Turns out it was a two-inch irrigation line. In my defense, I had never driven a tractor before I bought my Branson, let alone worked a backhoe. Thankfully the irrigation line is still the only thing I’ve broken.

To me, that feels like a win for someone who spent most of his career selling materials for other people to build with.

I spent 20 years in the building materials business and then I left.

At least I thought I did.

Since we bought our property over three years ago, Jenny and I have somehow managed to turn it into a constant construction project.

We built a new barn, we’re about to finish our ADU and we’re bringing our old Ghost Winery on the property back to life.

Some of this building was our idea. Some of it was not.

The 2020 Glass Fire took the old ADU and two other cottages on the property. More than half the trees were lost as well, including some beautiful old redwoods. You can still see the signs of the fire on the trees that survived. Wildfire is no joking matter in California, and it’s something we had to get up to speed on very quickly after moving here. Judging by the premiums, the insurance companies agree.

The Glass Fire from just above our property.

Somewhere along the way, I decided I needed a tractor. I was nervous about it at first, wondering if I’d use it enough, and now I use it constantly. I have spent countless hours on that tractor doing landscaping around the property. Moving dirt, digging trenches, spreading mulch, planting trees and cleaning things up.

Occasionally I find myself creating an entirely new project based on something I saw while I was working on another project.

I’ve gotten very good at finding reasons to use the tractor.

Rebuilding the ADU has definitely been the biggest project so far.

Early on, it was easy to look at the plans and see what it would eventually become.

Living through it real time has be a little bit different, though.

There are hundreds of decisions to be made. Flooring, tile, cabinets, lighting, plumbing fixtures, landscaping. And then occasionally decisions you made need to be remade. Things that you never thought you’d even care about become a thirty-minute discussion.

And everything takes longer than you think. The permit alone took over ten months (more on that in a later story).

I’ve always loved the sight of roof trusses going up.

I knew all of that from my career in construction, but building in California is a different animal.

There is one theme I keep going back to since leaving the corporate world.

Ten months waiting for permits, a year of moving dirt, a winery that has been sitting for a hundred years waiting for someone to bring it back to life.

None of that pays you back on the day you do the work or pay the bills.

Much like wine, you put the effort in now and find out down the road whether you were right.

I apparently keep choosing things where feedback shows up late.

But this isn’t just another house we’re building.

We’re trying to create a place where people can experience this little slice of Napa Valley the way Jenny and I have come to love it.

Sitting outside with a bottle of Paula Kornell bubbles. Walking the property and picking some fruit to eat or use in a cocktail. Heading to Calistoga for dinner and generally seeing the valley from the inside instead of from a hotel lobby.

Eventually the old Ghost Winery will become part of that picture too.

That’s what makes all the decisions, delays and countless hours moving dirt worthwhile.

Somewhere along the line I also realized something. I really like building things, I always have.

For a long time, that meant businesses. I’ve been fortunate to spend much of my career helping build companies, teams and cultures. I loved watching something get better and knowing I played even a small role in making that happen.

These days I’m still doing that, building Farmer Hospitality, Paula Kornell Sparkling and ZFG Wine. And we’re building in Calistoga, a place that we love.

But now, some days, I’m literally building.

There’s something really satisfying about looking at an area that was dirt and weeds a year ago and seeing what it has become. Especially when you’ve moved a fair amount of that dirt yourself.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve done this all myself. Far from it.

We’ve been blessed to have some really talented people helping us. I’ve learned enough over the years to know when I should do something myself or when I should have a professional do it. But I love being part of it.

I like getting dirty, figuring things out and looking back at the end of the day and actually seeing what got done. And I’ve probably enjoyed the tractor a little too much.

The funny thing is, I spent many years thinking my career was in the building materials business. Maybe that’s never the part I really loved.

Maybe I just like building.

Businesses. Teams. Cultures. Brands. Places.

The materials have changed quite a bit.

Apparently I have not.

Cheers,

Mike

So, true to form, I decided to give myself another chance.

My alarm went off at 3 AM this week and I drove to our vineyard in Carneros.

