269: From Surplus to Strategy: Managing the Grape Market’s Challenges

Amid news of oversupply and decreased demand, the wine industry has an opportunity to adapt to the changing market. Audra Cooper, Director of Grape Brokerage, and Eddie Urman, Central Coast Grape Broker at Turrentine Brokerage, discuss key grape and wine industry trends, from oversupply and vineyard removals to the growing necessity of sustainable certification. They explore regional dynamics, bulk wine market shifts, and future trends, emphasizing innovation, industry collaboration, and better marketing to stay competitive.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Amid news of oversupply and decreased demand, the wine industry has an opportunity to adapt to the changing market.

[00:00:11] Welcome to Sustainable Wine, growing with the Vineyard team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director.

[00:00:22] In today's podcast, Craig McMillan, critical resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates. With Longtime SIP Certified Vineyard, and the first ever SIP certified winery speaks with Audra Cooper, director of Grape Brokerage and Eddie Urman, central Coast Grape Broker At Turrentine Brokerage,

[00:00:41] they discuss key grape and wine industry trends from oversupply to vineyard removals to the growing necessity of sustainable certification. They explore regional dynamics, bulk wine market shifts and future trends. Emphasizing innovation, industry collaboration, and better marketing to stay competitive.

[00:01:01] If you love infield education and are on California Central Coast on April 25th, 2025, please join us at the fungicide spring tailgate hosted at Cal Poly. In San Luis Obispo, California, Dr. Shunping Ding will share updated results from a 2024 study on fungicide programs using bio fungicides and their impact on grape yield and berry chemistry. Then we'll visit the Cal Poly Vineyard to explore new powdered mildew management technologies and discuss fungicide spraying programs. With farmers from throughout the central coast to register, go to vineyard team.org/events or look for the link in the show notes.

[00:01:44] Craig Macmillan: Our guests today are Audra Cooper. She's Director of Grape Brokerage with Turrentine Brokerage. And also, Eddie Urman, who's Central Coast Grape Broker with Turrentine Brokerage as well. And thanks for coming back. This is part two of a, of a, of an episode here. So, I really appreciate you folks making time to come back.

[00:02:00] Audra Cooper: Thank you for having us back. We're excited to join you once again.

[00:02:04] Eddie Urman: Yeah, thanks for having us.

[00:02:05] Craig Macmillan: So Audra, let's start with you. In our last conversation .

[00:02:17] And that was kind of where we left it that then started a conversation amongst the three of us afterward. We were like, okay, there's a lot more to talk about here. So let's do it.

[00:02:24] Can you give some examples of what you mean by getting ahead of changes?

[00:02:30] Audra Cooper: I think it's a sound business strategy to always try and stay ahead of the curve regardless of what component of business or what industry you're in, right? It's just a, a good strategy to have and a good philosophy to have. It's really important in this industry to continue to stay relevant and in order to stay relevant, you have to stay within the trend or ahead of the trend.

[00:02:51] Being behind the eight ball is, never a good thing . You need to be ahead of the curve. A good example of that is sustainable certification. And we still have these discussions on the daily and Eddie, you can talk to this too about how often we have to talk about if you're not sustainably certified, you are cutting your buyer pool, probably roughly in half, as I mentioned in the previous podcast, and you're limiting yourself.

[00:03:18] And the majority of the practices, most growers are probably already doing, and they're just not going through the certification process and getting that done. And if you look back a little over a decade ago, it was something that wineries were paying, you know, 25, 50 per ton more for, they were paying a premium.

[00:03:36] And then it became more of a, this is really nice to have. And so more and more growers We're doing it as a point of differentiation in their marketing. And now today it's almost a necessity. It's no longer something that's necessarily going to get you a premium price for your grapes. It's also not necessarily a point of differentiation any longer.

[00:03:55] It's a need to have.

[00:03:57] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, Eddie, do you have anything to add to that?

[00:03:59] Eddie Urman: No, I think that's a great example. , Audra offered up.

[00:04:02] Craig Macmillan: So there's, trends around that, and there's a lot of certifications now, and I agree, I think a lot of folks don't need to be afraid of whatever the certification is, because you're probably doing a lot of those things already, a lot of common practices.

[00:04:13] I think that's an interesting insight that now it's kind of becoming expected or certainly a requirement for a lot of wineries.

