HarveyFamilyWineBlog

Back to Sedona, AZ where it all began

Blogging from the beautiful Red Rocks of Sedona, Arizona.  Jana and I have been here for the last week for some post harvest R&R.  This is our 8th time here since we were engaged here 12 years ago at the top of Cathedral Rock.  Of course we made our pilgrimage to the top with some sandwiches and a bottle of the 2004 Cathedral.  For some reason the wine really tasted great at the top of Cathedral Rock.  Both the Jana Cathedral and Rose can be purchased here in Sedona at a wonderful deli called Aroma.  Jana is the photographer between us so she'll be blogging with pictures from our wonderful hikes through the snow covered Red Rock country of Sedona.

Sutter Creek Holiday Open House

The Grand Opening of the new Scott Harvey Tasting room location at 79 Main St. culminated with Sutter Creek's Holiday Open House.  The town was filled with people enjoying an old-fashioned Christmas--and our Tasting room was no exception. 

We looked forward to the inauguration of Music & Wine in the Alley on Sunday with the other two Tasting Rooms that are now in town--Sutter Creek Tasting Room (which has been there for 12 years) and the new Vine 49 which is also a wine bar.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not cooperate.  It was truly a Christmas weekend.  We got an unexpected and very rare snowfall.  Below is a picture of the Spinetta Vineyard (one of our Barbera Vineyards) on December 6.

Putting the wines to bed for the season

Now that all the grapes are in and most are pressed off and in barrel, it is time to monitor Mother nature, trying to stay one step ahead of her.  When you think of it, the term winemaker is a misnomer.  We don’t make the wine, Mother nature makes it.  It is a natural process that goes from grape juice to vinegar.  We as winemakers only manage the path of the natural process it goes down and create conditions so the grape juice develops to the wine stage in the process and not all the way to vinegar.  So, now we are constantly pulling samples of the new wines.  Running sensory and lab evaluations to determine where the wine is in its development and deciding what conditions to create so that mother nature develops the nectar of the vine into wonderful delicious bottled poetry.  What a wonderful job being able to work side by side with Mother nature and be able to take such pleasure in the final product.   

 

Blogging Inspiration from ZAP

Scott and I attended the general meeting for ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates & Producers) hosted at V. Sattui in Napa Valley yesterday.  It's a terrific organization and really works hard at promoting Zinfandel.  Scott was one of the founding members 16 years ago.  Today we make five Zinfandels (Vineyard 1869, Scott Harvey Amador Old Vine, Scott Harvey Amador Mountain Selection, Jana Napa Old Vine, and InZinerator) so it's a variety that's very important to us.

After a delicious lunch, the meeting portion began.  A scholarship fund at Sonoma State is being set up in honor of Don Reison, formerly of Ridge Vineyards.  In addition, they announced a raffle fundraiser for an amazing trip to Hawaii--roundtrip airfare for 4 and a 7 night stay at the Marriott Wialea.  Raffle tickets are only $20 apiece for this wonderful opportunity.  Contact us if you're interested.

Featured speakers were the following bloggers:  Andy Gamitian who created Flights Wine Blog, Christian Oggenfuss of www.vintuba.com, a wine centered video and podcasting blog, Thea Dwelle, Luscious Lushes blog, Ray Johnson author of The Good Life and Enjoying Wine, and Russ Beebe, Winehiker Witiculture.  The Twitter and social media specialist was Lisa Adams Walter of Adams Walter Communications.  Most of the speakers were early pioneers of blogging and it's been beneficial to their careers.  I'm glad Scott was there because now that harvest is over, I hope you will see many more posts from him.  He has a lot of knowledge to share. 

Wine & Magic Blended into One Great Event in Napa Valley

Back in June, I wrote about a great wine tasting/magic show that we participated in in Chico.  Well, now we are going to host  one in St. Helena. (along with our Fulton Lane neighbors--Big Horn Cellars, Calafia & David Fulton Winery).   Proceeds will benefit the St. Helena Kiwanis.

This is the first event of its kind for Napa Valley--an afternoon of Enchantment with international champion magician, David Minkin.  He has performed for the likes of Johnny Depp, Chriss Angel, & Rob Reiner.  The hardest part was determining a date when all of us AND the magician would be available.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize all the winemakers are scrambling in the thick of harvest.