We had made the call to pick another block on pretty short notice, and we weren’t sure how many people we’d have. So I figured I should get up and help.

We ended up with a mostly full picking crew, but they still needed another person on the back of the tractor sorting through the fruit.

That person was me.

This time I wasn’t picking. I was a “leafer.”

As the grapes came in from the vineyard, my job was to pull out leaves and any fruit that didn’t make the cut.

It sounds pretty simple.

It wasn’t.

For the next few hours, I stood on the back of the tractor as bucket after bucket of grapes came in

Good fruit stayed. Leaves came out. So did grapes that weren’t going to make the cut.

I don’t speak much Spanish, certainly not enough to keep up with most of the conversations happening around me.

At one point, one of the women on the crew told the guys to stop bringing so many leaves because it was starting to look like a salad.

I started laughing.

She looked over at me and started laughing too, realizing I’d actually understood her.

Apparently my Spanish is better at 5 AM than I thought.

Somewhere about halfway through the morning, something else changed.

When a cluster came through that wasn’t an obvious yes or no, the crew started looking at me.

Keep it?

Throw it out?

At first I didn’t really think much about it. I’d look at the fruit and make the call.

Then I realized what was happening.

A week earlier I was the slow guy asking everyone else questions.

Now they were asking me.

I still had plenty of questions, but that felt pretty good.

I also found a grasshopper hiding in one of the bins.

I decided he made the cut.

I found out later that grasshoppers have been considered symbols of good luck, prosperity and abundance in different cultures.

Finding one in the middle of harvest?

I’ll take it.

Eventually the last grapes came in.

We decided the first fruit of the morning needed to be properly blessed with a bottle of Paula Kornell.

I asked Jennifer to do the honors.

She absolutely loved it.

One swing later, the grapes were blessed, we had sparkling wine, a few tons of freshly picked grapes and another harvest morning in the books.

Another harvest morning in the books. My second shift was over, nobody fired me this time. Progress.

Cheers,

Mike

These stories are about learning and building a business. If you want to hear about the wine itself, first access to releases and what’s happening in the cellar, please join our mailing list here: https://www.paulakornell.com/sign-up

Since we both turned 50 this year, we decided to celebrate together, our 100th. What started as a birthday party turned into a pretty amazing weekend with people from almost every chapter of our lives.

More than 20 friends and family came in from out of town. On Friday night, we had everyone over to our house for dinner.

It was crowded, full of life (thankfully most of our neighbors don’t spend all their time here), and it couldn’t have been better.

Saturday was the actual party, and by then we had about 65 people at the house.

Josh and Mary from Heritage Farms catered it. They’re local Calistogans and friends, which made it feel even more like home.

At some point during the party, I started looking around and realizing how amazing it was to have all these people from different parts of our lives in the same place.

There were people we’ve known forever and people who have come into our lives much more recently. Family, friends from growing up, college, work, North Carolina, Napa, the wine business and our Calistoga community.

People who would have absolutely no reason to know each other were sitting together, drinking wine and telling stories and genuinely enjoying each other’s company.

I loved watching that. Candidly, almost a week later, just thinking about it still brings tears to my eyes.

There is something special about seeing an old friend from one part of your life laughing with someone from a completely different part of it.

Late in the evening, Jenny also had a surprise for me.

She had arranged for one of our friends to play piano during the party. At some point he sat down and started playing a song I recognized immediately.

Our wedding song.

Then Jenny sang it to me in front of everyone.

I had absolutely no idea she was going to do it.

That one got me, yes I cried and realized why she offered me tissues ten minutes earlier to help with the sweat (it was 100 degrees that day).

There are a lot of things you can buy someone for their 50th birthday. I’m pretty sure I won’t remember many of them ten years from now.

I’ll remember that one forever.

The party went late, as you might expect. We also drank a fairly ridiculous amount of wine.

True to form, Jenny also arranged for us to end the party the same way we used to end all of our college parties more than 30 years ago.

Actually, it’s also how we ended our wedding.

Everyone together in one big circle singing Piano Man.

