Announcement: Mark Aubert is retiring from consulting winemaking‏

WINE TALK
1

A message -

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

After eleven vintages of successfully making wines for clients, I have decided to retire from the wine consulting arena and focus solely on the wines of Aubert. As many of you know, I started my own winemaking consulting company in 1999, and after nearly twelve years of consulting, it is now time for me to go in a new direction.

Aubert has been on a steady expansion of acquiring, developing and managing our new vineyard sites as well as improving and maintaining our existing vineyards. Subsequently, we will be making additional single vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir cuvees from our new properties.

Happy holidays and all the best to you in 2010!

With warm regards,

Mark Aubert

2

As if it wasn’t already hard enough for Futo to sell their wines. [suicide.gif]

3

dropping Bryant too? Wow.

4

I would suspect he has been moving up his production numbers, and is probably becoming fearful of sell through, so doing the right thing by his own brand and dedicating his time to his wines.

5

Interesting. I’m not sure what his production numbers are or are going to be, but I’d sure miss that fat check from Futo & Bryant. Would sure help me sleep better knowing I had multiple sources of income.

6

Exactly.

Something doesn’t sound right about this.

7

Makes a ton of sense to me. Run the numbers of what he probably makes from his own operation and the fact that he is going to vineyards all over the place and it makes sense he might want to pull it back a bit. Once you make a certain amount of dough many people would prefer some time rather than the extra cash. Tony Soter, Helen Turley…they also gave up most to all of their clients to take control over their time and focus on their own projects. Good for Mark! I bet 2010 will be his happiest in years.

8

I agree- don’t see anything funny here. I still really like his chards- maybe he can make a better pinot now…

9

Especially when fees for consultants go for approx. 100k-200k !!

10

Agree with your thoughts in general, but I think everyone was alluding to diversification of income in a very troubled economy - especially the wine industry. It takes away the back up parachute.

Maybe his decision was made easier by his consulting wineries wanting to cut back their fees and then it became a decent enough risk/reward equation to just focus on his own stuff?

Chris

11

That shouldn’t be hard.

12

My logic is that if you have your own wine sitting around, you can take checks from 2 dozen wineries, but if your own brand ain’t sell, well…

He is going to fall victim to the same issues that Kistler and Turley are facing. Too much wine to the same people year after year, and then someone wakes up and realizes half their cellar is 1 winery.

13

Ian,
I doubt it, at least in the short term. Aubert has lost one Chard source and, over the past several years, has reduced allocations even at the top tier. Do you guys get allocated any?

14

No, but my understanding it’s b/c we are a retailer, and he doesn’t want it in retail (or so my wholesaler tells me).

15

Ian,
That’s what I thought. They still sell through immediately, even mags at 150%. Mailing list and restaurants. If you guys (retailers) had regular allocations, I’d be more inclined to agree with you. At least in the short term. If they start tying Chard to their cab-blend, all bets are off. So far, they haven’t even had to do that. Time will tell…

16

We used to get Aubert through retail, Mark K. Then Mark A got a swelled head from Bob P.

17

Yup. It was available enough locally that I dropped my mailing list allocation to support my local retailer. Then 2 years later they got cut. [oops.gif] Oh well.

18

Do you happen to know total production for the winery? Just curious, if not, any one else???

I will ask my rep today for an allo on Aubert, see what happens!