Thursday, December 17, 2009

Happy Holidays from San Martino Winery & Vineyards

It is that time of the year again! Frantic purchasing, crowds in the malls, everyone running at full speed and for a short period of time life is just plain hectic! We all get into the “holiday” spirit and then just like that it is over and the depression sets in! We tend to forget at times the reason for the holidays and to each of us they probably mean something different. To me the end of the year is a joyous time, full of celebrations, parties, presents, families, and love and, of course, wine is a natural part of the season.

Did you know that this time of year there are at least three different celebrations taking place? Yes, there are Christmas, Hannukah and Kwaanza. So which wines go with each? San Martiño wines are perfect for the first and last of these but can’t do much for Hannukah as this celebration requires kosher wine. Just as an fyi, do you know the difference between kosher wine and regular wine? Any grapes, wine styles, or techniques may be used in making a kosher wine. This means a kosher wine does not need to taste any different than a typical wine. What is different is that the equipment is specifically set aside for use on kosher wines only, the process must be done by Jewish people, and all components used in the making of the wine must themselves be kosher. This leaves us totally out!

There is another celebration at the end of the year that includes wine: Winter Solstice Day (Dec 21 at 8:04 am CST). This is the shortest day of the year, and for many cultures, the traditional beginning of a new year. This holiday originated in ancient cultures, as soon as people could measure lengths of days and the changing of the seasons, and realized what happened during the solstice and equinox. The winter solstice was a traditional year-end marker - where the old year ended and the new one began. It was first known as "Yule", from the Norse "Jul" meaning wheel. In Roman days, Emperor Aurelian chose December 25th as the "Invincible Sun" birthday for that reason. The Roman "Saturnalia" celebrations (originally Dec 17th) merged into this and lasted a week or more. The day was later Christianized, and many traditions that are now part of Christmas come from the various ancient celebrations.

Traditional winter celebrations involved enjoying the fruits of the summer ones. Dandelion wine, normally made on MayDay, was opened up at this point and drunk. Mead, the product of summer honeybees, was also enjoyed, both in warmed punches as well as chilled. Herbs of this celebration included holly, pinecones, and mistletoe. Want to hold a solstice celebration? If you don't have any dandelion wine waiting in your cellar it'll probably be hard to find some, but open a bottle of San Martiño wine, put out nuts, oranges, apples, rolls, and basic meats like turkey, chicken and venison. Throw a log on the fire, kiss under the mistletoe, and toast the start of a new year!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Can We Compete with Boxed Stores?

Last week I had an interesting conversation with a customer. He was asking if I was concerned about all the stores around our winery selling wines which in most cases may be cheaper than ours. Aware? Yes. Concerned? Not really. Why not? Well… I said, it is hard to go to Costco or Tom Thumb, buy a bottle of wine and sit there enjoying some relaxing time with a picnic basket.

I indicated to this customer that it is impossible for us to compete with Gallo, Mondavi, Antinory, and the other hundreds of very large wineries that produce millions of cases. We just simply don’t have the economy of scale to be able to produce wines cheaply. We have higher grape costs because we don’t buy large volumes of them; we have higher transportation costs because with don’t own our trucks and have to pay LTL prices; we pay higher for bottles because we don’t buy one million bottles at a time and same with corks, capsules, etc and so on. At the end of the day our costs per bottle may be 200% or 300% higher than the big guys and depending on the wine being produced our costs are even higher.

But, we try to provide a service that you can’t get from the big stores. We have a beautiful tasting room with nice furniture and a pleasant atmosphere, we have nice grounds around the winery where you can relax during decent weather, we provide special events that are not easily found anywhere else and we produce good wines. If a customer is looking for a bottle of wine for  $8 to $12 then we just can’t compete. But if the customer wants a reasonably priced bottle $18 to $30 that was made locally, with Texas grapes, where the taxes stay locally helping everyone and where you can see the location and the people that made it, then we are just the right place.

