Drink This Instead | Ryan Rech & Taylor Harris | Barrels and Roots

In this episode of Barrels and Roots, I sit down with Ryan and Taylor, the winemakers behind Polemonium Wines, to unpack what’s really happening inside the wine industry and why so many things need to change. 

We get into their journey from working inside massive legacy brands to breaking out on their own, driven by a belief that wine should be more transparent, more human, and more connected to the people who actually drink it. What stood out to me most was how much the industry has shifted. People don’t just want a label anymore, they want a story, a face, and something real behind the bottle. We talk about why social media and conversation matter more than polished marketing, how smaller producers are navigating distribution challenges, and why “clean” wine and transparency are becoming non-negotiable for the next generation of drinkers. This conversation also dives into how to actually choose a good bottle, what most consumers are missing when they walk into a store, and why wine should still be about connection, not status. It really made me rethink how I look at wine, not as a luxury or a flex, but as a shared experience that brings people together in a way almost nothing else can.

So here’s the question I keep thinking about after this one… when you pick up a bottle of wine, are you choosing the label or the story behind it?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My parents were landscapers for the film industry. And part of what that entailed was spending a lot of time outside watering plants in the heat, which sucked, honestly. But while I was out there watering plants, I had a lot of time to just kind of look around at things and kind of observe nature. Um, and so be able to spend time out there and realizing, you know, how much complexity is just in this little area around you. Like you can be watering a bush and there's like a bird in it, and a bug, and there's water and soil, and all these things. And it was so interesting just to kind of see all of these systems, and then they're just everywhere and realizing that it's also interconnected. So as I got older and kind of started getting into food, my mom was really cool. Um, she really liked wine. And as I got older, she would let me smell it, and eventually she'll let me taste the wine, and then we were gonna try to talk about it. Like we didn't know, she wasn't fancy, they weren't buying fancy bottles, it would just be like, you know, bottles of J. Lore or whatever, but we'd figure it out. And that was really interesting. Like finding that connection then between like food and texture and flavors and aromas.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Uh welcome everyone back to Barrels and Roots Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have two awesome guests with me today, which like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, so we are Taylor and Ryan. We are the owners and winemakers of a brand called Polimonium Wines. We just went independent three years ago, so self-funded. We do everything, it's a super exciting new adventure. But we got here after a series of decisions that we felt were very important.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

So talk to me about that. How did you get started? Because that's that sounds mysterious and awesome. Can you share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Absolutely. Yeah, it was actually originally Ryan's idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

So I mean, I think we thought uh we were both working on the industry for quite some time. So a little bit of our background. We used to, I mean, I used to work for some of the big companies. Um, I was a head winemaker and GM at Baringer uh till about 2022. Um and then Taylor worked for a group out of Napa as well. But we just saw a lot of needs in the wine industry kind of in those roles at the time. So um they were things we tried to do in our old roles, but uh they were ultimately came to a point where like this is probably something we could actually do on our own.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, it was actually kind of funny. Um, while we were working at Behringer, um, previous to Behringer, I was working with the Jean Hoffler White uh wine consultant. So a bunch of high-end boutique stuff throughout Napa, Apple Omega, AXR, Michel Roland, um, you know, the fancy stuff. So when we got together working at Behringer originally in what was that, 2021? 2021. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Ryan had already done a lot to overturn that uh like overhaul that Behringer portfolio. You know, a 140-year-old brand that needed some refreshment. So the wines had already made a dramatic improvement. So by the time I got there, we started working together. Um, it turned out that we had a lot of similarities with wine-making quality standards and also lifestyle. Uh so as we kind of started working together and making wine improvements, portfolio improvements, things like that, uh, Ryan started talking about how important social media was. Uh, you know, getting to these kids, like being sustainable, being transparent with the wines. And we did what we could while working on the Barrager brand. But again, it's a 140-year-old company, it's corporate-owned. Um, so there was a little bit of, you know, a digression with what the company wanted and kind of where we felt that wine needed to move. So, you know, as we tried to evolve what was originally your idea, you know, we just ended up finding out that going independent was the right way, right way to go.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

That's awesome. It's awesome too, because I I I wanna, and and you know what, everyone does what they do because of the reasons they do it. But I love that you guys are seeing that wine, the industry, the world is changing. And so like to reach people, you have to look at it a different way, you know. And I I think that they you can't try to like you can't try to keep doing the same things the same way when they're not working, you know? And I I love that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I know a lot of what I was saying, you know, beyond just like making wine. I spent a lot of time on the road selling wine. And you know, when you start visiting accounts and meeting consumers and talk to people, I mean the shift was noticeable. It was noticeable after 2020. And I think there was a lot of you know signs for the industry that we needed to move in a different direction. But to your point, like a lot of people just kind of wanted to say, oh, you know, we've been making wine, we've been doing things this way forever, so let's just keep at it until uh this clears up. But the reality is, as we've all seen in the industry, it's shifted a lot over the last five years. Um, and even you know, if I think further back my career over the last 10 years, uh just the way people want to connect with wine, yeah, uh the types of wines they want to drink, you know, connect's a big one. Uh people want to they want to see people behind the label, not just uh branding anymore.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