[00:04:19] Let's talk about changes in acreage. That's where we left off last time when we were talking about the difference between vineyard removals, which have been suggested, recommended, et cetera, by a number of folks in the industry as we just are in oversupply period I've heard estimates that we may have 30 to 35, 000 acres of grapes, more than we need based on current demand.

[00:04:40] how accurate do you think that is? , how bad is it on the supply side?

[00:04:45] Audra Cooper: Well, I think you have a couple parts to that question, right? Let's dissect that a little bit and start with, we just got back from the Unified Wine Grape Symposium in Sacramento, and of course, during the State of the Industry, Jeff Bitter gave his annual synopsis of the nursery survey that they do annually on how many vines were sold, and they do a, A lot of data work in regards to what were removals and his number that he reported over the last two years was 37, 500 acres have been removed from the state of California.

[00:05:15] He believes based on their research that another 50, 000 acres need to be removed to reach the point of balance, assuming that consumption stays at its current rate or drops just a tiny bit.

[00:05:29] And when we look at our information internally, now we don't do a survey like Allied does, but we're tracking a lot of information, both with our winery partners as well as our grower partners in regards to who's doing what, and our number's a little bit higher, but we also go back four years technically going back to 2022, our number for the state of California is closer to about 50, 000 acres that have been removed, and, you know, I would argue that If consumption stays flat, certainly there will need more removals, but I don't know about 50, 000 acres more.

[00:06:04] That seems like an awful lot of acres that need to be removed. If his numbers are right, that would put us back to Basically global recession numbers, which would be around 500, 000 acres bearing.

[00:06:16] Craig Macmillan: right. in the Grape Crush Report, which is an annual report that's put out by, uh, California Department Of Food and Agriculture and the National Agricultural Statistics Service, there is a non bearing acres section in there, which I always find very interesting. Are we able to glean anything from that data in terms of what's been sold, what we think's gonna go back in, et cetera?

[00:06:39] I want to put a timestamp on this. So this is being recorded first week of February, 2025. So the unified was in 2025. The report that's coming out is going to be for the 2024 year.

[00:06:48] What can we learn from that non bearing acreage report?

[00:06:51] Audra Cooper: So there's two different reports. the acreage report will be coming out a little bit later in the year. We're going to have our crush report come out on February 10. I think you can glean two pieces of information, but both are very similar. And that is how much acreage has actually been removed and how light the crop truly was, particularly in the coastal regions for 2024.

[00:07:10] And so when we look at, for example, a 23 bearing and non bearing acreage information from the state of California they're reporting 446, 000 acres of bearing wine grapes. And if you take that at, say, 7 tons an acre, that's 3. 12 million tons. And we know with certainty at 7 tons an acre, That acreage seems pretty low.

[00:07:35] It doesn't seem realistic. So unfortunately, because it's a voluntary report when it comes to bearing versus non bearing acres, I do think that the state's probably about two years behind on real data trends. And so unfortunately right now, if you were to use that report as, you know, an analysis of the industry, you'd probably be a bit off.

[00:07:54] Craig Macmillan: got it, got it. Are there trends in what varieties are coming out and what varieties are going back in? Because that's often been the driving force for removals and replants, is chasing the marketplace. Are we seeing that kind of thing in California?

[00:08:11] Audra Cooper: Yeah, you know, I'll I'll touch on this a little bit and then turn it over to Eddie. It's, it's really difficult to predict in our industry how and what and when to plant, right? Because you are following a trend and a trend that you're going to be lagging behind in trying to meet because of the amount of time it takes to get a crop and a crop that is productive.

[00:08:31] And so oftentimes we're abridged, Yeah. Yeah. too far behind in regards to consumer trends. When we look at the central coast as a whole, there's certainly some segmented dynamics on what's being removed versus planted. And, you know, a good place to start, of course, is Paso. Eddie, do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

[00:08:51] Eddie Urman: Yeah we do see some trends of, varieties, being pushed out more frequently than others. You know, for the Central Coast, a couple that come to mind are, Zin, Pinot Noir Merlot is one that historically came out. If it's still there, still going out, and then more specifically, old vines is probably the more specific categories. You are seeing a lot of Cab being pushed, that are old vines, but likely to go back into Cab if it gets replanted.