Some of the people in that circle had done it with us back in college. Some were at our wedding. Others we hadn’t even met yet when Jenny and I got married.

Now they were all standing together singing the same song.

I wish I had a video of it. Somehow, with 65 people there, I can’t find one.

Maybe that’s okay.

Maybe everyone was actually in the moment instead of trying to record it.

By Monday, people started heading to airports and driving home. The tables came down, the glasses got put away and the house got quiet again.

I wasn’t particularly excited about turning 50.

But sitting there with Jenny after everyone had left, I realized the weekend really hadn’t been about turning 50 anyway.

It was about getting a bunch of people we love into the same place for a couple of days.

We probably shouldn’t wait for 60 to do that again.

Cheers,

Mike

Instead, this past week we found ourselves walking through the vineyard just before midnight, over a month earlier than usual.

My son was also born over a month early, so I’m choosing to believe that’s a good omen.

Before we bought the winery, harvest was something I mostly experienced from the outside. I’d stop by the vineyard, see crews working, maybe ask a few questions, then enjoy the wine a year or two later.

This year I wanted to actually be part of it.

Earlier that afternoon we sampled fruit throughout the vineyard. We looked at sugar levels, acidity, flavor, and the weather forecast. By late afternoon everyone had come to the same conclusion.

Tonight was the night.

I’ve picked grapes before, but this time felt different. I wasn’t there just to help fill buckets. I wanted to understand what we were picking and see firsthand what was going to be put into our Pinot Noir this year.

So I asked a lot of questions.

Why this row first? Why leave those clusters? What about the clusters that are only partially through veraison? The more questions I asked, the more I realized how much I didn’t know. One thing became obvious pretty quickly.

I couldn’t keep up.

If I’d actually been part of the harvest crew, I’m pretty sure they would have replaced me before sunrise. What surprised me most wasn’t how hard everyone worked. It was how effortless they made it look. They moved quickly, but nobody seemed rushed. Every cut had a purpose. Every bucket ended up exactly where it needed to be. After a while you realize you’re watching people who have done this hundreds of times.

It’s one of those things that’s easy to appreciate from a distance. It’s something completely different when you’re standing beside them trying to keep up. As I was working, my hands were sticky, I was slow, but I was so happy.

Jennifer Thomson, our vineyard partners pointed at the fruit and smiled.

“Think of it like the little M&M’s,” she said. “Better shell-to-chocolate ratio.”

I’d never heard anyone describe grapes that way, but it made perfect sense.

The berries are smaller than normal this year. More skin compared to the amount of juice usually means more concentration and flavor. For sparkling wine, that’s exactly what you’re hoping for.

Me, Paula and Jennifer

Will this vintage be better because of it?

Ask me again in a couple of years, but my hypothesis is yes based on their taste.

Driving home after being awake late into the night, I kept thinking about the people who make harvest happen every year.

Most of us only ever see the finished bottle.

We don’t see someone checking fruit for weeks before making the call to pick. We don’t see crews working through the night because that’s when the grapes are coolest. We don’t see the thousands of small decisions that happen before the first juice ever reaches the winery.

By sunrise the grapes were in the press.

A few hours Paula and Robin stopped by the winery and watched the first juice begin to flow into the tank and send some great pictures.

Now comes the easy part.

Waiting.

In a couple of years we’ll find out what this vintage became.

Until then, I’ll just be grateful I got to see the process from the inside.

Cheers,

Mike

Our last full day in Spain was supposed to be about sparkling wine. It turned into something else.

The night before, Jenny and I had dinner at Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona. It is one of only a handful of restaurants in Spain with three Michelin stars, but what I remember most was not the food.

Every person working in the restaurant wore the same sharp suit and the same bright red custom sneakers with Michelin stars stitched on the back. It was not one person trying to stand out. It was everyone.

The sommeliers were just as memorable. Once they found out we owned a winery, they wanted to talk about Napa, California sparkling wine, and how we make our wines.

The next morning we drove to Gramona with our guide Xavi.

The first thing that struck me was not the winery. It was the farm. The vineyards, horses, pigs, and chickens all part of the same system.

