S14 E10: David Pearson, President and Executive Chairman at Joseph Phelps Vineyards

[music] You're listening to the luxury item, the podcast on the business of luxury and the people and companies that are shaping the future of the luxury industry. Here's your host, Scott Kerr. Joseph Phelps Vineyards is one of the most respected and acclaimed wine properties in California and in particular the Napa Valley. When Joseph Phelps purchased a former cattle ranch near St. Helena in California's Napa Valley in 1973, he began a tradition of wine-making craftsmanship that continues to influence the industry. Today, the winery produces esteemed, estate-based labels from its more than 500 acres of vines in 11 vineyards each strategically chosen over the decades that stretches from the Napa Valley and the Western Sonoma Coast. In 2022, Joseph Phelps Vineyards was acquired by the luxury wines and spirits division of LVMH, Moetanasi, which is closely collaborating with the winery to introduce Joseph Phelps to a global audience. My guest on the luxury item is David Pearson, president and executive chairman at Joseph Phelps Vineyards. With an illustrious career in luxury wines spanning over 20 years, David is renowned for his visionary leadership and for playing an important role in the development of luxury wines coming from the Napa Valley. Since joining Joseph Phelps' president and executive chairman in 2023, his wealth of experience and expertise has been leading Joseph Phelps Vineyards into the next phase of growth. Welcome to the luxury item, David. Thank you. Very happy to be here. Thank you so much for joining me. So, Joseph Phelps Vineyard is a Napa Valley wine icon. It was established in 1973 at the cusp of a second golden era of wine making, the first being post-prohibition. And unlike many of those 1970s pioneering estates, Joseph Phelps remained a family-owned business for a long time. What was Joseph Phelps' vision for his winery and why was it unique at the time? Yeah, thanks for the. thanks so happy to be here. Thanks for that opening question. It's a great story. Joseph Phelps, I think to me, is a really American story and the sense that he was born in the late 20s, 1927, I believe, and grew up through the Depression. And through the Depression years, his early years, he had lots of entrepreneurial activities that sort of built up in him this innovation in this visionary way of creating business and creating value. In the 1950s, he inherited his father's construction business, Hansel Phelps, and building it out of Colorado grew into a nationwide success, and an enormously important and successful construction business. And in the 1960s, he opened an office in San Francisco, was commissioned to build two wineries, one in Napavali, the suvarain winery that is now Rutherford Hill, and the Geyserville in Healdsburg, the Francis Coppola property with Hansel and Delacanah. Anyway, he was building those two wineries, and in those years, he was vacationing in Italy and France, and he really became determined to create his own winery, to build his own winery. And so he did come back to Napa, and with the help of people like Joe Heights and Robert Mandavi and others, he found a beautiful property in St. Helena, a place called Spring Valley, 640 acre property, that at the time had only cows on it, and he purchased a property in '72, and in '73, constructed the initial winery, and by '74 was selling wines. His vision from the very first came from his experiences in the construction company, he was actually working in both for a number of time until the early 80s when he left finally his work with a construction company, and focused in Thailand and the winery. But his vision was to strive constantly for the very highest quality possible. He was insatiable. He was curious and constantly craving new skills. He loved to learn, he loved to grow, and I think most importantly, he loved to share, but I think the wine business is about sharing not only amongst wine growers and wine makers, but certainly with wine and at a table with food, and he understood that passion from the first. So, with his very first wines in 1973, he produced a Johannesburg Reasling, and a wine writer named Robert Balzer, who's passed away now, wrote about that particular reasling, and said, and I haven't tried it, but we'll take Robert's word for it. He said that it was the finest reasling he'd ever tried from anywhere in the world, which is amazing. His first Joe's first wine maker was a German gentleman named Walter Schuig, so that makes explain the expertise behind. But by 1974, the next year, Joe created one of the most important innovations in the App of Alley by creating the wine in Sigvia, and that has become an icon of wine through the year. So, his vision was from the first to produce the very best, always driving to continue to do so, and was all about sharing and the passion of wine. And the wine, he offers a range of wines, including Cabernet Seveñon, Sera, Seveñon Blanc, and wines from your Sonoma Coast vineyards. However, the crown jewel in the Phelps portfolio, which you just referred to, has long been its Insignia wine, which debuted in 1974. It was California's first proprietary Redboard Doe style blend that has steadily held its place among the top wines produced in Napa. It's won numerous