XChateau Wine Podcast

Sharing a name causes confusion. Trademark and appellation laws are there to protect them. However, it can be harder to resolve when this confusion is within the same country. That’s the challenge Montepulciano (both the town and and the wine Vino Nobile di Montepulciano) faces against its bigger neighbor Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Max de Zarobe of Avignonesi describes the history, challenges, and s...

The low and no alcohol wine space is growing rapidly. Enough so that a company specializing in spinning cone technology to reduce alcohol, ConeTech, changed its name to BevZero . Debbie Novograd, CEO, and Kayla Winter, Director of Product Services & Winemaking, discuss the technology, the challenges of producing good no alcohol wine, and the market for low and no alcohol wines. &nbsp...

With the rapidly changing social media landscape, TikTok has started (as of late 2021, early 2022) to arrive as a place for wine lovers. Wine influencer Amanda McCrossin ( somm_vivant ) has gained momentum in this “wild west” and now has over 100k followers. She shares her journey, best practices, and what makes TikTok special.  Detailed Show Notes:  Former sommelier and wine d...

Constantly looking to improve its environmental impact, Jason Haas, Second Generation Proprietor of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, recently released a trial of 3L bag-in-box wines at $95/box. Though this is 15% lower than the normal bottle price, it still represented ~3x the highest boxed wine in the market. However, the potential to lower the total carbon footprint of the wine by...

Combining a passion for wine with a background in marketing to Millennials from Proctor and Gamble, Ben Matthews launched Terratorium Wines . Building a brand for Millennials has led to creating target personas, packaging elements that lead to more transparency, and pricing to create a fine wine entry point. Hear about how Terratorium is creating brand alignment with its Millennial custo...

Taking over from his father, 2nd generation proprietor of Tablas Creek Vineyard , Jason Haas left a career in technology to dig into the soils of Paso Robles. Spearheading the conversion to Biodynamic farming and now the certification of Regenerative Organic farming, Tablas Creek has pioneered not just the Rhone movement in California, but of Regenerative farming, which looks to take into account...

Seemingly overnight, 19 Crimes , a division of Treasury Wine Estates , has become a Top 15 brand in the US and has a global impact. Re-imagining what a wine brand could be, 19 Crimes has had many innovations, but found lasting success with augmented reality and celebrity partnerships with Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. Ming Alterman, Brand Director for 19 Crimes, gives us the history, best practic...

Using her background in graphic design and inability to read large blocks of text, Madeline Puckette, Co-Founder and Content Director of Wine Folly , has transformed wine communication using infographics and other writing methods to enable wine discovery for more people. What started as a content marketing strategy for a planned wine club, Wine Folly has become one of the core landing sites for wi...

With an outsider's perspective, Jason Wise, director of the SOMM movies and founder of SOMM TV , has been able to find stories in the world of wine that interest a broad audience. In order to control more of the content pipeline and how the shows are distributed, Jason founded SOMM TV. Using "Somm" as more of a curator, SOMM TV has wine at its core and covers food, travel, and other alcohol, makin...

Having studied what was important to wine consumers working at Oddbins, a British wine retailer, Nicholas Hammeken, Founder and Director of Innovation at Hammeken Cellars, founded a company focused on crafting Spanish wines that match consumer preferences. He develops concepts with unique selling propositions, plays to modern tastes, and tries to be an ambassador of affordable luxury. Nicholas tel...

An ongoing trend and a topic that crisscrossed many of our interviews on XChateau, the natural wine movement got a formal designation in March of 2020. It specifies a set of vineyard and winery practices to qualify for the designation. We discuss the potential challenges of implementing the designation and the potential impacts on producers, retailers, and consumers.   This episode originally aire...

Wondering why there was only beer and spirits but no wine at Crossfit events and races, Mark Warren and Tom Beaton, Founders of FitVine , decided to start their own brand. With a goal of making wine more transparent and approachable, FitVine aims to “fit into your lifestyle.” At the $15-20/bottle price point, FitVine is bringing more Gen X and Millennials into the wine category with wine that tast...

Ever been curious about the claims people make about “clean wines”? In the same camp as “natural wines” and “better for you wines,” clean wines have no definition and often deploy misleading marketing to get you to buy their wines. They take advantage of the trend, particularly with Millenials, around a healthy lifestyle and spread misinformation in their marketing, according to sommelier and wine...

