Jacob Gray

Gabriel Flores  0:00  

Hello, everyone and welcome to the shades of entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I'm here with Jacob, what's going on? How do you want to be called Jake or Jacob?

Jacob Gray  0:11  

Whatever feels best for you, brother. I go by both depends who's cool. I like it.

Gabriel Flores  0:15  

I like it. Well, I'm super stoked because we're gonna hear to talk about some wine. But first, let's give a little background introduce the world to Jacob, who is Jake.

Jacob Gray  0:26  

My name is Jacob Gray. I am a father. I'm a husband. I'm a businessman. I'm a friend. I'm just you know, someone that's been going through this journey of life trying to become a better version of myself every day. Portland, Oregon is home I was born and raised in Davis, California, migrated south through college San Luis Obispo down to Orange County, then actually got into the movie business for a little while, which brought me up to Oregon. Got to make a golf movie abandoned dunes which is a unique experience. Oh nice. landed at Warner Brothers Studios in LA for post production afterwards, spent years of my life live in that independent film world and then moved to Oregon for a couple years to Portland back in the you know, 13 to 15 years ago, went back to LA for a few years. And then this has been home for the last decade. Mortgages, businesses, kids, beautiful wife like this is home. I love it here. I feel like I'm on the Tourism Board. Sometimes I'm always hyping it up all over the world. But I'm happy to be here happy to learn how to make a living here pay my taxes here. And this is how I love it.

Gabriel Flores  1:31  

So look, I got it, I got to ask the movie world. What exactly were you doing there?

Jacob Gray  1:36  

Um, long story short, I guess I was an independent film producer. It's a unique world and titles in it can always shift depending on what it is. But I think the true the true core of a producer is someone that can take an ideation or an idea from A to Z, right. So you can find the best team along the way you can find talented people to serve a purpose and do what their their core competency is. But usually a producer is someone that can own the rights to something and then has to see it through to the very end from financing it to writing it to help him write it to help him, you know, put people on the ground hiring people, budgets, but I was on the production side of things. So my mom's little sister, which is my aunt was in the film business. As I grew up. I grew up in Northern California, she was in Southern California. So I got to see it from afar. And then, when I was graduating college in Southern California, she was just getting ready to bootstrap the independent film journey of golf in the kingdom golf in the kingdom's the biggest selling fictional golf book ever written. And it takes place in Scotland, a young American kid on his way to India to find themselves stops in Scotland to have one last round of golf. All the things he thought he had to go to India for kind of happened in this mystical moment. And that mystical moment on film happened for us abandoned dune so instead of flying through to Scotland, Mike Kaiser who owns bandhan dunes as she was a huge fan of the book and wrote his first check for the property to ban and dune signed it as Shibas irons, which is the main character in that book. And when him and my aunt bumped into each other and there was all this cosmic energy. And that's kind of how that came to be. And then I was a young man trying to find my way. And I thought I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I had some ideas, but I didn't want to look back and not say I didn't go try to make some movies with my aunt about golf, that bandhan dunes and yada yada. So it was an incredible learning experience. And who

Gabriel Flores  3:19  

wouldn't want to, like we were actually talking about before this week on, you're asked me for Office golf. And if you're a golfer, and you live in Oregon, who doesn't want to go to bandhan dunes? I mean, that's just pristine.

Jacob Gray  3:31  

Yeah, I got a I have a unique relationship with that place. I mean, I'm one of the few people that's ever lived there for months at a time and made a motion picture there. I saw it go from two golf courses to six, five or six now. I knew Howard McKee who was the architect and my Kaisers best friend, which is McKees pub at abandoned dunes before he passed away too early. I was there when they're building old Macs. So Jim Urbina, who was one of the architects with Tom doke, I got to walk that course with him, watch him route it like the sheep ranch, we used to have a key to it, because we did a lot of our movie filming there. So I've know the sheep ranch intimately before it was a real golf course. So I try not to brag about it. But I've lived bandhan in a unique way. And then I still try and go in there in May. It's a magical place, man. I've had incredible moments there. I love it. If anyone's never been its Mecca, for lack of a better word. There's nowhere that it's Zen in a way it kind of what is golf all about. And I think golf is turned into golf carts and heavy drinking. And I think if you see where it came from, of going for a long walk in a beautiful place, getting beat up by mother nature, when you're done with it, there's nothing like it. So that's one of the few places they make you have that experience there. And it's, it's pretty. It'll shake you to your core in the best way possible.

Gabriel Flores  4:45  

It's very true. I've loved I love that course. In fact, I wouldn't. I would. wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of your work in the film industry probably has helped with your new venture. So let's talk about your new venture, the chosen family one And so first give it give the folks at home a little, a little background of exactly what it is and then how the concept was created.