awards throughout the years and has developed really this kind of cult following. Why has the flagship Insignia wine become a status symbol in some circles, and one of the most talked about wines in the region? Yeah, well, I mean, you touched on it. It's a combination of the early innovation and the consistent drive for quality expression over now more than 50 years. And I think that it's longevity, consistency, and original inspiration. There's a quote that we have from Robert Mandavi, who said something along the lines that we, meaning they were at the time, purists. And I was passing on Cabernet, Soveñon, and Pinot noir, and Joe came in in 1974 and created the wine in Signia, which was the first proprietary name of a blended wine. And Robert, you have the same quote, also recognized that Joe was the first person to produce a Ron inspired Sera labeled wine, the very first Sera in California came from Joe Phelps. And Signia was the launch point for what became a model for Napa Valley, blending Bordeaux varietals, and then creating recognition with consumers that that wine was going to be and would always be the finest wine that Joe produced year after year. And the test of time for wine is everything, right? We can we can see we can imagine making a great wine for five years or 10 years or 15 years. If it then goes away, it was interesting for time being, but it doesn't become iconic. I mean, the test of wine truly is the test of time. So it's in signia has has started well on its way in terms of passing that test. And it's become such a core part of Joseph Fels portfolio and has made a huge impact in the marketplace. But does it ever overshadow the Joseph Phelps brand where people think in Signia is a standalone brand? Yeah, I it's a really good question and something that we manage and and look to for communications. I don't believe so because the umbrella of Joseph Fels is the umbrella of quality stride for quality innovation. And uniqueness so we make wines and Sonoma. We make different wines in Appavali, but each of those wines has its place and its consumer and they I think work together to reinforce Joseph Fels recognition and its history. But it doesn't I don't think they confuse with each other. And what are some of the other offerings that Fels has and how does it fit into the larger brand story? Yeah, as we said, so Joseph Fels started in in 73 and the first wines came out in in 73 and 74 and through the decades the 70s 80s 90s even into the 2000s. And so Joseph Fels continued to acquire more vineyards and so today we farm we own and farm eight vineyards that are exceptional vineyards that run the length of Napa Valley from Saint Helena all the way down to the Napa itself. And so we have vineyard and Rutherford that we have one in Oakville, we have two in Stagsley, but two in Oak Null and one down in that. happen. And so with those wines, we make insignia as a monolithic iconic wine. We make a line of Joseph Helps varietal wines. So the Joseph Helps varietal wines include the Cabernet Sauvignon, includes a Sera still, includes a Viennier and a Sauvignon Blanc, and that's a line of wines with a unique label. And then in the late 1990s, 1999 particular, Joseph set his sights on producing, we hope to be with some of the best Pinot N' Orren, Chardonnay, possible. And again, he was out in front quite a bit. He went over to the Snomah coast and he found 200 acres of property near Occidental in the small little town called Freestone, and planted 100 acres of Chardonnay and Pinot N' Orren in Freestone, built in Winery 2007. And so today we were offering a small production, extremely high quality Pinot N' Orren in Chardonnay from the Freestone Winery. So we have insignia, we have the varietal wines of Joseph Helps. We have Freestone in Snomah. And then there's one last one which is sort of which is our cult wine called Backus. Backus is a very special vineyard in Oakville planted in 1973 by a gentleman named David Backus. So it's not the wine god. He was very special person, but he was not the wine god. David and Marion Backus planted the vineyards in '73. And Joseph Helps and Joseph Helps vineyards have been the only people to ever have access and use those grapes. The vineyard was purchased by Joseph Helps in '93, I believe, is the right year. And from that very special vineyard, we make a small quantity of the wine called Backus, which is like a cult wine for us. It's kind of a napavali monopole because we're the only one that are having access to those grapes. So that's the what referred to as the family of the Joseph Helps family of wines, is insignia, the Joseph Helps wines, Freestone and Backus. In 2022, the Phelps brand and its attendent 525 acres of land in both Napa and Snomah was acquired by the luxury wines and spirits division of LVMH Moethenesy. Why did Joseph Helps decide to sell to LVMH? Yeah, that's a really important question. I have always thought and I believe that true wine makers, people who understand the soul and the passion of wine making and people who have created vineyards and made wines, their primary interest, their primary dream, is that those vineyards and those wines should endure for generations, that they're children and they're grandchildren, and should be able to continue to nurture grow grapes, make wines from those