They want to connect with a story, not just you know, another product on the shelf.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I grew up in St. Helena. Uh my family moved up there when I was just starting high school. And my parents worked in up at Pacific Union College, the school up in Angwin, and they were educators. And I I grew up all around all the wineries and all of the everyone in that area. And one of the things to me is when I think about the industry, I think about all these amazing people because I worked at Meadowwood and I worked in a lot of different restaurants around, and my brother and my mom are still there. And, you know, when I think about the people like the names of all those wineries that are now famous were just people. They were people in and around that valley, you know, people that were just down-to-earth people like that were out there in the fields. They were farmers that were just making great things, and it's changed. And one of the things to me that I this this harvest, I hate to see the industry hurting because I know that the people that are doing stuff, I'm actually shooting a documentary this year where I'm coming back for harvest and gonna go and film at about as many different wineries as I can. I have like eight different wineries right now that have invited me. And the idea is going in and spending a day while they harvest and then just showing, showing what people do because I don't think people understand what goes into this. You know, I mean, you think about so many things, like you get some cheese, people don't realize what it takes to make that cheese, you know. You know, and I I don't think what was it that that I was blown away by a couple years ago, they had that that ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal, and people couldn't get toilet paper and stuff, you know. It's like there was just like this one ship that was stuck and stuff wasn't going, you know. It's fascinating too that when people just don't understand what goes into this beautiful bottle of wine, you know, it's like there are so many hands that have touched that from beginning to end. And I think that those are the stories we need to be telling. We don't need the drone shots, though. I will have some drone shots in my documentary. We don't need all the drone shots and like all of the 3D pictures of like, hi, I had this one guy come out, and he's one of the nicest people I've ever met. But he's like, I have a new AI avatar that's gonna sell my wine. And I was like, no, don't do that. Don't do that, man. It's just like it was this like you know, fake influencer. And I was like, oh man, but I have my feelings. I I'd love to hear about you. How do you think wine should we go about reaching people right now?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

