JS:  I’ve been in our wine industry for about 35 years, early on as a fully tuxedoed sommelier and a retail wine buyer for a large retailer. I was selling the 1989 and 1990 Bordeaux futures at the time. Afterward, I was a salesman based in New York and worked for a while with Remy Martin’s wine portfolio. Since 2002 I have been either the General Manager or head of a winery, or wine company, including stints with a number of well-respected wineries on Long Island (NY) and for Bonny Doon Vineyard (Santa Cruz), Martinelli Winery (Russian River Valley), Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards (St. Helena) and for the last six years as Managing Director for Alejandro Bulgheroni’s North American holdings, which includes Renwood (Amador County) and Lithology (St. Helena). Today I own NapaSource Consulting and have written a book to be published later this month, called "The Post-Pandemic Wine Market: A Practical Guide”. I am currently working on a second book, (a primer, if you will) for sales and marketing executives in the wine industry.

 

1. What is the biggest difficulty facing the wine world at this present moment?

JS:  In a nutshell, it is the lack of seriousness that is plaguing the largest of our companies in this space. And by that, I mean they have done all they can to penetrate, tackle, and exist (and try to grow) under the given conditions that exist right now. But while consolidation of the distribution networks continues unabated, the wineries, writ large, have failed to push back against the door that is shutting in their collective faces. They make no attempt to unify, lobby or negotiate, innovate, or even suggest another route to market, either with the distributors or without them. No, in fact they sit there and take it, even while complaining bitterly that “I can’t find a distributor” or “My distributor doesn’t care about me” knowing full well that distributors and wholesalers stopped “selling” and stopped “brand-building” fifteen years ago. But that is all insider stuff. Outwardly, the problem is very different – and that is the bend towards healthfulness for the masses of potential wine drinkers. We have completely failed to allow them to consider wine as part of a healthier lifestyle – healthier than other alcoholic beverages, and certainly healthier than cannabis products. Whether that is true or not, a lifestyle can be sold – we’ve done it before.

 

1. What viticultural areas do you most admire and why?

JS:  Two, and they could not be more different. Firstly, Burgundy, to include the Beaujolais. (If I had a billion dollars, my big wine purchase would be in the Cote de Py in Morgon before any other.) I pick the Cote d’Or because it doesn’t change, and I absolutely adore that. Wines that I could identify by smell 30 years ago, still exhibit the same aromatics, if only a great deal “cleaner” then they used to be. Secondly, Napa Valley, which I say because I live here, and know it, and I can tell you beyond any doubt that the care and precision is the finest in the world that I’ve seen. Napa is an authentic creation, even if it is marketed as something else. Believe me when I say that the half-ton bin of Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon that came to our crush pad in October of 2023 was the finest bin of grapes anywhere in the world.

 

1. What is an average day like for you?

JS: Now that I have the time, I am a spectator of our business if not an active participant. It is eye-opening to view the wine business with a clear view of all angles, rather than through the filter of the company I am working for. I write every day, and I am currently consulting to a couple of companies, one is a start up winery, but none wish to be disclosed at the moment. I hope to rejoin a winery as the President or General Manager now that my books are near done.

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1. I’m buying you one bottle of wine. Which would it be?

JS: Delighted to hear it! I’m hoping for Domaine Bart Marsannay Rouge, any of their bottlings, from any recent vintage.

 

1. What is the one thing that makes your job, and what is the one thing you dislike?

JS: Let me answer as if I am still running the Bulgheroni group. The best part of the job is making the wine from vineyard to grapes to barrel to bottle to glass. It is a remarkable achievement every time, no matter who, but producing a 100-point rated To-Kalon Cabernet Franc for example, makes me swoon. I might include working with wine professionals who I adore. Wine truly makes everything better, and relationships built around the wine business I would not trade for anything at all. The part I dislike the most is the commoditization of the product, and the downward pressure on price that is causing such tumult in the market. As if every wine should be cheaper before even knowing the price. Buyers, gatekeepers, and wholesalers are all guilty of it, but no one can blame them because it is where we are right now. Wineries and their executives are guilty too – of panicking because the long-term vision of the wine business has been compromised in favor of growth, for growth’s sake.

 

1. Is it possible to make an artistic wine at a low price?

JS: Yes, but it helps if you own the land already. There is no reason that a 25-hectare plantation in the Cotes du Rhone could not make a wine that was artistic and beautiful, and still sell it for $120 a box, or a hundred pounds, and make three or four thousand dozen of those bottles at least. But if the producer is expecting to sell only 500 to 900 thousand euros worth of wine, it can only be because his farming and his overhead are half that.

 

1. Is there a wine you no longer enjoy , and why?

JS: I do not care for Rose wines, no matter the origin, the possible exception of Clos Cibonne (Tibouren) in Provence. Straight up, I find them impossibly boring. And I haven’t got the time to be bored. 

 

1. What is your favorite varietal, and why?

JS: One the very obscure side, is Gamay St. Romain, the very, very unusual clone of Gamay from the Cotes de Roannaise. I am delighted with the simultaneous seriousness and joyfulness of the wines produced in this weird corner of France. Less obscure, it must be the Pinot Noir from the Cotes d’Or. There is no substitute. It hits the highest of high notes, even as it hits the lowest too, depending on who’s playing the keys – but that unpredictability is thrilling and beautiful.

 

1. What is the most overrated aspect of the wine world?

JS:  Catering to the tourists is sustaining a business squeezed too tightly at the wholesale level – we need the ladies to come spend money en situ.

 

1. If you could go back in time and give yourself a single piece of advice, what would it be?

JS: Buy TSLA at $12 a share. Seriously though, I would have told myself to align with the largest of the wine companies. I would have advanced in my career farther and faster, but whether or not I enjoyed it would be the unknown.

 

1. How can the wine world adapt to climate change?

JS: By subsidizing the immediate study and planting of alternative grape varieties with an emphasis on maintaining quality and the attributes of the local terroir. There is probably a reason why Touriga Nacional is in Bordeaux being tested. Grenache should be Napa’s next big plantation. Drought tolerant rootstocks and more efficient canopy management would be a great idea, as well as the newest technology in overhead misting systems which (here in Napa) are like air-conditioning acres and acres of vineyards on the hottest days. It works. However, the very first step is admitting its coming and it will be here soon.

 

1. What do you do to relax?

JS: I am a competitive foil fencer, although I don’t compete much. I just love the sport, and I play it once a week for a couple of hours with Napa Valley Fencing Academy. Lately, I’ve taken up pickleball, which is a hoot. I’ve never played any racquet sport before, so I’m really enjoying this new type of game (for me). If you mean really relaxing, my wife and I have a real penchant for Champagne, cooking nice foods, and Burgundies.

 

1. In your opinion, where in the world provides the best view of wine?

JS: Not totally clear on what you’re referring to here. A business view of wine, I have to say, London and the London merchants for a Eurocentric interpretation. In the US you need to be in the restaurants and wine shops of Manhattan, NY, which has not succumbed to consolidation of wholesale (as much) or the consolidation in retail due to chains and groups. NY retail is still dominated by independents and therefore provides the best window on wine, probably in the world.

 

1. What is the one question you wish you’d have been asked, and how would you answer it?

JS: What is my outlook for the expansion of California (and other US) wine exports? Under the present political situation, which has just about ruined our brand worldwide, my answer would be “absolutely dismal.”  In October, I was in Japan selling wine, and my visit was greeted warmly and with enthusiasm. I seriously doubt that would happen today, and certainly not in the EU, UK, Canada, or Mexico. I guess this is part of Making America Great Again? Doesn’t feel like it to me.

 

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