Last Updated on July 6, 2023 by nicole

Michael Honig is the President of Honig Vineyard & Winery. He embarked on his wine-selling journey in December of 1983 at the age of 21. Taking charge of the struggling family business at just 22 years old, he transformed it into a thriving success over the past 30 years. He is a leader in sustainable farming, chairing the development of a “Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices” in California. Additionally, he has been involved in innovative initiatives like training puppies to detect vine mealy bugs and reducing pesticide usage. Michael also serves on the boards of various organizations, including the Napa Valley Vintners Association, California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, and other notable organizations.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Michael shares his experience of starting to sell wine at the age of 21
• Honig Vineyard & Winery has become one of the frontrunners in the Sauvignon Blanc industry in Napa Valley. Their production focuses primarily on two varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc
• Michael discusses how the Honig brand has evolved over the years
• Michael explores the transformation of Sauvignon Blanc in their terroir and winemaking process
• He shares his thoughts on wine scores and ratings
• Discover the story behind the Honig Postcards and their role in connecting with wine enthusiasts
• Michael discusses the marketing strategies employed by Honig Vineyard & Winery
• Learn about their unique sustainable efforts, including the use of sniffer dogs and removing foils from packaging
• Michael shares an exciting upcoming project focused on preparing for the fourth generation at Honig Vineyard & Winery

In this episode with Michael Honig

Michael Honig of Honig Vineyard & Winery shares the fascinating story behind their iconic brand. From Michael’s early days of selling wine at the age of 21 to taking over the winery full-time, we delve into the evolution of the Honig brand and its domination in the Sauvignon Blanc industry in the heart of Napa Valley.

In today’s episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks and Bianca Harmon are joined by Michael Honig, the president of Honig Vineyard & Winery. Discover how their wines and terroir have evolved over the years, the impact of wine scores and ratings, their unique marketing strategies, sustainable efforts, and exciting projects on the horizon for the fourth generation.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn
• Barrels Ahead
• Bianca Harmon on LinkedIn
• Michael Honig
• Honig Vineyard & Winery
• Kristin Belair on LinkedIn
• Regina Weinstein on LinkedIn
• Gary Marcaletti on LinkedIn
• The San Francisco Wine Trading Company
• Darrell Corti
• Chuck House
• Dr. Bonnie Bergin on LinkedIn
• Bergin College of Canine Studies
• California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance
• Heitz Cellar

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.

Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.

At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.

Our team at Barrels Ahead helps you leverage your knowledge so you can enjoy the results and revenue your business deserves.

So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your results today!

To learn more, visit barrelsahead.com or email us at hello@barrelsahead.com to schedule a strategy call.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Drew Thomas Hendricks here I’m the host of Legends Behind the Craft podcast. On the show, I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Today’s episode sponsored by Barrels Ahead. At Barrels Ahead, we help the wine and craft industry scale their business through authentic content. Go to barrelsahead.com today to learn more. I am super excited to talk with Michael Honig. Michael is the president of Honig Vineyards and Winery. Welcome to the show, Michael.

[00:00:25] Michael Honig: Great. Thank you, Drew. Welcome. Happy to be here.

[00:00:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, thank you so much for being on. And Bianca, Bianca Harmon, our DTC strategist, also joining us today. Forgot to introduce you. How’s it going, Bianca?

[00:00:35] Bianca Harmon: Going great. Really looking forward to this episode.

[00:00:37] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. So Michael, tell me about, you took over the winery when you were 22?

[00:00:43] Michael Honig: Yeah, I started selling the wine when I was December of 83 and I was 21.

And then it took for, it took a few months and then January of 84 I started full-time and took over. Yeah.

[00:00:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wow. What, what was it like being thrown into it at that age? Is this something you’re, you’re destined?

[00:01:02] Michael Honig: I didn’t know what I didn’t know it was, it was a business that was, it was a business that originally was started as a vineyard with my grandfather bought roughly 70 acres in Rutherford.

I’m sure most of your listeners know, but you know, Rutherford is one of the districts in the Napa Valley. We still own that vineyard. It’s where our core grapes come from. It’s where my winery is, it’s where my home is. And if you look on a map of Napa, Rutherford’s almost, you know, the geographic center of the valley, and it’s obviously we’re next to Mayacamas -, so very old bit of cultural area.

My grandfather was interested in wine, and that’s why he bought the property in the early sixties. After he passed in the mid-seventies. My family, my mother and father, and aunt and uncle decided to keep the property. Then a few years after his passing, they decided to memorialize his dream by making wine, and that was 1980.

So they had this vision. They were, the four of them had their own careers. They were not involved. They hired a gentleman who was a winemaker but also hired him as a general manager. And what they did initially, which in hindsight was brilliant at the time was ridiculous, is they decided here in Rutherford in the Napa Valley to specialize in Sauvignon Blanc. So none of you probably remember, but in the early eighties, no one was drinking Sauvignon Blanc from Napa. And even Mr. Mondavi, who you know was an incredible not only individual, but incredible marketer rebranded his to Fumé Blanc as a way trying to get the American public interested in this varietal.

So my family, again not knowing much about the industry, having both Sauvignon bought and Cab that they’d sold to other wineries for many years. Looked around the market and said, “Hey, no one’s making Sauvignon Blanc, let’s focus on that.” Well, they found out very quickly why that was. And about three years after they made this decision to start making wine, they realized that they’d made a very bad business decision that the wine wasn’t selling.

The individual they hired who a very nice individual and they had done a great job, just couldn’t get any traction because no one wanted the wine. So I was a college student, didn’t know anything about the winery, didn’t know any of the mouths. What we did up here. As I said, I really just turned 21, so, you know, I can say I was drinking a lot.

[00:03:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: What year? What year was that in 21. When you were 21?

[00:03:05] Michael Honig: I was, that was 83.

[00:03:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: 83, okay.

[00:03:07] Michael Honig: Yeah. So, I certainly was drinking, but not wine, and certainly not wine from Napa. And they, we had a big family meeting at in San Francisco where we lived. And my dad said, you know, we’re having this terrible problem.

We, we’ve invested so much money, we are not gonna give it anymore. We’re gonna, we’re done with this business, we’re gonna move on. And again, I didn’t know the business, but what I knew and what I had a connection to is this land. You know, we, we were growing up in San Francisco. We had come up here on the weekends and summers and drive tractors and shoot guns and play with dogs and all the things you can’t do in San Francisco.

And also, It was a connection we had as a family. And again, I didn’t understand that at the time. Really. But I kinda over time I learned later is like, you know, we had this legacy of my grandfather’s, it was what brought us together in the weekends and summers. And I just thought, “Wow, if we lost that business and that property it would be a huge tragedy, tra tragedy.”

