From Soil to Strategy: Running a Vineyard in Napa & Sonoma

[music] Welcome to Wine Country Business, the podcast exploring the strategy and trends shaping the global world of wine, spirits, and luxury hospitality. I'm your host, Andrew Allison, a third-generation Napa Valley native and exited startup founder. I'm bringing you inside candid conversations with the business leaders that are finding our industry today. [music] This show is brought to you by Top Shelf Ventures. Top Shelf finds, funds, and accelerates the premier opportunities in the global alcohol and vice categories led by industry experts with a track record of major acquisitions. Their team acts as the catalyst for disruptive startups reaching for global scale. They don't just invest. They bring operational horsepower, a huge network to you, the entrepreneur, to help you dominate your market. That's topshelfventures.com. Accelerating the world's most innovative brand. Let's dive in. [music] Who are you? And what do you do? Well, I appreciate the opportunity. My name is Cameron Smith. I've got a vineyard management company. We farm in both Napa and Sonoma. Loma Del Sol Farming. We're doing 350 acres and farming everything for wine grapes. You grew up in Napa Valley. So maybe you could just share for the folks that didn't know what it's like to grow up in Napa. How did you get into the vineyard management side of things because it was not a linear path? Definitely was not. No, growing up equipment was always around. My dad sells vineyard equipment. Being on a tractor in the vineyards being around people that work within the industry. That was an upbringing that I definitely had. Knowing that I wanted to go in that direction wasn't as clear. You know, 1999, our family planted a vineyard up in St. Helena. That definitely sparked the interest, but at the same time, it was still within the family and wanted to venture out a little bit. You see what else was out there? Going to Sonoma State and majoring in English. I thought the path for me was going to be teaching. I moved away, worked at a middle school for a couple of years and just realized that that wasn't what I wanted to be doing long term. And then made the decision to move back to Napa. You know, in really out of necessity was offered a job as a vineyard intern. Really, it was just out scouting fields, grabbing sugar samples, bunch counts, you know, going out and counting how many clusters are on each vine and trying to get some yield estimates off of that. That was for about a year and a half and it really sparked an interest in me. You know, I fell myself asking, can I go try something on the tractor? Can I go do that? Can I go do that? In that position, it was really kind of pigeonholed into staying in the lane that you were in. And rightfully so, I mean, it's an internship position. But then after that, got connected up with my now business partner in Loma del Sol and worked with him for six years for his management company. In 2016, we purchased Loma del Sol and we've been farming the same acreage since. We'll be 10 years in May of '26. So, what was the inflection point where you had enough confidence to say, "I'm ready to take care of somebody else's vineyard?" Yeah, it's definitely difficult. I would say my partner in the business, he had his own business and had been in the industry whole life. I really had the luxury of leaning on him a lot for building that confidence, for asking those questions and getting familiar with the industry. A little bit of it for me is you just kind of have to get thrown in the deep and figure out how to do it and work through it through it that way and make sure you've got great mentors along the way and a good group of people around you to help support you in those decisions and really focus on working with those people around you and to get through it? When you decided that you were going to buy this business, was that a major leap or was that something that you felt like you were just intuitively really ready for? I think personally, I was to the point where I did want to be looking for either more responsibility where I currently was or was ready for some form of ownership or having that responsibility, you know, more on me for the direction that I was going? What was the catalyst that made you feel like you were ready to be an owner? Yeah, I felt at the time that I was ready to take a next step in the industry and was comfortable with the idea that I could take on more simultaneously this opportunity to purchase Loma Del Sol that had come up. It was good timing, you know, fortunately for me. My partner in the business felt the same and we were able to come together and purchase this. If you wanted to get into farming today and you're just starting out in the industry, where would you start? Yeah, I definitely think doing an internship is a great opportunity. You can go down the path of majoring specifically in viticulture, going to one of the big universities getting into the industry. I also think there's a bit of an advantage of being a bit more of a blank slate and getting to learn everything in the field and from the people that have been working, you know, in those ranches for decades. So yeah, I think it's, um, go work a harvest somewhere. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, getting your feet wet, doing a harvest, reaching out to some of the larger wineries and getting in and doing an internship gives you a really a really good experience. Also, you know, there's harvest internships on the winery side too. You know, work in in the seller and get an idea of what the process is after you harvest the grapes. For those that might not be as close to the harvest in 2025, what were some of the major things this last growing season that made this year different than others? Yeah, we definitely, we did not see the heat spikes that we typically have seen over the past couple of years that get the fruit to finish ripening in areas that are a little cooler. So we definitely saw lower sugars. The biggest struggle that we had was the disease pressures and a lot of that would have come down to mildew. What disease is in particular? So we saw quite a bit of mildew. That would have been earlier in the season. So you're spraying all year to try to prevent that. You do get it. Then after you get it, then it becomes, you know, how do you manage it? And then closer to harvest and the tail end of the year, then we got into having betrides, bunchrot, green mold, all the diseases that come up. The symptoms of not being hot enough. A symptom of it not being hot enough. And then also with the right way, the rains came. Once we got rain on the vine, then if that stuff doesn't dry out, then it's just going to create an environment for any of these to continue to grow. Turned into fortified lines. 