vineyards. And Joseph Helps and his family were certainly true wine makers at heart and his soul. And we know that in the wine business, the most perilous, most difficult maneuver to achieve is the transition, either generation to generation. And I understand I wasn't in the family meetings in the early 2020s, but I understand that the family was thinking along those lines, what do we do that will be the best at preserving, nurturing and growing? All that the Helps family had created over the last 50 plus years. And they decided that they needed a partner, that partner that would be able to do just that and then transition sells the property to them. So there was a number of discussions that they had with different possible suitors as it were. And they decided in the September 2022 that Elvium H. Moehthenesie was the right partner, the right family, to take charge of that winery. And indeed, not just to hand it to them and be done with it, but to hand it to them and then hope and look and expect that we would grow into the future. So from looking from the other side, why did Moehthenesie feel that Joseph Helps vineyards was the right fit for its global wine portfolio? For one, it allows Moehthenesie to have a bigger presence in Napa. It already had a stake in a couple of other Napa vineyards, but it also allows Moehthenesie to significantly scale its U.S. wine business. So where was the brand DNA fit? Yeah, I think all of those things are actually true. To me, the inspiration behind this is that Moehthenesie has aspired, is aspiring to be increasingly recognized as a purveyor of some of the world's finest wines. So it was less of a business, a strategical decision to fill a niche and a gap and find sort of market success. All of that matters. But more of an inspiration that the opportunity presented itself to them to acquire one of Napa Valley's crown jewels, one of the most historic 50 plus year wineries. As you said, it started at the second renaissance of Napa Valley in the early 60s and 70s. And so the excitement of the moment was they were able to come to an agreement with a family, acquire the property, and then have the aspiration to take the portfolio wines that Moehthenesie represent to a higher level. Well, since the acquisition have the new owner's approach, wine production differently. Yes, but in the vineyard. In the vineyard, and I think that when any owner, when anybody says that the aspirations produce wines of the highest quality and to elevate the quality of the wines that are being made, and I think that every winery, no matter how well received the wines or how high the quality is, every winery should be aspiring to produce higher quality wines. And that begins in the vineyards. So we have been looking closely at our eight vineyards in Napa Valley and the ones in Snom as well. And we are looking to implement a new approach to farming grapes, which is a new and exciting thing that a lot of winers are talking about. We refer to as agro ecology, which is the term used in France. Common term being used here in the United States is regenerative farming. And indeed, we're looking at our vineyard holdings and deciding where and how we believe we can produce grapes of the very highest quality by integrating into this new approach to farming. David, you joined Joseph Phelps vineyards as chairman in 2023. You have an illustrious career in luxury wine, spanning over 20 years, and bring a wealth of experience and expertise to lead the mayzone. Where do you see the opportunity to build on this legacy brand and elevate its position in the marketplace? Well, I thank you for that question. Thank you for the comments. I just just ties to the answer that I think I just gave, which is it's relatively rare and unique and exciting when a company such as Elf the image and Moat Tennessee acquires such a crown jewel as Joseph Phelps and then determines and commits themselves to bringing the resources and the focus and the energy to raise this to the highest levels of quality possible within Napa Valley and then to have the resources to share that wine on a global basis. And there is exciting potential with the winery, even such who Joseph Phelps, that is well well regarded for the quality, well regarded the wines and the history. But it's a great challenge in Napa Valley these days for wineries that are 30, 40 or 50 years old. And the challenge is that if they if they rest on their laurels too much, if they think if they if they're too content with the history and the sales and everything they've achieved, they can be passed by by a new one. There's so many good wineries in Napa Valley. So many new labels. And so the energy that's required in some cases to take a winery that's been around for 50 years and compete and earn that again and gain recognition for what's for what they're doing what we're doing is an exciting challenge and those are the kind of challenges that I love. So I'm thrilled to be here to be part of it. At the beginning of the year, Silicon Valley Bank released its annual state of the US wine industry report that provides recaps, projections and analysis, which many in the industry lean on to understand trends. This year's edition again acknowledge what is already known in the industry. Growth in the wine sector has plateaued at around zero. The