So I asked my dad, I was in school, I was a junior, and I would’ve finished, I was not the best college student, but I you know I’d been going through the emotions. I asked my dad if I could leave school. And see if I could try to do something to help it. And his great response to me, “Well the business cannot get a lot worse, so we’ll we’ll give you, we’ll give you some time and you know we’ll see what you can do.”

And that was really how it started. I learned very quickly that in California where it is unique to most states is a producer, which I am in terms of we make wine, can also distribute to retail and restaurants. That is not very common. Most of you have a three-tier system that’s not allowed in most states.

I found out this, that we could do that. So I bought this old 72 Wagoneer. I would go out to restaurants and stores in San Francisco and Sacramento and Berkeley. And you know, after they stopped laughing when I told em that I made Sauvignon Blanc from Rutherford you know, I would basic say, look, the story I had or the sales pitch I had that was, “Look, I get it. Sauvignon Blanc not a big seller. But you’re gonna have a few on your shelf, you’re gonna have a few on your list. Doesn’t it make sense to put someone who only is focused on that varietal? Versus someone making it amongst a line of other varietals. Well, that slowly resonated, but again still not very much sales.

But I would go out, I’d do my sales, I’d I go home the next morning I load up the Wagoneer, which as I recall hold well 42 cases at the max. I load the thing up, whatever I’d sold the day before, and I just go out and deliver it all and then run home at lunch and take a shower and change. And you know, I basically did it.

It was a one-man band. I mean, when I showed up literally the filing system was a box, a cardboard box labeled miscellaneous. And it had all of our bills in it, in our checking account, and nothing other than that. So it was really a bare-bones business and but that was our start. So

[00:05:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s, you know, that’s the way I remember it.

I was in a working my, got my job in the wine industry when I was 21 in San Francisco buying wine for a wine store. Then it was Mr. Liquor.

[00:05:57] Michael Honig: Oh, Mr. Liquor. Gary.

[00:05:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. I was the one that changed the name to San Francisco Wine Trading Company.

[00:06:01] Michael Honig: No kidding.

[00:06:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. So I was there from 93 to 2003 and your Sauvignon Blanc was one of our favorite. And I,

[00:06:08] Michael Honig: Yeah., Gary was the owner if I’m not mistaken.

[00:06:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Well, Gary Marcaletti, he’s still the owner. Yeah.

[00:06:12] Michael Honig: Yeah. And we still do business and it was funny cuz originally that was a really, I remember he was a or he is pretty, I don’t wanna say tough in these, you know.

[00:06:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: He is Sylvester Stallone in his place.

[00:06:24] Michael Honig: Yeah, he’s it’s kinda intimidating. Maybe it’s the bad way to. Cause remembering was, I took a while and he was not very receptive at all. I mean, good example what? Get outta my store kid. What are you doing? You’re buzzing. Wasting my time. I had no interest in your wine. But you know, I persevered and you’re right. It’s still in a great account today. Thank you. As you started.

[00:06:43] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yours was our go-to Sauvignon Blanc, and I do remember like the direct deliveries.

And that was something that was unique and as you said, still is.

[00:06:49] Bianca Harmon: Well it’s, it’s fascinating that to hear that you guys were not le, you know, how much Sauvignon Blanc was disliked to where now you guys are some of the leaders in the Sauvignon Blanc industry.

[00:06:59] Michael Honig: Well, you know, that’s the silver lining to our story is we started with something that no one else thought had any value. And what I’ve found in the wine industry, and this is one of the reasons we don’t make a lot of varietals, is if you’re not the first or second, if you’re not the leader, if you’re not Duckhorn with Merlot, if you’re not or whoever else, it’s hard to be a follower. You’re just one of the many.

So you’re right Bianca. It was Sauvignon Blanc when it comes to people thinking about Napa Sauvignon Blanc, I do believe we’re one of the first they think about cause we’ve been here a long time, there’s a lot of great Sauvignon Blanc producers. But yeah, we’re one of the first ones. So,

[00:07:29] Bianca Harmon: Yeah. No. I know personally you are.

I know lots of people that immediately go to is Sauvignon Blanc, but that’s also a great thing that you guys did that other wineries didn’t do is you stuck with what you were good at instead of trying to branch off into everything else. You were persistent.

[00:07:45] Michael Honig: Yeah. Stuck with it. You know I found, again I didn’t know anything about the wine industry and I looked at when I met some people that really helped Darrell Corti up in Sacramento, who is a, well still is you know, incredible wine talent.

And he was, he was very helpful in kind of guiding me and giving me some suggestions. He’s very open with his intellect. But I looked, though I saw France and again I nowhere wanted to emulate like France, emulate France, but I saw like wait, they have this area of Bordeaux that they’ve been making wine for hundreds of years and they don’t grow Pinot and Chardonnay.

And then you have this place called Burgundy and they don’t grow Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc. And I said, “Well shit, they seem to be, I’m sorry, they’ve done it a long time. They seem to know what they’re doing. You know, let’s just stay in our lane.” And the connection between Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet, and I’m not sure if your listeners are familiar, but Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc were crossed together to make Cabernet Sauvignon. So these two varietals have a direct connection to one another. They grow in the same soils and climatic conditions. So it makes perfect sense when you start, you know, peeling in the ending a little deeper. But also I think because I came at it so early and I didn’t know anything, and I learned very quickly that what we are good at is and what we weren’t good at.

And to stay in our lane. And I think some brands. And I know marketing people say, oh, we’ve gotta dominate the whole category and we gotta have pods, all this stuff, and we’ve gotta own every category. You’re never gonna go into every category. And if you’re making five varietals, one or two are gonna be doing great.

One or two are gonna be in the cellar. You got a cup in the middle. So you’re always working on the dogs to the detriment of the ones that are doing well. And you know, no one’s looking for a Honig Chardonnay, I can tell you that. No one needs a Honig Merlot. So we stay in our lane. We do what we do.

And we don’t have blinders on naively, but we kind of, we kind of even go our own direction. I was with another producer who makes a very nice Sauvignon Blanc the other day, and I go, “Oh yeah, you guys, yeah, I think your Sauvignon Blanc good. I see it out there.” He goes, I go, “Yeah, do you guys pay attention?”

He goes, “Michael, yes. We pay attention to your brand and a few others.” I’m like, “Really?” That’s kind of flattering. But it’s like, yeah, I just not naively, but it’s just I kinda do my own thing. It works for us. So, but yeah, my joke is if you ever see Honig Chardonnay, you’re gonna know that I’m dead. You’re gonna know that my fourth generation did not like my idea.

[00:10:04] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s great. So Michael, I, since 83, talking about the Honig brand, how has it evolved?

