The Exchanges

Q Tell me what your pitch was. Were you literally saying, look, we're going after a different wine drinker here. Is that what you were saying or not quite?

A Well, the pitch was really threefold. Number one, we are going after a wine drinker that has not been properly addressed. The second pitch was, interestingly, we're not in the supermarket. This is something you as an independent can have that they don't have in the supermarkets. And then the third thing that we said is, this is a transition. You know, barefoot is a bridge between beer and wine, and if we want to increase the size of Of the wine industry, we have to have inexpensive, easy drinking wine so that people's first experience with wine will be a good one. And they're not going to get introduced to wine by having a 40 dollar, uh, Pinot Noir as their first try. This will increase the amount of business that you have for your upscale wines because now you're going to get more people who try wine at all And they're going to say, oh, this is wine. Gee, I can drink this.

AI assessment note: “Well, the pitch was really threefold. Number one, we are going after a wine drinker”

Q Okay. So you say, hey, I think we can collect this, we should, we need to go figure out how to collect this debt. Um, and I guess you get Michael Your boyfriend involved at the time. Michael, what do you remember about, what did Bonnie ask you to do?

A Well, you know, I just met this girl, right? I've only known her for a year. And she comes to me and asks me to go collect 300 large from this winery. So I said, okay, well, I'll give it a shot, you know, no promises. So I got an appointment with their board of directors, and as I drive up, the guard stops me on the way in, and he says, I hope you're not here to collect any money. And I said, ah, well, as a matter of fact, I am. Well, he says, uh, we just declared, uh, chapter 11 this morning. Wow. And so I thought, well, do I go through with the meeting? I went, I'm gonna go through with the meeting. So I went through with the meeting, and I was sitting there, and, uh, I'm trying to make small talk.

AI assessment note: “she comes to me and asks me to go collect 300 large from this winery”

Q Because why? You've done everything he asked you to do.

A Exactly, and he says, well, because nobody knows the name. He wants me to advertise it, and if I don't advertise it, he won't put it in. He says, you know, so what? Are you going to put a million dollars into advertising? And I said, million dollars? I said, I don't have a million dollars. I don't, I don't know how to do that, so I have to back off, and I say, Ok, well, you know, what am I going to do, Don? We bottled it all up for you. He says, well, I guess you're going to have to sell this to every independent, every mama papa, every corner grocery store, every restaurant, until it becomes a household name. When that happens, I'll put it in. And I said, but that's going to take years, Don. He says, that's right, you better get started. So he kicks me out the office.

AI assessment note: “he says, well, because nobody knows the name. He wants me to advertise it”

Q Okay, summer of 86, you're starting to sell in a couple of stores, and, um, and, and what, what started to change? I mean, I, I know by the end of that year, by 1986, you did manage to sell Virtually all those cases to, to wine stores. So you got those cases sold, but what was it that, that started to move things?

A One day we get a telephone call. It's a guy from, in San Francisco, from, uh, kind of a neighborhood group. They want to build a kids after school park. He says, oh, you know, you're a very wealthy, uh, winemaker up in Sonoma County. Uh, we only need 30,000 dollars to build this park. You know, won't you donate 30,000 dollars to our cause? And I said, well, I really appreciate what you're doing, you know, keeping the kids off the street is great. I said, but, you know, I don't have 30,000. I said, I don't even think I have five at this point, but I do have all this wine, and I would be happy to donate some of this wine to your fundraiser. And he says, okay, well, he wasn't very happy because he wanted to get the check, but he, he took the wine begrudgingly. About three weeks later, we see a big upsurge in the three or four accounts that were in the same neighborhood as the neighborhood organization. And so I looked at Bonnie and I said, look at these sales. I said, something's happening here.

AI assessment note: “About three weeks later, we see a big upsurge in the three or four accounts”

Q All right, so let's, let's go back to Don Brown, the buyer from Lucky. Now you're two years after your initial meeting with him, and he takes another meeting with you. This is summer of 88. I mean, you had to make a case to him or show him that you had some traction. What, what did you, what did you do at that point?

A Well, we, there's something that happens before I go in to talk to Don that I want to say. I was advised to go talk to these people in Southern California who they said were just as crazy as we were, and they had three stores, and everybody thought they were going to fail. It was called Trader Joe's. They had one in Pasadena, and they had a couple others in LA, and I mean, the guy who was the head of the store was the captain, and You know, the clerk was the first mate, and they had a big, you know, net on the wall with a lot of things, and we went to Trader Joe's, and we said, look, you're crazy, we're crazy, we've got something here that we think we can work together on, what do you think about putting Barefoot in? So they put Barefoot in their three stores, and they expanded rapidly. I mean, within a year, they had like, 27 stores or something in California. It was just amazing, and they put Barefoot in all of them. So that's, was one of the things that pushed Don Brown over the hub.

AI assessment note: “So that's, was one of the things that pushed Don Brown over the hub.”

Q I, I wonder when he, when he said to you, you know, you gotta spend a million dollars in advertising. If not, then go start selling store to store. Did you respond? Did you say, hey, man, you know, uh, well, yeah, You're screwing me over here, or did you, were you just kind of stunned and flabbergasted and just kind of shocked?

A I didn't, I didn't want to put him off and, and say, hey man, you know, I did exactly what you say, you owe it to me, because I knew that I'd be back in there within a year or two asking him to put it in again, and whatever hoops I had to jump through, I figured I would jump through them. You know, you don't swim halfway across the English Channel and get tired and swim back. So, I think the thing that saved me was I was not from the industry. I was from the business industry, and I worked with lots of businesses, and many of my clients had the same problem starting off. It took them a long time to get traction. They had to eat humble pie for a long time, but it's, it's sort of like, yes, you want to show them, but it's not so much you want to show them, you want to show yourself.

AI assessment note: “I didn't, I didn't want to put him off and, and say, hey man”

Q Lucky Supermarkets, which is a chain in, in California. What did you, you know, what did he need from you in order to sell those wines and Lucky's?

A Well, I, just to get the meeting with him was amazing. Uh, I called him up. I said, Don Brown, I said, uh, I know you went to St. Mary's. I went to Bishop O'Dowd, and we cleaned your clock on the basketball field. I said, listen, I'd like to meet with you. I got something I want to talk to. He says, I don't have time to talk to you, Houlihan. I said, you know, I'm going to make it worth your while. Just give me 15 minutes, Don. And so, it was luck that I knew this guy. And he went on in his career, and he became the buyer for one of the largest supermarkets in California. And so when I went to Don, in about 37 seconds, he gave me the equivalent of a college education in wine marketing and merchandising. He says, I've got room in the 1.5 liter section.

AI assessment note: “He says, I've got room in the 1.5 liter section.”