Stories sell the wines

Stories sell the wines

Calistoga's Todd Miller creates wines and misadventures
By David Stonebergthe weekly calistogan
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Todd Miller is no dummy. He has spent the last eight years running a retail wine shop, The Wine Garage, on Foothill Boulevard in Calistoga, where the mantra is: No wine over $25, even for Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon.Miller’s a self-professed wine guy — he said he wishes he’d been in the wine business 25 years ago — and he’s admittedly a self-promoter. As part of his retail shop, he started a wine club and began sending wine all over the United States to club members, who receive three cases a year, which Miller said is a “huge part” of his business. It’s clear Miller loves making the contacts and deals in the wine business.When he began his business, Miller said, he wanted to make wine. But, the business took off and his plans to become a bonded winery were put on hold, to be revived later.Three years ago, one of Miller’s customers called and said he had a really good deal on Diamond Mountain cabernet sauvignon, so Miller jumped in and bought three tons of cab and some zinfandel. He hired Masimo Monticelli, a fourth-generation California winemaker who had spent five years at Silver Oak, and uses the expertise of Bruce Devlin, winemaker for Ballentine Vineyards.
In his October 2009 newsletter, he talks about Devlin: “We store all our barrels at Ballentine and since Day One of my winemaking venture, Bruce has shared, taught, consoled, recommended, followed up, alerted, sourced, laughed and saved my … more than any single person in the Wine Garage Winery. If you have enjoyed our wines, then Bruce is 50 percent responsible for the happiness found in the glass. The dude is always there when I am in trouble and I find myself incredibly lucky to have stumbled into his expertise and tutelage.”He adds, “I find myself extremely lucky to be working with Bruce and Massimo because they are the ying and yang needed to produce great wine. If Massimo is the artist, then Bruce is the … kicker — keeping the artist in check and watching out for me every step of the way.”In that first year, Miller and his team made 700 cases of wine. “We sent out futures for the wine (to wine club members) and sold out half the vintage in one week,” Miller said.In 2007, they made 3,200 cases of wine under The Wine Garage label including a vintage called “Shade Tree,” a blend of zinfandel, syrah, grenache, mourvedre and charbono, sourced from North Coast vineyards.In 2008, the team made 2,800 cases of wine, including a white blend called “Joy Ride,” made of albarino, sauvignon blanc, viognier and muscat canelli, sourced from Suisun and Napa Valley. Miller said they made 400 cases, and since its release six months ago they are down to just 50 cases.“It was a huge hit,” he said.Earlier this year, after a year of research, Miller decided to offer “jug” wines at the store. “I’ve always wanted to sell jug wine in the store as they do in Italy, where you can fill a jug or container with a jug of wine inexpensively,” he said.He commissioned an artist to design two “gasoline-type” stainless steel nozzles — they cost $500 each — and he sells two types of jug wine: a Bordeaux blend and a Rhone blend. Both sell for $30 for a half-gallon jug. They are non-vintage red wines, sourced from Sonoma, Lake, Napa and Solano counties. The Bordeaux blend is made up of cabernet sauvignon, Carmenere, merlot and petit verdot; while the Rhone blend is comprised of syrah, zinfandel, Grenache, mourvedre and petite sirah.“We’re selling tons of the jugs; it’s a fun, delicious wine,” he said.‘New wine economy’In his October newsletter, Miller talks about the “new economy” in the wine industry during this year’s harvest: “This year there are signs up and down the Valley(billboards, really) in front of vines whose fruit was locked up in contract for years past but is now advertised: ‘20 tons of Cab available,’ begging people to buy.” Postings on one classified Web site for available fruit “span 30 plus pages, unheard of in the past.”He continues his tales of woe: restaurant specials and lodging vacancies and fewer people in the Napa Valley than in years past. But he adds that the deals that can be had now are tremendous.Miller has long been writing tasting notes, but when his wine club membership started dropping off, he revved up his efforts to retain them by writing up more tasting notes and, then, starting a hard-copy newsletter. It is 12 pages long, printed and sent to each wine club member and it is expensive to produce. In it, Miller, who writes all of the copy, chronicles his life in the Napa Valley and often tells of his adventures.“I have some talents I didn’t know I had,” Miller said, including writing funny stories about the wines. “Every wine has a story and the people who live in Iowa eat that up,” he said. He’s telling stories, much as any journalist does, although Miller has never been a journalist. He is a good storyteller, though, and the stories of his mushroom-hunting trip to the Sierras or the harvesting of petite sirah from “Cookie’s Vineyard” are barn burners. “It’s the story that sells the wine. The story keeps them coming back.”Miller claims that his hard-copy newsletter, printed monthly from October to May, has kept the business “from going backward.”Another talent is that Miller said he remembers wine profiles. “I’m selling values and my customers have learned to trust my palate,” he said. “I’m their personal wine buyer at Ground Zero and I’m hunting down deals for them for free,” Miller said.Finally, Miller pens a graph for his October newsletter: “Savvy folks can see they can still get a little of the Napa Valley and beyond delivered right to them … even though tougher times make it harder to get here, stay here or eat here. It’s still the same for the rest of us who work and live here … but paradise it is, still.”

Origin information: Weekly Calistogan