Jacob Gray  5:07  

Chosen Family Wines is, I think, a wine brand for the now it's a new age wine brand. And when I say that the traditional wine opportunity was to buy a piece of property, farm it till the grapes are ready to be made into wine. Then once that happened, take a couple years to figure out what that wine is and how you're going to market it and sell it and then maybe build a retail space on your vineyard, to start selling wines, finding a membership and finding an audience. And that can be a 10 year game. And then it can be another 10 to 15 you know five to 10 years to fight figure out how to break even or make money. I live that on the other side of it. I've had the opportunity to build a wine business with my friend. His family owns a beautiful vineyard in the Dundee Hills called Longfellow estate. So I'm the general manager of that winery currently. And then through our learnings there and being really good friends with Channing Frye who was an NBA player or ex NBA player at this point, and whose wine journey kind of coincided with my wine journey were being great friends, we were I was sharing my my experiences with them sending them wine, we every time we got a chance we go wine tasting when he's in town or go out to dinner, then I had other friends in the world. So I think that wine has been at my dinner table in a focus without me even really knowing that as a connector for a while, and then getting to build a brand in the Dundee hills of Oregon. You kind of I came at it because I wasn't traditionally from the wine industry. I was wide open to learning and not having to do it how anyone else did it. And I think wine is there's a lot of mysticism around it. And I think there's a lot of misguided marketing sometimes of who really is the core audience and it's only meant for certain people. And that just did not make any sense to me. Now, and I like to say just because you make a world class wine doesn't mean you need to be an asshole. I think that we it's our job to turn people on to wine, share wine. And I think anytime you can share something you don't have to sell anything if you're passionate about it. So through longer low estate, Channing Frye, a dear friend of mine, we did some big dinners for the Children's Cancer Association, we would bottle some special wines for events, we'd get in the cellar and make some wines chase the winemaker there. Chase Rendon is a good friend of mine as well, dear friend of mine, him and Channing are buddies, you know, and we just kind of had these sentimental moments. And it's Channing was getting close to retirement. You know, we're friends outside of business. So what are you gonna do next? What do you want to do? I know a lot of his passion points. And quickly, we kind of said, Yeah, we flirted with this wine idea. Well, if we did it, how can we do it for ourselves and do it our own way, but make it a success, right? Let's not waste each other's times, let's not make this a vanity play. Let's actually try to impact the wine industry to the best way we can from an economic standpoint. But like, disruption standpoint of you know, culturally, like just bringing people into it, right, and a new audience, maybe that's paying attention. The NBA and wine has been hot for a little while. And I think we've kind of been, you know, without trying to brag we have some friends in that space, and have been some of the people that shared the wine with some of them and been an educational component there. So I think we've just lived it organically. And then we launched chosen Family Wines during a pandemic going, Hey, let's just release some really cool wines we have, we have access to great winemakers, let's prove that we can make in participate in great wines. Let's share those with people. Let's tell stories around it. So chosen started pretty small in, in reality, but I think the vision was always there to maybe be able to grow and so we started plodding along and then Kevin Love another NBA legend who's still playing basketball and an Oregonian, not that he still lives here, but he's from Lake Oswego went to Lake Oswego High School is a dear friend of Kevin champions and has been become a great friend of mine. He joined our business. We have an A minor, small equity partner who owns breaks I brewing Scott Lawrence, who's an incredible resource. So we've kind of put together this little dream team of people going, I think the whitespace is ready for us. I think that we have the opportunity to integrate backwards and really have access to great vineyards, great winemakers, storytelling and wine has always been about if you pay someone for their grapes, you kind of just act like they're yours. You don't really always tell the impetus of where they came from and why you're working with those people and what that why you're paying that price for those grapes to share with people. And I think you know, it's 2022 Social media is big, I think information is king. I think transparency is important. So I think that's who we are as human beings and that was kind of what we wanted to tap into our brands so chosen family wines is on the back of our bottle we say Friendship is our foundation passion is our purpose a wine is our connector, and I think I couldn't say it much better than that. That's just kind of our truth and then wine a lot of times if you get stuck and farming one small piece of property which there's so much beauty in that right but it also is so hard to do and so time consuming and sometimes you get stuck being able to pick your head up and look around. We don't just drink one type of wine. You know, you come to my house. We might start with some champagne. We might have some Oregon Chardonnay and Pinot Noir then we might go to Napa, then we might go to Italy and have some wines from Barbaresco or Sangiovese So I think we wanted to build a brand that can maybe help tell some of those stories and show that we didn't just have to do one thing. And now it can catch people off guard. And you know, in business, a lot of times people say, find your focus and just do this. And I don't really subscribe to a lot of what people have told me a lot of times, right. I think that a lot of people that end up being visionaries are changing things. It's because they have their core truth, and they have enough self awareness to believe in what they believe in, and then push the Go button. So I think we've been learning consistently. It's not an easy endeavor. We also didn't want to make this about fame and platform. You know, it's nice to have a platform it's nice to reach an audience. It's nice that turn people on to something and share your truth. But Channing and Kevin you know, Kevin Love can make a Kevin Love wine tomorrow, Channing Frye could do a Channing Frye wine tomorrow. And a lot of times, you know, famous used to pimp bad products. And that was not what we wanted to do. And I think for us that our party or their partners that live wine all day, every day, we definitely weren't going to do that. And they wanted to work with us because they knew they didn't want to do that. So it was kind of how can we all come together to create this family atmosphere, this authenticity, to share incredible wines, tell great stories, and then bring people on this wine journey with us. So if they build trust in what we're doing, and love what they're doing, they can follow us along as we're introducing new products, new people. And again, you know, at the highest level, no one has to work with us. And we don't have to work with anyone. So I guess we get to kind of navigate our own or tell our own story and find our own tribe within the wine industry. And the wine industry is an amazing place. Man, we've been lucky enough and fortunate enough to meet we, you know, work with and travel to incredible places and meet credible people. So we're slowly building this portfolio of, of wines that we love that we want to share with people. And that's the long story. But that's kind