[00:09:17] Audra Cooper: that's an interesting trend, because when we're looking at what was purchased based on the survey numbers that Jeff Bitter reported, he was talking about 12, 000 acres being planted based on their survey in 2024, and an overwhelming percentage was still red varietals, which really bucks the trend on what we're seeing observing boots on the ground.

[00:09:41] What we've mainly been seeing planted are more alternative whites and niche whites like Grenache Blanc, Pinot Grigio Astrotico, you know, very specific alternative whites in which they're trending with DTC and kind of smaller producers. Certainly we still see some redevelopment of Cabernet as well as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, not so much on the red blender side or Merlot.

[00:10:06] Those seem to be being pulled out and not redeveloped.

[00:10:09] Craig Macmillan: Are we seeing any changes or trends around Okay, I'm pushing out Cabernet. I'm going to replant Cabernet. , am I going to replant the same amount of Cabernet? Am I using this as an opportunity to plant new ground? Do we have any information about that kind of thing?

[00:10:24] Audra Cooper: Yeah, I mean, to give you hard data would be challenging. I don't know that anyone really has, a hard, fast calculation of what they do and don't do in regards to, the varietal makeup of a redevelopment. And I do want to clarify, I think there's a common misconception, particularly in the coastal regions that This is new net acreage.

[00:10:43] It's not new net acreage. A lot of this is redeveloped acreage, but it will be higher in productivity based on, you know, better vines, healthier vines, better spacing, new farming technology, and so forth. And so we'll have new net supply based off that acreage. In full production. When you look at the new developments, though, and it was save paso cab, for example, it's really difficult to say, Oh, well, let's do 50 percent cab and 50 percent red blenders.

[00:11:14] I mean, that's a tough decision to make. And you're really making a a pretty risky bet. I think for most people, they're going to plant to the site and also to the trend in the market. And so oftentimes, for example, again, Paso Cab, you're still going to have Cabernet largely go back in on those redevelopments.

[00:11:31] When you look at Santa Barbara County, I think they're diversifying a little bit more than they had been in the past. You're not largely just Chardonnay Pinot Cab. You're also seeing alternative reds and whites being planted in that area. Monterey County, when you look at that region, it tends to be a little bit more mixed bag, but still largely chardonnay then in the southern Monterey County area, cabernet and red blenders.

[00:11:54] Craig Macmillan: Do you have anything to add to that, Eddie?

[00:11:56] Eddie Urman: As far as the rate of what's going back in the ground, you know, in acres. I think as far as East Paso goes Monterey County, Santa Barbara County, we're seeing contraction as far as more acres coming out that are going back. The only area we do see more plantings that are new, it is in the West side of Paso. And it's substantial. I think there's a good amount of acres that have gone in the West side.

[00:12:17] Being from the growing side, I think we always wanted to diversify away from Cabernet and Paso Robles specifically, but the reality is the majority of people still want to buy Cabernet. So if anything, I'm worried that growers expect other varieties to try to diversify their portfolio that might not match the demand.

[00:12:37] Craig Macmillan: Right, right. And speaking of demand. , we're talking about land and grapes, what's the current state of the, the bulk wine market where you'd expect a lot of the sovers to go where are we kind of at and what do you think are going to be the impacts on the bulk wine market with the replanting?

[00:12:53] Audra Cooper: currently right now, listed available with us is about 28 million gallons. We anticipate that it will climb to probably 30, maybe past 30 million gallons at the peak of listing this year, which is typically early summer. In large part, that's still 2023 vintage. However, we do still have some 21, 22, and of course now new 24 is being listed.

[00:13:18] The rate of listing is not being eclipsed by the rate of, you know, attrition decline in regards to bulk wine being removed from the market, whether that's through sales or higher and better use internally for those who are listing it. So we still have an off kilter balance there and certainly dramatically an oversupply and that dynamics likely to continue for the next couple of years until we see consumption increase and, and therefore increasing demand for new products.

[00:13:45] Typically when we've seen these large increases in availability, what's gotten us out of it is the negotiants who are developing new brands, particularly when we look back to the premiumization sector. We saw a lot of middle tiers, you know, the likes of Duckhorn and Joel Gott and several others who were growing programs that they may have had for a couple of years, but they were very small and they've broadened those to other Appalachians or California and went to the bulk market first to kind of grow those programs before they started grape contracting.