[00:10:10] Michael Honig: Well, I’m in my office right now and I can see the evolution. So it started out as a vineyard game which was just H & W. And then it became in the early the first or second, the second or third bottling Louis Hoig, which Louis was my grandfather.

So that was the, and when I took it over as Louis Honig my grandfather, who was again, our patriarch in some respects. I was, we were incredibly proud of his success and what he had done. He gave us this great legacy but over time I realized that no one knew my grandfather, at least in the context of he was in, he had an advertising business that my great-grandfather had started.

So no one knew him in this context, and I realized that the Honig was the brand and I was a Honig. My brother Steven’s a Honig. We have other family members involved. So I decided, and I can’t remember the actual year to take off Louis and just to put Honig as became the brand. And then we talked about Louis on the back label cause but yeah. And that, and that’s kind of the, and then the other thing we’ve, and I’m looking at my old label.

The other thing we did is the original label was a view looking out, actually, it’s of a barn that was con converted into a home that my aunt and uncle have on our property, and the kind of these cathedral windows and kind of, and it is really was done by I think it was Earl Falander, one of a local artist at the time who came and did a drawing.

And we loved it so much. We decided it made it a label, but it’s one dimensional. So over time, we said, you know what? Is there a way that we could separate and create a visual on the inside and the back label? And by doing that we made it something that was very three-dimensional, very tactile. I’m gonna see if I have a bottle, cuz it’d be easier if I had a bottle to show everyone.

Oh, we don’t have one on the shelf, but it’s very three-dimensional. So we basically print on the inside of the back label and the view we have is a view of our property. Yes. So that, that was something that really became distinctive for us. And other people have done it and there’s, you know, show pan vibe kind.

A few other vibe people have it. But again, I have another example too. It, we were the first to do it in the wine business. And there’s,

[00:12:04] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I remember that. I remember those new labels.

[00:12:06] Michael Honig: They’re follow,

[00:12:07] Bianca Harmon: I remember it too. I love ’em.

[00:12:09] Michael Honig: Yeah. Well, it really resonates. I mean, it’s wonderful because it is truly a representation of what the view looks like from the winery.

We’ve got a dye cut on the top of the back label that represents Mount Saint Helena. So it creates something that’s tactile. So you know, you want people to pick up whatever the product is. And if you can make something that’s interesting and thought-provoking and makes people kind of look.

They grab it once they, if they picked it up, I mean they almost own it. I forget there’s such a system I read the other years ago that a customer picks up an item, 80% of the time they put in their basket or whatever that. So

[00:12:40] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wine selling trick, put the bottle in their hand.

[00:12:43] Michael Honig: Put the bottle in their hand.

So that, and then over time we came up with our. We are using a gentleman named Chuck House to help with label design. He had an idea of using a queen bee because Honig, my last name means honey in German. So that was something else. We’d become very well known on the label as a beautiful, it’s a Napoleonic and I say Napoleon had a on his coat of arms of queen bee.

So basically we lifted that looking bee, so it’s not like a bumblebee. It really looked a beautiful, elegant bee. And that’s become our trademark as well. So again, other people have used bees on their label. Other people try to copy that, but they’re just, they’re just copying what people know as Honig’s original idea.

[00:13:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s right. Note for the bee. So the label and the brand aside being the gold standard in Sauvignon Blanc, how is the Sauvignon Blanc in your terroir and the way your wines have been made? How has that evolved from just people, just getting a conception of it in the eighties to where it’s really just dominating in the category right now?

[00:13:37] Michael Honig: Yeah, so originally it was all a estate. It was all from Rutherford Vineyard. Also, it had a pretty heavy oak component at the time. And it was, it’s like telling your kids you’re ugly. It wasn’t in hindsight, it wasn’t a wine I enjoyed very much. It was a little under ripe.

It was had a little more of the green aspect to the Sauvignon Blanc grape. But it had this oak character. It was serviceable. It was fine for the time. For the times, it was what it was. It was appropriate for the eighties. So over time though, about 25 years ago, I hired a young woman named Kristin Belair, and she’s still our winemaker. And over Kristin, I made very pretty wines and she had come from winery, primarily making reds, but they’re really elegant and pretty and lush and wines that I really appreciate. I don’t like these big overly extracted wines. That’s not my style. I like a lot of fruit, so we started making Sauvignon Blanc and talking together.

We said, you know what, let’s move out the oak component. And what we ultimately did was we made a second bottling, we call the Rutherford, which became our estate sauvignon Blanc has an oak component, has a malolactic component. So it’s basically richer, fuller expression of the grape. But we kept that the primary, which we call our classic, which is partially from our vineyard from an other growers we work with is non-oak, crisp, clean, and we’ve gone to the kind of the riper side of the spectrum of Sauvignon Blanc flavor. So we’ve got more tropical notes. We’ve got away from all the green. I kind of equate it to like, when you get off the plane in Hawaii and someone throws a lay over your head and you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s mango and kiwi and lemongrass. So so beautiful.” That’s kind of what we’re trying to achieve. So basically we kind of separated the two. So we created the path that what most people gravitate towards and kind of the neophytes, the more knowledgeable really can appreciate which is the classic Sauvignon Blanc. And then we have this Rutherford, which is a little more like White Bordeaux or richer Chardonnay or, and that’s a, I find that’s very black or white in terms of consumer’s preference. People that maybe only drink New Zealand are never gonna like the Rutherford, it’s just, it’s they’re not even gonna think it’s Sauvignon Blanc cuz it has none of those characteristics of New Zealand. But people like rich Sauvignon Blancs in you know, tend to enjoy the Rutherford very small production.

But that, that’s kind of what we, so we started as one richer component with the oak. And then over time we’ve kind of separated those two out.

[00:15:51] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s very interesting. And then as far as the feedback and tracking this evolution, is this based on just your gut instinct and the winemaker’s instinct? Or are you going out there and you’re talking, you’re kind of pulling what the consumer’s looking for?

I don’t do a lot of, we’re not big enough to pull. Yeah. Well not pulling, but like, yeah. Feedback.

[00:16:08] Michael Honig: Yeah. I mean, some of it sure. Some of the feedback I talked to, you know, Gary. You hear this, you hear that, but you know what, everyone, I won’t use a crass expression. My mother used to say about opinions, every one having one, like something else we all have.

Yeah. But, so yeah, you want that input, but at the end of the day, we don’t, we’re not, you know, this is not a democracy. It is a benevolent dictatorship and at the end of the day, I’ve gotta make a call. And I just realized that stylistically the wine that seemed more appealing was this more expressive style of the grape and not that rich characteristic.

And we just decided to change it and

[00:16:41] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I like it.

[00:16:42] Michael Honig: Yeah. And that’s become, I think the model. Yeah. People want, they typically are not looking for a lot of- Sauvignon Blanc.