We toured the caves, learned more about biodynamic farming, and watched the cellar master hand disgorge a bottle that had spent years aging on its lees. There was no showmanship to it. Just a practiced movement that had probably been repeated thousands of times.

Then we sat down for a beautiful lunch overlooking the valley.

Partway through the meal, Leo Gramona stopped by our table. He apologized that he could not spend more time with us that day. Before he left, he brought us a bottle from his personal cellar.

It was not part of the tasting. It was simply a generous thing to do.

It is amazing how often you remember a simple gesture long after you have forgotten what was served for lunch.

That afternoon we walked from Gramona to Recaredo. It was not far, but it felt like moving from one family’s philosophy to another’s.

We met Ton Mata (one of the owners) who spoke a little English, but was excited to spend some time with us. We talked about vineyards, patience, farming, and why their family chose to leave the Cava designation and become one of the founding members of Corpinnat. To this day they still continue to hand disgorge nearly 100,000 bottles of bubbles per year.

Before we left, I handed him a bottle of our 2021 Paula Kornell Blanc de Blancs. He handed me one of his, and we took a picture together.

Driving back to Barcelona, it hit me that the restaurant, Gramona, and Recaredo all had something in common.

None of them talked about being the best.

They just had standards they refused to compromise.

That evening we headed back into Barcelona to meet our old neighbors from Raleigh, who spend most of their time there now.

The streets were alive. Spain was playing in the World Cup, and every bar was crawling with people watching the match. You could feel the energy everywhere we walked, it was a lot of fun.

Our friends took us to a neighborhood wine bar near their apartment, where we tried wines from all over before walking to dinner.

When we sat down, as old friends to enjoy a very traditional Spanish meal (that started early at 9:30pm), with lots of wine and laughs.

It felt like the perfect ending to a day that had started with sparkling wine and somehow become about people.

Looking back, I honestly cannot remember the order we opened the bottles.

I remember exactly who was sitting around the table.

Cheers,

Mike

I hadn’t planned on it. I was out on a long ride listening to Angela Duckworth’s Grit when I realized I wasn’t really listening anymore. My mind had drifted back to my senior year of high school and my Pre-Calculus teacher, Mr. Gentle.

I kept riding for a few more miles, thinking about those afternoons he stayed after school to help me. Pre-Calculus was the first class I can remember really struggling with. Toward the end of my senior year, a group of my friends were heading to Notre Dame to spend the afternoon walking around campus and the football stadium. Mr. Gentle had offered to stay after school and help me prepare for my final exam instead.

I remember deciding to stay. At the time, it just felt like choosing school over an afternoon with my friends.

A few miles later, I finally pulled over, took my phone out of my jersey pocket, and sent him a message. I told him I’d been thinking about those afternoons after school, that he had taught me what it felt like to work through something difficult instead of giving up, and that I wanted him to know he had made a real impact on my life.

I hit send, slipped my phone back into my jersey pocket, clipped back into the pedals, and started riding again.

It’s funny how your mind works. Once Mr. Gentle came to mind, other memories started finding their way in too.

Growing up in North Muskegon, our school was too small to have a high school soccer team, so most of us football players played AAU soccer together instead.

We didn’t have a high school soccer team. We had each other.

Every year we’d play schools like Muskegon Christian. Their players had grown up playing soccer year-round. We hadn’t. Trying to beat them by playing their game wasn’t going to work, so we played ours. We were physical because we had to be, and we trusted each other because we’d been playing together since we were kids.

Looking back, I don’t remember many of the scores. I remember the carpools, the conversations, the laughter, and the friendships. More than anything, I remember what it felt like to compete alongside a group of people who had known each other almost our entire lives.

Then my mind drifted to basketball.

I’m 5’10”, and somehow I ended up playing power forward. One of the guys I had to guard was Chris Vanderslice from Shelby. Chris was 6’10”, so there wasn’t much strategy involved. I had to be physical because it was the only chance I had.

During my senior year we played Shelby in their gym. Hope women’s basketball coach Brian Morehouse, Coach Mo, as most people know him today, was there recruiting Chris. I was already talking with Hope about attending there, and after the game Coach Mo and I spent some time together as well.