[00:14:16] So we're going to need to start seeing that trend in order to clean that market up.

[00:14:19] Craig Macmillan: And so that's, that's basically good news, you think, for the bulk wine supply going down the road.

[00:14:23] Audra Cooper: I think. In the future, it is in the short term. It's rather painful to have that amount of availability, right? We've been tracking this for the better part of three decades, and there's never been a single calendar year in which we've carried this amount of inventory, particularly going into last harvest, it was the highest inventory we'd ever seen in our tracking.

[00:14:44] Keep in mind that this is what's listed available for us. This is not going out and taking inventory of what everyone has in tank that they're not necessarily going to bottle or they don't have a program for. So you can easily maybe double that number and that's what the likely availability is.

[00:15:03] Craig Macmillan: Eddie what do you think is going to happen with pricing on on bulk wine? Yeah, I know that you're a specialized in grapes. But obviously those growers are concerned about what's going to happen to those grapes. From the grower side, how attractive is it right now to turn product into bulk wine, do you think?

[00:15:21] Eddie Urman: I would say it's very, very, very much not attractive. Uh, we would. Not advocate for that in most scenarios for growers at this time regarding bulk pricing, you know, bulk wine, obviously we have bulk people who have better insight than Audrey, but in general, it's not going to be good. We don't, we don't foresee an increase in price as. we're obviously seeing an increase in supply of bulk wine, that typically is going to still have more downward pressure on price. And as far as growers bulking wine, it's, I think, a very risky game right now. You know, bulk wine does have a life expectancy, to Audra's point earlier. And, know, if you bulk it now, you have to sell it eventually to make your money back.

[00:16:02] And then on top of that, you have to carry those costs with today's interest rates.

[00:16:06] Craig Macmillan: Right, right. So, prices for bulk wine right now, I'm guessing have been on the decline for probably a couple of years. Is that accurate?

[00:16:13] Audra Cooper: Yeah, that's an accurate statement. If I were to really think about how long they've been on the decline, I would say probably mid, mid calendar year 2023 is when we start to see the downturn of the market be very, you know, impactful on pricing and overall demand. And of course, increasing inventory is really when that trend started.

[00:16:34] I want to kind of go back to what Eddie was talking about regarding you know growers making bulk wine and and how risky that is, you know, we have a saying internally and it's so Elementary, but it's so applicable to these times. Your first loss is typically your best loss or your least loss and so it's really important when you're looking at alternative to market Whether or not you're actually going to be able to optimize how much investment you have in that product, and more often than not, when you're making grapes into bulk wine as a grower, you're not going to have the wherewithal to compete with a competitive set, other wineries, or large growers whose business models incorporate making bulk wine as a producer.

[00:17:15] So you really end up being on the losing end of that game.

[00:17:19] Craig Macmillan: Eddie, do you see price pressure on growers? Are prices being negotiated down or contracts being changed or not renewed? And if so, does that vary by region, do you think? I know you specialize in the Central Coast, but just from what you know.

[00:17:34] Eddie Urman: I think for the Central Coast, it's easy to say that there's still unfortunately more cancellations or evergreens being called and their contracts being executed. There is some activity of people being willing to look at stuff and even make offers, which is good news, but typically it's at a lower pricing.

[00:17:51] Craig Macmillan: This is for both of you if I'm a grower and I'm facing this situation both what I can get for my price and then also what the chances are of me selling my stuff on the bulk market, is this a situation where we're maybe better off not harvesting all the crop or mothballing some vineyards for the short term?

[00:18:08] Eddie Urman: Yeah, I mean, I think in general, the less we pick this upcoming season that doesn't have a home, you know, the better off if it's picked for, uh, a program where it's actually needed, that's great, but bulking one on spec or taking in more fruit because it's cheap or very, you know, very low cost is not going to be a good thing. good overall thing for the industry.

[00:18:30] As far as mothballing, we've talked a lot internally. This is where the conversation came in last time about making tough decisions and being intentional about how you're going to farm or you plant going into the season as a grower is, you know, mothballing is very controversial.

[00:18:45] I think for our team, as far as whether it truly works and can you truly come back after it's done, if you're mothballing a Vineyard that's at the end of his life expectancy. You're probably just delaying your pain one more year. Cause it probably will not come back. If you're mothballing a five year old vineyard, maybe it's something that's a different story, but a real tough decision.

