Small Fortune Podcast

The Small Fortune Podcast is centered on the stories of entrepreneurial and small business success in the wine industry, but the lessons from large company management can be useful too. In today’s podcast, host Carol Collison speaks with Stephen Brauer, currently an industry consultant who has senior management experience at some of the wine industry’s largest companies. The two discuss why this m...

Randall Grahm is a highly creative person whose ideas have been expressed in a number of well-known and successful brands. At various times during his career his Big House, Cardinal Zin, and Bonny Doon wine labels were sold to others, and now he has turned his unique point of view to the creation of a “sense of place”, or terroir, at his estate in San Benito on the Central Coast of California.  Gr...

Glenn Proctor’s family has been growing grapes on a ~200-acres ranch in the Dry Creek Valley since 1904. Today he is not only a grape grower but a proprietor of a small family wine label (Puccioni Vineyards) and a Partner in the Ciatti Global Wine & Grape Brokers. While the subject of the industry’s current grape and wine supply/demand challenges does come up, most of the conversation is about...

It seems unusual to describe a B2B business as a luxury offering but as Silverado Farming Company has evolved over its 25 years, that is the positioning that its founder Pete Richmond has sought. In host Carol’s first interview with a vineyard management company owner, you will hear how Richmond has developed his business to emphasize key attributes of luxury: exclusivity, quality, prestige, and s...

Today’s wine business has been shaped by pioneers like Jule Ann Kodmur, who worked on an early Sotheby’s wine auction, and then worked for many important distributors and wine companies. She started her own consulting firm in 1997. Julie Ann and host Carol Collison talk through the differences between working for a company and being self-employed, but most importantly Julie Ann shares many, many g...

Jenny Heinzen is the Broker and Principal of Vineyard Professional Real Estate in Paso Robles, CA. She is the leading seller of winery and vineyard properties in this market. Why would Carol Collison, a winery M&A advisor, invite a fellow professional on her podcast? It’s because Jenny and Carol aren’t really direct competitors. In this conversation you’ll hear the difference between the two p...

With American wines off Canadian shelves and tourists staying home and visiting local attractions, now is a great time to be a wine producer in Canada.  Hear what’s happening in this interview with Paul Speck, President of Henry of Pelham Estate Winery, the third largest wine company in Canada founded in 1984 on land that had been in the family since the 18th century. The company is based in the N...

Back in mid-2024, Episode #25, Carol interviewed Megan Bell, owner of Margins Winery in Santa Cruz, California. Megan had been profiled in the SF Chronicle about the increasing challenges in the wine business. Two years later she was profiled again for having ended her wine company, and host Carol Collison asked her back to talk through her process of deciding to wind down the business, and the sa...

Among many the keys to professional success in corporate environments that are discussed in this episode are: make what’s best for the business your “north star” (then your career will take care of itself); focus on the big picture (don’t get lost in the data); but also prioritize your efforts based on data.  Host Carol and her guest Carol also discuss challenges that women managers can face and i...

Cathy Huyghe began her career as a writer for Forbes Magazine, writing on the wine business and related business issues. In 2009 she and her co-founder launched a data analytics firm, Enolytics, which takes winery client sales data from all channels and returns actionable information about where and how the winery can improve its sales results. Recently they have incorporated “AI” technology (spec...

Learn about how Gary Mortensen, President of Stoller Wine Group thinks about business strategy. Gary shares lots of great ideas about how to think creatively about your wine business and how to innovate. Hear what a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is and how it can assist your strategic thinking. These concepts are as important to a small winery as a large one. As...

After finishing a long and successful career in the California wine industry, Fred Reno retired to Virginia, the original American winegrowing region. Vines were first planted there in 1619 under orders from the British crown. They were hoping to find an alternative to French wine in its then-colonies. The founding fathers were investors in the wine business too, in 1773. In this 250th anniversary...

Andy Hoxsey’s family came to the Napa Valley in the early 20th century and through successive generations have farmed and sold grapes, as well as taken significant entrepreneurial risks.  Andy tells the story of his (and the Pelissa family’s) acquisition of Napa Wine Company in 1993, with the expressed intention of creating the first high-touch custom crush business, certainly in the Napa Valley b...

