Making
Consulting
I have my 15 foot Penske truck all reserved and ready to go, my flat is filled with packing boxes, my storage unit is prety much cleaned out and turned over to a new renter, and my new house is confirmed and ready. I drive off into the Great Northern Wasteland on Monday, August 30th. Jesse will follow in the pickup, and we will take our time to get there, arriving on the 1st after overnighting with relatives, to move in and get settled. The next 10 days are going to disappear, so I am getting in those last few things I want to do I haven't done in the past 32 years before leaving Marin, like having a beer at the American Legion Dugout Bar in Memorial Park. Open Wed-Sat 6:00PM a real down-home bar operating in the midst of a children's playground. It's a little bit of the past and must have gotten grandfathered into San Anselmo's regulations, there is no was it would be approved in 2010, so go by and throw them some business. I suspect the hours are after 6:00 PM so the Moms would be discouraged from dumping the kiddies in the sand box and having a well-deserved attitude adjuster. Staffed by volunteers, tip heavily. Jutebox unpredictable, pool table ok, sticky bar. If you love Marinitas, you'll hate this place and Vice Versa!
Looks like I
have some catching up to do. The winery
liquidation process is in full swing. You can visit the auction site by
going
to our old website at rossvalleywinery.com and following the link to
the
auctioneer. The bidding does not start until August 24th, and will last
only
two days. I have spent most of my time in the past couple of weeks
organizing
myself to move to
There are over 40 small wineries in the Far Western Marine
Washington area where I am moving, and of course many more winery
operations in
Eastern (warm)
By
marshalling my resources and considerable organizing
effectiveness, I was able to find a wonderful place to live at a price
I can afford on my fixed income. Here is
what you
see when you look out my front door: 
opening our own winery in Washington, we knew that we never wanted to be
a snobby winery. I welcome my customers as friends, invite them to my
home, and enjoy sharing my passion for wine in communal delectation. I
stumbled across your website years ago (and have been following you
since) and immediately fell in love with your genuine personality and
wit. Although I unfortunately have to admit that I never ordered your
wine (kicking myself HARD now!! and offering a million apologies), I
would like you to know that you are an admirable model for at least one
young person stumbling through the world of the commercial wine
industry, and probably many more like me.
Wishing you the best, KM
I think this week is the week you should go to the website www.westauction.com. You can see the format now; the contents of the winery will be broken into "lots" and you bid on a specific lot. I have the right to bid, and I think I will. Meanwhile, I am packing up my stuff at home and having dinners, lunches or glasses of wine with friends. After the frenetic and locked in pace of running the the winery, I am finding it strange not to be restricted by time. I may even go to a Giants game!
I want to tell you that your wine was a whoosh of delicious! P and R brought us a bottle to share for New Year's celebration, and that was what invited me to join the Paul / Ross Valley club. You are a wine master!
I read that you are leaving California. We did that in 2005. I hope that you are coming to Washington. We LOVE it here and we need more genius in this glorious state! It is a far cry from California in many ways--most of them significant for the soul. Each time we travel away we come home more committed to stay! Come aboard, man--you belong here! KTK
I have received many comments and good wishes, only one crappy comment; I won't dignify it with any energy, except this. You'd not think a psychotherapist, a profession that makes income from helping people relate to others and to express feeling positively would be the only person out of so many to make crappy comments. So there you go, heal yourself, "Doctor."
Today I turned over my key to the winery to the auctioneer who is representing the trustee. He informs me that an on-line auction will be held of the contents of the building, with the contents broken down into lots of affordable size. In a week or so you can go to www.westauction.com and look up the winery and see the lots. You should be able to pick up some good values, if you are so motivated. The auction could be something of a downer, but I am keeping my dauber up, if you will forgive a baseball reference.
I'm getting lots of comments like the one in the blocks above and below, and they are helpful to my mental state and appreciated. My plans to move to Washington are still "Go" but pushed ahead until the last week of August or the first of September. With the weather as hot as it is going to be this weekend, I want to remind you that you'll want to place a frozen blue thingie in with the wine you are saving in your ice chest. The hot weather arrives just as the San Anselmo "Art" and Wine Festival comes to town. Maybe it won't broil, but it sure will bake.