[00:19:06] Mothballing a young producing vineyard most people are not in that situation.

[00:19:12] Audra Cooper: Yeah, I mean, I want to expand a little bit on the, the mothballing and not harvesting fruit. I think it's really important that, you know, while this is a rather negative time in the industry and it's really easy to be very pessimistic. I do want to be optimistic about the needed outcomes and the solutions and the pain that's still rather prevalent in our industry to get kind of to the other side of being healthy.

[00:19:36] I do want to be optimistic about some of the newer plantings that we've seen basically since 2012. There is a lot of new to middle aged vineyards that I really hope continue to stay in the ground. They need to stay in the ground because they are the highest and best fit for some of the newer style products in wine.

[00:19:54] And we need to be able to continue to keep our wine quality elevated. And so while certainly there's vineyards that need to be removed or, or mothballed and taken out of production, there's also the flip side of that where there's a huge need for some of the. better vineyards and the more sought after vineyards or the vineyards that are priced right for the program that they're going into.

[00:20:16] So this is kind of a double edged sword in the sense that yeah, we need plenty of production to be pulled out of the supply chain, but at the same time there's a huge need for very specific supply. So I want to be very careful in classifying those items.

[00:20:30] Craig Macmillan: Right. And that brings me to my next question Audra there must be regional differences. Yeah. Yeah. In these patterns, I would assume some areas maybe are a little bit more protected from this kind of contraction or, or expansion over supply and others probably really bearing the brunt. I would guess. Do you see patterns at the state level?

[00:20:48] Audra Cooper: I see patterns at the state level, but I can even bring it down to the central coast, even so far down to like even Paso right now. And Eddie and I have been talking about this a lot. You know, we saw a huge uptick in available inventory for east side AVA Cabernet and red blenders and even some of the white. Over the last two years, particularly last year in 2024,

[00:21:11] and now we're seeing that dynamic shift from the east side climbing and available inventory. And now the west side is where we're seeing most of our listings come from over the last couple of weeks. And so we're now seeing it kind of push into more of the premium luxury tiers as far as this oversupply and the contraction and the kind of the pain points.

[00:21:29] And so we are moving through the channels. Which I know again is, is difficult to hear and it's a very negative position to be in the industry, but it's also a sign that the market and the supply chain is moving through what it needs to move towards in order to come out the other side of this thing on a healthier end.

[00:21:48] We comment on this a lot where. You know, it's going to get worse, dramatically worse for a short period of time before it gets better. And we're starting to see kind of the beginning of that position.

[00:21:58] Craig Macmillan: What about the San Joaquin Valley? San Joaquin Valley?

[00:22:02] Audra Cooper: is actually typically leading the charge in regards to our market, particularly our supply aspect of things, both in grapes and bulk wine. And so when we see A retraction in our industry or oversupply. We typically see it in the interior of the central valley first And when we see kind of a new, Growth stage we see it over there first as well And so they're ahead of us by one to two years Currently and then it kind of follows into the central coast and then up into the north coast and what i've seen Historically when you look back at markets and you look at kind of the time horizons of these things how? Long they live and what pushes the momentum of these markets. You'll typically see it last longer in the Central Valley, tiny bit shorter in the Central Coast and a lot shorter in the North Coast. The North Coast usually doesn't see quite as long of a pain period as the other two regions do. And there's, there's a lot of reasons that we probably shouldn't get into today because it would be a whole nother topic of conversation.

[00:23:00] But I do think that the Central Coast right now has got another challenging year ahead of it. But also I think that the on ramp to a more positive industry is a little shorter than what I think people are giving credit for too because a lot of the work is being done, we just got to get through these major pain points first.

[00:23:19] Craig Macmillan: We know that consumers drive demand for wine and hence wine grapes but are there other economic forces or political forces or regulatory forces that put pressure on this grape market aside from just consumer demand?

[00:23:32] Eddie Urman: again, but 1 of big 1s is, put, it could put pressure to the positive or negative on our industry. We don't really know yet. It's still to be determined. when I read this question, the other thing came to mind to me is, is from a grower's perspective ensuring that you're growing. The compatible correct grapes for your region or varieties or it's staying within where you need to be. If the market for, for example, Chardonnay went through, went to the moon, it doesn't mean everyone in Paso should plant Chardonnay,

[00:24:00] even though that's the hot variety, right?

