The relationship business w/ Chris Baker, Brassfield Estate

After retiring twice, Chris Baker, President of Brassfield Estate, was lured back in by a unique opportunity to build one of the world’s largest monopoles in the High Valley AVA of Lake County, California. Its unique volcanic terroir is now being scaled nationally with a 10 year contract and national alignment with Southern Glazers. Chris describes the best practices in working with distributors and partnering together to create a successful brand, built on trusted relationships. 

Detailed Show Notes: 

Chris’ background: hospitality, distribution, ran wineries, has tried to retire twice and come back due to his love of wine

Brassfield overview

• High Valley AVA, in Lake County CA
• 100% estate grown and produced 
• 5,000 acre property, 500 acres planted, up to 2,000 plantable
• 65k sf cave, only 15% utilized
• Grows 17 varietals (10 in distribution), best known from Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir

Retail price points - $16-17 whites, $25-30 reds

• National partnership with Southern Glazers
• Was in 14 states, now in 45
• Perks to being nationally aligned - a little more attention, assigned trade development manager
• Have a 10 year contract (normal is 2-3 years) w/ automatic renewal
• Southern chose Brassfield because of its scalability (potential to be biggest monopole in the world) and they didn’t have a national product for Lake County

Sales team being built out

• 9 division managers, 1 national accounts on-premise
• Picked up experienced people (e.g. - from Vintage, others) who know a lot of accounts and not afraid to put a bag on their shoulders
• Team needs to know distributors feet on the street all the way to state leaders
• KPIs to drive velocity (getting several products in the right accounts, volume goal, rate of sales, accounts sold goal, 50/50 on- and off-premise split)

Small, medium wineries need to do more DTC, social media in new distribution environment

Need to identify brand’s uniqueness

Distributors and accounts want to know what brand will do to create pull

Focus on top moving accounts: top 250 restaurants, top retailers, share accounts b/w distributor and winery, need to understand what brands are important for the distributors (to not cannibalize sales)

“We’re in the relationship business”

National account restaurants - often have 3rd party agencies (e.g. - Patrick Henry, IMI) to work through, hard to get direct contact, can meet some people at Vibe conference, trade conferences, Aspen Food & Wine

Need to learn about customers and get to know each other

Best practice: being present, everyone is trying to get mindshare of distributors, can’t only go once every 6 months, need frequent communications, involvement, and call on accounts direct w/ or w/o distributor

Distributors have big notebooks of incentives (some suppliers have big ones), they cherry pick what they think will be easiest to accomplish

The top down approach can work, if distributor leads push down priorities to team

Creating consumer awareness (marketing, social, PR) can get attention w/o incentive programs, Brassfield hired a PR agency in NY and a marketing company in Napa

Biggest success stories: 

• Lazy Dog - national account w/ Eruption Red Blend, participates in their annual summit
• Sugarfish Sushi - Sauvignon Blanc is in all 17-18 locations

Annual Volcano Camp (started 2025)

• Brassfield responsible for High Valley AVA
• Partnered w/ SommJournal to bring somms from around the country
• Dug soil pits
• Investment in education builds brand ambassadors, believes it is high ROI

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