Two Wine Tours & Shows on Sunday, October 11th.

Tour #1 begins 1:00 pm

Tour #2 begins 4:00 pm -  Limited Seating - 50 seats per show

Start your tour @ 890 Fulton Lane for Wine Tasting of five wines from Big Horn Cellars, Calafia, Scott Harvey, and Jana Wines paired with hors d'oeuvres from Fulton Lane's own Panevino--one of Napa's finest caterers.

An hour later you will meander across the street to David Fulton Winery for a taste of their acclaimed Petit Sirah and settle in to be amazed by David Minken's one hour of magic.

Amble across vineyard lined Fulton Lane to our house to enjoy dessert, chocolates, port and dessert wines and we can celebrate the magician, David Minkin's birthday.  This is where you can redeem your $20 gift certificate for a 4 pack of wines and have an opportunity to purchase any of the wines tasted at a 15% discount.

It would be great to see you there.  You can purchase tickets at www.scottharveywines.com/magic

Relocating our Tasting Room in Sutter Creek on September 19

After almost three years in our wonderful little, historic building that housed our tasting room, we have decided to move to Main St.  The town of Sutter Creek is only a few blocks long, but being on Eureka St. just a block off Main Street, made it difficult for people to find us.

We discovered a spot about twice the size of our current tasting room right next to the Foxes Bed and Breakfast. Here are a few pictures of the empty building.  We someday hope to utilize the upstairs with its widow's walk for private tastings and seminars.

 

We've been working hard building walls and getting everything ready.  The wine bar will be three times the size so we're hoping for three times the sales.  There are two wine tasting rooms in Sutter Creek right now with another one scheduled very soon.  We all hope to have Sutter Creek-the town Sunset Magazine declared to be the gold country's best- become a wine destination. It truly is the jewel of the mother lode.

Scott's daughter, Paulette Harvey Williams, and long time resident, "Muffin" Simpson will be taking care of day to day operations.

Saturday, September 19 will be our opening with a Grand Opening to follow later in the fall.  Stay tuned for great deals all weekend, however.

Mention you read this blog and you have the opportunity to purchase a 3 Liter Double Magnum of Syrah for $30 (Regular $85)

Hope to see you there

Winery economics

We are often asked how a standard winery business plan works.  As with so many things these days it is changing as our style of marketing changes.  In the past we depended on and sold most of our wine through distributors in what is known as the three tiersystem.  We produce wine, it is sold to a distributor who sells it to a store or restaurant who then sells it to you. 

Lets say our cost of goods (what it cost to produce a case of wine) is $50.  We then sell that wine trying to generate a 50% gross margin, which means we would sell the wine to the distributor for $100. Out of the $50 generated above the cost of goods we allocate $20 for cost of sales (what it cost to sell the wine, salesperson wages and expenses, any discounts, travel etc.) and $20 for general and administrative (the cost run the wine company) and hopefully there is a $10 bill left for profit.  It is what we call the 50, 20, 20, 10 rule.

The distributor than takes the case of wine they paid $100 for and add their laid in cost, (what it cost them to get the wine to their state and their warehouse, any state taxes, etc.)  The typical laid in cost for a case of wine from our Napa Valley warehouse to a distributor in Chicago is about $8 dollars.  So they take the laid in cost , now $108 and work off of that.  The distributor then marks the wine up 33% on laid in cost or 25% of their selling price.  This number is the same, $35.64.  $35.64 is 33% of $108 or 25% of $143.65.  Often,if the distributor will be offering quantity discounts, they will add this to the asking price, so they can discount it back.

Next the store takes its purchase price, now $144 and and works on 50% on cost or 33% on sale.  This number is $72.  $72 is 50% of $144 or 33% of $216.  So the case of wine that cost me $50 ($4.17/bottle) cost the wine buyer in Chicago $216 case or $18.00 per bottle. 

