Winemaker / Importer Beware!!

[Mel_Hill]

this might not last long on FB

[Linda_Baehr]

@Mel Hill

this might not last long on FB

[S_Reynolds]

Hahahahaha

[Nola_Palomar]

[Mel_Hill]

still there…

[DougS]

nice!

[Peter_Petersen]

.

[Jay_Miller]

Wow, I had read a little of this thread early on and only came back because of the link from the Maison Ilan thread. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could defend Jamie’s entirely uncalled for and over the top comments.

Add me to the list of people who would not buy Kutch.

[ToddFrench]

Moved to Wine Talk as this thread has impact for consumers as much as winery owners

[Loren_Sonkin]

@Andrew Kaufman

This thread should be merged with the Maison Illan thread.

Considering this post was made about a year ago,

WHICH MASISON ILAN THREAD?

[scamhi]

@Loren Sonkin

@Andrew Kaufman

This thread should be merged with the Maison Illan thread.

Considering this post was made about a year ago,

WHICH MASISON ILAN THREAD?

this one Loren. Please note I am made the villain in this thread.

Maison Ilan deliveries

[Peter_Petersen]

Similar thread but different topic entirely and clearly something that winemakers should be aware of.

Nola, I haven’t tried your wines, but it sounds like they are very good.

[Thomas_Keim]

@Terence T-Bone Livingston

@Linda Lindsay

but common courtesy says you respond that you simply received the samples requested with a kind thank you. From what I am reading, that did not happen. That is the gist of Nola’s concern as I understand it.
As.

Common courtesy? Yes. In this industry in this day and age? No. I don’t expect anything from anyone who I don’t know personally in this industry. It has become something it wasn’t 20+ years ago. People don’t respond to personal letters, let alone emails, phone calls, texts, etc.

The wine business has become “what can you do for me”, so if you expect someone who you don’t even know, to actually care about your wines in this day and age when you are just someone trying to be kind and make wines for the people…forget about it. Those days are over.

Find your niche. Find your people. Don’t expect anything from anyone. Just enjoy why we got in this business in the first place.

Bone … out.

THIS - is the actual way this business is - whether any of us like it or not. I work as an importer/broker/sales agent, and I would guess that probably 75-80% of my e-mails go unanswered. And you people dealing mainly with wine have it easy, you should try dealing with brewers and beer wholesalers, without a doubt the most arrogant people in this industry.

This thread reminds me of something that happened to me earlier this year. I had a container of Spanish beers and ciders hit Chicago, and I had been e-mailing and calling my “then” Wisconsin distributor to let him know that his two pallets of product was arriving. He “finally” answered the phone after many numerous calls and e-mails going back three months, and this is what he said…

“Tom, you couldn’t figure out that I didn’t want the product anymore after I didn’t answer your e-mails?”

And this was the president of a Budweiser distributorship, not some micky mouse little company. Purchase order be damned…

[Nancy_Dolce]

Wow, Thomas, were you supposed to know after the first call or email so you could immediately offer the goods to someone else?

[Thomas_Keim]

@Nancy Dolce

Wow, Thomas, were you supposed to know after the first call or email so you could immediately offer the goods to someone else?

I was lucky Nancy, and had a distributor in Florida who was bugging me about not getting his order in, in time. So we just shipped the product to him, and he has turned out to be a great distributor for us. But all it would have taken on the Budweiser distributors part was one sentence in an e-mail telling me he didn’t want the product anymore.

I did frame his e-mail on the wall in my office though. It is a classic.

[Nola_Palomar]

@Thomas Keim

@Terence T-Bone Livingston

@Linda Lindsay

but common courtesy says you respond that you simply received the samples requested with a kind thank you. From what I am reading, that did not happen. That is the gist of Nola’s concern as I understand it.
As.

Common courtesy? Yes. In this industry in this day and age? No. I don’t expect anything from anyone who I don’t know personally in this industry. It has become something it wasn’t 20+ years ago. People don’t respond to personal letters, let alone emails, phone calls, texts, etc.

The wine business has become “what can you do for me”, so if you expect someone who you don’t even know, to actually care about your wines in this day and age when you are just someone trying to be kind and make wines for the people…forget about it. Those days are over.

Find your niche. Find your people. Don’t expect anything from anyone. Just enjoy why we got in this business in the first place.

Bone … out.

THIS - is the actual way this business is - whether any of us like it or not. I work as an importer/broker/sales agent, and I would guess that probably 75-80% of my e-mails go unanswered. And you people dealing mainly with wine have it easy, you should try dealing with brewers and beer wholesalers, without a doubt the most arrogant people in this industry.

This thread reminds me of something that happened to me earlier this year. I had a container of Spanish beers and ciders hit Chicago, and I had been e-mailing and calling my “then” Wisconsin distributor to let him know that his two pallets of product was arriving. He “finally” answered the phone after many numerous calls and e-mails going back three months, and this is what he said…

“Tom, you couldn’t figure out that I didn’t want the product anymore after I didn’t answer your e-mails?”

And this was the president of a Budweiser distributorship, not some micky mouse little company. Purchase order be damned…

Tom’s right, it is a tough business. Importer to distributor relations are tough to find perfect matches.

As far as merging the two threads, yeah…no. Juan and I have far too many dissimilarities apart from the obvious that I am an American and our winery is in Europe.