[00:16:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I like hearing that a lot of people kind of chase the current palate or they chase what they think the, the marketplace wants, rather than creating something that the marketplace will react to and embrace.

[00:16:58] Michael Honig: Yeah. Look, if we wanna be run by an ad agency or somebody, there’s a group and I forget their name. And lovely women owns it and runs it and they do all this AI analysis of your drawings and you know. And she called and I had a wonderful conversation and she’s incredibly brilliant and I’m, this is not a dis, I mean, your company’s doing really well and it’s very appropriate, but it really was kind of, we helped the winemakers make wine.

I’m like, well If that’s what I need, I don’t need a winemaking team. So you gotta choose your path. Like I, I’m not a big consultant person. I kind of go with my gut. I’ve got a great team. I let them do their job and yeah. I mean sure, you take people’s opinions, but it’s just that, it’s an opinion.

[00:17:36] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I’m fascinated. I’m fascinated.

I want to have her on the show because I’m fascinated that they can use AI to kind of tell why.

[00:17:42] Michael Honig: Yeah, no. She is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it wasn’t something I felt strongly enough about to engage with her, but no, I think she’s done a great job in there. And again, I think we’re, I think a lot of people do need that validation.

They want a third priority is to tell ’em it’s okay or it’s not okay. But, you know, we’ve never run our business for the press, and going, today it’s not as relevant. But you know 20 years ago getting a score from Parker, Jim Lobby, or whoever it might been, was really really important. But you know what I saw about that is like yeah, you can live and die by the press.

Yeah. And we get nice scores. I’m not just, you know, it’s not like we get eighties all the time and we’ve got wine in the year and we’re not one, you know, we’re in the top 100 a couple times and all that stuff. But I found it is, you can live or die by those scores. So let’s create a brand that people wanna buy because they wanna buy it cuz they like it.

Yeah. And the best example I can give is when we did have twice one of our Cabernets in different years were on that top 100 list. I would get people calling me, oh, I wanna have you know the whatever, the 21 vintage. Oh, I’m sorry. We’re sold out, but we have a 22. Oh no, I don’t want that.

It’s like, well you’re not a loyal buyer. You’re just buying on a score. So what do I, those are fickle buyers. Those are not buyers that create a generational business for my family. Buyers that buy because they think it’s appropriate, cuz it’s like a suit or a car or a watch. That’s what people are telling ’em to buy. That’s so.

[00:19:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I do see over the years, like, especially in the last like 10 years, the consumption patterns have moved less, moved away from the ratings. Back in the nineties that was all, and even the early two thousands ratings just drove the sales.

[00:19:14] Bianca Harmon: Oh yeah. I would have people come into tasting rooms I was at and they would not even taste a wine and they would pick at a, pick out a wine and see that it was 98 points and they would buy a case of it.

I’m like, really? And that’s, and in my opinion, it wasn’t even a great wine. But they were like, “I want that because it just got this.” And I’m like, “Whatever.” You know, it drove the sales, but.

[00:19:35] Michael Honig: Well, I think what’s changed, and Bianca, you’re a great example of this, and you too Drew. I’m not sure of your age is the younger demographic does not care about someone they’ve never met.

It’s all peer-to-peer. You want, actually, what we started using on point of sale recently is Vin Vivino vs Delectable. One of the two. Because that’s, you know, thousands of people giving you their opinion. And it seems like the younger demographic, they want to know what their friends are drinking.

They could care less what some guy that they’ve never met is drinking in some office, wherever. They wanna know what their friends are drinking last night and where they were. And so again I think it’s even less, and I’m not dismissing the wine inspector or Parker. But again those, I find those are less impactful than they used to be.

And everyone’s got a 95 or a 92. I mean, we somewhere someone has given every winery in the world a 90 plus.

[00:20:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That is true.

[00:20:24] Bianca Harmon: Well you could find any, you could probably find any review or like eventually, whether it be Robert Parker or something, you could find somebody to give your wine a 95 if you wanted to. Even though who it was from.

[00:20:37] Michael Honig: Yeah. And yeah so again, I found, I think probably again a lot of my experiences based on what I learned early on and how I perceive things as a 21-year-old versus, you know, now a 60-year-old. And at that time I said, oh yeah, why you know the press is great, but who are these people? Why are they writing about wine? What I, and also they were writing about, you know, early onwards just doing Sauvignon Blanc.

So I think, where we’ve been successful is being as close to the market as possible. We still self-distribute in California. I have now four people that do it. I still have some accounts. So we, by being as close to the market, we’ve really I think benefited in terms of knowing what people are looking at, knowing whether they’re buying our wine.

Knowing that they have a relationship with me or my brother, or sales reps that we’ve had for decades. And that’s, you know, again they have a lot of things to buy. So, you know, why would buy Honig versus 10 on the side? Well, oh yeah. Michael used to show up with his delivery truck. Ah, I’ll buy his because it’s. Yeah this new guy, I’m sure they’re great, but eh, that guy.

I remember when he used to drop cases all the time and he’d break the wine or whatever, so.

[00:21:37] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. That’s so, that’s so important. And just that core of authenticity of your family is really why people choose Honig. And that kind of comes out in your marketing. You gotta talk to our viewers about the Honig postcards.

[00:21:50] Michael Honig: Oh yeah. So that came out of necessity years long time ago. I wanted to do a mailing piece. Something had happened and we had made a change on a national distribution level, and I was worried because of the way the company was commenting to the trade that we were perceived as having a big challenge.

So I had this idea, why don’t we do a postcard about, we had a new building at the time. Why not make this postcard, and we’ll kind of talk about the new building and how we’re excited and we’re moving forward and kind of focused, and moving forward is our mantra. And I said, let’s do it as a postcard because postcards are really cool because they’re less expensive to mail. Because mails change in 35 years. They’re a smaller size.

So there was a little break on that. But the other thing about a postcard, you don’t have to open anything. I said, and let’s make it engaging enough or visual enough that people say, “Oh, I like it.” And then they turn it over. Oh, Honig get cute. Again, we’re not going recreate the world or real here. This is just kind of a little way to show people there was a personality that we are different, that we weren’t just some corporate brand, that we had a relation. And that we are okay because ultimately we started kind of poking fun at ourselves. And spoofing different things. Like we had a one card was a rock video card that we were spoofing spinal tap in rolling shows. One was a, we spoofed the old CK ads of these emaciated models in black and white, and we did a spoof on that.