Gabriel Flores  11:47  

of how I love it. I love it. In fact, let's let's take a little step back because I'm intrigued to kind of know, when the pivot happened from the movie industry to becoming the general wine or a general manager over at a winery? Or was it a kind of a gradual progression for you? Or when did you start to decide this? You know what, I'm gonna go and pivot from that movie to something that there's that's a great,

Jacob Gray  12:09  

that's a great question. So I, I moved, I moved back to Portland to be with my now wife a decade ago. And I was still an independent film producer, right? bootstraps not a lot of money. And do they always think producers have all the money, a lot of times they have all the relationships, they don't have all the money, and you go find executive producers that have the money. But anyway, long story short as I was, I was on a plane to LA a little too much. I wasn't home, I wasn't in Portland as much as I wanted to be. And then I just my breaking point was kind of I think I was giving a lot more than I was getting. And at some point, you have to have the self realization of what your truth is and what you want it to be. And I just felt that it was time for me to try to take on something new. So I wanted to get off that plane, I wanted to figure out what I was going to do Portland was going to be home for me what was I going to do here? So I think, you know, I own the rights to some books, I was trying to I was building a slate of films, I had a producing partner in LA, you know, I was trying to do the film thing, which is, you know, unless you have millions in just to say let go. It's always a grind a little bit. So I just kind of said, You know what, let's see what else is out there for me and what's out there in Oregon. Right? And, you know, I have friends in Nike, I have friends at Wyden Kennedy, I have friends that do this. And I don't know that I'm necessarily supposed to be a corporate person. And I was trying to figure out what that was for me here and one of the first iterations of like, hey, oh, what about this would be a cool idea is we wanted to do a really cool boutique hotel, out in wine country or in a few different locations like could river or the coast wine country and bend. But wine country kind of came to mind. I always liked going wine tasting out there. I thought it was ripe for advancement ideation, something new, you know, a fresh take on it. And my mother like she was the bookkeeper or the the controller at the Allison, which is a beautiful resort out there. So I started just kind of poking my head around learning a little bit about wine country just a little bit and then I went to play golf one day and I met a young man on the tee box at pumpkin ridge. And that happened to be Chase. Renton had no idea what he did. And we became buddies then I figured out that his family owns a winery. They haven't built their tasting room yet they haven't even released their first vintage or their first harvest was about to come out. And he got it. We got to know each other and he's like, Yo, if you're in this like transitional stage, per se, and you like wine, do you mind just helping me for a couple months, and in my mind, I was like, I'll just tell the grandkids that I made wine one time right now I'll show up my friends and I know what making wine is all about. So I got to do harvest, which I highly recommend for anyone you know, it's like boot camp for lack of a better word, but you learn where the blood sweat and tears go and what wine the craft of winemaking is all about. So I lived that for a summer because I could basically and then between that summer the next summer. He was working on launching a business and if you get to know the two of us, he's a winemaker. And I'm not right. We have different skill sets different personalities. So I think organically I started asking questions about how they're going to market themselves positions. So, what's the story? Bah, bah, bah. And I think and I got to know his dad, you know, who helped them launch this project. And they kind of said, Yo, you want to come do this with us? You know, in some capacities, open a tasting room be the taster. You can call it whatever you want. But there was only two of us. Right? So I wasn't the general manager. And I wasn't asking to be, but I was whatever I was hospitality associated, you know, other other duties as assigned. When we were building a small business, right, there was a lot to go into launching an alcohol business with retail. There's a lot of minutiae and compliance and stuff like that. And then there's also just, if someone shows up, and they want to taste your wine, how do you get them to fall in love with you? Right. And I think that I organically had some of those, though, that was my core competency. I mean, I can break bread with the best of them, you know, that's one of my favorite things is to know where to eat, how to eat, share things with people. So anyways, long below, launched in 2016, I did two harvests with them. They built one of the prettiest tasting rooms in the world. And then we went to work building this thing. And we've been doing that ever since. And it's been a caught fire a little bit. It's been an incredible journey, and chosen has been born out of that. But yeah, it was just me being back in Portland and trying to figure out what it was. And I think once I sniffed it, and you know, I always break down filmmaking, especially producing, it's just art meets commerce, right? You have these directors and artists and most incredible artists in the world sometimes don't even like seeing their art, right, but they just give their all do it. And then you have the ability that you have to put this whole thing together and make it make sense, make everyone get along, execute the plan. And winemaking is a lot of that there's the winemakers making something beautiful, they're perfectionist, they're really hard on themselves. They're really good at what they do. They hold themselves to a high standard. But then sometimes the consumer only cares so much about that. They want to have great experiences, they want to have great conversations, they want to know why they should love it. And so I think I've always I think naturally I had some of those cosmic things that brought that world that could collide those, I think I am a producer, I think I'm a wine producer. But then I was given the opportunity to jump in the hospitality space, which I think came to me organically.

Gabriel Flores  17:00  

Yeah, in fact, you know, as I was going to ask, How do you feel the your experience being a producer has kind of helped? Because it seems like you're essentially being a producer of wine, as you mentioned, because you're you're looking at individuals for their core competencies, and then bringing those folks in. So how did the experience of being a producer? And and how, what was the importance of it to kind of building this new business?

