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If you’ve got some free time, go check out some truly inspirational speeches on TedTalk. WISE has garnered some great ideas there, especially about how true leaders lead. One such TedTalk (besides our favorite, Simon Sinek), is from Bob Davids, who contends that leadership without ego is the most valuable and rarest commodity on earth.
If management is about control—control over quality, time and money for the products we sell—then leadership deals with people. While we certainly need good management to have a viable business, it is leadership that makes a difference, and this is how outstanding organizations are built to last.
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Founded as Windsor Vineyards by Rodney Strong in 1959 and acquired by current owner Thomas B. Klein and his family in 1989, Rodney Strong Wine Estates is a Sonoma County fixture.
At its capacious structure just south of Healdsburg, Calif., Rodney Strong produces some 900,000 cases annually and serves guests year-round using indoor and outdoor tasting spaces. It specializes in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines from 1,200 acres of vineyards in Sonoma County AVAs. About 15% of the total wine production is sold direct to consumers.
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During Davids’ TedTalk, he discusses during World War II, when Dwight Eisenhower was the Allied supreme commander of the U.S. military forces. Eisenhower knew that the key to success was to have his generals become outstanding leaders. He explained leadership to them by using a length of chain link. He stacked it in a pile on a table and asked his generals which way it would go if it were pushed. The correct answer was that no one knew for sure, but it was likely that the coil of chain would simply topple over. Then he took the chain link by one end and pulled it. It was obvious that the chain link would follow wherever it was pulled.
Davids says this is the perfect analogy for leadership. If we push our people, we won’t really know what they are thinking, and we can never be sure of their support. The better idea is to pull them along in the direction we want them to take. One of the best ways to do this is to lead by example. When we demonstrate to our staff that we are willing to perform the same job requirements we expect from them, we reinforce the dignity and importance of the tasks at hand: To effectively lead our staff, we need to spend time in their shoes. A good example of this is Herb Kelleher, the president of Southwest Airlines, who handled baggage with his team one Saturday per month.
We need to be good role models for our employees, and there is no substitute. We need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. How does that show up in our world and in our tasting rooms? Let’s ask ourselves these questions:
Do we:
• Dive into the trenches on a busy Saturday to pour and surprise and delight our guests?
• Show employees how to do the job or simply tell them how to do it?
• Admit our own mistakes and give credit to our staff for their good ideas and excellent efforts?
• Exhibit the good judgment, integrity, compassion and honesty that we expect from our team?
Or do we:
• Promote teamwork without modeling team leadership and effectiveness?
• Force our team to be more customer-focused while we stay in our offices, driven by systems and technology?
• Drive for positive changes when we are pessimistic?
• Demand higher levels of innovation while we stick to familiar methods and traditional management approaches?
• Insist on disciplined organization when we’re not well-organized?
• Force accountability, performance appraisal and measurement on others while we avoid personal feedback about ourselves?
If we try to lead by merely enforcing the power of our position, our staff—our chain link—will resist and topple over. Instead, we need to lead by jumping into the trenches with them and PULL.
Source: WISE Academy,
www.wineindustrysaleseducation.com
Winery Job Index
The Winery Job Index rose to 168 in December 2017, up 10% from a year earlier. This was the strongest December of the past decade.
DtC Job Subcategory
Demand for direct-to-consumer positions, including tasting room and retail staff, dropped 20% to 160 in December 2017, the fifth straight month the subcategory’s index fell. Hiring was up 3% in 2017 versus the previous year, however.
DtC Shipments
DtC shipments increased 18% to $219 million in December 2017 versus a year earlier.
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Alison Michnevich took over as tasting room manager three months ago, but she has worked in the wine industry for more than 15 years. As with most North Coast wineries, guest counts vary drastically by season. Michnevich said between 3,000 and 4,000 guests visited Rodney Strong in August 2017—the busy season for wine tourism. The winery counts around 2,500 wine club members, and they often bring friends when they visit.