100%. Yeah. And then I mean, your only defense against it is to spray. But what do you spraying? There's a couple of different materials. You are either spraying to prevent it or you are spraying. If you already have something, then you are spraying to try to eradicate it. And then as a preventative, so it does not continue. The difficulty becomes the only way to put that out is by spraying it with a tractor. So if you get too much rain, then are these harsh chemicals? Are these the majority of the chemicals that we're using are all organic? And there are conventional materials that we spray as well. Our goal is always to try to have as little impact as we can when it comes to the spraying. You know, one for the environment and two, just for the people that are applying the materials, is the big thing as well. When you think about the season and what are the hallmarks of a good landowner partner? You could probably go farm for a heck of a lot of people, especially with the brands that you farm for. But when you pick a partner, what makes a good landowner partner? For us, a owner can be as involved and as little involved as they would like. For me, I like the idea of the owner actually being involved, especially in a year like this, where we see hard decisions. Exactly. They are involved in the industry. They understand that there's ups and downs to it. What are some of the varietals that you prefer to farm or you excel at farming? I think a lot of it comes down to where the vineyard is, opposed to the actual varietal. There's areas that are just harder to farm, given the weather that's there, given your access to getting into the vineyard just because you're in some difficult terrain. We are doing a bit of farming in Sonoma, one of the areas that's become more popular as Moon Mountain. It's a warmer climate. It's more hillside. We have a good amount of Cabernet there. That's been a fun one to farm. Challenging one has been peanut wires in some areas that are a little more wet or you're fighting the wind. Good amount of the time during the year. The Cabernet is a fun, the Shardin is a fun saw block. It has been something that we've had good success with on the Sonoma Mountain area. That's a fun one. I think it comes down to a bit more of the wineries we're working with as well. If you were going to look into the future, what are some of the major trends that you're bracing for as somebody who's thinking about a high-cap ex-business that requires to advise your customers on what to put in the ground today? Unfortunately, I think the trend is that people are shying away from wine and alcohol. I think there's a lot that goes into the idea that the younger generation is not drinking as much. I'm sure that that is the case. I'm not 100 percent. For me in my 20s, I was not big into wine. I think just bracing for the idea that there's going to be less consumption and because of that, grapes are going to be more difficult to sell. When you think about the go-to-market for anybody who has high yields of fruit, high tonnage sitting around or maybe finished juice that's not finished product yet, what are some of the ways that you've seen people successfully go to market that might not be traditional. Definitely the bulk market is an option of the bulk market. market has been bit flooded with fruit over the past two year and a last year. It took on a lot of fruit that was unharvested and then this year as well. So kind of yet to be seen what actually shows up on the bulk market and you've really seen a reduction in those prices per gallon as well. For me, something I talk to our clients a lot about is, what are we going to do to set ourselves apart from the other fruit that's available? A couple of our clients are starting to produce their own wines. They're looking to have a labeled product and try to sell that. But all of this comes down to sales and how they're going to sell it. When you think about the rights, some of the vineyards are very picky about which wine makers they sell their fruit to. What are some of the ways that you've seen a vineyard brand its product or recruit the wine maker that it hoped to work with? For us as a company, our goal is to take that process on entirely. We'll do everything from the vineyard development and then work to sell the grapes as well. A lot of those are existing relationships and you've just got a real long history with a lot of the people is trying to find people that you want to work with that have the same idea on the farming style and willing to kind of ride with you for the harder times these your times and make stuff work for both the grower and the winery. For those that are unfamiliar with how these fruit contracts work, what is a right down the middle? That is a normal contract. What does that look like? And of course, it depends. But yeah, so contracts have really changed over the years. Four or five, six years ago, it was very traditional to have a multi year contract after that that contract was over, then it would roll into an evergreen period. And basically the evergreen would be every year you are contracted for that fruit unless somebody gives notice by X date. And then typically even if you did give notice on it, you would get it for that harvest. And then the following one, then you would be out of the contract. So it gave the grower a lot of security on their end. You didn't feel like you were you were left out to dry. If you harvest for somebody and then they say, Hey, you know, we're not going to take it. And then the