Jacob Gray  17:25  

Yeah, well, so if I could describe myself quickly, I was a point guard growing up. And then I became a independent film producer out of college. And then I jumped into building brands and launching businesses. And I think they're all the same thing, right? You can call me what you want. I can be the CEO of this, I can be the general manager of that. I think at the end of the day, I am a producer, I think that's what I do. But yeah, it's it's really like navigating the, it's the ability to have a vision, understand who can help you execute that vision, how you can empower people alongside of you. And managing people is tricky. But I think if you find talented people, then it makes managing easy, right? And I think building a team is always about finding the right? People, not just people that think they're good at something, right? You have to understand and you have to strip yourself clean, you got to kind of be able to get inside yourself and understand what your core competencies are. hold yourself accountable when things go wrong, maybe look at yourself a little bit. Like, I think there's a lot of just growing up if you want to be a leader, right, and I think producing as being a leader, you know, kind of they so I think a lot of that just comes with growth. And then I've been asked like, how does this happen? How do you become that person. And I think sometimes, I don't know that I would have known how not to I just was in the right place at the right time, willing to be myself and then knowing that when I go to bed at night, I'm not lying to myself about who I believe I am, I'm actually putting in the work, I will show up. I have great relationships. I'm a very loyal person. And I try to hold people to that around me. And then I like to have a lot of fun. And I like to build great meaningful relationships with talented people.

Gabriel Flores  18:57  

I love it. I love it. What would you say has been kind of difficult throughout this process to start the business? Like some some surprises in the wine industry in particular.

Jacob Gray  19:11  

Yeah, you know, anytime that you launch a business with with more than yourself, and you have partners, no matter how much you love Him or know Him having partners, you just it's like a marriage right? You got to learn how to communicate. And I think that's wonderful. I think there's a lot of coaching out there that you don't want to do business with your friends or your family. If you have great friends and family and you've ever had to communicate you got to get through shit right and I think it's the same in business so I'd rather do that and I'd rather win with people I love so but I think that there's there's always a trick to that thankfully, I think because there was some history of being real friends leading into this. We actually made a lot of cosmic you know, designing design decisions, business decisions, marketing decisions. We like if you had to if we all got to vote, we all kind of voted the same way a lot all had great conversations about stuff so I think the ability to pull it off, Ben, I don't say easy, but you know, you're always navigating that world. And I think that you have to have the right people to do that right? Play your position, know how to get the best out of other people. The hardest, I think is just truly doing it, the risk versus the reward. A lot of people always think that the dirt like you can, let's say, you get on the cover of a magazine one day, and they're just like, Oh, you're here, this up your business is killing it, all these cool things. It's like, Dude, we've been doing the same people doing the same thing, working just as hard for 15 years to get to this point. And truthfully, about a lot of brands that people see the ideation in the mind the visualization of creating it, the partnerships behind it, this shit didn't just happen overnight, right? You manifest these things for a long time, whether you know you're doing or not not like in a weird way, where you're like, secretly plotting to like pull things off. It's just kind of like, these things were meant to be, but they take a lot of time and effort. You got to be persistent, you got to be passionate. And I think you can't quit easily. You got to really, really, I want to get paid, there's not enough money, and we're gonna go broke. It's like, wake up and do it again. And don't question yourself, don't quit on yourself, empower yourself, know yourself. And I think you know, it's a lot of just literally, let's go, Well, I'm not quit until we get to where we need to go, what is quitting even when what's the risk of failure? What is failure? I think I like to think of that sometimes when I'm gonna end up on a yurt on the Pacific Ocean, with my own farm and my kids body surfing for school, I don't really know what my risk of failure is, it always creeps in your mind, I'm almost more, I'm almost more scared of letting people down. Like, if someone believes in me to join me on something that I'm passionate about. We're going, I'm gonna figure it out. I don't like you know, I don't like to lose. I think you learn a lot from losing when you're playing sports growing up, and all that stuff. I like being on good teams with great people. And I think when you build those things, your success rates better. But you can't be afraid of those things, you got to kind of you know, and you'll see that you'll learn that with your friends. Also, when you own a business, you'll ask this question is, how do you finance it? Who's paying for it? You know, oh, let's just go get a bank loan? Well, do we have the leverage to do that? Do we have the assets to do that? What at all let's go get a VC, well, why do you want me to sell our business tomorrow, and then they own 51%. And tell us how to run it. Like, you got to believe in yourself, and you got to put your money where your mouth is and times and sweat equity is one thing, of course. But it's really like you got to dig deep to understand, don't just jump into things and call it a business unless you believe that there's something there that you're willing to fight for.

Gabriel Flores  22:27  

I like it. You know, that's kind of one of the things you mentioned, all the work that goes in before production, you know, even when those one hit wonders come out. People don't understand that those artists that may be created that one hit wonder had been working years for that one hit.

Jacob Gray  22:43  

Yeah, they created, they created 100 Not hits before they had

Gabriel Flores  22:47  

that that's very true. In fact, you know, one of the things you mentioned is financing. How did your team go through the financial? Did you guys go to the venture capital route did it goes grassroot?