This distribution three tier system is rapidly being taken over by the larger wine companies that can get and hold onto the distributors attention.  As a small winery the amount of money generated by our brands for the distributor is far less than that of a large higher volume winery.  The amount of attention the distributor sales staff gives your wine is directly correlated to the percentage of gross revenue your brand generates for the distributor.  Therefore, we are being forced to find other ways to get our wine to the consumer.  If we can sell our wines direct to the customer either through our internet website, our tasting rooms, wine clubs, third party internet websites, we can keep a higher percentage of the customer dollar or sell the wine for less.  As we slowly change from the three tier distributor system to direct sales our 50,20,20,10 rule changes more to a 60,30,20,10 rule or 70,35,25,10 rule. 

Blogging and the Opportunities it Creates

This blog is the first of what will hopefully be a daily blog.  A new discipline that I'm told I need to do for the ever changing way that wine is sold.  Actually, I think it is a good idea and a great opportunity to better communicate with our enjoyable and wonderful customers.

 

A high percentage of winemakers enjoy staying in the winery and the wine lab and are not fond of meeting the actual people that enjoy their art.  When you have a winemaker that is a people person, you have a real asset.  What better person to explain the art behind each wine than the person who put it together.  The winemaker is the most credible person for this job.  If they enjoy people and are good at public speaking, they are the best person to convey the wine's story.

 

For the last thirty seven years I have been doing just this selling wine through the three tier distribution system by visiting each market area.  While there I’ll ride around with sales people visiting wine shops and restaurants, do tastings for the distributor sales staff,  tastings for restaurant staffs and winemaker dinners all to get the story out. 

 

Along comes the internet.  A new opportunity to tell the wine's story directly to anyone interested in reading the blog.  How wonderful!  Now I can do it from my office, while looking out the window over the beautiful Napa Valley Vineyards.  Only problem, my prose seem to flow in an understandable fashion, but my spelling is horrific.  Thank goodness for spell check.

Verasion in the Napa Valley

It's August in Napa Valley and a buzz word dominates the conversations between winemakers and growers.  The word verasion signals the beginning of harvest.  We all know that a high energy time of year is right around the corner.

There is certainly a lot of excitement at our house when verasion starts.  The reason that verasion is important is because it tells us when harvest will be.  When the first berries start turning purple, we record that date.  During the next two week period, we record the changes.  Once all the grapes are purple (full verasion) it will be 40 to 45 days until harvest.  We know now when we are going to be really busy.  I get excited as I discoverthe distinctive characteristics that this vintage gives us as I taste the first purple berries.  This vintage is shaping up to be one of the best!

Riesling Wars at the St. Helena Wine Center Napa Valley vs. Germany

Our local wine shop, the St. Helena Wine Center, does weekly tastings which are pretty creative.  A couple of weeks ago it was Napa vs. Germany in a Riesling tasting.  Among the Napa producers was our Jana 2007 Old Vine Riesling, Trefethen 2007 Dry Riesling, the 2008 Smith Madrone Spring Mountain, 2008 Terra Valentine Spring Mountain, Egelhoff 2008 Riesling and the 1995 Stony Hill. 

The German wines were a 2007 Von Simmern Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen Kabinett Troken (troken means dry), 2007 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Spatlese Troken, 2007 Stephan Erdener Treppchen Feinherb Kabinett, 2007 Dr. loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatelese, 2007 Donnhoff Schlossbockelheimer Kupfergrube Spatelese and the 1990 Richter Veldenzer Elisenberg Spatlese.

Three of us Napa producers went through the wines together, Jana & I, Stu from Smith Madrone and Hailey from Trefethen.  All the wines were great showing both ageability and the many sides to Riesling.

The Napa Rieslings except for ours where produced in a higher alcohol richer style.  Napa Valley produces grapes with full maturity, but not over ripe maturity at 22 Brix, while Germany gets mature flavors at lower brix.  Germany being a cold climate grape growing region needs to let the grapes hang longer into the fall to reach grape maturity, and because of the long hang time reaches maturity at lower brix maintaining higher acidity.  The difference betwwen Napa (what I call warm climate Riesling) and Germany (cold cimate Riesling) was well shown in the wines poured.  Both styles are delicious.  You could tell by what we all purchased what each of us preferred.  I ended up taking home the Von Simmern and the Selbach-Oster.  Our Rieslings are made more in the German Halb Troken Kabinett style.  It takes some careful experienced winemaking to develop this cold climate style from Napa's warm climate grapes.