We spoofed the Robert Palmer video once, just, but the idea is that we were okay you know, saying we can take our wine really seriously without taking ourselves that serious. And again, going back, you have to remember, this is all a long time ago Napa, which I felt my neighbors were kind of putting this product on a pedestal making it almost unobtainable for people and wanting is a, oh we’re so small, we’re so exclusive, we’re so expensive. If you can’t understand this, you can’t even buy us. And I was like, you know what? That’s not the way to talk to people and let’s knock it off the pedestal and have some fun.

So that’s kinda how the postcard started. And also they’re very inexpensive to mail, so there was. And then it became, I don’t even God knows how many we’ve done. We just did the most recent ones. We spoofed the Addams Family.

[00:23:48] Bianca Harmon: Addams Family?

[00:23:49] Michael Honig: Yeah. The Addams Family. So that was kinda fun. But what you find again a great example, a dumb little idea I had one day years ago, and then Regina, my cousin, who heads our marketing has this run with it.

And other people have tried to do postcard, and same thing, kind of as their back label. But it’s always like, oh I, because I hear this from people, oh yeah. So-and-so’s doing a postcard just like Honig. No. Okay. It’s sometimes it, I kind of use an example of you know, the Japanese were not the first to invent cars. But they just made ’em better. So sometimes a lot of it, it is not being the first, all the time, it’s just doing it better than anyone else. So,

[00:24:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. I mean, we’re seeing this across the industry and you were on the forefront of that to have something that’s a very serious wine, very serious area, but still being able to have fun with it.

And that’s something I think the younger, the younger generations really appreciate. Yeah, cuz wine should be fun. It should be a convivial type of experience. And really it comes out in those postcards. So I gotta commend you on that.

[00:24:43] Michael Honig: Well, thank you. Well, they’re a lot of fun. And the, and they also great team building because, you know, those are all family members. What,

[00:24:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: How do you guys decide the next one. Like whatever’s trending? I saw you got the

[00:24:53] Michael Honig: No, it’s not, no, not trending. It’s usually the idea I always have is I want people to be able to look at the card and immediately get what the context is. Addam, we all know Addams Family. So we’ve done a couple cards that just failed.

Pirates of the Caribbean, we did a card that was a spoof and the movies were coming out. It was too, too many people, too much color. It just didn’t resonate at all. But the real idea is when you look at the Addams Family card, you look at the card and say, “Oh, cute. An Addams Family card. Oh, it’s a Honig. Oh, how funny.”

They turn it over and whatever the back content is, and that’s it. Just kind of a easy no-brainer. Have fun and kind of move on. Sure.

[00:25:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Is it a team kind of brainstorming or does one person

[00:25:37] Michael Honig: Yeah. No. Regina really is become the mastermind of the cards. We all throw ideas out and yeah, at the end of the day, we all, wow.

Yeah, we kind of decide by committee. Sometimes I’ve mixed ideas I just thought were dumb. And other times, oh yeah, that’s cool. Let’s do it. But no, it’s really, it’s really my cousin Regina, that’s her, become her part of her job. And she runs with it and set an amazing job with them.

And what’s really great, if you look at ’em closely, they’re the, the production value especially if you go to the beginning, which I literally remember the first car. We grabbed an employee, we grabbed this little camera and we took the photo, and now we’ve got lights and makeup and hair. I mean if so, the production value is really in incre improved and they actually look.

Considering what we actually spend on them, they actually look like they’re coming out of a really high-end ad agency.

[00:26:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, no, they definitely do. What are their marketing? How else do you get the brand out and how has that evolved over the last like -,

[00:26:29] Michael Honig: I think, well, the sustainable message that’s certainly been. I think, you know, we can’t compete with Gallo or Constellation or Rum Barrel. A lot of people we can’t compete with. We don’t even try. We’re just who we are, warts and all. We all have Achilles heels. We all have issues. We just kind of go out there and we’re who we are. We don’t discount, we don’t sell to certain clients. I’m sorry that other people sell to cuz we don’t think they’re good brand builders.

 We just kind of go our own path and it works for us. I don’t think our model. And I think a lot of people that look at our brand from the outside, either financial people or other wineries say, “How does Honig make that work?” Because we make a lot of Sauvignon Blanc and it’s a not a high-value grape.

You know, Cabernet’s certainly grown for us, but we just have a model. We’re very efficient.We’re not very fancy, we have a very simple tasting room. But what we really are good at is getting as close to the buyers as possible. And creating relationships that last decades.

[00:27:24] Bianca Harmon: Also, I think your consistency. The consistency.

[00:27:26] Michael Honig: And the consistency, right? Well, that’s, yeah. I mean, that’s all. I mean, I always laugh. Look, I can fool a lot of buyers. I cannot fool George Melios who used to buy for Disney. I can’t fool Tony who’s the cruise buyer? I can’t fool Andrea – who buys for Delta.

These are really, when you get to that level, you’re dealing with very competent, knowledgeable wine people. And so I always go to my team and say, we need, we don’t have to worry about the 90%. We have to make wine for the 10% of the buyers that really understand wine and focus on that market, cuz everyone else will follow.

And they’re the gatekeepers. If you can’t get through the Tylor Field at Landry’s, you don’t get on the list. So make a wine that he or she will appreciate because everyone else will get it. But those are the key. So that consistency is important. But again, I don’t use agencies.

We still self-distribute in California. I call on all our national accounts myself. So we’ve always had this model to be, try to be as close to the buyers in the account as possible. Don’t put any filters between us. Don’t put any layers if we don’t have to. And I think not only is that beneficial to the brand, but we’ve created these relationships.

I’m gonna use Oklahoma. So Oklahoma, which we all know the state is in our top five or fifth, sixth state. I mean, it’s one of our best states. Yeah. I mean, it’s crazy. But what happened with Oklahoma, and I found this because years ago I started going to a lot of the smaller markets. Cause I go to New York and I go, I go to Richie at K&D and he go, oh, get the hell outta here.

You know, Dan Duckhorn just left. I got Bob Mondavi coming later. What the hell? Why are you bothering me? I found New York and Miami were not that excited. So I go to Oklahoma, I go to Maine, I go to Alabama and people are like, wow. You know, Honig, wine. Thanks for coming to visit. They were appreciative that I actually got on a plane and flew to Tulsa.

So that’s how it started. But then what you find with these other markets that were underserved, they’re less transient. So people aren’t moving around. In New York, everyone’s moving to the new shining object. Also, what you find after so many years, the person I used to talk to who was the hostess, she now owns the restaurant.

The guy that was stocking the store now owns the store. This guy that owned the store has a chain of stores, you know? And they remember that I was there. So what? Now what’s happened is everyone’s realized there’s a hell of a lot of money in Oklahoma and Alabama and Maine and there’s a lot of sales there.