I mean, I think the really cool thing we have right now, as far as any business goes, is we have all these really cool platforms where you can just kind of get on and tell your story. You know, I've heard it uh before that everyone needs like a way to just talk. And if you can have a way where people can connect with you, that's really cool. You know, you look at YouTube. Anybody can create a YouTube account and get on with a video, film yourselves and talk about what you do. And if you've got people that want to learn about it, they can come find you and I think it's really easy. Um, to your point, and we've definitely struggled with this a little bit as we tried to kind of figure out a way to craft our social media around our brand, is it's easy to lean into a lot of those traditional things, right? Because you're selling wine. So you want to show the wine, you want to show the place where it comes from. But to your point, there's so much of that out there that anytime we do any of that, we get almost zero engagement. Anytime it's just a video of the two of us, we were doing a festival a couple years ago and doing some background on the name of our label. And I just randomly we were driving down to Southern California, and I just put on my phone and my truck and I started talking to it while I was driving. Those videos got more engagement than any other beautiful picture I've ever taken, or vineyard, or wine, winery, whatever. Um, you know, people just want to hear about so for me, I think it's important. And I saw a lot of that when I used to travel and sell wine, right? Like if I could sit and talk to someone, whether it's a consumer or a buyer, and at a restaurant, sit down and have a conversation like this about how I made them, they'd understand so much more about what I was doing and why, you know, uh why you know the wines we were making were interesting, but any picture, drone shots, uh eating from a barrel shot could ever do. So I think conversation is a big one. And we had all these cool platforms, podcasts like this, uh to be able to do that. And I think uh people just need to get out of their comfort zone and take advantage of it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I love that. I I was um I was like sitting there and talking to my wife, and we were planning on making like I got a gifted bottle of wine my last trip back, and I wanted to do some fancy post. And then we ended up just having the bottles like over it was ridiculous. I shared it with some family members and it wasn't glamorous. And I was like, yet at the same time, I shared that post, and people were like, Yes, but you enjoyed it. It was like you you you drank it from what you had and you had a good time and you shared it with family. Like, isn't that awesome? Isn't that what it's supposed to be about? But I want to hear, I'll ask you this because what made you fall in love with wine? Why did you even go down this path in the first place? Why wine?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Oh, yeah, sure. Um my parents were landscapers for this film industry. And part of what that entailed was spending a lot of time outside watering plants in the heat, which sucked, honestly. But while I was out there watering plants, I had a lot of time to just kind of look around at things and kind of observe nature. Um, and so be able to spend time out there and realizing, you know, how much complexity is just in this little area around you. Like you can be watering a bush and there's like a bird in it, and a bug, and there's water and soil and all these things. And it was so interesting just to kind of see all of these systems, and then they're just everywhere and realizing that it's also interconnected. So as I got older um and kind of started getting into food, my mom was really cool. Um, she really liked wine. And as I got older, she would let me smell it, and eventually she'll let me taste the wine, and then we were gonna try to talk about it. Like, we didn't know, she wasn't fancy, they weren't buying fancy bottles, it would just be like, you know, bottles of J. Lore or whatever, but we'd figure it out. And that was really interesting, like finding that connection then between like food and texture and flavors and aromas. Um so I got as I got into school, I originally thought like I want to go into wine. But like I think a lot of people, um, when I read about what it took to get into the wine industry, particularly in such uh, you know, high-level places as Napa and Sonoma, I got turned off. I was like, I have to be related to somebody, I have to be so rich, I have to be connected, like it's so competitive, it's so cutthroat. And I was like, you know what? I I can't do this. I don't know anybody, I'm not rich. So I ended up taking a different track and getting really interested in sustainability. Um, and I eventually ended up transferring to UC Davis to study plant sciences and genetics. And while I was there, it was incredibly interesting to learn again more in depth about plant systems and all these different interrelated patterns and connections. And while I was there and kind of thinking about where my schooling would lead me, I realized that I did not want to go grow soybeans in the Midwest. Uh so I went home to LA for a while and sat and I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? And while I was sitting there over the summer, just kind of like watching time creep by, I was like, you know what? I got nothing to lose. So I answered an ad for a lab assistant up in Sonoma. And because I went to UC Davis and I had lab experience, even though I didn't have wine experience, I didn't even know how to swell a glass, they hired me. And it turned out that my heart was drying all along. Because once I got into that wine industry, and again, seeing the interconnectedness, the patterns, like everything's constantly changing. Um, and to your point earlier, like all of these kind of passionate people, I was like, I'm hooked. This is it, this is where I'm building my career. And now um it feels like this happened last week, but it's been 12 years, and every day feels fresh. So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Uh I grew up in a farming family. Uh, you know, so harvest was always something natural for me. Uh my family had a walnut ranch in Kingsburg in the Central Valley, and uh I really enjoyed agriculture. I started working down the ranch when I was probably eight or nine, um, and then kind of continued on from there. And when it was time to graduate from high school, go to college. Um, you know, I had a lot of options, obviously at that stage to go run ranches and stay in farming. Um, but I really was into science and wanted to find some blend there. So I started off with a business major, um, not really knowing what I wanted to do, and got into my first like semesters of classes and absolutely hated it. It just was not my thing, it was not for me, and kind of explored some more the science side of things and took a whole bunch of intro classes in our agriculture department and just kind of stumbled upon ecology. Um, my family was not into wine, not to drinking wine. My grandparents were the typical Behringer White Zinfandel consumers, so it was kind of weird eventually working there and kind of come in full circle. Um, and I met a lot of people I really loved and enjoyed the subject quite a bit and just kind of uh kept taking more classes before I knew it. I think it was a year in, I changed my major. Um, so I studied. Um, but that was basically how I got into it. But for a big part of me, it was that blend of science and agriculture, kind of getting to share something at the end of the season. You know, it was always cool in like October and November, uh, after we got done our original wallets to go over to the neighbor's house, bring them a big, giant bag of walnuts, and give us a giant uh couple boxes of grapes or whatever they were farming that year. And uh for me, that was always a very enjoyable experience. Wine was kind of like the ultimate of that. You know, it's one of those things that we kind of get to do where we make and you get to give it to someone, and you've got this whole world out there that you're part of their birthday, you're at their anniversary, they're whatever the heck they're celebrating, you're there part of it, um, you know, giving it to it. So for me, it was always something that uh not only intrigued me from a science perspective, but kind of tying back to the agriculture background I had so I love that, man.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Was there a glass that kicked it off for you, a bottle that kicked it off for you? That was like the one that was just like this is the one. Was there a a certain vintage or like you had this bali, like, oh man, that was that was the one that that is like started that love of affair with with wine? There's been a few for me over the years.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

You know, when uh going to Fresno, uh Paso Robles was the closest uh we had to uh uh wine area. And uh so that was the first areas I explored quite a bit. Um, and justin uh the winery out there, uh kind of the uh far out wineries, uh, was just kind of growing and getting popular. Uh so their bottle of ice sauceles was one of the first wines I had that was, you know, things I was reading about, right? So I mentioned, you know, my family growing up didn't drink a lot of fancy wines. So reading about Bordeaux and Bordeaux blends and things like that, and Brian Sauceles, which was a blend of you know, their estate, was kind of the first thing. It was like very complex wine that kind of blew my mind, uh very layered. Um, and it was one of the first kind of, I would put fine wines I ever had. Later in life, though, man, I have just really fallen in love with white Bordeaux. Uh I would say Pavillon Blanc from Margot is one of those that, you know, you taste a Savillon Blanc that uh it should be light and airy and crisp, and yet they barrel ferment it, and you can't taste any barrels in it. So for me, that was a wine I've always spent a lot of my career trying to uh understand. Um and we've worked really hard on some of the wines we make to do similar things in the sense that like you can take this very light, airy, crisp wine and make it in a very heavy way and still have it kind of be that light expression of minerality. Um so you know, for me it's always that challenge you're kind of trying to put wine in a box and then you taste those wines that don't fit it. And it's you just want to, for me, I want to, you know, take it apart and figure it out myself.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