COMMENT
I know it had to hurt to "declare defeat" but it was a good
try and a good thing. I just wish the recession hadn't hit you so
hard.
I send you my heartfelt admiration and respect for having
the courage and gumption to dream big and actually do something about
your dream. You weren't an "I'm gonna" guy. You committed
and did it. You made a leap of faith and rode the wave for as
long as you could. You've been dumped by a big wave, but it is
not the end for you. I am going to read your book, as I really
need the education, so let us know when your book is available for
purchase on amazon. I hope to see you on TV someday talking about
your wine books. Note that I said books with a plural!
Last Sunday
was the
Fourth of July and I was unable to add anything to this page because I
was on
an island in the San Juan Straits near the water border between
Now that I am back in San Anselmo and having been greeted
by a informative Marin IJ article
that ran in my absence (no comment from me due to the Blackberry),
people are
stopping me in the street to express their dismay. I know that most of
this
emotion is genuine, but there is also a discernable taste of fear in
their
voices and comments. If this could happen to Paul, it could happen to
anyone. I
believe that under-layer of fear is what keeps people’s money in
their pockets,
releasing it on only the most essential of essentials. The angst is
palatable.
People ask how I will live.
one of those who
voted for us:
I just learned about the winery's closing. I'm sorry Paul. I just want
you to know that P. and I are very sad that you had to make that
decision. I know how important your beautiful winery has been to you
and how much incredible (and excellent) work you put into it. Please
give us a call and come over when you feel like it. Just please know
that you are in my thoughts.
Love,
E
There was also a lot of obviously heart-felt and genuine emotion from people I have come to regard as friends, most maybe not the come-on-over-to-my-place-and-have-dinner friends, but people whose names and spouses I know and whose children I recognize. I appreciate this emotion as a sense of loss on their part, perhaps not on the same magnitude as my sense of loss, but a hole in their San Anselmo reality nevertheless. Several people connected completely with my theory that the population in general is so tightened down financially that the single most important factor in shopping for wine or anything else, is the price. I think that is very short sighted, as there is a huge cost for a low price. Part of it is driving small, quality producers out of business, another part of it is the exploitation of people just like you who are working for unsustainable income, so the costs are kept low. When I learned that Whole Foods was paying its "team members" $11.25 per hour to work at a frenetic pace in a department that had revenues of $22,000 in a day, I was disgusted and resolved not to help their bottom line with any of my bucks.
The bottom line is that the citizens of San Anselmo citizens voted both for and against The Ross Valley Winery, a jewel in San Anselmo's rusty, flood ravaged, mud-encrusted crown. They voted with their wallets. And I lost the election.
one of those who
voted for us, often:
We've just learned of the closing, and we are very saddened by it.
Unfortunately, we had not known of your place for very long, but we
relished the opportunities we had to come in. I have to say, at
first it took some convincing for my husband to finally come with me
since he assumed a wine bar to be very snobby... but once he did, he
was hooked. He especially took a liking to you, and we were bummed
whenever we came in and found that you were out (yes, everyone else
was very nice and very pleasant but we enjoyed chatting with you). I
will really REALLY miss coming by for a glass of Carneros, and I will
physically crave my (yes, I said mine!) Vin de NOIX.
We really wish we could have come in to see you one last time. We
truly wish you the best in your future endeavors. M&R
It was very touching to receive the hugs and hear the comments of people who have been my supporters and fans throughout the years. Being a very emotional person, I nevertheless was able to keep my composure until that Bill Clinton look-alike jokster Jon Farrar made some particularly poignant comments upon leaving and broke my resolve.
I'm meeting with the attorneys on Tuesday morning to determine what final path I am required to take and when. I am talking with people who are interested (?) in buying the winery equipment and perhaps the bulk wine in barrels, which would probably be sucked into a tank and bottled out as a red blend for $2.00 a bottle. That's the way they do it. I guess I should be more upset about the final fate of all that beautiful wine I expended so much money, time, and creativity on, but I am simply numb about it.
If I am required to hold a liquidation sale, I will do so and announce it thru the club e-mail. It will be open to club members only, in the strong belief that my loyal supporters deserve what they might be able to enjoy. And I don't want a bunch of unknown vultures and bottom feeders picking on the bones. I will not be at the event, if it is held, and Corina Trujillo has said she would be in charge if I gave her strict guidelines.