But I’m still, again, we were one, we were the first ones there. Someone the other day, and this, they were saying it very nicely, and I don’t mean this disparaging at all, but they said, “Michael, you’re like the Kendall Jackson of Oklahoma.” We’re really big and popular. But again, it’s not bad. And now, you know, now you know, Florida’s our second biggest. Texas is our third. New York’s our fourth.

[00:30:09] Bianca Harmon: I was gonna say, where’s Florida and Texas?

[00:30:10] Michael Honig: Yeah. Yeah. No. So all you know, fast forward to today, all those big markets became our top markets but Oklahoma’s still top up there. And Alabama is probably top 20. Maine’s not as high as it used to be cuz it’s just not the population base, but we’re still very big there.

Utah, I mean again what, this was just this strategy I had years ago. Go to these smaller markets. Go to the markets that were underserved. And that’s proven to be very successful for us as a brand.

[00:30:35] Bianca Harmon: So the moral of the story is the boots-on-the-ground method works.

[00:30:38] Michael Honig: Yes it does.

And you know, the other thing, be nice to people.

[00:30:41] Bianca Harmon: Yep. Kindness. Kill em with kindness.

[00:30:44] Michael Honig: I’ll give you an example. I had an account, we have an accountant in Las Vegas and I was there a month ago and I just, I was talking to the general manager who I actually, I knew his dad. His dad used to run the business.

I’m talking to, I great, I happen to, I’m just talking. I’m not a salesperson. I didn’t even know the price. I’m a marketing, I let the sales reps do their job. That’s their job. So I was just there talking, chatting, and I just happened when you, I was waiting for him. I look at the wine list. I didn’t see the winery Honig on it..

It was like, well, that’s weird. It’s been on there for 20 years, so didn’t make anything. So I get home, said hi to Darren, said, “Hey, thank you, somebody.” Blah, blah, blah. Left. I get home. And last week I sent a note to the rep who calls in this particular account. I said, “Hey, can you follow up? I just noticed the, what wasn’t there. I was kind of surprised.” So he went and talked to me, came back the corporate office. It’s a part of corporate and they made a change on that particular list and they take it the wine out. So most people’s response was, oh my God, I own that list. Why I own there. My response was, I wrote it nice note to the owner or the manager.

I said, “Hey, thank you so much for your years of support. You’ve been great. We love you so much. Look forward to seeing you in my next visit.” Nothing. Just, and that’s being able not to complain and bitch. And thanking people for what they’ve given you and not always asking for more. I mean, I tell my kids this too, as well as being empathetic.

It goes a long way in business and being able to say thank you and not say please. It’s a huge, and I bet at some point we’ll probably get back on the list, but if we don’t, we got 20 years of great sales. You know what, I don’t own that list. I have no, you know, that’s not my list.

It’s not my restaurant, so.

[00:32:14] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That makes sense. Yeah. So I wanna kinda shift, shift away from marketing into an old story that I saw in your bio and I’d love to hear more about it. The vineyard dogs.

[00:32:24] Michael Honig: Yeah.

[00:32:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Ups going through the vineyards, finding bugs to the sustainability.

[00:32:29] Michael Honig: Yeah. No, it was a fun project.

So we had this issue with the mealybug. Yeah. Which is a, it’s almost microscopic, but it has a unique pheromone. They’re small. And had the ideaif we could maybe use animals to help find the bug. And I was able to go to an organization over in Santa Rosa that was training dogs for service work.

Primarily paraplegic and quadriplegic individuals that were needing help with and using service animals for their lives. And I went to Bonnie Bergin, the head of the institute at the time said, “Hey, you know, do you think. You’d be interested in this project if we come up with some money, because about 80% of a dog’s brain is devoted to scent and smell.”

So she was willing to let us use some of the, in this work, a lot of the dogs, they’re incredibly beautiful, amazing dogs. But it’s a very high level job they have. And about, I forget the specifically, only about 10 or 20% of the dogs actually make it, but they’ve got all these other litters. So I said, “Look, you think you could give us a couple of the dogs that probably are gonna make it to the service level that we could use for this project?”

And they were willing to give us some dogs. After about a year and a half of training to find the specific scent, we were able to get the dogs out in the vineyard and they’d run through the property. And when they came upon the smell, they would stop and bark, which was how they announced that there was you know, the smell there.

And then we’d go out with magnifying glasses and shovels and determine which vines in that area were infected. And then if we could eradicate the few vines that were infected early enough. It was kinda like early detection of cancer. We could get rid of the bug before it devastated the property. So it was a really good project.

It worked really well. Ultimately, they fell into other ways to deal with the bug. And the other problem with the project is, and where it failed is the dogs couldn’t work 24/7. I mean, they got tired. They got focused on a rabbit running off in a different direction. I mean, they lost attention.

So what we really, the dogs are huge benefit is when we said, okay, we would trap and we say, okay, we know that we have a bug or bugs in this a hundred acres. Then they could go in like surgically and determine where they were and that’s where they really were a benefit. And they’re beautiful animals.

It was a great story. And who doesn’t love animals? Helping farmers, you know, find a pest where, and not have to use a herbicide or a pesticide. So

[00:34:43] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. And this is about 17 years ago. But that kind of, that’s kind of just one story and kind of your quest for sustainability.

[00:34:51] Michael Honig: Yeah, I know.

We’ve always, the mantra I have and the idea is that I’m trying to leave a small footprint for the next generation of family members to step into and take over from. And that could be a lot of things. And, you know, look, man does harm. I remember an argument I had with a guy in Ohio.

He was upset that I’d flown in. Cause I was talking about sustainability. Well, you got on a plane and you flew here. I said, “You’re right.” And I said, I said, “Look, the plane was gonna fly whether I was on it or not. So I kinda disagree with your premise a little bit, but I understand the idea.”

But that turned, look, I drive a big Black SUV because I have four kids, but then my other car is electric, so you. My own world is kinda a how do you balance things out? Because we’re gonna have to bottle things. So in the case of bottling, we use lightweight bottle. So you know, we save 10 plus or minus percent of weight in the case of glass, that’s energy to produce. Less weight. So again, a huge benefit. So it’s always about constant improvement. So we know we’re gonna do harm, so how do we minimize our harm? Dry farming, using steam to clean our barrels versus water, the lightweight glass, employee benefits, making sure our employees and our team members have the benefits they need both financially and other means to have a sustainable life for themselves. And I’ll give you an example of that, is all the women on our staff are allowed to bring their babies in usually till about seven or eight months from the baby starts crawling around and becomes more disruptive.

My wife Stephanie brought all of our four kids to the office cuz she works here at the winery. So think about that, where one is a mother who’s nursing which is really impactful to the child. If you can do that, can bring the child to the office, doesn’t have to have childcare just to bond with that baby for the first six months of its life.