It's like chasing that high forever.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I I gotta say, like for me, it was probably uh after I'd been hired at Alpha Omega. Um, I'd already worked in Sonoma, New Zealand. Um, so very old school, kind of more rustic style. And then in New Zealand, I was making a very commercial Chambill en Blanc. I mean, we crushed 250,000 tons. So it was very light, fresh, like fast production. Um, so then when I got to AO, which is like, I mean, we were sourcing from some of the most well-known vineyards in Napa, like in the country, you know, Togelong, Stagecoach, Hell Mountain, Mount Veter. Uh, like very different caliber of winemaking. And I remember on it was 2016, and we had been bottling the um Cabernet's from 2014. And when you're done with bottling, the staff goes and takes home the post-bottling sample. So there's like a little bit of wine removed out of the bottle, and then the staff gets the rest of it. So I went home, had this bottle of like a single vineyard lost piedros. And I wasn't taking it seriously. I was like watching a show and I like poured myself a glass, whatever. I didn't know what was going on. And I sat there and took a sip, and I again wasn't paying attention, and I stopped, and I was like, wait a second, this is something, something else. And then I spent the next hour just sitting there, like looking at this glass and smelling it, and like all of the aromas that were coming out of it, and the layers and the acidity and structure and the balance. And I was just blown away by this glass of wine. I was like, this is a grape. There's nothing in this that tastes like a grape or smells like a grape. Like, this is a whole experience. And I was so incredibly enchanted by that, that it really just woke me up to you know what wine could be. And then ever since realizing like the complexity in just that one site, it opened my mind to all of the other sites. So when you go to Rutherford, you know, you get this strange dusty tannin or in Mount Veter, there's an interesting greenness, you know, Spring Mountain, also a greenness, but a very different end of the spectrum spectrum. Um, you know, Stagecoach has a ton of power. Tokelon Vineyard has this like particular sandy granularity of the tannins due to the acid. So, like, kind of once you realize like how much complexity is in that glass, I mean, what's a girl to do?

unknown 18:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

I love that because it's like I I think that for me, I I I think that there's so much to go. It's a rabbit hole. It's a rabbit hole that you can go down for a long time, you know, and it's like you know, and you never know where to start. And it's like I think that's one of the things that's overwhelming to new wine drinkers, is like they don't know where to start. And there's so much that you can go down, you know, and I think that you know, it can be challenging to get people in the front door. So I'm gonna ask you this if you were to have someone come and sit down in front of you and you need to pour them three glasses, what three glasses are you pouring?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Uh I'd definitely pour them a white, a middleweight red, and a heavier weight red. So let's see, I'd probably go with some kind of a Sauvignon Blanc because this is my favorite during fermentation because it's so interesting. I mean, it's so aromatic, right? Like it's oh Sauvignon Blanc, it's wonderful. I'd probably pour something like Pinot. That's a good one, right? Like burgundy, right? Like you can't go wrong with burgundy, so there's gonna be tons of fruit, there's gonna be that middle weight. Um, people love peanut with so juicy and like lush. And then I'd probably pour something big and structured. I'm gonna have to go to the Bordeaux red, whether it's a Cabernet Franc or a Cabernet Sauvignon, it's toss up, but I mean it seems like a simple answer, but there's whole worlds in each of those.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

I mean what would you go with? Yeah, well, actually Chardonnay, I love Chardonnay, but that that's I would well maybe. Uh, you know, one of the things I think I'm so into like wine history, and I love like studying about how wine was made before we were approach how we're making wines. Um, so I'd probably start with something old world. Um, I probably do maybe a rias bachus, you know, Spanish white, um, you know, something with a lot of acidity and you know, some complexity, you know, maybe some of a few years on it, right? Like that blows people's mind when suddenly like a white wine's five years old, that's the new release. Uh, I'd definitely do New World. Um, I think Pinot's a great one out of California right now. You know, we're kind of entering a really kind of a golden era, I think, in Pinot uh in this state right now. So New World kind of show off some of those bigger, fruitier expressions, you know, a different style of wine. And then I'd probably do southern hemisphere. Uh probably like Chilean, maybe like uh Chile. Yeah. I mean, I think like showing some of the history of like how wine's been made in the different places that it is important. Because exactly what you said, you know, people never know where to start. And I think the one thing people like to do is they like to have their go-to places, right? But with wine, that is, I I don't know. I think that's one of the worst things you can do. You should always be exploring and trying different things from different parts of the world. Um, you know, we've wine's made everywhere. Uh, I think the stat I read once when I was in college is I think it's made 40 to 50 states. Uh, you know, and then you go across the world, there's only a handful of countries that don't make wine. So to me, that's an expression uh of different places. I think is extremely important to introduce people so they Kind of have that idea of always trying something different and being excited to pull that cork. And I think that's a lot of what's missing today is you know, when people go to the store and there's all of these commercial wines at the grocery store that all look the same, taste the same, have their favorite animal on it or whatever. People have lost the excitement to understand what's in it because they're all the same wine. Not physically, but they're all taste the same. I think that's a huge part of what we need to regain as a wine industry.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