Jacob Gray  22:56  

Yep. Up until this point, whatever anyone's equity position is in the business. They've lived up to that. We're in a critical moment right now. I mean, I don't know what's too much info or not. And I don't want to speak for my business partners. But we're, you know, kind of in a capital call right now trying to figure out we there's a lot of potential in this business. We're really excited for it. Growth is a scary thing, right? Yeah. Sometimes to make money and to learn the scale of economy, you got to take some risks to create the business that's worth being profitable, or generating revenue worth someone else investing in worth being bought one day, right. So But up until this stage, yeah, we've all we've self financed this thing. We started lighting lean, I mean, there's a lot of perception around MBA, you know, people that have a lot of money supposedly, like, well, a lot of people have a lot of money or smart people that don't spend unwisely and make that decision. And they have great teams around them asking critical questions, right. So we've done it, we've done it, but we started really lean, I mean, we're still really lean and mean, we still have never taken $1 out of our business, right? You gotta get a lot of people going like, oh, it looks easy, you know, social media, can we it's an amazing brand. I think our brand value is out of the roof versus our revenue, right? I think the ability to grow and people pay attention and be interested. I think there's a lot of you know, it's been cool to see, you know, we don't have enough product, we haven't had distribution up until this point, which we're going to launch in May with Southern lasers, which is an incredible distributor and gives us a lot of opportunity to grow into the future. But people in New York Cleveland this place Arizona, like where do we get your wine? How do I get it I went into my favorite restaurant I wanted at this place, you know And coming from a small business mind with like longer loads the opposite of that. Were 99% DTC you come into our tasting room, that's where you buy it, you join our wine club, that's where you buy it. We don't really do much distribution. So that teaches you how to gain and sustain an audience and be build some loyalty in your product and shows interest. We have some of that and we built this we've only been DTC during a pandemic, all econ we don't even have like we've had a lot of hurdles in front of us to make sure we can sell some Wine. And funny enough, like, the core of all of us as partners, we like to break bread, we like to engage with people we like to share, we like you know, we want to pour our wines. It's been hard to sell wine to people that can't even taste your wine. Right? Yeah,

Gabriel Flores  25:11  

that's very true.

Jacob Gray  25:12  

So we've you know, but we've we've made it we've made that work up to this stage, we're gonna start activating a lot more having a lot more events traveling a little bit and doing distribution. I lost where the question was, but it's been. There's been a phases to all of that, right? You got to kind of sort your way through what makes the most sense for your business. Oh, we're talking about money. So yeah, up into this stage, the owners, the business partners, the owners.

Gabriel Flores  25:39  

I like it. Have you guys ever felt in a moment? You know, you kind of mentioned you're going through the growth process? Have you ever felt like any moments of self doubt?

Jacob Gray  25:51  

My truth with that would be no, not in the sense of like, are we making the right decision? Is this the brand we should be putting our effort and time and money into? The self doubt is just, there's a lot to do. We don't have a huge, we don't have a lot of like, overhead, right? We still like how do we create this monster with no. And then the Dow can come in of shit? Like, are we in the position to make that capital call makes sense for everyone that can give capital like, and you know, and when we talk about this stuff, you don't really want to dilute yourself too early if you're doing all the work, right? So no, I'm not. I don't do these things with doubt I do them with, you know my head on a swivel and always trying to learn and make the best decision possible for my the people around me again, I'm, I'm loyal. And I take it serious if you want to go into something with me. So I'm trying to make the right decisions for everyone involved to make the create value for all of us, right. And then also know that not everyone has to do everything, like certain people got to be in the weeds, certain people don't certain people need to help us promote things, certain people don't need to be on every call on every zoom call. And in every meeting, right? Like we got to have the audacity to believe and then stay the course I think the hard thing sometimes with with when you talk money or growth or these doubtful moments is a lot of times those set people back like, Yo, look, I'm not gonna Okay, today, I didn't do my social media, I didn't go to the event. I didn't plan for the future, because I'm worried about now. Shit, you got to do both. If you if you want to grow, you don't take the step backwards. You just keep going and figure it out. While you're there. be adaptable, be flexible, but don't start doubting yourself so much that you if you got through this heavy moment, and actually the money lands and the things happen that you didn't yourself, you set yourself up for success. You got to have your eyes towards the future, if you want to grow.

Gabriel Flores  27:42  

Yeah, and what what would you say? kind of you know, you're thinking about growing, thinking about your business, you come from that entrepreneur mindset. What would you say has been surprising in the wine business in particular that you didn't really think about? Like, Oh, didn't really think I didn't think I had to think about this.

Jacob Gray  28:00  

Can you expand on that a little bit? Like, is there anything specific? Yeah.

Gabriel Flores  28:03  

So is there any like, is there any business like to go into the wine industry? Is there any like kind of business? Either problems or issues that arose that you didn't, that maybe just might be within the wine industry that you didn't really think about? The idea how to tackle or have you been kind of going through this process? Like, hey, this is kind of exactly what we anticipated?

Jacob Gray  28:22  

Oh, no, I mean, anything you do with alcohol is tricky. Anything you do with sending alcohol to different states gets very tricky. All the moving parts to create one product, there's a like, you know, you get into the business talk of like cogs and margins and those type of things. There's a lot of variables, and those variables can shift every year or every month or every day. And then you're relying on mother nature a little bit, right. So I think the ability to plan, have a vision, be able to know kind of your goals, but also having the build the wherewithal as a leader and as a business partner to know that shit is going to change and that you can't get can't just kind of tuck tail and run do something doesn't go your way. You got to be pretty Sis, you got to be pretty gritty in this thing. And then, you know, the compliance of alcohol, the TTB, the COLAs, the compliance, the you know, and then we're getting into distribution right now learning that world you know, there's just and then there's a lot of hands in a pie when you want other people to help you sell wine. So it's just kind of really, you have the simple like there's the people will tell you Okay, DTC is this margin wholesales this fob or distribution is this yeah, there's somewhat true you know, every I think every business will be a little different and everyone's extra costs overheads say like, there's just so many things that go into the end all be all of moving a bottle of wine, depending on the channel you're using, and to navigate all those understand all those and be able to predict all those for like financial model. Oh,

Gabriel Flores  30:01  

yeah. And so, you know, you mentioned a few acronyms that I want the listeners to kind of be aware of DTC stands for direct to consumers, right. So that you're selling direct to consumers cogs cost of goods sold. So for a maybe kind of given an explanation of some cost of goods sold at UC in the wine industry. So the so the listeners kind of have a better understanding of what cost of goods sold is.