[00:24:02] It wouldn't be the best variety for most areas of Those are some of the quicker things that come to my mind. I'll probably elaborate.

[00:24:10] Audra Cooper: I think to expand upon that, certainly regulations regarding, you know, water usage and irrigation is is a huge factor. And, and Eddie, you could probably do an entire podcast on that particular topic. And I'm sure that you guys have actually, Craig in addition to that, you really look at the economic environment in which people are growing grapes and producing wine.

[00:24:32] And the economy of it is getting, you know, more and more difficult. The margins are getting much smaller. You can argue that more often than not people are taking losses year over year. And that puts a ton of pressure on their cash flow. In addition to that, when you look at the lending environment as well, that's become a lot more say, non conducive to being able to continue with business. In a lot of cases,

[00:24:57] we have a handful of clients, if not more, who are questioning, do I prune because I don't necessarily have the same operational loan that I've had over the last couple of years and I've been taking low grape prices in order to survive to the following year, but you can only do that so long before it catches up to you.

[00:25:14] And then we have another group or another segment of clientele who will prune, but may end up having to throw in the towel sometime, you know, mid summer or sooner because they don't have enough capital to continue with the grapes or you know, not sold. And then you look at the producer side on the winery side, and, and they too are getting crunched.

[00:25:32] You know, we often talk about how low grape prices are, but we forget that, you know, wineries are getting crunched on their bottle price as well in order to nationally distribute. You know, what you see on the shelf as a price point does not necessarily mean that that's a price point to that producer. So the economies of this industry are getting more and more difficult every single year.

[00:25:52] Craig Macmillan: Eddie, especially, are you seeing trends towards things like mechanization to try to keep costs down?

[00:25:58] Eddie Urman: Yeah, absolutely. I mean mechanization and then automation and the vineyard or two, the , you know, hottest topics so here. And people were definitely making the efforts to try to implement those as they come available. The difficult thing can be oftentimes it's investment in equipment. That's very expensive and you have to truly consider is it going to, is it economically feasible to invest in that equipment and what's the payout time going to be based upon the amount of acres you're farming or how many passes you can do with that piece of equipment. So we're, we're seeing it happen, which is great.

[00:26:31] It's innovation and it's heading us in the right direction, but at this point, a lot of it is still quite expensive and not everyone could participate for cost reasons. Yeah.

[00:26:41] Craig Macmillan: Going forward, we've talked about this a little bit in terms of how different regions are kind of more paying for longer and some a little bit less and et cetera. And this then translates into the wines that are out there. Audra, you'd mentioned you know, the potential of negotiants to come in and help to alleviate the market.

[00:26:59] That's definitely what happened in the nineties from my memory. We saw a lot of negotiate brands pop up because there was a plentiful supply for some of those years. Are there things that companies or government or grower associations, are there things that organizations could do to advise growers or help move people in the right direction in terms of kind of what they need to do? Is the viticulture consulting community? Taking these things into account Eddie, let's start with you,

[00:27:29] Eddie Urman: that's a big question. there are plenty of people giving good advice in the industry and growers do have resources to reach out to, but it's very difficult to hear information that doesn't. Align with what you would like to do, right? So taking out our emotions from this from the equation and say, okay, does it really make sense to do this or to do that? Where where's that going to leave us and is that going to be in a position? To move forward in a better, know in a better new industry or new, you know New time in this industry when things rebound there's information out there, but it is difficult extremely difficult right now for growers and wineries to make decisions

[00:28:09] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. That's the challenge when you have something like this, where it's individual decisions that lead to mass outcomes. It's hard for me as an individual to say, okay, well, I'm going to do my part. I'm going to keep these 10 acres out of production. Especially when I can see that I could sell to somebody. It's a tough go. Go ahead, Audra.

[00:28:24] Audra Cooper: So I'm gonna go off on a tangent here a little bit.

[00:28:26] Craig Macmillan: do.

[00:28:28] Audra Cooper: I don't know, you might not welcome this one. So, you know, some people know this about me. I'm a pretty big Tony Robbins fan. And, You know, for some of you who don't know who that is, he's a self help guru that does a lot of different events and has written a lot of books and he has a philosophy and a saying that he utilizes through most of events, which is where focus goes, energy flows.