Think about the, not only the benefits of that family, think about the loyalty that person has to our family and our company because we gave them something that most companies wouldn’t have even allowed or even thought, thought of. So sometimes it’s big, huge things like solar and spending millions of dollars.

Sometimes it’s like these little ideas that this crop up. But the one thing I’ll tell you is it’s really important. And this is why my criticism of some, I use organics not as a criticism. In general, it’s a great project, but sometimes you have these programs that you get certifi, get certified and you’ve done it.

You know, it’s like, okay, we’re certified, we’ve done everything we need to do. I love the constant improvement idea. So that’s why we’re involved with something called California’s Sustainable Grape Growing CSWA, California Sustainable Grape Growing Alliance because it’s always about constant improvement and not becoming complacent.

And the best example I can give you is this last summer, we were sitting around looking at the packaging. And I asked this staff, I said, “Why do we have foils?” The little enclosure on the top of the label? And I mean, they said, “Well, because we’ve always had it. It’s artistic. It’s decorative.” Blah, blah, blah.

I said, well, “Okay. That’s all right. But you know why foils were originally on bottles?” And I looked it up before I asked the question. No. “Well, years ago when cellars in Europe, you know, little rodents would get in and eat the cork. So they came up with this idea of putting a capsule over it to stop that from occurring.”

So I said, “Okay, so one day there were functional. There’s no functional reason to have ’em any longer. Right.” And we all agreed, no, no, no. So there’s an aesthetic reason. So I said, pull ’em off. Look what the bottles look like without a foil is that they’re fine. They’re what they are.

Sure they’re not as pretty as maybe they were, but some of that’s also because we’re used to looking at something the same way for 35 years. So I said, “Well, let’s get rid of foils.” So I. Oh, so the first time we’ve done this is our most recent Sauvignon Blanc going forward, we’re not gonna use any foils to the point this morning I was actually talking to someone about selling our foiling machine on our botting line because it’s like, do we need anymore?

So why I bring that up is one is always the constant you looking at new and improved. Foils end up the landfill. They’re either petroleum-based, poly laminates, or they’re tin which is mined. So not very good products, and they don’t get recycled and there’s no reason to have ’em. So for all those,

[00:38:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And they don’t, the current foils don’t have the same just kind of have to.

Like there’s a pleasure to cut through an old lead foil.

[00:38:51] Michael Honig: Well, letter two, because those are more expensive. Most of us use the poly laminates because they have a, their less is less expensive. They, the seams gotten better. But you’re right, they’re hard to cut. But they don’t, there has no benefit. So we got rid, we’re getting rid of them. There’s other brands that have done it, not as high a value as ours.

A lot of less expensive wines I’ve seen have done this. My contention is in 10 years, if we’re right, the ones, I’m sorry, the wines with foils, they’re gonna be the oddballs. It’s like, why do you have a foil and no one else?

[00:39:23] Bianca Harmon: Well, what’s cool too is if you’re using a cork on clear bottles now you’re kind of looking through.

And the cork, it’s actually, I think even prettier sometimes. Cuz you see this beautiful cork when you’re looking through the bottle versus a foil cap.

[00:39:36] Michael Honig: Sure. Well, we’ve used, now what we’ve done is we’ve used the cork as a marketing opportunity. We’ve,

[00:39:41] Bianca Harmon: Yeah. That’s what I mean.

[00:39:42] Michael Honig: BEE sustainable, and we have a little symbol there.

So yeah, you’re right. So now we’ve made it, we’ve actually turned to a positive. So that’s all great for the society. That’s all great for the next small footprint. But the other thing, and this is what I love about sustainability, it saves us six figures. Which, yeah, we’re six feet least, I’m not gonna say done because I don’t wanna criticize the people that make foils, on a product that we really don’t need, and.

But that was, again, we could have said, wow, well, we’ve always had foils to keep mind. But that’s what I’m always pushing. Our team is constantly improving, constantly looking what’s better. Where are we going? What about this, what about that? And that’s important. So that’s what, that’s I think another reason why our sustainable message has been so strong is because it doesn’t, it didn’t stop 20 years ago.

It’s continuing to improve and grow.

[00:40:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, that’s fantastic. Yeah, I remember it was about six, seven years ago and we bought, I’m a big fan of Stolpman Wines down in Santa Barbara and they went through they and eliminated all their foils. And the first time I saw ’em, like at first it looked odd cuz there was only one, but now it’s just the standard and that and that winery.

Great idea. I love that seeing how some wrestle with just putting like a little wax drop on the top, like it needed something and even the wax drop.

[00:40:51] Michael Honig: We talked about that. It’s like, well, that’s why. One, I hate wax. I get so annoyed with wax. And two, it’s like, why if you don’t think you need something, it’s like being, are you pregnant or are you’re not pregnant?

You can’t be half pregnant. So if you’re gonna get rid of it, don’t, then they’ll put something else. Cuz that’s just defeating the whole point.

[00:41:09] Bianca Harmon: It’s all an aesthetic. It’s all just for an aesthetic. And there’s no point in.

[00:41:14] Michael Honig: Yeah. So, so yeah. So that’s kinda, and so we’re always looking at regenerative farming, we’re looking at the electric traffic, and some of the stuff we look at, it’s like you know what? Solar, for example. But years ago, cuz I looked at solar a long, long time ago.It didn’t make any sense. And then in 06 when we kind of went revisited, it made a lot of sense. And we put in a big installation, I think the biggest one at the time in Napa. And now that installation actually we’re decommissioning and I just signed a contract for the second generation that we’re gonna be installing.

So we’re on our second generation of solar when a lot of firms are looking at their first generation.

[00:41:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s fantastic. What other exciting projects can you share with us that you have on the horizon?

[00:41:53] Michael Honig: I am pretty boring. My project right now, to be quite honest, is getting it ready for the fourth generation.

I committed to my family 20 years ago to be the caretaker for my generation, and we made a commitment as a family to get it to the fourth and fifth generation. And currently, we have four of our fourth, I call ’em kids, or 20 to 30, but you know. We have four of our fourth generation.

Young people, I guess working at the winery now. So, no, it’s really, really the next 20 years is getting it ready to move to that generation. Multi-wise, we’re the, and we all facets of our business. I mentioned Kristen Belaire, who’s been with us 25 years. You know, she wants to, over time start, she’s not gonna retire anytime soon, but she’d like to have a little more time to help her aunt and do some other projects.

So, Ashley, her assistant, who has been with us 10 years knows that she will be taking over for Kristen when that time comes. And we, we’ve made it very clear to her, cuz I don’t want her to think about going somewhere else. So it’s not just my family that we’re looking at, we’re also looking at our staffing.

Cuz we’ve had people that have been here for decades. You know, they’re gonna want to change at some point. So we’re kind of looking at how do we backfill the winemaker position the same way we’re gonna backfill you know, the management positions. So that’s really, they asked the quite that’s really my goal.

