As we head into the holidays, we are reminded of how difficult this year has been for many in need. There is no better time than now to help our neighbors and community with a heart-felt donation of food. Join us in supporting the Interfaith Food Bank during the holdiay season.
For further information, please contact Muffin at (209) 267-0122.
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One thing is for sure, the 2011 harvest will be one to remember. With the wine regions of the world all experiencing completely atypical weather patterns from high heat to no heat, too much rain to no rain, what can we expect from the 2011 vintage? This blog features some early harvest reports from the major wine regions of the world. [click to continue…]
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As we begin the harvest season. I think we are in for a roller coaster ride with the upcoming 2011 harvest. Due to a cold and wet spring and flowering period, many of the vineyards are about four weeks behind normal, and Mother Nature has played some very unusual cards that has made for a very unusual year. [click to continue…]
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Oceania Marina
Scott had a wonderful opportunity to be a speaker on the Oceania Marina , a new 1250 passenger ship, with ZAP—a zinfandel organization based in CA. We cruised the Mediterranean and visited five countries—Italy, Monaco, Greece, Montenegro, and Croatia in 10 days. The best part is you can unpack and your hotel travels through the night. You wake up in a totally different environment—language, culture, even weather. This was Scott’s first cruise and one in the Mediterranean will be hard to beat.
Not only was the enjoyment of good food and wine a priority, but education was a major factor. Seminars on the merits of Zinfandel were given by not only Scott Harvey of Scott Harvey Wines, but Bill Grant from Four Vines and Janell Dusi from J Dusi Vineyards—both from Paso Robles. It was a nice intimate group of 36.
Discussing the merits of Zinfandel
The ship was ideal to showcase our wines with four different specialty cuisine restaurants in addition to the main dining room. There was Red Ginger (Asian), Toscana (Italian), Polo (Steak & Seafood) and the wonderful french Jacques named for Jacques Pepin where we had our group winemaker dinner. The food was excellent under the guidance of Executive Chef, Kathryn Kelly who is a graduate of the C.I.A.
Janell and Jana
The cabins were spacious with a veranda so no claustrophobia. Our bathroom even had a bathtub!
With so many sights to see (and of course, the seminars) I only wished I had the time to take advantage of the hands on cooking classes. I did manage to take a couple of photography classes by the enthusiastic David Smith who was truly inspirational and I saw my pictures get more interesting as the trip ensued.
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During our recent website migration, your member password has been reset to a customized default password to protect your information. To retrieve your default password, please follow the instructions below. Once you have successfully logged in, we encourage you to reset your password and to verify the billing andshipping addresses and credit card information we have on record.
1) Visit www.scottharveywines.com, and click on the “Buy Wines” button.
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We are often asked how a standard winery business plan works. As with so many things these days it is changing as our style of marketing changes. In the past we depended on and sold most of our wine through distributors in what is known as the three tiersystem. We produce wine, it is sold to a distributor who sells it to a store or restaurant who then sells it to you.
Lets say our cost of goods (what it cost to produce a case of wine) is $50. We then sell that wine trying to generate a 50% gross margin, which means we would sell the wine to the distributor for $100. Out of the $50 generated above the cost of goods we allocate $20 for cost of sales (what it cost to sell the wine, salesperson wages and expenses, any discounts, travel etc.) and $20 for general and administrative (the cost run the wine company) and hopefully there is a $10 bill left for profit. It is what we call the 50, 20, 20, 10 rule.
The distributor than takes the case of wine they paid $100 for and add their laid in cost, (what it cost them to get the wine to their state and their warehouse, any state taxes, etc.) The typical laid in cost for a case of wine from our Napa Valley warehouse to a distributor in Chicago is about $8 dollars. So they take the laid in cost , now $108 and work off of that. The distributor then marks the wine up 33% on laid in cost or 25% of their selling price. This number is the same, $35.64. $35.64 is 33% of $108 or 25% of $143.65. Often,if the distributor will be offering quantity discounts, they will add this to the asking price, so they can discount it back.
Next the store takes its purchase price, now $144 and and works on 50% on cost or 33% on sale. This number is $72. $72 is 50% of $144 or 33% of $216. So the case of wine that cost me $50 ($4.17/bottle) cost the wine buyer in Chicago $216 case or $18.00 per bottle.
This distribution three tier system is rapidly being taken over by the larger wine companies that can get and hold onto the distributors attention. As a small winery the amount of money generated by our brands for the distributor is far less than that of a large higher volume winery. The amount of attention the distributor sales staff gives your wine is directly correlated to the percentage of gross revenue your brand generates for the distributor. Therefore, we are being forced to find other ways to get our wine to the consumer. If we can sell our wines direct to the customer either through our internet website, our tasting rooms, wine clubs, third party internet websites, we can keep a higher percentage of the customer dollar or sell the wine for less. As we slowly change from the three tier distributor system to direct sales our 50,20,20,10 rule changes more to a 60,30,20,10 rule or 70,35,25,10 rule.
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