[00:28:51] And unfortunately, we have not done the best of jobs being positive about ourselves in the industry, out there in the media, that ultimately is consumed by the masses. And so, I've been on this huge bandwagon about, when we're talking to the media, obviously we need to be rooted in reality, but we need to be as optimistic as we can about who we are and what our why is.

[00:29:16] And I think oftentimes when we have these downturns, and this one's a pretty deep one, admittedly. That's the rooted in reality, right? But in these downturns, we tend to turn very, very pessimistic and we fail to remember that to some degree or another. We've been here before, and there have been a lot of innovations and activities and work and leadership that have pulled us out of it, and so we need to remember our history a little bit, I think would be my recommendation there, and I think a lot of the associations do a great job In reminding everyone what the historical background is and in some of our why Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance is a great example of what an association can do for a region on a national and international level.

[00:30:03] I will continue to sing their praises because I think they've done a beautiful job in what they've done over the last 15 years. When you look at You know, what's happening from a government and regulation standpoint, you know, we have to band together as a community and be loud voices. We can't just rely on our neighbor or our representative to be our representative voice.

[00:30:25] We need to make sure that we continue to be out there and loud. The other thing too is. We have a community, but we have a tendency to not keep collaboration consistent, and I would love to see our industry collaborate a little bit more, particularly on social media. I know that there's a lot of people probably listening to this right now thinking, why is social media even a remote solution?

[00:30:48] But the amount of consumption from the younger generation that are now of drinking age that have not adopted wine as a beverage of choice, consume a huge amount of social media, more than they do TV, more than they do reading, more than any other culture. aspect of information gathering or any other platform that's available to them.

[00:31:10] And we have an opportunity to band together and collaborate and change the algorithm regarding wine on social media. And I love to see us do that. We haven't done it. And there's various methods of doing that. And again, could probably be another podcast. I'm by no means the foremost expert on that, but our collaborative efforts.

[00:31:27] We'll just drop that because I don't even remember exactly

[00:31:30] Craig Macmillan: I think that's sound advice And it's always been a challenge. We do have some statewide Organizations that have that mission. They have a lot on their plate But I agree with you. I think that that is definitely the route or it seems to be the route There's more more research coming out that's showing that Not just the time but also like where people get their news You know, it shows you how important that is to them, how important , that venue is to them.

[00:31:55] Eddie Urman: 1 of the things for me to extrapolate on that a little bit. What Audra was talking about is unified at the industry hot topics. Um. Rock mcmillan talked for a minute. The ceo of silicon bank about the wine industry Not itself and taking market share from itself, but taking market share from wine from beer from spirits They've clearly done that to us.

[00:32:18] I mean It's a competition. It is what it is, and we've not done a great job marketing To younger, younger generations, everybody knows that everybody repeats it, but what are we going to do about it? And how can we as an industry figure out how to do a better job getting people exposed to wine, getting people to enjoy wine?

[00:32:37] Audra Cooper: Yeah, I like that, Eddie. It's time to get aggressive and it's time to re enter wine in the conversation of culture and being part of the daily lifestyle. We've let it kind of fall by the wayside and it's time to get aggressive about what wine can be and was and should be here in the near future.

[00:32:57] Craig Macmillan: right. You'd mentioned, you know, what's happened in the past. Audra, are there lessons that we learned that we are forgetting from 20 years ago or lessons that we should have learned 20 years ago that might help us now?

[00:33:11] Audra Cooper: it's, that's an interesting question, and I think it is a great question of merit, because history does tend to repeat itself I think we need to get better about predictive trends, and I don't know what the answer is to that, I just know that we need to do that and again, we, we kind of talked about it early in the podcast here that, you know, it's really hard to plant a trend, because you're usually behind the eight ball on it.

[00:33:38] And I think that we need to get better about how we plan for the future. I think we forget that, you know, Robert Mondavi and the Gallo's and, and countless others who came before us really went out. To the masses and marketed wine, not just their brands or their programs. They were out there to make sure that they were representing the wine industry and the product that we produce first and foremost.