I love that. I love the the idea. When I was um I split my time now between California and Southeast Asia, where I live with my wife. And so I'm actually in Vietnam right now. It's uh 1124 at night. And I, you know, I was just back in Napa and I just go back and forth because my mom lives in St. Elena, my brother lives up in Calistoga area. And um when we were flying back to the East Coast recently, we flew up over to uh we fly from Vietnam to Qatar and then Qatar up over Europe and down. It was interesting is you're flying along, and I look down and I'm seeing these cities all along in the Middle East, Europe, that are all names of different grapes. We flew over Muscat, and I was like, ah, that's that's that's that's where that varietal's from. You know, you're flying over Burgundy, flying over and it's not it's like so many different places. And you think about that, and I'm flying over, like flying over Iraq, and I'm looking down and seeing the Tigris and Euphrates River. And I know that like one of the earliest civilizations was there, and in ancient Babylon, they had wine. You know, you go over a flying over Greece, and I'm like, Ancient Greece, they had wine. You know, it's like this thing has been around for so long, and people don't realize that. And it's just like, and yet we've gotten almost in a way, like I think we we've almost lost ourselves because it became instead of this thing that was a part, an extension of our lives, it became a flex in ways, you know? And I mean, and I mean, you know, I don't I don't mind people flexing, you know, that's a that's a fun thing to do too. But I think at the same time, finding ways to, like you said, finding something from July, finding, dude, it's so cool that it can be everywhere and it has all of these different fun things. I mean, maybe flex is the wrong word, but it just became I don't know, it became almost like fun.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

You know, not to throw too much shaded Napa, but there's a lot of weight on this prestige, right? Like there's almost this ego. I mean, bottles are I worked on bottles that were$600. There's uh, you know, we have projects out in Europe that were twelve hundred dollars a bottle. And I mean, there's there's there's a reason they get to those prices because there's that demand, there's that scarcity, but at the same time, like wine is something that's supposed to be approachable, that brings people together, that's accessible. To your point, it's been around for 10,000 years since the dawn of human civilization, you know, like we had we domesticated dogs and we had wine. Like it it should be it should be for the people, it should bring people together.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Well, and it's turned into a luxury item, right? Like, because uh everything's a business, right? We describe things in certain categories, and wine's become a luxury. When to your point, like you know, when it was being made in Greece or or even other countries, you know, five, six hundred years ago, A, it was a way to, you know, make sure that you uh didn't have bacteria in your water, had more beer than wine, but uh there was a lot of fermentation of those ideas, so we wouldn't get sick, but it was an everyday thing. And I think now when we call it a luxury and tree as a luxury item, it is the first thing people forget when things are tough and they're having a hard time and they don't think of it the same way that they used to. It is an everyday item, and it can be part of an everyday healthy lifestyle if you are treating it that way and you're thinking it that way.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

So I love that. I want to ask you another question. Like for you, um, you know, do you find there are any challenges with uh having a smaller wine brand and getting into new markets?