Jacob Gray  30:24  

So if we took one bottle of wine, did you buy those grapes? If you bought the grapes off the vine? How much did you pay per ton? If you bought them as liquid? Did that liquid come inside of a bottle? Are you paying for the glass yourself? Are you paying for the quarks? How much do you pay per label that you create? Are you working with a great artists? Are you just slapping something on it? Are you waxing it? Are you putting foil over the cork? How are you marketing it? How are you selling it? What channel? Is it getting sold in? How much are they taking off top per channel if someone else is helping you sell that bottle of wine? And then we could probably add a few other things to that. But it's kind of like when you see, like, take a sneaker on the wall. You see the swoosh, you see the the soles, the shoe laces. But before that thing was that was getting made, how much of the shoelace costs? What's the foam that goes in it? Who's stitching it? Did it come from a different country? What shipping and what's freight? You know, like, there's just a lot of moving. And I mean, to be honest with you, man, I'm impressed that I came to say this stuff. It's been a learning curve for me. And it's a constant learning curve. I think I've been organically more of a people person connector, marketer storyteller than like a traditional economic businessman. But I think that served me well, because I think I'm smart enough to learn. And I think that if I can do both of those things, then I become dangerous. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I'm learning all the time that I'm not I'm not a CFO at all. If I could put one in my pocket and not have to pay him.

Gabriel Flores  31:50  

Man, Me too. Me too. You know, one of the things you mentioned, first, you mentioned that you started this business during the pandemic, which is difficult enough. And you also mentioned you know, your background, you kind of filled yourself as a marketer. How did you market this brand during the pandemic? How did you brand it? How did you get the word out? You know, some of those difficulties of getting people to taste it. How did you guys build that during the pandemic?

Jacob Gray  32:14  

So one nice thing about the pandemic, if you studied the wine industry, is that people weren't leaving their house and they were finally sending a lot they were more people were shipping wine to their door. More people were doing happy hours with their friends, more people were drinking in general why?

Gabriel Flores  32:28  

I got I got put on a couple lbs Yeah, I

Jacob Gray  32:31  

think a lot of people did, right. And then I think we had people's attention. I mean, again, chanting fries, my business partner and Channing Frye launching a wine brand and being African American in the whitespace. And then also being on the cover of some magazines doing some social media doing some podcasts like Kevin Love joining us speaking. You know, we're also come from a world where we like to work with content creators and whines always, I think it's always lacked in the storytelling capacity, I think just to be role of a talking head of some old white guy talking about oil that I stand on, like, it doesn't go that far anymore. I think we just had the I think it's the perfect storm of people place timing. And then I think we had the ability to get outside of the normal realms of grabbing people's attention. And again, that's part of it though. Like I didn't launch chosen not knowing that Channing Frye has a platform and wants to use it and wants and loves Shrek and wine, right? cab to who you know, and he's busy playing basketball. So it's hard for him to be as involved as Shanaze. I think we're also our team's good at some of that stuff. We also have friends that are incredible. They get paid a lot of money to create commercials and work this and do that, that have kind of given Hey, I love what you guys are doing. How can I help? Right? We know you're bootstrapping? How can how can we get this thing done? So I think it's just been a few key mechanisms that were maybe a little better at than other people. Not to say that sounds kind of bad. But that's you know, I think we had the where the vision to create a new fresh brand in the wine space that allowed people to kind of go Oh, this feels good. This feels like what I want to be paying attention to when I get on social media. This matches what I buy and do this is yo like, chosen family like I call my friends, my chosen family. Like I think we kind of hit a few things that resonated. And then again, we come I come from the whitespace. I know some people that trust us, right? My Chase is an incredible winemaker, we work with other great brands like we also collaborate with people wine doesn't usually collaborate, we work with other we say, Hey, we're making wine with our other favorite Winery, we're gonna put their little label on our label and tell the story about us making wine together. It's like going to your favorite restaurant and cooking your favorite dish with a chef. But showing it right and then asking them to put a little more salt in the dish or whatever it may be like, we did that stuff. And I think that's unique for the space that we're in and people paid attention.

Gabriel Flores  34:49  

You know, one of the things you said your friends are like your chosen family, right? How important was your network in starting this business? How important is networking in general?