reasons are numerous young drinkers are drinking less and have gravitated toward low or no alcohol and other alternative beverages. Some parts of the US region are over planted and therefore a production exceeds demand. What are your thoughts on the state of the wine industry and how do you feel it needs to evolve to right set things? There isn't unfortunately an easy answer or silver bullet or you know we all have to do this or do that. There's a lot of reflection going on. It's a very complicated time. Our industry and I think of of California in particular seems to go through, you know, challenging times every 10 or 15 years, whether it's a recession or some other impact and it tends to rebalance the industry, less competitive wine producers choose to move out of the industry and we rebalance supply and think back to Tubaq Chuk way back in the day. There's those kind of cyclical challenges. But I do think, and this is reminiscent to me, not just of Tubaq Chuk, but of the late 1980s. When there was a sort of anti-alcohol, neo-prohibitionist movement tendency and we had to, the wine business had to present and justify why wine mattered. Why wine was important in our daily lives? What role it plays. And I think that that opportunity is presenting itself again. I don't think if, you know, we focus on trade issues or consumer issues. The question that we want to share is that why does wine matter? What is the purpose behind it? One of the things that I've returned to and anyone can do this, if you Google, if one Google's Mandavi defense, Mandavi defense, it dates from the late 1980s and Robert Mandavi and his family and company created then a brief statement, a paragraph on why wine was important, socially, historically, culturally, at the table. And I think we can return to that and remember that it's not how important we think we are or how much detail we have or how fancy we think we are. It's sharing the passion of sitting at a table with friends and family, a good piece of bread, some nice cheese and a glass of wine. And realizing that that's the role that wine could play to bring people together, since COVID, when I travel around, I mention to people that since COVID, we feel disconnected and people nod their heads. And I don't know anything that reconnects people as well as does a glass of wine. It can be a very fancy, very elegant, very special wine or it can be a table wine. It's a matter of slowing down and reconnecting with the basics. And I think that that's our challenge is to reconnect with people, ground ourselves again on the importance of sharing food and telling stories. I want to talk a little bit about climate change. In Napa Valley, Cabernet, Sevin, Yellows, King, it accounts for about 40% of Napa's total production. The bull-red wine has made the region world famous with some bottles retailing at hundreds of dollars. But increasingly severe heat waves have been taking its whole on the grape variety, especially in late summer during ripening. As temperatures keep rising, the wine industry is slowly confronting a future where Napa may not be the prime Cabernet region it once was. And in the face of climate change, wineries around the world are innovating. We're seeing new technology, being installed to keep the grapes cool during heat spells. A handful of wineries are experimenting with new grapes. How is Joseph Phelps vineyards adapting to climate change? Yeah. Well, first of all, the image, I mean, this is the principal issue for winemakers around the world. And winemakers have been, it will always be the sort of the canary and the coal mine because we depend not only on the average temperature of the year, but the timing of the temperature, the mountain rainfall, and when it falls. And the curiosity of the experience isn't that everybody is just getting hotter every year and it's more sound and hotter and how are we going to deal with it? It's more of the variability. In '23, we had one of the coldest, wettest, longest harvests in recent memory. And so a real challenge is climate variation and climate change. It is affecting us. We see it. We know it. But it's not so simple. It's simply saying we're all going to just keep getting hotter. The climate models are built on 500, 1000 plus years of history of data. And so there's climate trends and then there's weather and weather is terrible. So we need to look at all of those kind of issues with if you can, when people replant vineyards are different reasons for replanting vineyards and the selection of the root stock and clone in terms of adapting to warmer temperature is one decision that people can make. The way people manage their canopies, the pruning irrigation practices, all of those come into play and need to be considered and and and thought through. We're committed and believe deeply that again, there's this new approach to farming, which is going to take more time than we have on this podcast to talk about the approach to agroecology and focusing on creating healthy living soil, which creates healthier vines, which produces more efficient photosynthesis of the vines through the growing season is one of the best approaches to make the vine able to resist climate variation. And it's a very important and very interesting discussion. More and more people are thinking about how vines soil and soils interact to create vines that as I just said are healthier, more resistant to virus and health pressures and more able to respond to climate variation that we will see. So this is what we're doing. We're looking at all of the above. So do you think it's possible climate change or climate variation could force you to adjust what you grow and sell, you know, more red blends and heat tolerant varieties? You couldn't say no to that. I think that the scoping time, what we expect, isn't going to change now from being one of the great cabinet producers in our lifetime to the times coming. But we will have to respond to extreme variations. 