We Wear Many Hats

Brad Post:

When most people think of working in a winery they probably conjure images of the winemaker, the tasting room attendant, or someone out in the vineyard tending the vines. And for large winery operations it's probably a valid conceptualization, however, for most of us in the wine business, those of us in a small-to-mid sized winery, we wear many hats.

In 2005 I began playing around with making wine and shortly thereafter enrolled in an enology (wine science) program.  By 2008 my interests took me to a local winery where, until June, I volunteered to learn winery operations and gained a great deal of knowledge.  With my shiny new wine making credentials in hand and my college teaching baggage behind me, I sought full time employment.

The wine gods must have been smiling on me because, in short order, I found myself up to my neck in a job, whose making was my own.  You see in these parts of the country it isn't often a guy can find full time employment in a winery, frankly because most operations are small family-run enterprises, but I was lucky.

Understanding wine from the perspective of a winemaker, and as a vocal advocate for a regional wine industry, was a bonus as I began my new endeavor.  As the External Relations Manager, a fancy new title that captures everything from public and social media relations, writing and editing, to my main focus - strengthening and building a wholesale program, I wear many hats.

Some days I visit potential wholesale/retail accounts, other days I deliver wines, many days are filled with scheduling my volunteer wine ambassadors monthly wine tastings.  There are days when I work behind the tasting room bar serving guests, while other times I shoot a short video and post on YouTube, but all times I am thrilled to be part of a growing local wine industry.

I'd like to think that I am somehow special in this way but I know I am not.  I meet many colleagues who wear the same hats, perhaps in different ways, but we are all trying hard to do it right.

The days become weeks and weeks blend together too quickly.  The Summer events are now the snapshots I visit on my Facebook photo album, and our harvest, which began in late August finally reached its zenith last week with the delivered Cabernet, Merlot and Zinfandel.  I rode shotgun during the fermentation while the winemaker took a week-long vacation.  Another hat.  Working in the cellar doing Punch Downs and Pump-Over operations was enjoyable and brought me back to my wine making roots.  I've missed that.

Can't help but wonder what's in store as the next year approaches and what style of hat I'll be wearing. 

Cheers, my wine friends!
~Brad


















 

Hobby Gone Wild!!

Brad Post:

When I lived in Moscow, Idaho about a decade ago I had a neighbor, Heidi, who brewed her own beer, root beer, and made fruit wine from wild plums.  Me, immersed in the quagmire of a PhD program, thought to myself “wouldn’t that be wonderful to do”?  I even purchased a how-to book from the local bookstore and promptly placed it on my bookshelf, where it remained as I sank deeper into an academic black hole.

Fall 2005 arrived with me and my family settling in to our new home in Iowa.  And on a late autumn day, my wife, left for a weekend science educators conference somewhere in western Iowa.  Not knowing anyone in my new, little town, I picked up and dusted off that same book which five years ago intrigued me (and to be honest, kind of intimated me).  It wasn’t necessarily a page-turner, but I couldn’t stop reading – I was hooked!

Since then, I’ve immersed myself in wine: wine making, wine growing, wine history, wine regions, oh, and let’s not forget wine tasting and drinking!

Shortly after my epiphany, or whatever you want to call it, I began making wine and not long after that I found others with similar interests. 

• 2005 – Read home wine making book
• 2006 – Began making wine at home.  First batch explodes in bottle. 
• 2007 – With four others, established the Eastern Iowa Wine Club, an amateur winemakers group.  Our group has grown to more than 100 followers and about 25 regular participants.
• 2007 – Started “Two Wine Brothers” as a way to stay connected with my brother, Terry.
• 2008 – Began taking wine science classes at Des Moines Area Community College.  Also began volunteering at Fireside Winery.  Fantasized about owning a winery.
• 2009 – Conducted market research for Iowa wine trail under Johnson Research Studio.
• 2009 – Started working part-time at Fireside helping out as winemaker assistant.
• 2010 – Launched Winedustry: wine news for the “other” grapes -- An online wine industry news, information and collaboration website for makers and growers living in nontraditional areas.
• 2011 – Launched Midwest Wine Review: An online wine review website for Midwestern wines. 
• 2011 – Hired by Fireside Winery to serve as their External Relations guy.  Will be working to maintain, build and expand wholesale program, and manage and grow public relations and social media.