• Juan does have a history in science and chemistry.
• His command of Spanish is native and he knows his country, the villagers, and has access to expert legal, accounting and business entities there.
• He owned his own land (close to 200 hectares with close to 25 Hectares of vineyards (about 55 acres).
• Our with an average grape production of 4,000 to 5,000 Kg. per Hectare.
• Each vine has individual drip irrigation and they are tended by a team of local workers under the direction of an agricultural engineer.
• Before starting the venture, we have asked no one for startup funds.
• We’ve never sold wine that we did not deliver.
• We did not glam up our venture publicly prior to doing it.
• We import the wines ourselves to keep our costs low and have immediate access to our wines for sampling, distributors and sale.
• Juan did take winemaking courses at Davis U and knew exactly which varieties he wanted to plant based on flavor, climate of our location and his personal choices.
• For the public merit of our wines, we rely on entering various competitions both in the US and in Europe, send the wines to various critics, but mostly from word of mouth from the people that have tried them.
  I am sure we have more differences, but that’s just a few to start, off the top of my head.

[Ken_V]

@Nola Palomar

As far as merging the two threads, yeah…no. Juan and I have far too many dissimilarities apart from the obvious that I am an American and our winery is in Europe.

• Juan does have a history in science and chemistry.
• His command of Spanish is native and he knows his country, the villagers, and has access to expert legal, accounting and business entities there.
• He owned his own land (close to 200 hectares with close to 25 Hectares of vineyards (about 55 acres).
• Our with an average grape production of 4,000 to 5,000 Kg. per Hectare.
• Each vine has individual drip irrigation and they are tended by a team of local workers under the direction of an agricultural engineer.
• Before starting the venture, we have asked no one for startup funds.
• We’ve never sold wine that we did not deliver.
• We did not glam up our venture publicly prior to doing it.
• We import the wines ourselves to keep our costs low and have immediate access to our wines for sampling, distributors and sale.
• Juan did take winemaking courses at Davis U and knew exactly which varieties he wanted to plant based on flavor, climate of our location and his personal choices.
• For the public merit of our wines, we rely on entering various competitions both in the US and in Europe, send the wines to various critics, but mostly from word of mouth from the people that have tried them.
  I am sure we have more differences, but that’s just a few to start, off the top of my head.

Well said. I have tasted several of your wines and they are good quality and very good values.

[Jay_Winton]

@Ken V

@Nola Palomar

As far as merging the two threads, yeah…no. Juan and I have far too many dissimilarities apart from the obvious that I am an American and our winery is in Europe.

• Juan does have a history in science and chemistry.
• His command of Spanish is native and he knows his country, the villagers, and has access to expert legal, accounting and business entities there.
• He owned his own land (close to 200 hectares with close to 25 Hectares of vineyards (about 55 acres).
• Our with an average grape production of 4,000 to 5,000 Kg. per Hectare.
• Each vine has individual drip irrigation and they are tended by a team of local workers under the direction of an agricultural engineer.
• Before starting the venture, we have asked no one for startup funds.
• We’ve never sold wine that we did not deliver.
• We did not glam up our venture publicly prior to doing it.
• We import the wines ourselves to keep our costs low and have immediate access to our wines for sampling, distributors and sale.
• Juan did take winemaking courses at Davis U and knew exactly which varieties he wanted to plant based on flavor, climate of our location and his personal choices.
• For the public merit of our wines, we rely on entering various competitions both in the US and in Europe, send the wines to various critics, but mostly from word of mouth from the people that have tried them.
  I am sure we have more differences, but that’s just a few to start, off the top of my head.

Well said. I have tasted several of your wines and they are good quality and very good values.

+1 on Nola’s wines

[Peter_Kleban]

@Jay Winton

@Ken V

@Nola Palomar

As far as merging the two threads, yeah…no. Juan and I have far too many dissimilarities apart from the obvious that I am an American and our winery is in Europe.

• Juan does have a history in science and chemistry.
• His command of Spanish is native and he knows his country, the villagers, and has access to expert legal, accounting and business entities there.
• He owned his own land (close to 200 hectares with close to 25 Hectares of vineyards (about 55 acres).
• Our with an average grape production of 4,000 to 5,000 Kg. per Hectare.
• Each vine has individual drip irrigation and they are tended by a team of local workers under the direction of an agricultural engineer.
• Before starting the venture, we have asked no one for startup funds.
• We’ve never sold wine that we did not deliver.
• We did not glam up our venture publicly prior to doing it.
• We import the wines ourselves to keep our costs low and have immediate access to our wines for sampling, distributors and sale.
• Juan did take winemaking courses at Davis U and knew exactly which varieties he wanted to plant based on flavor, climate of our location and his personal choices.
• For the public merit of our wines, we rely on entering various competitions both in the US and in Europe, send the wines to various critics, but mostly from word of mouth from the people that have tried them.
  I am sure we have more differences, but that’s just a few to start, off the top of my head.

Well said. I have tasted several of your wines and they are good quality and very good values.

+1 on Nola’s wines

+2 on the wines–and Nola, Juan and Nolita too!

[Mark_C]

@Peter Kleban

+2 on the wines–and Noal, Juan and Nolita too!

You’re a real coward to call her Noal.