22 was a hot year, 23 was a cold year and insignia as an example as a blend of different varieties that blend percentage will vary according to the growing conditions and heat. And certainly we will see in Kansas the different offering from different wineries given changing conditions. But I'm quite confident that that NAPA will remain as one of the world's finest cabinet producers. Every industry is in the midst of figuring out the benefits and drawbacks of using artificial intelligence. In wine, its potential application is vast, you know, from vineyard management to wine making to marketing. AI's impact can be felt at every level of the wine trade influencing the way it's grown, made, bought, sold and consumed. Joseph Phelps himself was known as an innovative NAPA valley producer. How have you implemented AI to manage vineyards and enhance the wine making process? Yeah, it's another great question because it's a very hot topic people are discussing. And I know some brilliant wine consultants and marketers who have leaned into the meta world and AI and I know companies that have created AI Somalayas and I'm quite confident that AI will impact our business along with every other business in profound ways as we go forward. That being said, we're not focused on being leading edge in that area. Joe was visionary and innovative and we're looking to be visionary and innovative in the vineyard. I think that I was thinking about this and that I think that I don't want AI to replace the human role of intuition and experience. Think about Google maps. Google maps is coming. It's not AI at least not yeah. Google maps helps us get from point A to point B very well. I use it all the time but I find sometimes that I don't know how I got to the place and I think that I use in Google maps. I'm less capable perhaps of navigating myself through places. I just listen to what Siri tells me to do and I do it and I don't want AI to do that for me with wines. I don't want to be able to tell me what to drink. I think that the experience, the exchange, the personal connection is essential to the human experience of wine. Doesn't mean that AI won't provide information. It doesn't mean that we won't be integrating internet technologies into it. But I find myself to be more interested in humans connecting around the table and sharing stories than AI at this point. Wine tourism has been steadily gaining popularity in recent years, reshaping global travel and tasting experiences for wine enthusiasts around the world. This trend is driven by a growing interest in wine culture as well as an increasing desire for unique and authentic travel experiences. Naturally, Napa Valley is a leading wine tourism destination. I know Phelps offers a variety of wine tasting and culinary experiences for guests. How is Phelps making those experiences memorable for guests and keeping them emotionally engaged with the brand's narrative? Yeah, I think this is a super important question and where do you use it? which I think is one that merits its own discussion and drilling down, which is this question of authentic and authenticity. It's one of those words a little for me a little bit like luxury that when you say it to immediately think you know what it means. But then when you try and pinpoint it or say how do I create something that's authentic, it gets a little slippery and a little harder. And that said, I think it's critical that the wine industry wine producers, indeed produce authentic, authentic wines. What we sense is that wine consumers and young people in general are looking less these days to acquire and to obtain and to purchase things and looking more as you said to have experiences, to get engaged and get involved. And the image that I have with that is that folks want to get their hands dirty. They want to feel like they want to be not feel like, but they want to be part of the action, part of the process. They want to get engaged and involved in the passion of growing, the passion of farming, the passion of cooking. Rather than have people cook for you and enjoy the meal, people want to cook themselves these days. They want to go into the kitchen and make bread. It's so reassuring when you make the bread. There's this prideful, visceral, deep connection to the food rather than having someone do it for you. So when folks come to, to, to, to, helps, we would help them come out and get into the garden, get into the farm, get into the process of smelling and tasting and feeling and, and experiencing. And those experiences, the ones that people love to share on social media, look, look what I did, look where I was, look how this, and so the, it's an experience