Grocery stores are one of the biggest sales channels for wine. Curtis Mann, Group Vice President of Alcohol of the Albertson’s Companies , gives us the inside scoop on buying trends, how to sell into Albertson’s, and the rise of the use of digital. Learn about the dynamics of the grocery wine market and what makes Albertson’s “locally great, nationally strong.” Don’t forget - you can support the s...

With a vision to democratize wine for every wine drinker in the US, Underground Cellar’s founder and CEO Jeffrey Shaw and COO Jeff Hardy are focused on building a unique and disruptive platform for buying wine.  Leveraging gamification principles, Underground Cellar gives you upgrades to the wines you buy, giving customers access to more expensive and rare wines.  This has expanded into free wine...

Sommelier turned wine consultant turned online wine retailer.  Thatcher Baker-Briggs, Founder of Thatcher’s Wine Consulting , has continued to evolve and expand his presence, helping clients drink better and navigate some of the intricacies of Burgundy and other fine and geeky wines.  He tells us about his journey, how email responsiveness is a competitive advantage, and how he believes some of th...

2021.  A year with big expectations.  The re-opening of economies around the world with Covid vaccines in distributions instead led to fits and starts with the Delta and Omicron variants.  Wine pricing and costs went through gyrations with the tariffs between the EU and US imposed and then lifted and supply chain disruptions creating both cost and availability issues.  And clean and natural wines...

An early mover focusing on fine wine, Bordeaux and California futures, and becoming a dual importer/retailer, Addy Bassin’s MacArthur Beverages has become a wine institution in Washington DC.  Phil Bernstein, General Manager of the brick & mortar wine retail store and importer, tells us about how he thinks about wine pricing, direct importing wines, the changes in consumer buying patterns, and mor...

As the largest wine e-commerce site globally, Wine.com has been a leader in leveraging technology to sell wine. Addie Wallace, Director of Brand Marketing, gives us insight into how wine.com leverages the marketing funnel to drive awareness and conversion, has built a differentiated offering online, and is pushing the boundaries of customization with their new personalized wine club Picked . There...

Beginning a series on the Future of Retail, we chat with Dave Parker, CEO of Benchmark Wine Group , on how he segments the retail wine market, the unique issues of rare wine, and emerging trends in the space.  Listen in to learn about what regions are selling well, the importance of email marketing, a mobile-first mindset, and many other topics that will shape wine retail for the coming decade.  ...

Having experienced the difference in taste from wines sourced ex-chateau versus the secondary market, Denis Houles, CEO of 1275 Collections , is on a mission to create a new wine asset class of pristine conditions wines. Denis and Erik Portanger, Head of Strategy at 1275 Collections, tell us about the industry-wide issues around provenance, particularly with transportation and storage, and how 127...

Building the app while on sabbatical from Microsoft in 2003, Eric LeVine, CEO and founder of CellarTracker, had been close to a one-person show until recently.  Yet, he’s built one of the most useful productivity tools for wine collectors, an engaged community of geeky wine lovers, and a respectable business that he’s now investing in to grow and take to new heights for the benefit of the CellarTr...

As the only fine wine end-to-end solution in the US, Vinfolio has recently launched its wine investment service, leveraging its deep expertise in the fine wine arena. Don St. Pierre, Executive Chairman, and Adam Lapierre MW, President, tell us about Vinfolio's history, how the marketplace, storage solution, and VinCellar work together, as well as get into their recent foray into wine investment. A...

As the wine investment business leader with $275M of assets under management, Cult Wines has been a pioneer in the space for over a decade.  Born out of a passion for wine, Tom Gearing, CEO and founder of Cult Wines, tries to balance the head and heart elements of investing in wine with actively managed portfolios by CFAs and experiences with some of the top wineries of the world.  Tom shares all...

A serial entrepreneur, Anthony Zhang, was pondering alternative investments and fell into wine.  With superior returns to the S&P 500, less volatility, and low correlation with the stock market, wine investment seemed like a perfect category to democratize with technology.  Anthony tells us why people should consider investing in wine, the Vinovest investment process, and how wine investment may i...