A few months later, Chris and I both arrived at Hope as freshmen. The first time Chris saw me on campus, he smiled, threw his hands up, and said, “Don’t punch me.”

We both laughed.

We became friends.

Looking back, that’s hard to imagine now.

Sometimes you compete with what you have.

Years later, Chris lost his battle with ALS.

Jenny and I found out while we were participating in a Blood Cancer United Light The Night Walk. If you’ve never been, it’s hard to describe. Thousands of lanterns. Thousands of families. Every lantern represents someone, and every family has a story.

Standing there that night, I got chills.

I went home knowing I wanted to do more.

That decision led me to join the local board and eventually bring Builders FirstSource into the effort in a much bigger way. Together with an incredible community of volunteers, donors, and teammates, we’ve helped raise more than $13 million for Blood Cancer United. I’ve been fortunate to help raise more than $1 million personally.

People sometimes ask me about the fundraising.

What I remember are the people.

The survivors.

The families.

The volunteers.

The stories.

Every lantern has a story.

Several years after that bike ride, Mr. Gentle finally found my message. He apologized for taking so long to respond, explaining that he wasn’t much of a Facebook user and had only recently seen it.

Then he wrote something I’ll never forget.

“I do remember you as a kind, intelligent and caring person. I had no doubt that you would be successful in whatever you chose to do.”

I smiled.

Not because he remembered me.

Because I realized he probably never knew what those afternoons after school had meant to me.

Funny how a long bike ride can take you places you never expected.

Sometimes it isn’t the miles you remember.

It’s the people.

Cheers,

Mike

Cheers,

Mike

Winemaking.

Vineyards.

Inventory.

Distributors.

Customers.

A lot of hard work.

And to be fair, that’s exactly what we’ve gotten.

What we didn’t expect were the people.

Celebrating at the St Helena Montessori Auction.

When you’re looking at a business, it’s easy to focus on the numbers, the assets, and the opportunities.

It’s much harder to see the relationships that come with it.

Over the past 18 months, we’ve had experiences that never would have crossed our path otherwise.

We’ve shared wines with families whose roots in Napa Valley go back generations.

We’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with members of families who helped shape the modern Napa Valley wine industry.

Our collaboration with Peter Mondavi Jr. featured at Premier Napa Valley.

We’ve participated in events like Broadway and Vine and found ourselves sitting next to people whose work we had admired from afar.

Mandy Gonzalez singing Satisfied at Broadway & Vine.

A few years ago, if you’d told me those experiences would become part of our life, I wouldn’t have believed you.

There have been moments where I’ve stopped and thought, “How did we get here?”

Not because of the winery.

Because of the people.

As memorable as those experiences have been, they aren't the moments I think about most.

The moments I remember are usually much smaller.

A dinner that lasts longer than planned.

A bottle shared with friends on a random Tuesday night.

Someone introducing us to another person who eventually becomes a friend.

The conversations before the event.

The stories after it.

The friendships that form when nobody is trying to sell anything.

The longer I’m in wine, the more I realize the bottle is rarely the point.

It’s what happens around the bottle that matters.

Looking back, we came to Napa Valley thinking we were building a winery.

What we found was a community.

And while the winery is what brought us here, the people are what made us stay.

Those relationships weren't part of the business plan.

They’ve ended up being some of the best parts of the journey.

Cheers,

Mike

We needed to get the wines back into the market.

We needed distributors.

We needed direct-to-consumer sales.

We needed momentum.

When you’re rebuilding a brand, almost every opportunity feels like a good one.

The answer is usually yes.

Yes to a new market.

Yes to a new account.

Yes to another event.

Yes to another opportunity to tell the story.

Lately, though, I’ve realized the challenge has changed.

Not because we’ve figured everything out.

But because we’re finally at a point where we have options.

And options can be dangerous.

We could make more wines.

We could launch new products.

We could enter more states.

We could attend more events.

There are plenty of good ideas sitting in front of us.

The challenge isn’t finding them.