of, of value has to, has to resonate with their values, environmental issues and being connected to nature matters. So when folks come here, we'll, we'll go foraging for mushrooms and we'll take them out into the vineyard in the garden and we'll get their hands dirty. And we think that that's the most emotional way to create a lasting connection. Are you seeing a shift to younger and more diverse guests? I mean, when you think about NAPA's core visitors that, you know, you think, oh, they're luxury travelers. Are you seeing a shift? To be honest, I don't have the numbers in front of me. There's other folks that track those numbers very well. The younger question, I've seen younger people come into NAPA Valley forever for decades. And we continue to see younger people come here. The, I think the question is, is how we speak to them and how we connect to them? I also speak about the boomers of which I'm, I'm part of that happy family. The boomers are starting to term out, as it were. So we, we're seeing, you know, a few, few are boomers, but we still see some of my, my friends, people of my age coming through. And I think the trick is connecting to boomers and young people in ways that again connect to their values and they're not always the exact same. But I don't know that we have more younger people, but we certainly continue to have younger people coming. You were talking about regenerative agriculture and the Phelps winery is one of the leaders when it comes to regenerative agriculture, which is essentially what it sounds like farming grapes in a way that regenerates soil health. You touched upon it a little bit before, but could you share the winery's experience with the regenerative farming practices? Well, thank you for saying that we're at the leading edge of it. We want to be there, but we're also at the very beginning of the process. And frankly, so is everybody else. There's a small number of wineries in the world that have been doing this for a number of years. But it's an interesting discussion because not everyone has the same definition of regenerative farming. And I fear that it's possible that it can be greenwashed so that people say I'm doing the regenerative farming. And that would be, I think, unfortunate for the importance of this approach. And this approach to us is moving away from monocultures and moving towards polyculture. And even more broadly, the way that we globally farm in agriculture starts with the philosophy that we can manipulate and control nature to make it do what we wanted to do. That is, we go into a part, so we put all the trees out, all the plants out, we create a bare soil, we plant corn, just use corn, we plant corn, and then we fertilize it. As it grows nature of horse monocultures, so they send in weeds. We don't like weeds, so we have to take them out either by hand or by roundup. And then a little bug will fly in, the linsect will fly in, that insect may be carrying a virus, so we have to get that out. So basically the way we farm globally is fighting against nature, keeping it out, and they're trying to make it do what we wanted to do in the parcel. That's how we farm globally. And that approach is not working. We're losing that fight against nature. More weeds, more plants around a persistent. We have more viruses than ever before ever since COVID. We all know what viruses are about. So regenerative farming, I'm sorry, this is a little long. Farming takes the approach of we have to bring back the natural biodiversity of nature and let the ecosystem function as it does normally. We don't have to fertilize our forests. They do fine on their own because the ecosystem is working in its entirety. The plants, the soil, the mushrooms and the soil, the fungus and the soil all work together to make the ecosystem vibrant and sustainable and healthy. That's what we have to do. So we can do it in a number of different ways depending on where you are and what vineyards you have and all those kind of things. But as we replant our vineyards here in Joseph Phelps, as we bring the vines back in, we will bring it in with the diversity of plants. We will bring a diversity plants into and around the vineyard parcels to create a poly culture. We'll keep the soil covered at all times because bare soil gets oxidized and cooked, and the bacteria get die. And then once the soil is really active with bacteria, fungal bacteria and a multiplicity of plants growing, we believe that that healthy soil will then drive the vines to have much longer lives, to have a more efficient photosynthetic cycle, produce grapes of higher quality. It's a long-term process. It starts with a full acceptance of the philosophical perspective because it's not changing two or three things. It's like, it's not, let's stop doing this or let's do more of that or let's add this to the vineyard. It re-thinks our human relationship with nature and that is super positive. That's super interesting. I want to talk about tariffs. The wine industry has been caught in the crossfire of a trade war a couple months ago, Canada United to Boycott American wines taking all US-made wine and alcohol off. It's liquor and wine store shelves and out of restaurants across the country as an aggressive retaliatory response. Canada is the top buyer of US wine. How is Joseph Philp's vineyards