Lieb Behind the Scenes – November 2015

LAST DAY OF HARVEST. I just got back from the vineyard, where I helped our farm crew pick 5 tons of Petit Verdot to finish out our 2015 harvest season. Done and done! Over the past 2 ½ months, we harvested 215 tons of grapes which will be made into 12,000 cases of wine. Of our 11 varieties planted, Petit Verdot is always the last one to ripen. It’s characterized by small, dark berries with thick skins and high acidity, so it’s mainly used to add tannic and acidic “punch” to our Meritage and Bridge Lane Red blend. We love and are known for fresh, bright reds, so Petit Verdot is our friend even though it’s always the last one to the party!

Back at the winery, our whites have all finished primary fermentation with the exception of Riesling which was picked last and is almost finished. All but one of our whites will move from primary fermentation straight to the clarification stage, where leftover solid materials like dead yeast cells, pulp and skin are removed from the wine in order to make it clear. Our barrel-fermented Chardonnay, however, will undergo a secondary fermentation called malolactic fermentation (or “ML”) before clarification. To induce ML, we inoculate the wine with a bacteria, and without getting into the chemistry, it’s a winemaking technique that is used to soften the acidity and make the wine more creamy. This is a texture that we want in our oaked Chardonnay (and red wines) but don’t want in our bright, light whites like Pinot Blanc. Likewise, our reds (with the exception of the Petit Verdot) are currently being “pressed off” their skins post-fermentation and starting ML. Red wines ferment on the skins to pick up tannin and flavor, while white grape skins are removed prior to fermentation. Ok, enough winemaking talk? I think I’ve been spending too much time with Russell!

With harvest behind us, our focus shifts from the vineyard to other important year end efforts. Winemaking obviously (as per the above), but also keeping momentum going in the tasting rooms in the “off-season” and pushing ourselves and our distributors to finish the year strong and reach our annual wholesale case goals. As of October 1st, our revenues as a company were 15% higher YTD over last year. Our goal was and remains 20% growth this year (be aggressive, b.e. aggressive!) so even this late in the game, plans are being formulated and carried out to push us there. One such plan centers around retail holiday sales, which is a perfect segue into to our topic of the month: wineries’ best practices for capturing holiday sales.

We’ve done research and observed holiday activity at bigger Cali wineries, and the strange thing is, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of innovation or creativity in this area. Most articles will tell you to consider adding some fun, festive events to your tasting room schedule to attract customers in the holiday spirit. Duh. Most wineries promote gift cards, special wine packs and wine club memberships as holiday gifts for wine lovers. Also no brainers. Marketing our winery as an event space for the holidays is another common tip, but as we learned last year, most people have parties at their homes and most local businesses don’t want to spend a lot of money on a staff holiday party ahead of the slow winter season. Understandable.

So what’s a team who refuses to accept mediocrity to do? Brainstorm of course! We’re a smart, creative group. No doubt we can come up with something original. What types of unique products, events and promos would prompt us, as avid wine consumers ourselves, to buy Lieb for our friends and family this holiday season?

Two ideas came out of our brainstorm that we’ll be trying out this year. First, a pre-holiday free tasting event. We’ll invite the public to an event in early December where they can taste all of the wines in our portfolio for free. Sounds like a costly undertaking but the rationale here is that by letting them taste, they’ll have an easier time deciding which of our wines would make the best gifts. We open our doors and our bottles and they get to sample before they buy and have confidence in their purchase. Worth a shot!

Our second idea came out of a long discussion we had about the importance of holiday gift packaging. We all agreed that when it comes to wanting to impress those we’re buying for, what’s on the outside totally counts. If an item is branded and packaged well, there’s a higher likelihood that we’ll buy it for a gift over the same product in drab packaging, even if it’s priced a little higher. Last year, we offered 2, 3 and 4 packs of wine in cute corrugated totes and sold quite a few of them out of our tasting room and online. This year, we’ll still sell them but also add gift “crates” to our offering. Everyone does baskets, and they’re so NOT us. Instead, we sourced cool, rustic-looking wooden crates and will package our wines and other items in them. They look good, won’t require any additional wrapping and the recipients can re-use them. Score!

Even better, we decided to get creative with what’s going in the crates. We’ll do wine bottles and boxes obviously, wine club membership invitations (best gift ever), logoed stemless wine glasses, and our secret weapon … a few of our favorite items from other local North Fork purveyors. We’re firm believers in the idea that wine is often at its best when paired, so we called up our buds at North Fork Chocolate Company, Little Creek Oyster Farm and North Fork Roasting Company and had them hook up us with artisanal chocolates, oyster gift cards and bags of specialty coffee. Our “Lieb + Friends” crates give us the opportunity offer something unexpected, to share some of our favorite Nofo things and to help support the producers. Win win!

Next week we’ll be hand-packing all of the totes and crates. Our resident photographer (slash brand ambassador), Madison, will photograph them and then they’re posted on our web store and go up for sale in our tasting rooms. We’re excited about selling them and hope that our creativity, attention to packaging and support for local don’t go unnoticed.

20% … here we come!

Next month is December (what!?), so in the spirit of New Years, I’ll address the topic of sparkling wine in my next and final post of 2015. We’ll examine the different methods for making it, the most popular sparkling wines around the world and why the hell it’s always more expensive than still wine.

Til then, cheers! (me with a glass of our 90 point Cab Franc – WOOT!)
Ami Opisso
General Manager & Certified Sommelier, Lieb Cellars