While looking through LinkedIn comments on the platform, host Carol Collison came across a fascinating marketing campaign for a high-end wine product released on Black Friday: Tank Garage’s Black Market. She reached out to the winery’s General Manager to learn more. In this conversation you’ll hear what a wine company founded and managed by marketing professionals looks like. Tank Garage is a comp...

Third generation wine business owner Jason Haas joins host Carol Collison to talk about how his “Tablas Creek Blog,” which he’s maintained consistently for 20 years, has helped him promote his Paso Robles-based wine brand. The discussion identifies the reasons why the blog has helped his business, why he is able to stick with it, and touches on other newer social media efforts. In addition, the su...

In this episode of the Small Fortune Podcast, host Carol Collison talks with fellow UCLA Bruin and IRS Records founder-turned-winemaker Jay Boberg. Jay talks about the difference between launching a band and launching a wine brand, why he and partner Jean Nicolas Meo chose Oregon’s Willamette Valley (hint: profitability is in that mix),  and various growth strategies such as developing a brand fir...

Listen in on a live panel discussion from Wine Business Monthly’s 34th Annual Wine Industry Financial Symposium. Event Host Erin Kirschenmann, Managing Editor of Wine Business Monthly, invited a group of financial professionals in the wine industry to share their insights and observations about current financial markets: Carol Collison M&A Advisor and podcast host; Tony Correia, vineyard and w...

In this episode, host Carol Collison talks with Janie Heuck, who is Managing Director of her late brother Jimi Brooks’ eponymous wine company, based in the Oregon’s Willamette Valley. This wine company’s history tells the unique story of the collaborative nature of the wine industry. Janie stepped in when her brother died tragically in the midst of harvest in 2004. With the help of Jimi’s friends...

It can be done.  Learn from one of Napa Valley’s greats about how he started his winery – V. Sattui - in the ‘70’s with a shoestring budget and built a business so profitable he was able to construct a 150,000 square foot medieval Italian castle with the proceeds.  In this interview, Carol and Dario outline the keys to his success: focus on sales, control costs, and plan for catastrophes.  Small F...

In addition to being an experienced manager of hospitality teams, Alysha Lee is a great storyteller. She and host Carol Collison discuss important management issues illustrated though Alysha’s tales from the trenches of modern luxury hospitality management. At Montage Resorts, she learned about creating memorable experiences and customer relationship management before the advent of CRM systems. At...

Listen and learn from an expert. John Glazewski, Director of Distributor Partnerships at one of the largest wine companies in the world, shares his wisdom on how to succeed in distribution, which can be summarized as follows: Show Up. Hear his advice on strategies for choosing the right market and distributor; how to engage with your distributor to obtain maximum performance in their market; the i...

John Gillespie and host Carol Collison discuss his most recent market report, “Wine in Decline,” which queries non or low- consumers of alcoholic beverages about how their perceptions may be affecting wine sales. The survey results are fascinating, and the conversation centers on the evidence from this research that some consumers view wine as too expensive or not a good value. For example, the su...

In this episode, host Carol Collison speaks with Ori Katz, Partner in the Finance and Bankruptcy Practice at the law firm Sheppard Mullin about when and how business owners should approach their creditors when their financial situation is deteriorating. Topics include: the importance of having a clear understanding of your financial situation; how lenders think about their risks and how that affec...

BMO Managing Director Mario Zepponi, a leading Merger and Acquisitions advisor and podcast host Carol Collison, also an M&A Advisor, recap the deal market in the two years since Mario was last on the podcast (Ep: 7, October ’23.)  Topics of discussion include how the decline in consumer wine demand has affected transactions, changes in the buyer set, valuations, what types of transactions may...

In this episode, fellow Berkeley Haas School MBAs and podcasters (!) Carol Collison and Mike Chaput discuss Mike’s journey to establishing his successful, high-growth IT services company, Endsight. Mike outlines concepts in technology, including how agentic AI might be used by wineries to increase DTC sales and operational efficiency. The conversation also includes the experience and lessons Mike...