felt the impact of these tariffs? That's the worst. Just absolutely the worst. There's zero, don't get me started, please. I went through, but you mentioned Canada. I went through last November to fairly fast trip. I went to Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver in one week. Met with everybody and we were just getting so excited about this new vision for Joseph Philp's where we were taking the wines, what we were doing, the current wines we're offering and we were expecting to bring to welcome at our winery here this spring some important buyers from Montreal and from Toronto. We were really just teed up to do this. Of course it's come to a dead halt to stand still. I sent an email to our friends in Toronto and I apologized on behalf of what I hope is the majority of Americans. He replied back and I said, please you have a rain check. The minute we're through this, we would look forward to bringing it back. His response to me was that he agreed wholly and he feared that this would be generational. The anti-Americanism fears will see, but it is a nonsense. The wine industry talks almost everybody talks about managing for the long term because vineyards are long term investments in the nature. But when times are good and easy in businesses healthy, it's easy to talk about the long term because things are good. The test comes when times are hard and times are hard now. So this is for us all a test of how well we can manage for the long term. And the long term will be friends with Canada again and the long term will be selling wine there again. But for the moment, tariffs are making the world very difficult. Do you think it will impact the summer tourist season in Napa? Gosh, I hope not. But certainly it's possible. I hear, read, and you know, in the world of social media posting, a lot of folks are saying we're not coming to America anytime soon. I think those are real issues and real concerns. What can we look forward to from Joseph Phelps' vineyards in the next 12 months? We couldn't be more excited. That's not a hyperbole. We're really excited about the 2023 harvest. It was one of the, it's considered by most people of all that they want a truly exceptional vintage. But it was really hard. As I said, it was cold and wet and long, and it took patience and precision. And it was really not an easy year. But the wines that we produced have incredible complexity and beautiful structure. All the things you'd look for in a young wine that is appealing and enjoyable when it's young, but we'll have the capacity to age for a good long period of time. So we're nurturing the 22 vintage, which in its own right has-- I skipped over that because we were releasing the 22 vintage this fall, 22 had in the middle of harvest a week of extreme temperatures back to our earlier discussion. But if your vineyards were healthy and you picked the vine the grape the right time, you could make a wine of really nice structure and quality. So the 22's are exciting. The 23's are exceptional. And we're excited about bringing those to our friends and our consumers, our patrons. If you come today or tomorrow for the next couple months to our home ranch, the home ranch is the original winery that Joe built in 1973. We have a new winery that-- where we make our wine in since 2000. But when you come to the home ranch and you look out on our vineyards, you'll see the vineyard parcel in front of a bear. And we pulled those vines out. This is the start of our work towards replanting in an agro ecological and regenerative way. So we're excited to share the wines we're making because we're really proud of them. I think they're very good wines. And we're-- we love telling people about where we're going. So David, my final question is the luxury item question, which I ask all my guests. So if you were stranded on a deserted island and you could only have one single luxury item with you on that deserted island, what would the luxury item be? It can't be any form of air or water transportation to get you off that island or anything that requires mobile service. So you can call somebody to get you off that island. You're stuck on this island. What would that one single luxury item you would like to have with you? So yeah, an iPhone doesn't work. No, and usually the question that comes is what wine do you want to have? And that's too easy. It's a little too easy. But as a luxury item, I need a glass of wine and a great, great crispy baguette and a little bit of a little bit of a good breeze. OK, well, that's three things, but I'll count that as one. I'll let you slide on this one. All right. David Pearson, president and executive chairman at Joseph Elbs Vineyards. Thank you so much for joining me on the luxury item. Scott, thank you. It's been a pleasure. That's it for this episode of the luxury item podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful and entertaining, I would be really grateful if you can share it with a friend or colleague. I would love it if you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And while you're there, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It really helps other listeners find us. The luxury item podcast is a production of silver tone consulting. I'm your host, Scott Kerr. Until next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]