[00:34:06] And so I think there's that element. It's not necessarily missing, but it's not loud enough and it's not aggressive enough. And so we definitely need some leaders to come forward in that regard and really push the initiatives. That we fought so hard to stay in business for. When you look back historically to, I think we have a tendency to kind of do the blame game a little bit.

[00:34:28] Like, you've planted too much over there on the coast and you've removed too much of the northern interior and you're charging too much up there in the north coast. And the reality is there's a place. For everyone to play and instead of being the competitive set that we are, again, to Eddie's point that Rob McMillan made as state of the industry, we should be looking at how do we take market share from our competitors, which are beer and spirits, RTDs, and so forth, not from each other.

[00:34:57] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds like it's a time when we need to see some new leadership step up or some folks to take leadership roles which is always kind of scary.

[00:35:08] Audra Cooper: It is. It's, it's, you know, here's the, the beautiful thing about emotion though. It's usually a call to action. So if we get scared enough. Someone will do something and I think we're just about there, and, and there's probably people working in the shadows that we're not aware of that will probably come forward here soon, you know, there's great leadership at CAWG level with their association as well as the Wine Institute, they're working hard every single day to be lobbyists , for our industry and to be making sure that they're representing our issues and finding solutions, solutions.

[00:35:40] You know, one of the big things that I've learned over the last couple of years, particularly this last year, is, is that we are all responsible for our future and making sure our future is compelling. And so we need to be supporting those associations and paying attention to the relevancy of the information that's out there.

[00:35:55] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, that's excellent. This is a, again, kind of a, kind of a tangent and it may not lead anywhere, but I, I just had this thought. You were talking about sustainability certifications and how important they are for growers now. Do you think that communicating the sustainability story of wineries and probably done at an individual level and then spreading out from there do you think consumers would respond to that?

[00:36:17] Eddie Urman: Yeah it's hard to say because marketing is not my forte, but I, it sure seems like with the trends as far as health conscious and all this, I think it would resonate with them. It really should. And it's something we should probably capitalize on more as an industry in general. Yeah.

[00:36:33] Craig Macmillan: That's interesting. Well do you have, does anybody have like a final message or one thing you would tell growers on this topic? Audra,

[00:36:40] Audra Cooper: Well, we covered a lot of topics today, and I think I'll leave everyone with the same thing I said earlier, Where focus goes, energy flows, and if we're focused on the negative, and we're focused on how tough the industry is right now, that's where we're going to be. If we're focused on solutions, we'll find one that works, and it's going to be different for everyone.

[00:37:04] Everyone's solution may look a little bit different. This is both an individual and industry wide issue that we're facing currently. with the downturn in the industry and the extreme oversupply. But I have faith that the work that's already being done will pull us out of this. We just need to get innovative in how we market to new consumers.

[00:37:26] Craig Macmillan: That's great. Where can people find out more about you folks?

[00:37:29] Eddie Urman: on our website. , you can get our information on there and reach out and contact us. Anything else Audra. Right.

[00:37:44] Audra Cooper: Year you can go to our social media Turrentine Brokerate or you can find me at GrapeBroker on Instagram. You can also call us or email us or text us if you'd like, or smoke signal us too, although please don't carry fires.

[00:37:50] Craig Macmillan: Anyway, right. Well, thank you so much. I guess today we're Audrey Cooper she is a director of great brokerage at Turrentine. Brokerage and Eddie Urman, who is the central coast, great broker Turrentine. Thank you both for being here and having such an interesting conversation. It's an important topic with a lot of question marks, lots and lots of questions, but I think we had some good things come out of it and I really appreciate it.

[00:38:11] Audra Cooper: All right. Thank you.

[00:38:17] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by wonderful laboratories. Wonderful laboratories. Operates two state of the art high throughput laboratories to support pathogen detection and nutrient analysis. The team provides full service support to customers with field sampling, custom panels, and special projects. Their customers include pest control advisors, growers, consultants, seed companies, backyard gardeners, researchers, and more.

[00:38:45] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Turntine brokerage. Their previous interview on the Sustainable Winegrowing podcast, that's number 259, wine Grape Market Trends for 2024, plus other sustainable wine growing podcast episodes, including 265. How to stand out on social media in 2025 and 268 how to tackle leadership transitions successfully.

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[00:39:16] You can find all of the podcasts@vineyardteam.org/podcast and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard team.

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