Jacob Gray  35:01  

I mean, it's it's the most important thing in the world. And I think networking is sometimes a cheap word for having great friends and really knowing there's a difference between networking and no, oh, we're in the same industry I've met you before, to like people whose wives kids know you, you go on adventures together, you've been through the mud together, you call each other accountable. And then when it's time to make decisions in business, you do it right. Like, and you can say, fu or why do you think that way? Or, Hey, let me do this. Because you know, I'm better at it. Like, whatever it may be. So but I mean, I think it's the most important thing. I also just don't think it's something a lot of people will always want that thing. How do I become a good networker? How do I? Why do you have such good friends? How do you know this person? I just don't know that there's a cheap answer to that, right. I just don't know how I got fortunate enough to I mean, I could paint the road to almost all my relationships. And a lot of them start with my hometown, where I was raised, born and raised. And still friends, a lot of us, a lot of us when played college sports, a lot of those guys, their teammates became pro athletes in college, we were partying together, got to know each other actually know each other. And then, by all means, some got lucky enough to play professionally, some didn't. While they're doing that we stayed friends and traveled together, never asked each other for anything. And then you get better at your in the thing people have to understand if they want to work with people that supposedly are famous, have platforms. There's a lot of people that think that that's low hanging fruit easy to do, and then they'll just do it for you or give you money or do that it's the exact opposite. And if you're friends with them, don't ever ask to be in business with them until you are ready to be the best version of yourself. I wasn't going to go into work with let alone people of fame. But my friends in general not going to call myself a CEO, a general manager launch a brand till I was ready, ready until I knew I could bring value until I knew that. If no one else did the work, I'd be willing to do it like you don't you don't just these things don't just happen. You got to really be there for it right? Let alone if you're gonna use the word entrepreneur or own a business like no one's gonna do it. No one cares what your hurdles are. No one cares if you didn't sleep last night, no one cares if your bills are doing no one cares what your insurance is, like, no one cares. You got to do

Gabriel Flores  37:12  

it. Yeah. What motivates you?

Jacob Gray  37:20  

Um it's a great question. I mean, I mean, I think you know, the, my friends, my family. I think I've truly don't like failing. Like, as much as I painted that picture of like, what is failure? I like, if I slip set my mind to something, I want to be good at it. I like learning I'm very interested in information, meeting incredible people and sharing that journey with other people. So but I also I think part of the reason I maybe do some of the things I do with the people I deal with, is that level of I don't like letting people down and I like making people I like empowering people and having incredible opportunities with people and going on a journey with people that I love. So if I'm doing that with people in a business setting, that's enough motivation for me for the rest of my life man, I you know, if you're doing if I call you, my brother, my sister, whatever, this my loved one, and we're in this together, I don't know that I'm going to quit very easily. So that's, that's that kind of keeps me awake. At this we got this isn't just been me. A lot of people.

Gabriel Flores  38:27  

In fact, you mentioned something, you know, you know, things that keep you awake as a business owner, what what are what are some things that do keep you awake? For them from a business perspective?

Jacob Gray  38:42  

Everything I think that's it. I also want you know, like I want to make building a business, building a successful business as enjoyable as possible for everyone involved. So I think through a lot of like, how to make this work for everyone and what everyone's true intentions are. And again, I think I'm a point guard. I think I know my people and I think I know where to get them the ball. I think I know what to ask him. I think I'm a good friend or manager in that capacity. I also think I go above and beyond so maybe I think too much sometimes, but I think I'm wired that way anyways. Thought wise, like I think my brain just it's hard to shut off right? When we can all find our vices of how we try to help

Gabriel Flores  39:30  

make advices Yeah.

Jacob Gray  39:33  

But yeah, I don't I don't like letting people down. I really don't like letting people down. I like I like to be able to think I go to sleep. And if someone ever when I die or if someone interviewed someone off the record about me. They say he lives up to his word. I really respect that guy. I love him anyways, he's funny, he's my buddy, whatever. But like when he said he's going to do something he does. And I think that a lot of people claim to be that guy or that what they try to be these things. They call themselves loyal. They use a lot of key words and I think that I just want to go to bed tonight comfortable in my own skin knowing that I've tried to be the person I say out loud I want to be, or even more than that, don't talk about it, but do it right. But

Gabriel Flores  40:08  

yeah, you know, I think this entire conversation you've visited been dropping some phenomenal, phenomenal, you know, lessons for the listeners. But what advice would you give some listeners, you know that are listening? What advice would you give them maybe some some things you learned along the way that might be able to help them become a successful business owner someday?