Most guests are walk-ins, but Michnevich said a significant percentage reserve ahead for food and wine pairings. Rodney Strong’s food service offerings are relatively new and not yet a money maker, but the tasting room manager noted that the program provides a great opportunity for guests to taste fine wines with food.
Staffers tend to be retirees or students from Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute or Santa Rosa Junior College. All tasting room staffers shadow senior employees when they are first hired and receive wine education that includes food service instruction.
The tasting room uses only Riedel glassware, and a service brings in special polishing towels weekly. No preservatives are used to store leftover wines overnight.
Rodney Strong employs five full-time tasting room staff members, bolstered by 15 part-timers. Paid hourly, part-timers may work three or four days per week during busy times and just one or two during the slow season. Compensation includes bonuses for sales and club sign-ups, plus incentives for meeting team goals. The employee retention rate at Rodney Strong is high: One lead server just retired after 11 years, and others have worked there for three to five years.
Non-wine merchandise is not a concentration in the tasting room, in fact the retail inventory is being downsized. Michnevich said she wants guests of the space to focus more on the wine than shopping.
—Jane Firstenfeld
Wines & Vines contributing editor Jane Firstenfeld has been writing about the North American wine industry since the 1970s. If there are any questions you would like answered by future Tasting Room Spotlight participants—or if you would like to have your tasting room featured—email her here.
News Briefs
Sonoma tasting room moratorium extended
The Sonoma (Calif.) City Council unanimously voted in mid-January to extend a 45-day moratorium on downtown tasting rooms until Sept. 30. During the interim period, city staff will study the pros and cons of having a tasting room cluster in Sonoma’s downtown area. According to Wines Vines Analytics, 55 wineries in the ZIP code including downtown Sonoma have tasting rooms.
Traverse City welcomes new tasting room
The Brengman Brothers who own Crain Hill Vineyard will open Forty Pearl, a new tasting room in downtown Traverse City, Mich., this month. Forty Pearl will pour wines from Brengman Brothers as well as 20,000-case Bel Lago and 1,500-case Bonobo wineries. The location also will offer food options and spirits from Grand Traverse Distillery.
Tin City winery specializes in white wines
A new winery is opening in the Tin City tasting room complex in Paso Robles, Calif. Dave McGee named his business Monochrome Wines because it only produces white varietals and blends. The 2016 vintage of Monochrome includes five different labels: a 100% Albariño, a 100% Chardonnay and three white blends, all from Central Coast AVAs. Tastings are available by appointment Thursday-Saturday. For details, see monochromewines.com.
Browne Family expands to Seattle
Browne Family Vineyards will open a satellite tasting room in Seattle’s Pioneer Square this weekend. Owned by Precept Wine Brands, which also produces the Gruet Winery and Ste. Chapelle Winery labels, Browne Family Vineyards is a tribute to William Bitner Browne, grandfather of Precept chief executive officer Andrew Browne. The tasting room will open daily at 11 a.m. For details, visit brownefamilyvineyards.com.
Wineries report low sales during fires
A study by Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute found that tasting room traffic fell in October 2017, the month a firestorm burned more than 245,000 acres in California’s North Coast and killed 44 people. According to the survey, 62% of wineries reported decreased tasting room sales compared to the previous year, though online sales were largely unchanged during the same period.
Sawtooth tasting room plans move
Sawtooth Estate Winery will open a new tasting room in Caldwell, Idaho, on Feb. 17. The winery operated a tasting room out of Nampa, Idaho, that will close due to the move. Wine production for Sawtooth Estate will stay in its existing location.
Parallel 44 will grow into new space
Parallel 44 Vineyard & Winery of Kewaunee, Wis., is moving to a new location that will allow it to increase production and have more direct access to wine grapes. The new winery also will include a tasting room and area for visitors to view the wine-production space.
Please send suggestions to trf@winesandvines.com.
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