like all the other brands as well is doing that. All the other businesses doing that. And then I don't see as much in the wine industry. I think that's. The next step for us to do something is to put your voices together and to help each other and to put your brains together to think it together, give a different perspective and new solutions. Because yeah, I don't know. I don't know what else we can do, but that's—

I love it. I do a little tagline. It's more about ageism in America, but I think it's appropriate for wine. Together, invisible no more. Because the wine industry with several generations is invisible. And the reason it's invisible is there isn't a collaboration. And you know what? We can all compete together in the wine industry. And I love your messaging. I know you're coming out to California to meet with my friend Courtney. And because we have a mutual friend and actually Courtney is going to come on Drink Up. I've been trying to get her on. She's going to talk about the brand pitch, by the way. She did a post on that and I wanted her to come and talk about that. But you're going to come out to California. You're going to take this message on the road and you're going to go up to wine country, go to Sonoma, Napa, and you're going to talk to these producers and Give them this message. You have some meetings set up with these folks?

Oh my God. I have many. I think I have about, I don't even know, like my agenda is keeping busy. We're going to have a group together where you're going to bring brains together and you're going to think outside of the bottle.

There you go. Think outside the bottle. I love it. Yeah, that's great. I'm using that. Okay. You need to coin that, patent it or trademark it. There you go.

So having people travel to California as well on this trip. So that's amazing from like other parts of Australia and the US. So it's been a big call. We talk with some hospitality as well, people in hospitality places. We, uh, it's not only because hospitality suffers as well with the wine sales going down. So we needed to help you on not only wineries. Wineries, it's, it's part of the business, but wineries, um, Distributors, hospitality is all involved on this. It's not just wineries, by the way.

Oh, great.

It's, we needed to help the whole industry. It's the whole industry suffering. It's not just the wineries because the wineries don't sell because the distributors don't sell because the restaurants don't sell. And it's just a big—

That's, that's wonderful. You're taking your message to the world. You're, you're literally a globetrotter. So trotter, trotter, globetrotter. Sorry, my Southern accent, but But the point is, is you're, you're, you're going all over the globe and you're taking this message to the road and you're creating apostles. You're, you know what? You're an evangelist. And sometimes when you begin, it's hard to make it rain, but you're making people believers. Look, I'm an apostle of yours. You made me believe.

Okay.

I follow you. Somehow you've made it where your feed comes to me and you made me believe, yeah, there's a problem here. We need to do something. And I wish you the very best when you go out to California and you talk to Courtney and you, you talk to the, um, you know, the SOMMs and the hospitality industry and the distributors and the suppliers. Because you're right, it's not just the suppliers, it's everybody in the industry. When the SOMM comes to the table, you know, and they're like doing the pour and everything else, it's how you're communicating to the consumer. And maybe you have some consumers there. You know, kind of in closing, you know, we're kind of wrapping up. Um, what would you want to leave with everybody here at Drink Up to talk about, you know, as you go out there and you evangelize this message, right? You're, you're, you're basically, you're telling this gospel, right? You're like, it's like, like you're singing from the hymnal. Like, what do you, what's the 3 things you want to leave with us?

I would say thinking and thinking like the way we can go ahead and help each other, not combat each other, like, you I think that's something we need to be on the mind. Whatever I can do to collaborate with the others, to be able to grow together, then instead to say like how I can compete, how I can bat someone, how I can make it that someone looks bad for me to look right. I think that approach, if anyone can take one approach, I want them moving away on the mindset that they want to do that approach. I think making things bad to you look right is never going to be a sustainable business. So it's never going to be sustainable community. We're never going to be sustainable, um, on the way we think and grow together. The second thing as well, I think we needed to be where the, like, get this fear of rejection out because that the fear of rejection is stopping us to create new products or think different or make different partnerships or, you know, all the rejection about it, you know, if I do wine, tasting different, what people's gonna think about me in the industry. And then that, the fear of rejection, it stops us to move ahead. And the third thing is communication. We really need, like, need to communicate with a wide, a big audience. We can't just talk with the 3% of the population, you know, if we, or, you know, the, whether people wanted to be educated. We can't just afford to have a 30% in the US drink wine, we have 70%, more than half, not engaged with wine. So we needed to thinking like, we need to do something different in the communication side. Um, we needed to really try to change it. If it does not work, you educate people. Okay. What's going to be the next?

Yeah.

You know, it's occasion, it's emotional.

Yeah.

Let's try. Works? Great. If don't work, okay. Try something else. But we need to keep on trying. The things we've done, it's not, it's not helping us to sell wine. So if it's not helping us to sell wine, so we need to change things. And we, we're not going to have the answer till we try and until we get different answers from that and keeping trying. But we need to keep on trying to get better and better and better and better. So, and we're not doing that. So the communication is something we owe. The whole industry, from winemakers, from sommeliers, from distributors, you know, how they're doing that on the bottle shops, et cetera. Restaurants, it's all of them needed to be able to be better communicators. People on the internet, you know, like all of us, all of us need to be better communicators because we need to change the talk. We cannot talk with the people who already drink wine. We need to talk with people. Not drink wine to be able to save us. We need to make sure we talk with the other people. What is the people? If the wine, you drink beer, let's convert these people drink beer to convert wine. But these people not gonna be converted by you say like, my soil, my climate, my terroir. No. What they interested?

Yeah.

Let's talk with those people. I think that's the thing. We, we need to stop to talk So people already drink wine and that's with some of it, they're gonna be engaged with then, but let's get more people talking with people who drink beer, people drink RTD, people drinking spirits. Let's get them to drink some wines with us because that's what we're gonna make more people engage with. I love it.

When I have a party, by the way, I have variety of products that are offered. I have wine, beer, spirits, THC products, water. Non-alcoholics, mocktails, because I don't know who's coming to my house, but I want them to have a great experience and remember the occasion that I had. And I love those 3 things. If I got them right, collaborate's number one. 2 is, I would say it's innovate. Don't fear to be innovative. Is that what it would be? Number 2?

And yeah, the rejection. Yeah.

Fear rejection. And then 3 is communicate. And you said it, is talk to them. You're talking to ourselves. You said it. Let's stop talking to ourselves and let's start talking to the consumer and let's listen to what they want. I bet you that's the next post or there's gonna be a post in the future that you're gonna talk about. I hope you do anyway. But that was, uh, I love it. You know, this is, uh, obviously we had a conversation before. I love it that you took the time with me to share with me, you know, this, uh, What needs to happen with the industry? The wine industry does need to wake up, and thanks for having the courage to actually bring the message forward. You know, we that's all you're doing is you're communicating with industry. Hey, communicate with me. You're going around the globe and you're having these conversations over and over again, and it just takes one person, by the way, to make an impact on our industry. So I very much appreciate you. I very much appreciate your time that you took today. Thank you so much, and thanks for letting me join you for breakfast, and I'll have dinner. And until next time, I hope to, you know, when you come out to California, let me know when you're coming. But again, I'm wishing you the best trip of the world and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.

Oh, we'll talk again soon for sure. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything you do. I just want to say to you, thank you so much for taking your time and to before dinner to just have a little chat with me. And I really appreciate everything you do and the message you put in there in your LinkedIn as well. I wish you all the best as well. Hopefully we can actually drink wine together. So nice.

Oh yes, absolutely.

So they have a little bit of fun.

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