It’s a difficult industry in the sense that we’re so vertically integrated. We’re farmers, we make wine. We have a retail operation, we have a wholesale division. We, you know, all the wine club, all the different things. So, you know, it takes a while to figure out, I think who’s gonna be the person that might be able to take my role.

But that’s really my mandate for the next few years.

[00:43:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s an exciting position. It’s exciting to be in that position.

[00:43:28] Michael Honig: I know it is. It feels really good. It feels good to know. And it’s weird. I’ve had to not had to, I’ve started, when I do presentations to people saying, I just wanna mention, we’re not selling.

And it’s kind of a weird thing cuz it’s a personal thing and I don’t want people to, it’s like, you know, how much money do you make? It’s not relevant. It’s not important. But I’ve only mentioned it because I think you’ve already started to see the sales. And I know there’s gonna be a lot more coming and I can’t tell you the brands I think are gonna sell, it is not relevant.

But if you look the industry, you’ve got a lot of people, I’ll use the brands that have sold.

[00:44:02] Bianca Harmon: There’s some, there’s ones that just recently, I mean,

[00:44:04] Michael Honig: Yeah, let’s use. It could be, I’m gonna use Heitz, you know, Heitz.

[00:44:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I was just about to say Heitz.

[00:44:08] Michael Honig: Yeah. Great brand, but you know, who is gonna take over Catherine and her brother getting a little older?

And I find oftentimes there’s either not a next generation or not a generation that’s competent or interested. Big assets and they get sold. So I’ve now had to start men. I had to, I’ve started mentioning in my presentations is, look, I just wanna let you know we’re not selling. We had offers we could sell if we wanted to, but we want to let you know because you are gonna be dealing with my heirs at some point. And I want, you know, so there’s a stability cuz our businesses are based on generational brands. You know, we’re not fly by night, we’re not some software company that’s here today, gone tomorrow. We’re not, there’s a substance and also it is a brand.

We’re not just a brand made up from an ad agency. There’s vineyards, there’s all the things we have. So, I’ve been telling people, look, just so you know, we’re here for the generation. I got these four kids that are already involved. And it feels good to be able to say it cuz I believe it and it’s gonna happen.

But I just know it’s, we’re the kind of the, we’re gonna be the exception I think in the next 10 years.

[00:45:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. I have more multi-generational families just stick, stick with it. And there isn’t this consolidation, or there isn’t this like just corporation of it.

[00:45:20] Michael Honig: Again, I know what we’re doing.

I can’t speak to other people, but I know where we’re going. So

[00:45:24] Bianca Harmon: You’re putting in a clause, right? That one of your four children can’t sell it too, right?

[00:45:32] Michael Honig: We’ve made it very complicated to do anything. Trust me. No. And I don’t even know it’s gonna be my kids. My kids are, you know, there’s nine kids in that generation, the fourth generation.

I have four of ’em, but you know, brother’s two kids are working here right now. They’re older. Annika’s in this, in the cellar right now. She’s 20. Her brother was helping in the cellar. My nephews are, a couple of my nephews are involved. So my kids, my kids are four 15 and under, so they, who knows what they want to do.

But no, and that’s the other thing too. I fired family members. You don’t get a job because you’re an owner. . That’s just not how it works. And trust me, fire firing family members is not always very fun, but it also speaks to the success of the business because you don’t get a, I’ll give you a better example.

My uncle a few years ago called me very angry, and he is one of the founders pissed off as a, and he is a retired judge. He goes, “Michael, they, I went in the tasting room and they charged me for a hat.” Okay, so, “Well, I don’t know. Why do I have to pay $8 for a hat?” And I laugh. I said, “They only charge you eight bucks. They should have doubled it.” He goes, he says, I go, “Danny, what do you, what message are we sending to the team if you as an owner walk in, grab what you wanna walk out?” I said, “That’s not the message I wanna convey to people. We’re family business, but we’re a business first. And dammit, you pay for anything you get because I’m gonna make our employees pay for it and our customers certainly pay for it. So no one gets anything for free.” And that’s why the family supported me when I’ve had to fire family members. It’s like, I’m not doing it cuz I’m mean I’m doing it cuz they aren’t competent and they didn’t do a good job. And in the case of well one, my brother actually ultimately later came back and he realized because he said, Michael, that was the best thing he ever did.

I didn’t really, I thought all bosses were jerks.

[00:47:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s good. No.

[00:47:15] Bianca Harmon: It shows that it’s just because you’re family too, that you just don’t get some free, free handout. And that’s,

[00:47:22] Michael Honig: I think that’s the family business I’ve seen. One of the reasons they failed is one is because they run ’em as dictators or as democracies where everyone has a say, which the end of the day that doesn’t work.

But also, yeah, they run ’em with, they’re the piggy bank for the owners. And that’s again, it’s not a good message. And look, we’re not perfect by any of this, this all sounds like we have our Achilles heels and all the things that we have challenges with, but we’ve done a few things right.

I think running it as a business first. Having the approval to let people go if they’re not competent. Not letting people that are owners do anything different than a staff member or than one of our guests. All those things have resonated to our success.

[00:47:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Fascinating. So, Michael, as we’re kind of wrapping down.

This has been a fascinating conversation, as wrapping down here. Where can people learn more about you and Honig Winery?

[00:48:10] Michael Honig: Oh, honigwine.com. No, if you want, it’s funny cuz I talk about these stories. I never talk about the yeast or the barrels or all because it’s not relevant and I don’t get. I get bored if I have to talk about that stuff.

[00:48:23] Bianca Harmon: Well, most people get bored listening to that stuff.

[00:48:25] Michael Honig: Yeah, if you’re interested in the wine making and the vineyard views and all the varietals we make, or the bottlings we make honigwine.com that has all the relevant information.

And I would encourage, you know, if anyone gets a chance, I mean we’d love to have you come visit honig, but Napa and I love my community and we have an amazing community. People who have not visited. They really should come because there’s these great legacy brands going to Schramsberg and seeing the caves that were dug by the Chinese immigrants that had been working on the railroads and the Coppola’s that have done what they’ve done. With Inglenook.

It is, as you both know, it’s an amazing community. And again, we have a great opportunity to be in and very proud to be part of the Napa community and encourage people to come visit anytime they can.

[00:49:05] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s fantastic. I’ll be up visiting next time I’m up there.

[00:49:08] Michael Honig: Good. Love to see you.

[00:49:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, thank you so much, Michael. Have a great day.

[00:49:11] Michael Honig: You’re very welcome. You both too. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

[00:49:14] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Bye-bye.

[00:49:14] Michael Honig: Bye.