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Oh, for sure. Um, you know, I think one of the toughest things right now for us that we spend a lot of our day on is working on uh distribution. We're not a giant brand by any means. We have enough wine that we need to sell in multiple states, not just one. Um, and trying to reach out to distributors and talk to them with the size that we are, um, it can be a little bit challenging. You know, they're I understand they're large businesses and they want to go after the big pieces of the buy, and we're kind of small ones. So um it can be challenging to get the right people on the phone and even have a conversation with them. Um I think the biggest thing that we run into uh more than anything is you know, a lot of the way our three-tier system is set up in the United States really, you know, uh helps benefit uh either the larger corporations or larger wineries because they have such a large market share that that's where the push is and that's where a lot of the focus is. So as a small winery, I mean we do everything ourselves. Like uh if we get a distributor, we're still going in that market, we're still doing the sales ourselves, which is okay. Uh, we love it. I mean, that's a huge part of it, but as a small business, you know, trying to travel across the country to sell your wine, it can be a little bit challenging. So um, it's not set up for, you know, distribution in the United States is not set up for small wineries. There are little cracks in the system that uh allows small wineries to be able to kind of work their way through, and we're finding those. But I can tell you there is no playbook. And I look, I've worked in the industry and the distribution for 20 plus years. So I've got a really good idea on you know the right places to be and who to talk to. But even I, you know, when we started this, ran into more hurdles than I thought we ever would.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah, we actually uh set up a little campaign um this past year. We originally set up our business as DTC focused. Um, you know, we had the social media marketing for it, we had the the pricing, the wine quality was all originally set up for DTC. But that year, DTC not only in wine, but everywhere crashed. So we kind of had to pivot. And that's why we're seeking distribution now. So we're like in a little bit of an interesting place. We had to adjust some prices. Uh that wasn't a big deal, but um, because of the challenges with distribution, uh we started a little campaign called Canvas the Country, where we call everybody, we call every state, we call every distributor and say, Hey, are you interested? How's things going? And it's been very interesting because uh we get so much feedback that they love our story, they love our wine, they love our price, everything's great. But these distributors, um, you know, they just went through a big merger. Or, you know, I'm sure you've heard of the RNDC situation in California, suppliers are getting dropped across the board. Um, so what do they do? Especially particularly suppliers with market share. So the distributors, uh, you know, it's much easier for them, it's much more lucrative for them to take on suppliers that already have market share. So now there's this really interesting competition that's happening. Um, in addition, we also have challenges like uh, you know, restaurants, everything's a bit more expensive. So people are trying to make their money at the buy the glass, you know, with the alcohol. So that doesn't necessarily put a buy the glass offering at a good price point for people. So when you come in and buy your dinner, which is already more expensive, I had a glass of wine that costs$15,$17 a glass. Um, and God forbid that that glass comes out a little bit stale or oxidized or something, they're not gonna order a second one. So now, because of pricing, it kind of moves slower on the retail and um in distribution right now, it has its own challenges. And then even on our side, on the supply side, um, you know, we have too much wine left over from COVID. Uh, the cellars are full, we're ripping out vineyards. Um, so there's these kind of little hangups at each level of the system. But for us, again, because, you know, both pros and cons, we're a small company. It's just two of us. So for us, like we're super nimble. We are able to actually spend the time calling all of these different people. Um, we're able to go out on foot and meet different restaurant owners, we're able to meet customers at these festivals. So we're able to exploit all these little niches. And despite the overall industry challenges that we're seeing right now, we're still able to, you know, see growth. We are selling through. We're selling quite a bit of volume. We are, you know, reaching our goals, right? And just did taxes last year. And we actually had a growth year, even though it seemed really challenging. Like we actually grew, and this year we'll be producing worldwide. So uh it is an interesting environment, but uh there are there are little loopholes to exploit right now.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah, I'd say the flip side of that though is too, you know, being small and actually having our story and kind of what we do. We're also able to get into restaurants. I think I probably couldn't in the back in the day uh when I was with Barringer, even though we were making really fine wines there. Um, right now, you know, I think uh there is a big demand for small wines, or it is connecting, you know, uh small wineries like us with the restaurants, with the consumers that want it. And I think right now distribution gets in the way a little bit, but we have found ways around it.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

So that's awesome. I mean, it's awesome that you guys are finding a way and making a way because, you know, I think that when you have a company that's growing, you have to find different ways to separate yourself out from what other people are doing. And I I wanted to ask you that like what makes your wine different from the big brands people usually see? You know, is it the attention to detail, is it to care, or are you just doing things completely different?

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Uh it's a couple of things, I think. You know, the attention to detail is a big one. Um, but I think the biggest thing for us is one of the reasons we started the wine brand that we have and the way we make wine is I'm always a big believer in transparency. Wine is one of those funny things that when you go to the store, you know, there's a lot of transparency there, but there's also a lot of things that kind of get hidden, right? Like no one I did no one has any idea what ingredients go into a bottle, no one has any idea how many calories are in the bottle, no one has any idea how much sugar is in the bottle. And I think one of the things we had set out to do is to create that transparency. So on the back of our label, we have a QR code that links to a web page on our site that has everything. It tells how we make it, all the ingredients. Long term, we're gonna put all the nutritional information there, which I realize isn't sexy, but to me is important. And I think that's a lot of what we see. You know, I'm picking on grocery stores, but I don't mean to because they've certainly sold plenty of wine there and they have their place. But when you go to the grocery store and you see wines, I think there's a lot of people that don't realize that the wine that they're reaching for is probably just as sweet as any old dessert item that they could reach for. And I think the transparency in that's gonna be important for consumers. The other thing they don't realize is when they reach for that bottle, that maybe you know, 80% of that shelf is some of those larger companies. And there's a lot of consumers out there that want to support small businesses, but it is really hard to look at a label and understand it. So we're trying to be very transparent in what we do. You know, I think one of the things we figured out early on is you know, when we talk about connecting with younger consumers who maybe haven't been drinking um like the previous generations have, is there is that they actually have a lot of desire for wine. Wine is what they want. Tells them where it's from, should be able to tell them how it's made, and it should be done in a very clean and ethical way to the point where when you drink that wine, you're not gonna feel really crappy.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Wine is really simple. It's just grapes, a little bit of yeast. Sometimes there's an acid adjustment, some oak. Like that's all there is to it. I mean, it's very simple ingredients. Um, I think the other thing, too, that kind of sets us apart is that we um, you know, one of the reasons we had a challenge working at the corporate uh level was that they wanted to remove people from the wine from the story. They wanted to just have the brand. Um, you know, all these little that was the stock images that we kind of make fun of, right? Like the vineyard. There's like a winemaker tasting, you know, in the vineyard with a thief, which we don't do. You know, all these like kind of, you know, imaginary images that kind of set a mood, but it ends up looking like everything else. It's incredibly commercial. Um, which I guess is fine. You know, some people are into that, they don't want to think about it. It's fine. Uh, but for us, we um I don't know if you're able to check our website yet, but we love the outdoors. Um, we care about sustainability, not only in the vineyards, but also, you know, in what we like to do personally. Like we spend a lot of time um, you know, mountaineering, kayaking, right? Likes the hunt, you know, we we carry these ethics through. We care about the land that things come from. And, you know, for us, we it in order to be able to do those kind of things, you know, we have to be like healthy and fit and active. So we wanted to create a wine that was gonna be clean and you know, good for you. Like if you have a little bit of it in balance, like you can have this healthy, fit lifestyle that wine is a part of. You know, you like have a little glass after you've been rock climbing all day or something, you know, and you're like what Ryan said, you know, you're not gonna feel bad the next day. It's not full of junk, it's not full of fillers and other weird content that helps the shareholders, you know, meet their bottom line. Um, it's just a good, clean product that's part of a healthy lifestyle. And I think right now, people who are chasing, you know, um these the weight loss drugs and the dieting and all of these things, it's like, you know, if you just pull back a little bit and kind of simplify the ingredients and you know, get some sunshine, drink your water, go outside for an hour, it's it's gonna be okay. Some sunshine. You get some sunshine, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