What began as a hobby, grew into a passion, and continues to evolve deeper into the wine industry.  I am thrilled and excited to be a part of this booming Midwestern wine industry and look forward to seeing how the next few years unfolds.

Cheers!
Brad

What the Progress in Automotive Headlights has to tell us about Choosing which Grapes to Grow in the Midwest

The headlights on nascent automobiles were first seen in the 1880s . Similar to those which had preceded them on the railroad, these acetylene oil lanterns provided 50 feet, or so, of visibility.

With a vehicle chugging along at 25 miles per hour that 50 feet ahead of him provided the driver approximately 1.36 seconds of visibility ahead.

Fast forward into the modern era and low-beam headlights now provide about 160 feet of visibility. With the vehicle travelling at 65 miles per hour the driver has approximately 1.46 seconds of visibility ahead.

Not much has changed.

In over one hundred years of automotive engineering we have improved the ability to the driver to see the road ahead, and react to changes ahead, by one-tenth of a second.

So, has your ability to peer into the foggy road of wine improved?

Growing grapes and its first derivative, wine making, requires the ability to see into the future.

In the recent past, those in agriculture would receive insight from those with technical expertise: the sort of expertise which would say to grow this and to not grow that.

The answer today is increasingly to be found by the interactions with your customers and continuously collecting information. On a daily basis your customers will tell you what they like and what they don’t like with their purchases. Consider:

Social Networking. This is THE way to engage with the millennials. If you are not on Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis you are missing an important avenue to connect with these new wine consumers.

Direct to Consumer Sales. Most wineries think about sales only and staff the tasting room with less than knowlegable staff. Granted: Sales from the tasting room are the way to open the door for interactions with the consumer. Think of this critical face-to-face meeting as your single greatest opportunity to create a life-long customer. But you don't always sell, and if you don't sell you should not pass up this opportunity to gain some insight. Consider collecting one piece of information from each visitor.

Wine Clubs. Once signed up, wine club members retain membership on average for two years. Think: two bottles per month for twenty four months.

Bottom line: Merely keeping up with the competition is not sufficient if you are to grow your business. An aggressive set of strategies is required to connect with, gather information from, and make sales to your customers.

Lips as Sweet as Strawberry Wine

Brad Post:

The Two Wine Brothers recently began writing about summer wines with my older brother leading the way. His reviews have included pieces on Vermouth, White Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. My contributions to the Summer Wine Series will focus on Midwestern wines.

Few things remind me more of the beginning of summer than a trip to a strawberry farm and my first review captures the pure essence of that. When I was much younger and living in Belding, Michigan I used to find occasional work as a field-hand in nearby strawberry farms, bending over I'd pick one for the owner and then I'd pick one for the worker – yum!  This wine takes me back to those wonderfully rose-colored memories, strikingly similar to the rose-colored hues of the wine I am about to describe.

Few wines elicit such romantically inspired verse as does strawberry wine – “lips as sweet as strawberry wine”.

This Strawberry wine is the winner of a Silver Medal in the 2009 Mid-American Wine Competition and was crafted by Breitenbach Winery. Located near Dover, Ohio, Breitenbach makes a wide assortment of wines and is well known for creating lovely fruit wines in addition to their traditional line of grape wine.

You want a fruit wine to deliver fruit aromas and flavors and this NV Breitenbach Strawberry American Wine provides heaps of it! Moreover, you want your strawberry wine to look, well, to look like strawberries and it does! Potent fresh strawberries on the nose and in the glass, rich and thick legs suggest a sweet wine. My palate was pleasantly surprised with a blast of STRAWBERRIES in a gorgeously balanced, just the right amount of sweetness (6% residual sugar) and acidity. RECOMMENDED! 

This summertime strawberry sweetie is the kind of wine that arouses the poetic side of me and so I’ll end this posting with a short poem by “The Flowing Pen”:

Strawberry Wine

A seductive potion to bring me bliss

As I drink it off of your sultry lips

And your fingers intertwine with mine

Lust brought forth from strawberry wine

A taste that pales the sweetest nectar

As I lie in your arms lost forever

Two bodies joining like moon and sun

Passion drives us until we are one

An aphrodisiac some could very well say...

Who ever knew that love would feel this way

I'd like to sit and drink with you one more time

Toasting love and laughter with Strawberry Wine

~THE FLOWING PEN~

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Cheers my friends, enjoy all that summertime has to offer and I hope you’ll take time to seek out the Midwestern wines I suggest.

~Brad