The challenge is deciding which ones fit, especially with our small but mighty team of four.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

Part of it comes from understanding the wine business better than I did when we started.

Once I really understood how capital works in this business, how long cash is tied up, and how long we actually want inventory to age, it changed the way I think about growth.

Part of it comes from having a clearer picture of what we’re trying to build.

When I first got into wine, I assumed bigger was the goal.

More cases.

More distribution.

More growth.

That’s how I spent most of my career thinking.

Now I’m on a different path.

The more time I spend in wine, the more I find myself asking a different question.

Are we making decisions that fit our strategy?

Not every opportunity does.

Not every new wine belongs in the portfolio.

Not every path to growth gets us closer to where we’re trying to go.

We’ve been pretty clear from the beginning that we want to make wines that are high quality, but approachable.

Wines people actually open.

Wines people share.

Wines that help create memories around a table.

We’ve also talked a lot about becoming the premier sparkling wine house in Napa Valley, representing the wines of the world through Napa Valley terroir.

That’s an exciting vision.

But visions only matter if your decisions support them.

The older I get, the more I think discipline is less about saying yes to the right things and more about saying no to the wrong ones.

I’m still ambitious.

That part hasn’t changed.

But these days I’m spending a lot less time asking how much bigger we can get.

And a lot more time asking whether we’re building the business we actually want.

So far, that’s been a much better guide.

Cheers,

Mike

Not all at once.

More through small moments over time.

Over the past year, we’ve spent most of our time living in Calistoga while still holding onto our place in Raleigh. We were bouncing back and forth so often that it almost felt like we were living in two different worlds at the same time.

Then over the past few weeks, something shifted.

We sold the townhouse in North Carolina. Spent several nights having dinners with close friends we love there. Talked about old memories, stories, and everything that happened over 18 years in Raleigh.

It started to feel less like we were splitting time between two places.

And more like one chapter was actually closing.

That part really resonated with me as I thought about it.

North Carolina will always feel like home to us in a lot of ways.

So will Michigan.

Some of our closest friendships, biggest milestones, and best memories are tied to those places.

Leaving doesn’t change that.

If anything, I think it deepens the appreciation for it.

But somewhere along the way, Calistoga stopped feeling temporary too.

What started around wine slowly became something much more personal.

The friendships here surprised us the most.

People opened their homes to us. Shared meals. Introduced us to other people who slowly became close friends too.

Over time, it stopped feeling like a place we stayed.

And started feeling like a community we were becoming part of.

Running a winery has changed me too.

Earlier in my career, I probably measured success mostly through growth. Bigger business. Faster momentum. More scale.

Wine has a way of slowing that thinking down.

Some of the best moments here happen around a table. Over dinner. Walking through vineyards. Opening a bottle with people you care about and letting the night go longer than planned.

The longer I’m around it, the more I realize we aren’t really building a wine brand.

We’re building a place, a feeling, and hopefully memories people want to come back to.

I’m still ambitious.

That part probably never leaves.

But the ambition feels different now.

Less about building the biggest thing possible.

More about building something meaningful that actually lasts.

Maybe that’s part of what happens when the dream becomes real.

It stops being something you chase.

And starts becoming something you’re responsible for.

Cheers,
Mike

And I’m finally starting to understand how this business actually works.

When we got started, the goal was simple: get the wines back into the market and sell wherever we could. (It still makes me smile that our first real sale was to the Detroit Lions.)

At the time, it was all about rebuilding distribution and creating momentum.

But over the last several months, my thinking started to change.

Once I really understood the cash conversion cycle in wine, how long capital stays tied up, and how long we actually want inventory to age, I started looking at growth differently.

When we bought the brand, it was almost entirely wholesale. Maybe 1% direct-to-consumer (DTC).

The best year before us was around 5,000 cases.

In our first full year, we sold a little over 3,000 cases, with about 12% direct-to-consumer.

This year we’ll be around 5,200 cases, and DTC should land somewhere in the mid-20% range.

So the business is moving in the right direction.

But the question that kept coming back was:

What are we actually trying to build?

My first instinct was to push to 10,000 cases as fast as possible.