100% I love that. I love it too, because I think one of the two things too, like it's about a new I'm very health conscious as well. And even though I have a wine podcast, like I try to be, I I've really been careful about when I drank and what I drank. And like I love something that can be, I want to be able to have something that just doesn't destroy me after I go to the, you know, so I can't go to the gym, and so that I can't, you know, bounce back and feel right. And I think that the you know, I had this one wine recently that was made by a friend of mine. It was amazing. Like, I drank and had a great time, and the next day I felt great. And I just talked to him. I was like, what did you do here? And he's like, This is I just make sure that my wine's really clean, it's really natural. Everything is really, you know. I try to think about, and he said it's like I said, I try to think about what I would drink. And I said, Well, what's why are other wineries not doing that? He's like, Well, because you know, that's not they're not necessarily consuming what they make. And I he's like, Well, I really try to think about like that's one of the things. Like, I want to be this is something I want to drink, and I make the things I want to drink. And I was like, that's awesome perspective. But like, I I want to ask you this because, like, if I walk into a store, how do I even know? Because you said this earlier, and I find this is my biggest problem. I go and I look on websites and I'm like, dude, there's so many wines, and I don't know how to pick and what to pick. How do I even know if a wine is good just from walking in the store? How what what type of where should people look? How do you do research? Those are the things I want to find out.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Oh, it's hard. You know, uh, I've thought about that as we've thought about like in our social media, you know, how do we expand it a little bit? You know, rise, you know, rising tide floats all boats. We thought about, you know, maybe talking it back exactly this, like a guide of how someone can walk into a store and figure out, you know, who's who's a small producer, you know, how's that wine made?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Um is this not easily accessible information any more than the ingredients? Like you like we know if you walk in that it's all going to be a constellation shelf or it's all a gallow shelf, you know, but the normal consumer doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

You know, I think one of the things I do or certainly did a lot before I really understood branding and all the companies is you know, I think you can look at it this way. You know, there's wines that are uh really well made, and then there's wines that have a really good distribution. And while they can be the same, they aren't always the same. And generally speaking, if I see a wine with a lot of distribution, to me that's a little bit of a red flag. So if I go into my drugstore and I see it, and I go in the grocery store and I see it, and I go in the gas station and I see it, man, that's got a lot of distribution. That doesn't always equal great wine. So I'm generally looking for that bottle that I don't see everywhere. Um, and that doesn't mean that wine with great distribution can't be good. I just generally seek out those smaller producers that put in that carrot, just like your friend, you know. Um it's so funny, you know, the term natural wine has been taken over as a category. But the reality is to make a really good clean wine, quote unquote. The few things you need to do is you need to pick the grapes before they get sunburned. You need to have a really clean fermentation, and then you need to take care of it while you're aging it, which all sounds so simple, but when you do it on scale, it can be real challenging. And those are all the little factors that like maybe make you give you a uh hangover the next day a headache, because there's all reasons uh during the fermentation that those things can happen. And not while not all small producers are going to necessarily do that, but you generally find they're gonna spend a little bit more time working towards that because it's all they've got. They don't have a million other skews they're working on or a whole bunch of wines that they can move things through. So for me, you know, when I'm shopping for wine, I'm looking specifically for regions I know that generally have smaller producers, um, you know, a little bit more specificity. You know, if you've got an AVA on there other than just California or just a county, that's a good sign that maybe it's not a large wine. And then also, like I said, if you don't see it in every single store, it's another good sign that maybe somebody's put some care into it.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