We know that everyone is price sensitive and so are we. We price our wines as low as possible while keeping enough margins to pay the bills. In an economy that has seen many wineries in Texas go bankrupt and an economy where consumer prices have fallen, our cost for producing wine have risen over 17% this year along. Transportation, bottles, capsules, electricity, gas, taxes and grape prices all went up over the last two years. Where a ton of Cabernet cost $2,000 in 2008 in 2009 we paid $2,500. Oh… and this doesn’t take into account the fees that we are being charged from the credit card companies. The fees have gone up by 30% on some types of cards this year along. Yet, we have not increased prices on our wines in 2008. Eventually the price pressure will become relentless and we may be forced to change our philosophy. As I said to our customer, I don’t think that the big stores are going to put us out of business, they can’t offer what we do but our own suppliers may kill our dream if they force us into price ranges that are unsustainable for a small operation like ours.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Customer Service???

Every place I go I hear the word “excellent customer service”. What does it mean? I will give you a personal example … A few years ago I was in the west coast and decided to have dinner at a wonderful restaurant overlooking the ocean. Once inside the restaurant I asked for a table next to the window so I could see the sunset. I sat at my table and was enjoying a glass of wine and some appetizers taking in the view when a group sat a table behind me. Within seconds the host came over to the window and proceeded to close the blinds. I stopped him and indicated that I chose the table for the view and there wasn’t going to be much of one with the blinds closed. He proceeded to tell me that the group behind me complained about the sun and wanted to block the light from coming in. I indicated that I wanted the blinds opened. He went to the table and told them my view. They got upset with the host and demanded the blinds be closed. So here is a situation where the host was going to anger one customer to please another. Was he providing good customer service? It all depends who you asked.

I have come to conclusion that there is no such thing as 100% excellent customer service. Someone’s expectations and demands from time to time will not be met and therefore this individual will complaint and sometimes even insult you because you can’t accommodate their demands. I think a good customer experience is a two-way street. Throughout my life most of the time when I felt that I wasn’t getting “good customer service” it was because of my inflexibility and arrogance. In many of these cases if I had listened to the other person I would have realized that with a minor change from my part all would have ended well with everyone happy and satisfied. But sometimes we tend to become ignorant and arrogant when we don’t get our way and these two “talents” make for a bad combination. I have been guilty of falling into the trap that they create.

I think those of us that work behind counters and in situations where we are trying to provide a service to the public are a bit more sensitive about how we talk to people when others are trying to provide us with service since we have been on the receiving end of rude behavior. So I tell you… before you get angry with the person that is trying to help you, think about what you are going to say and then think again after sipping some wine. Then make your comments known in a civilized manner. After all, when we are all gone from this Earth nobody will care how we felt about the situation.

Oh by the way, the restaurant in the west coast… I looked for another table next to a window but there were none. Therefore, I suggested that since the group behind me came in after I did that they should move to a different table where the sun wouldn’t bother them. They told me to go “jump on the sea!” So… I kept the blinds open!

Friday, December 4, 2009

What Wine Should You Drink?

One of the hottest issues today is the ratings system in the wine industry and whether you should believe them. Well… here are my two cents. Any rating that is the result of a single person tasting a given wine should be taken with some skepticism. Why? Because wine is like music. What one person enjoys may not be what someone else wants to drink or listen to. Unfortunately, the wine industry has been very good at marketing wine as an elite drink that is very complicated for the average person. NONSENSE! Wine is and has been for centuries the common person’s drink of choice next to water. Only in the last few decades, through some heavy marketing, has wine been elevated as a drink that only the few can truly appreciate. My family and thousands of others have been drinking wine way before Mr. Robert Parker was even a hint on his “parent’s night of excitement.”

Wine is a drink that should be enjoyed it every day and all the different wines that we and others make are simple providing options so everyone can find at least one style that may enjoy. People ask me all the time which wine should I drink? My answer is always the same: the one you like! I have tasted bottles that cost over $200 that I didn’t like and therefore it didn’t make a different what others thought about it. I just didn’t like it and wouldn’t want to drink it again. Yet, I have enjoyed some wines that the “critics” have not talked very high of but I enjoyed them with the right food. Are their palates better than mine? Maybe but who cares. I am the one paying for the bottle and therefore I will drink what I like. I may taste a wine because I read about it in some magazine but I will not buy it just because they said it was good. I know what I like and I know which style of wine I enjoy with my food. In addition to that I have favorite wineries whose style of wine making is perfect for me. Many of these never get accolades from Mr. Parker and others but I don’t care and neither should you. Drink what you enjoy and if this is Two Buck-Chuck then go ahead and drink it. Just make sure that you have a good family doctor!