More volume. More distribution. More growth.

That’s always been an instinct of mine.

But the more I thought about it (and talked to some really smart industry people), the more it felt misaligned with what this brand actually is.

This brand is tied to Napa Valley.

That’s where Paula grew up. That’s where our best fruit comes from. That’s the part of the story that matters most.

And we’ve been clear from the beginning:

We want to make wines that are high quality, but still approachable. Wines people actually open and enjoy, not just collect.

That takes more intention than I realized at the start.

You don’t get there by doing everything.

You get there by being selective about what you make, how much you make, and how it shows up for people.

So instead of pushing for scale at all costs, we shifted.

Our mid-term plan now is roughly:
• 4,000–4,500 cases of California Brut and Brut Rosé
• Around 2,000 cases of Napa wines

Enough to support a healthier balance between wholesale and direct-to-consumer over time.

It’s probably not the fastest way to grow.

But it feels like a more durable way to build.

Less focused on chasing volume.

More focused on creating something that actually holds together long term and represents where we are.

Cheers,
Mike

Standing out usually means doing more.
Building something that lasts usually means doing less.

In wine, it shows up quickly. You want to do something different. Something people don’t get to experience everywhere else. That’s part of the point.

But every new idea comes with a cost. Another SKU. More inventory. More complexity. And over time, that adds up faster than you expect.

We’ve been clear about our goal. To build the premier sparkling wine house in Napa Valley. Not by copying Champagne, but by representing the wines of the world through Napa Valley terroir.

That’s a big ambition. And it’s easy to mistake ambition for expansion.

The temptation is to do more. More styles. More one offs. More limited releases. Each one feels justified. Each one feels like it helps you stand out.

But I’ve seen how this plays out. In building materials. In tech. And now in wine.

Complexity doesn’t show up all at once. It builds quietly. One good idea at a time. Until eventually you’re managing a portfolio instead of building a brand.

So the question isn’t just how do you stand out.

It’s what are you willing not to do?

Because the brands that last don’t just differentiate. They focus. They make clear decisions about what belongs, what doesn’t, and what they’re known for. And they protect that over time.

For us, that means being disciplined. Not every idea makes it into the portfolio. Not every wine gets made. Even if we like it. Even if it would sell.

Because the goal isn’t to have more. It’s to build something distinct. Something people come back to because they know what it stands for.

Standing out is easy in the short term. You can always add something new. Staying focused over time is the harder part.

If you’re interested in what it actually looks like to build a wine business from the ground up, subscribe here.

Cheers,
Mike

Cheers,
Mike

e

We were talking with our now mutual friend Tim, who’s a realtor, and Jenny started describing what our dream Napa property would look like someday.

Tim said, “Let’s go look at a few places before you leave. Just so you can see the market.”

We told him we weren’t buying anything.

He said, “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go anyway.”

So that Friday we squeezed in three showings in less than an hour before heading out for a day of tastings. Two in St. Helena. One in Calistoga.

We spent maybe 15 minutes at each.

Then we moved on with our day and didn’t talk about the houses again.

Except one.

A few months later, we were hosting a party.

A friend of ours, Leigh, ended up asking each of us separately when we were heading back to Napa.

Without talking about it, we both gave the same answer.

“We’re still thinking about that house in Calistoga.”

Leigh pulled us aside and said, “You two should probably talk. That place sounds like it’s meant to be.”

The truth is, we were trying not to buy.

It felt early.
It felt like a stretch.
It felt like something we weren’t quite ready for.

But it stuck.

So we called Tim.

He said, “It’s not even on the market. And the owner would love to sell it to you. She likes your story.”

That didn’t make the decision easier.

It made it real.

From that point, things moved quickly.

Within a day, we were at the airport figuring out how we were actually going to make it work.

Less than ten days later, we were writing an offer.

At some point the question shifts.

Not why.

Why not.

So we signed it.

We opened a bottle of bubbles.

Not long after, it was accepted

.That property has turned into something much bigger than we expected.

We’ve built a barn that’s more of a barndominium. We’re finishing an ADU so wine club members and friends have a place to stay when they visit.

