Bread is not for the wise (Ecclesiastes 9:11)
The facts are sometimes more surprising than any illogical idea.
Who would have thought that as a wine consultant, I would become a wine broker and job matchmaker.
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Instead of speaking in codes and clues, let's hear a story, which, while not fantastical, is certainly surprising.
Ido (pseudonym), an avid wine lover and chronic winery tourer, spent many years in the regular army, lived on a decent salary, and left a corner in his heart and schedule for wine.
Following an injury in 2008, he was discharged from the army with retirement benefits, and with his wife, Tzipora, he decided to invest in wine. He bought the most sophisticated and up-to-date equipment, as well as fine stainless steel tanks, renovated a large warehouse behind the house, and converted it into a sealed, insulated, and air-conditioned boutique winery.
With unbridled enthusiasm, he began the work in 2009.
He started small - a ton of fine wine grapes, which went through all the processes he learned in courses and knew from the years when he was just a curious enthusiast on his many wine tours.
The celebration at Ido's
Based on what he learned, Ido knew that good wine needs to stay in wooden barrels for a long time, and so he found himself purchasing more wine grapes the following year, 2010, this time a ton and a half.
Ido continued to cultivate the cute winery behind the house, investing in both an impressive label design and gift wrapping for a couple of bottles, and slowly the bottles began to fill up.
Of course, there are a lot of expenses, labels cost money, a wine filling machine costs money, a corking device for compressing the cork costs money, and the workers also have to be paid. But Ido doesn't skimp, he does everything the best he can.
His many long-time friends have a well-developed sense of smell in two areas:
A - in wine.
B - where it is distributed for free. Indeed, many fans visited the house, each one tasted, loved and lovingly received a couple of bottles, and those who asked for another case were not sent back empty-handed.
In 2011, Ido needed to buy more grapes and expand the winery. The compensation had long since run out, the savings had already been depleted, Ido and Tsif's parents had also given up, and they didn't have many other acquaintances to borrow from. The simple and practical solution was the bank, which did agree to make a considerable amount of money available to them, based on the property, that is, the house, although the person responsible for the mortgage wasn't enthusiastic about the winery.
The year 2012 would have looked more or less like the previous one, it also required another expansion for the winery, to house the wine that the friends had not yet come to pick up.
You also need to know how to sell.
We all know that 2013 comes after 2012, and who doesn't realize that history has repeated itself?.
But every story also has an end somewhere, and indeed in 2014 the edge of this end began to show.
The winery requires more investment, and there's nowhere to go, the debts are skyrocketing, there's already been three years of produce that the members are excited to take, and no one thinks they need to pay, everyone thinks to themselves:
""What's two bottles for a winery?"
To continue surviving day-to-day life, you need some money, and the winery has a lot of bottles, and if they have buyers, you can continue the race.
Here and now, Ido discovered the hard way that knowing how to make wine is not enough, you also need to know how to sell it, and it turns out that he is not such a slacker in this area either, and has already managed to find a purchasing group that is willing to buy several thousand bottles.
The third will come and decide.
The buying group is not interested in getting him out of the mud in a good way, of course, but in making a profit. If the seller also manages to recover as a result – so much the better.
But then an argument broke out between them.
Ido claimed that if he only receives 30 NIS for each bottle, he is at a loss, due to the high expenses involved. According to him, he can also demand 50 NIS for each bottle. They, that is, the buyers, can certainly sell for 70 or even 80 NIS per unit.
The years failed to reach a compromise until it was finally decided that I would come and determine the price that could be charged for a bottle, meaning: both the wholesale price that the representative would pay to Ido and the price that the buyer would pay in the store. Then the representative would do the math and decide whether the deal was worthwhile.
When I was invited to their lovely winery, I still didn't know anything about the legalities and issues that existed between them. I just had to taste a few types of wines, several varieties, from several years, and decide at what price such a wine could be displayed in the store.
Since I had never heard of this winery's name, because it wasn't on the list, I didn't give it much of a chance in advance, and thought I would probably taste the wines for 14 NIS a bottle = [mostly water].
Even before I tasted it, when I first saw the color and smelled the wine, I had the feeling that I had been deceived. But color and smell cannot be trusted.
I followed all the rules that every novice taster knows, starting with the simple ones and progressing to the more refined ones. Immediately upon my first taste, I realized that there was a surprise hidden here that probably even older tasters hadn't seen. In my heart I thought that if this was considered 'the simple wine,' who knows where we'd end up... Are they stretching me or are they trying to tease me? It was a fine wine, delicate and balanced by all accounts.
Wait after the drop
I was left with a blank expression, and I didn't express any enthusiasm. Only finally did I speak my mind, and the purchasing group not only paid the high price that Ido demanded, but also left feeling that they had made a profit. I also shared this feeling, and the truth that was revealed to me: Ido knows how to make wine but doesn't know how to sell.
I agreed with him that after the gap year he would stop losing money, but would go work at a commercial winery, and receive a more substantial salary than he would have earned if he had managed to sell his wines ahead of his plans.
When Ido works at a commercial winery, and brings his wonderful knowledge from there, we can all enjoy truly fine wine, and without a vow after the sabbatical year, when the deal goes through, I will happily tell everyone the name of the winery where Ido oversees the quality of the wine.
Shraga Gebhard Shraga Gebhard is a consultant in the professional and training field of wine.
+972-52-6176201