That being said, though, I mean, when we worked on Knights Valley for Behringer, that was what 120,000 cases worth. And that wine was spotless. I mean, we put a lot of work into it. It's a beautiful wine. So just because it's a big brand doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad brand. So for customers going out and kind of experimenting, I would say, you know, don't blow your pocketbook out, but like just try different things. Keep a notebook. I had a notebook for years where I would put the front label of the wine on it and then I would write about it. Like I wouldn't go and you know, buy bottles just to fill it out. But like when I would come across a bottle or have a bottle at a party, I'd be like, hey, keep that bottle for me. Um, and there's a fun little trick you can do. You take you take your wine bottle and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for a few minutes and it melts the label just enough so you can peel it off. And then yeah, I would just put in a book and just write some notes. You know, how did I like this region? You know, was it flat? Was it you know sour, or was it like super fruity and lovely? How did I feel the next day? That's a good, that's always your good note, too.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Um and then once you get to that stage, I think it's important that you know everyone loves doing research about the things that they buy and what they're doing right. Like everyone sees something on uh Instagram, and of course they're yeah, reading about what it's made, you know, like clothing people want to know what fish whether or not you start learning. The cool thing is on all wine, whether it's big wine or small wine, there's a bottler statement on the back, you know, produced and bottled by seller involved by something. That is always a consumer's first place to start. Look at that statement on the back of the label and just do a Google search and see what's going into it.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Find out who they are.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yeah, see what's put out there about it. I mean, that's a great place to start once you get to that stage. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

I love it because it's like it's like an information overload, but there is so much great information if you can figure out where to look and what to look for, you know? And how should someone um it why should like in this day and age, why should we still be caring about wine? Why do you think wine is still important at this time?

SPEAKER_00 40:51

What? Oh man, so many reasons. I mean, you know, there's amazing craft beers out there. Like we're down the street from um Russian River, right? Like, I can go get a fresh plane any day of the week, which is a treat, let me tell you. Um, there's some beautiful beers out there. Uh, you know, there's some really incredible spirits right now.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Uh especially some of the bartenders make out kills.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Oh my gosh, the bartenders right now, with the creativity you get with spirits, like all the crazy stuff. We follow a few people on Instagram right now that just do these mind-blowing concoctions. I'm like, this is incredible. Um, but wine, like, I think is really special because you know, you can you can take these spirits and you can combine them with wood and you know, herbs and stuff and create all these different things. Beer, right? There's all these different hops and malts that you can do. But I just think that wine is really pretty special in its unmatched complexity. It's one little berry. It's just it's just a berry. And like, think about all of the overwhelming different profiles that you can get of just a grape, some yeast, and a little bit of oak. I mean, the the the war the wine of the world is or the world of wine is like it's it just goes on and on, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Well, and from a consumer perspective, why they should care. You know, one thing that you've told me all the time, and I really please. Let's just say the three of us went out to a restaurant, we all ordered cocktails. You might order genatalic, I'd order martini, you'd probably order I don't know, let's go with the play. Sure, there we go. We're all having a different experience. Three of us go to a restaurant, we have a share bottle of wine. We're all having the same experience together. And I think wine is the unique beverage in that way, right? Like we get to we're gonna experience a difference gonna maybe taste different to me than you, but we can sit and talk about it because we have the exact same glass in front of us. Um, and I just don't think there's any other beverage around there that's like that when you think about it. And as special as all those other things are, really cool as they are, man, when you're thinking about an anniversary or a birthday, people aren't going, oh, I'm gonna brand cocktail home. They're thinking about wine, and it's still important uh as a celebration, as a way to bring people together and have something to sit and share and talk about.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

I love that. And I agree, I think that one of the things that's so special about wine is the fact that it's a shared thing, it's a shared experience. You know, when you get a cocktail, my wife loves cocktails, and you know, she'll be like, Oh, you gotta try this. But with wine, we're sharing the same thing. We're sharing that bottle and we're experiencing that together. And it's one of the things that I love. And it's something that's special to me. Um I want to ask you one last question. What are you drinking right now? Uh we want to go.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Well, uh, we were just at a festival and we were gifted some wine by some new friends. So we're gonna be drinking wine out of Paso, MCV, and we're gonna be drinking um the Sneekumas wines. They're grenache, they're delicious Grenache that he puts a lot of time and effort into hand farms it.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

You know, I and I think a lot of what we drink right now, because of just the business we're in, is friends that are making wine, and uh we enjoy passing bottles to each other and talking to each other, meeting small producers like us, which is really cool. Are there a lot of us out there? Um, and there's a lot of us that like to help each other, and I think it's super important. So we definitely like to enjoy uh mostly our friends' wine. Beyond that, uh, we've been in a lot of Spanish whites lately. Um, I think uh a lot of the Spanish whites at the moment are really kind of coming into their own. I mean, obviously they've been making wine for 500 years, so strange thing to say that they're coming to their own, but I think that the Alberino and Fermatino are kind of getting a little bit more uh notoriety than they used to, but there's a lot of really cool ones coming to the US right now, too. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Well, where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing with your wine?

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah, uh best place would be our website, www.polimoniumwines.com, and then our YouTube channel. Uh, we have uh a little bit of content there. There's a big content that describes what polollonium is, and you know, kind of some of the branding and the idea behind it, and then obviously our Instagram page as well.