Our whole family comes out. The dogs run around. Jenny has fully committed to the chickens.

And the best part.

There’s an old ghost winery on the property that we’re bringing back to life. A place where we’ll eventually share our wines.

Looking back, we almost talked ourselves out of it.

Too early.
Too risky.
Too much.

But that decision didn’t just change where we spend our time.

It changed how we think about building this business.

Place matters.

Not as a marketing idea.

As a foundation.

As something you commit to before it fully makes sense.

As something you grow into over time.

You don’t just build a wine brand.

You build a place in a place.

And if you’re patient, consistent, and willing to take the step before you’re fully ready…

You earn it.

Cheers,
Mike

Several years ago I spent a few weeks at Wharton’s executive education program. I ended up on a great team and made some lifelong friends.

One of them was Robert.

Robert is from the Czech Republic and has the kind of dry sense of humor that makes you pause for a second before realizing he’s half serious and half joking. But whenever someone would hesitate about trying something, going somewhere, or taking a chance, he would just shrug and say:

“Why not.”

Not as a speech.
Not as advice.
Just a quiet, matter-of-fact response.

Over the years that phrase stuck with me.

Jenny and I have traveled with Robert and his girlfriend Nico a few times since then, and every now and then that same line pops up again.

Why not.

When I saw a neon “why not” sign at a friend’s house in Calistoga recently, I immediately thought of him.

It also made me realize how many of the best things in my life started exactly that way.

Leaving a comfortable career.
Starting a wine business.
Buying property in Napa.
Partnering with friends.

Most of those decisions didn’t come from having a perfect plan.

They came from curiosity beating caution.

Sometimes caution is wisdom.

But sometimes the better question isn’t why.

It’s why not.

Cheers,
Mike

You can chase distribution.
You can chase trends.
You can chase scale.

But you cannot shortcut place.

The more time I spend in Napa, the more convinced I am that place is not marketing. It is reputation. It is memory. It is earned over time.

Marketing can get attention. Only the wine keeps it.

Since stepping fully into this in September 2024, one thing has been clear. You do not arrive in Napa and declare yourself. You show up. You pour. You contribute. And slowly, if you are consistent, you earn your place.

From the beginning, we have been intentional about one thing.

We are building to become Napa’s premier sparkling wine house.

That will not be decided by ambition. It will be decided by patience, by discipline, and by whether the wines stand up year after year.

Sparkling demands time. Napa demands credibility. Neither rewards shortcuts.

Scale is tempting. But scale without identity is fragile.

If we are going to build something that lasts, it has to be rooted here. In this community. In this tradition.

You do not just build a wine brand.

You build a place in a place.

And over time, you earn it.

Cheers,
Mike

Premiere Napa Valley reminded me of that.

We started pouring on Wednesday. Then Thursday. Then Friday. Conversations, handshakes, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. It all built toward the grand tasting and auction on Saturday.

But what stood out most wasn’t the auction room.

It was the community.

Over the past 16 months, since stepping fully into this world in September 2024, I’ve been consistently impressed by the sense of support among Napa Valley vintners. This isn’t a small industry, but it’s a tight one. People compete, yes. But they also show up for each other.

That matters.

Premiere Napa Valley exists to support Napa Valley Vintners as a whole. It’s about the health of the region, not just individual brands. After the way this community has welcomed and supported us, it felt meaningful to have the opportunity to give back in a real way.

We donated five cases of Paula Kornell Sparkling for the lot.

They sold for $15,000.

Not bad for a 2022 Napa Valley Rosé.

But the number isn’t the point.

The point is being part of something bigger than your own label.

The past year and a half has been hard work. Starting in September 2024 meant learning fast, building relationships, earning trust, and proving we belong in the room. It hasn’t been easy.

But it has been incredibly rewarding. And fun. The kind of fun that comes from building something alongside people who care deeply about what they’re protecting.

Giving back has always mattered to me. It matters even more when the cause is the community you’re now part of.

You don’t just build a wine brand.

You build a place in a community.

And if you’re fortunate, over time, you earn it.

Cheers,
Mike