next year you're out searching for fruit. The past couple of years, we've seen a lot of the evergreen contract, you know, seems to be less traditional and then just going to like a set time frame. So like a two year or a three year contract has become a bit more traditional. And then that basically has a price set in there. Typically you, if you can, there's some type of price escalator throughout the years just to cover the increase in farming costs. It's gone more to just a set period of time, you know, whether it's one to three years for a contract. And without picking a specific vineyard or a specific AVA, what can somebody expect for a ton of Cabernet in Napa Valley or Napa County? Uh, to pay. Yeah. You know, disregarding 2025, if you just went straight off the county average, that's a number like around $8,000 a ton for Napa Cabernet. And some of the famous Bexdothra fruit might go up to the 50,000 or something like that. Yeah. I think you're in the 2030, 40,000 dollar range at that point. Wow. When you are thinking about how to, you know, really advise these partners as the market changes around them and consumption and patterns change, are you seeing people want to change the varietals that they've planted or avoid the CapEx expenditure in total so that they just continue to farm what they've already got in the ground? If you're not having success with that variety, there is the desire to chase after a variety that is more sought after, the difficulty becomes the investment that it takes to do that. We're talking about a $50,000, $60,000,000 depending on where you're doing the redevelopment and the ground that you're doing to do that type of redevelopment. You don't see the return immediately. And observationally, I've, you know, had the good fortune to go wine tasting in this year, a foothills in Lake County and Norse Noma up this Noma coast and then down the California coast, the observation I have, and I don't know farming as well as you do, but it really feels like you go to some of the more established and this is obviously not all wineries, but you go to some of the more established wineries and they have a block of this and a block of that. And then you look at their menu and it has no story other than that they've tried to farm everything in some of these regions and Napa's known for Cabernet and, you know, the Russian River is known for Pino. I think that has to be so hard to run a business and you've got like Nebiola on your menu. And so like what's the, you know, not like I'm picking on one variety, but when you see vineyards that have not planned with a marketing strategy, is that of concern to you? You know, certainly the interest that I've seen as of late, people that are out looking for wine, sometimes it's a variety that potentially we don't grow. There's definitely starting to be some interest in some different, you know, white varietals to to be a bit of a lighter style of wine. And that's the difficulty of it's tough to get really selective with those varieties because if there's not enough buyers for it, then you're left with a bunch of different varieties that you can't really sell. So when you plan your farming for the year or years ahead, you must do stuff low cost farming all the way up to the most hand-farmed high touch. How do you as a business owner think about those different things? And what are some of the varieties of service that you offer? Yeah, definitely. I mean, our goal is always going to be trying to farm and be as profitable as we can because you profit share with the land owner. In some cases, you know, some people are doing that or just strictly my comment would be more in regard to profit for the owners. So I mean, the property owner is paying us to farm and then they're bringing in income off of the, you know, the sale of the fruit, trying to have it profitable in their minds. You know, they'd like this to be covering the property taxes. They'd like it to be covering the insurances, which has continued to go up over the years. But our goal is to look at each field individually and figure out if the best route for it for the quality of the fruit and the wineries that we're selling to and for the client. Sometimes that's really mechanical and sometimes that's, you know, really, really hand-focused. Coming up from the background that you've had, do you think that mechanization is going to be continued to be the way forward? How do you think about things like autonomy with vehicles and tractors? And how do you think about technology changing the way farming happens? I don't think there's anywhere around it. Labor has always been a difficulty having enough people to get the job done. And mechanization really allows, you know, one, a lot more control on the budget side. You know how much that's going to cost. And it allows you to get quite a bit more done with less people. What are some of the best practices that you would encourage anybody to lean into that owns a vineyard today? If your site allows for it, machine harvesting is a great way to utilize mechanization right now. We've seen a lot of advances with just the machines and the quality of fruit that you get from it. And it allows you to harvest stuff pretty quick. You know, with that, it can get to the winery, you know, faster and in better condition. Cameron Smith, Loma Del Sol Farming. Thank you so very much. Where can folks find you? We can put those links and contact details in the show notes as well. Sure. Sure. You know, the best would be online. I'm Loma Del Sol Farming.com. And that's got all of our contact information. Cam, always great to see you. Thanks for jumping on today. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Wine Country Business. For more insights and video clips, make sure to follow the show on Instagram @WineCountry. If you found value in today's conversation, please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your pods. And brief thank you to our publisher Wine Country Media and a special thanks to Napa Valley Car Club for letting us record at the barn. Their members only club in downtown Napa. I'm Andrew Allison. Thanks for joining me and we'll see you in the next episode.