So how has this happened?
Background: I started making wine as a hobby in 1972, the hobby grew and people started asking me to buy my wines. In 1987 I bonded my garage here in San Anselmo to make a commercial bonded winery, the only way you can legally make wine to sell. The winery did fine, the cost of the garage part of my home mortgage. After some rave reviews by the likes of wine guru Robert Parker, my wines developed a national, if small, following. Expanding into a commercial building downtown in 2001 seemed natural; the building was perfect and most of the interested customers lived in the area. Things went OK until 2008. It was obvious that most people were cutting way back and considered any wine over $10.00 to be a luxury. It was at this stage we invented Recession Red, although the government had not yet admitted to a recession. We tied the price to the Dow Jones Industrial average and changed the price every day. The publicity of three TV networks was helpful. It wasn't profitable, but created cash flow.
The novelty ran out and people were buying even less wine, so I came u with Lug-a-jug, where people could fill their own bottles for very little money. That worked pretty well for a while, but it became obvious the people who came in were attracted mostly to the least expensive wine we had in the tanks. Cash flow lagged even more and during several months I could not pay all the rent. At $5000, then negotiated to $4000 per month, it didn't take long to get seriously behind.
Serious happenings: In May of this year I managed to scrabble together enough money for a plane ticket to visit my Brother and Sisters who live in the Seattle area. The good thing about going up there for a visit is that my generous family really won't let me spend any money. I had not had any personal income from the winery since 2001, so this was a good thing. I also had not taken a vacation for more than 5 or 6 days at a time in 9 years, because the winery called me back to work, softly but incessantly. This time, though, My son Jesse, bless him, stood in for me, and with good success, I might add. It allowed me two full weeks. The problem with that is after 6 days I felt the weight lift from me and I became human again, and started examining my life. Which is a good idea, you should do it yourself. I know this will be shocking to some of you, but my 65th birthday is in Just a couple of weeks. I realized that my health was not being improved by the 24/7 pressure of bills, money and responsibility that are part and parcel to being a small business owner in California. For the first time in 9 years, I felt what it might be like without that weight.
I returned to San Anselmo, refreshed somewhat, but wary of what would come now that I had seen some light. Jesse had done a great job. I went to COSTCO in Novato to buy paper towels (OK, I bought some gin, too.), walked in the door and was greeted by a mountain of wine stacked in an amazingly high pile. I stood there in awe and as the $6.99 price tag fired out to me I thought to myself, "Paul, what the F do you think you are doing. You cannot compete with the refinery wineries." All those wines taste about the same and frankly I wouldn't wash my truck with most them, but at $6.99 it seems like that's what what people want, or think they do if your advertising budget is large enought to make them think so. Quality, care and uniqueness do not matter any more. I realized that California has become supersaturated with wineries, grapes and wine. Thirty years ago it was magical personalized craft. No more; now it is an industry populated by the low cost producer.
So when I returned to my never-enough money-to-pay-all -the-bills juggling act and received a visit from my landlord (I'm not mad at him, his partners are the ones responsible for the action, according to him, and they are all about the money) who said "pay up or get out" -direct quote, the first step to an eviction , it didn't take much for me to realize my time was up, and bankruptcy was the only way I could see out. (Oh I've had people say, "I'll lend you $12,000" but that is trading one debt for another, not a net gain. At least I am smart enough to see that.
People have expressed concern for me in the future. Yes, I am collecting decent Social Security-at one point in my life I did make quite a bit of money, I have a small pension income, and have a new book coming out on wine that the publishers are very excited about. Before you start feeling bad for the landlord, I have been paying $5000 a month for 9 years, and if you remember, sold my house to keep the business going. I am leaving behind $65,000 in personal cash money investment and $280,000 in unpaid salary. I'll not see a cent of any of it. So I cannot live in Marin, or in my mind even in California. Although I am a 3d generation Californian, I am getting out.
My faithful club members are paying the attorney fees with the final club shipment. After my meeting on Tuesday the 22d, I will know my path better, and will add to this chronicle.
Meanwhile, thank you for reading