Jacob Gray  40:29  

Like actually being like owning your own business? Yep. Don't rush, I think there's a core, I mean, I think there's people that can go. So I think some of us are, can be good employees. But at the end of the day, we go to bed every night struggling with being someone's employee, knowing our true value and being willing to put risk our money, time or energy to prove that we can do it ourselves, or write our own checks or control our own destiny. And I think that you got to really own that I think you like I was gonna ask you like when I was gonna ask you a couple questions like what entrepreneurship means to you. And then also what you what you interview a lot of entrepreneurs, what do you think this common thread is between these people? Right? And I would, I would bet that a lot of them are wired a similar way. And a lot of them are willing to take some bet on themselves, have some gumption, have tough skin and want to work for themselves and prove themselves right for great ideas they have, right. But I don't think it's something to rush into. I think that also, you know, when I when I was making movies, it's there's like, go to film school, it's like, no, go make a movie, read a book about why No, go work at harvest. You know, like, I think that there's practical. Again, no one cares to shut up and do like, go go and work a little bit to go break, you know, figure out what you want to be and who you want to be in, where what you think your skill set is. But then if you can't live it, then the night with what you think your value is, or what you bring to the table, then at some point, you need to create an LLC, find a little lawyer, find some savings and go try it, like go to work, and then you have to have the ability to fail, and then know that why you failed is because you were learning. And now if when you do it again, you're gonna be that much better at it. And this is a long game, it is not a short game, and all these success stories you read in Forbes of people selling businesses for a lot of money, I would love to know the truth of a lot of those situations and how they launched and who launched them and where the money really came from and what they already knew before they did it. And it's not it's not if you get their money, that's great. But I also think a lot of people, like people can ask that of you like, what do you what's the goal for chosen? And would you sell, and when do you want to sell and how much you want to be worth and like, I don't know the answer to any of those things. And I also know that once you build something that you were like there from day one, and helped and put all the things into, I don't know how easy that is to just take from you. And then I also don't know that anyone would do that much better at it than us unless they just had way more resources and are an expert in it. But chosen family, like our names are on the bottle. This is our core, this is us. But so I hope to get there, I hope that there's you know, some strategic partnerships along the way, but I don't know that I just want to walk away. Because of the check. I think you got to really buy into what you're doing for a reason. And then I also think there needs to be some positives to it, like, why you do it and who you do it for and how it impacts the economy, the people around you, or an industry in a positive way. I think you got to find some wins outside of just making money. Yeah, you know, you're not gonna make a lot of times you don't make money for a very long time.

Gabriel Flores  43:39  

You got to have money to make money, you certainly need one of the questions you asked, you know, what, what is an entrepreneur? What do I believe it is entrepreneur? And you know, I think, for me, it really is just about being innovative, right? If it doesn't matter if you're working for a corporate setting, or if you're working by yourself, being an entrepreneur is really going out there and trying to create something new, either a new process or a new procedure, or a completely new market, you know, right and really looking at that. So for example, I was used this is the Red Hot Cheetos, you know, Red Hot Cheetos was actually invented by a janitor that worked at Frito lays that pitch the idea to the CEO and now he's running the entire service line, you know, so that that individual is an entrepreneur. And you also asked, you know, he's also a visionary. Yeah, exactly. And I think there's a lot of people that work in the corporate world that don't think they're entrepreneur and that's why I really created this podcast is to inform the folks of like, Hey, this is the process because you asked, you know, love to hear about some of these four businesses and how they decided to sell. I'm hoping that this provides a little bit of a runway for some of these individuals to learn because America was built on the back of small businesses, right, we're built on the back of entrepreneurs. And so the best way for us to kind of continue to evolve and grow our economy is to support each other Jeff Bezos has enough money right? He's gonna get his ship through whatever port in the Netherlands it's stuck in right now. Just fine right after a couple billion dollars or whatever. But the really goal is, how can we, how can we provide some education, but also some encouragement, right? Because I think the biggest part about being an entrepreneur is the risk. What is what is your risk? Are you willing to risk a little bit more? Some people need a bit of a little landing runway, so to speak, right to jump into entrepreneurship, and other people have a higher risk tolerance, and they're really to jump in headfirst and lose everything, and then try it again. Right, you know, so it is, I think, at the end of the day, it's about doing it, right, because everybody has an idea, right? Everybody has an idea in everybody's like, 10 years, like, I had that idea. 10 years ago. Yeah. But you didn't go forward and do it. Right. That's the difference between an entrepreneur and somebody who maybe just is a thought a thinker versus a visionary, as you mentioned, you know, that's really is putting, putting the work out there. And actually kind of rolling up the sleeves and doing it even if you fail, right. And I've always said, I never fell a day in my life, I either succeed, or I learned, because the way I look at it is if I say I failed, and that means I completely stopped, never gonna try it again. I'm done. But no, I'm going to try it again. And try it again until I succeed, right? And so eventually, you know, as entrepreneurs in the folks that are listening, you're going to have times of failure, right? Success isn't always going to be there. But we'll use those moments as learning moments and not stick to it and saying, Oh, my God, I failed, I'm never going to do this again. Right, learn from those moments continue to grow. Leverage, there's other people that have gone through this hardship as well. Misery loves company kind of thing. And so I hope, you know, interviewing these entrepreneurs, for the listeners is really impactful, because I know it's impactful for me and listening to your story and in seeing how you've evolved and seen how you created this team, because I can certainly see your experience as being a film producer. How, you know, as you mentioned, being the point guard, right, how you now created this team, right? And the synergy around this team. And it's a really good strong brand, because it was created there in the pandemic, but I'm starting to see it a lot. And I'm like, Oh, this is, this is awesome. That's why we reached out right? And I was like, let's make this connection and have this conversation. Now, what would you say? Like, what what advice would you give yourself? You know, looking looking back at, you know, some of the things you've gone through? Is there any advice that you give yourself

Jacob Gray  47:14  

beforehand? Before I answer that, and you might have to re ask me again? How did you hear about chosen family? Where did where was your moment of learning about it? Great, great

Gabriel Flores  47:22  

question. Social media. I actually learned I think it was might have been Instagram. Now I'm, I'm also a wine drinker myself. So I'm a big wine drinker. So I'm always looking for new wine places anyways. And I was like, oh, chosen family. Interesting. That's an interesting name for a winery. That's actually what caught me though. The name in general. It's like, oh, it's interesting. And then I kind of saw a couple of photos. And I was like, Oh, this is really interesting. started following you guys on Instagram. And I was like, man, you know, let me just reach out to these folks would love to have a conversation because this is it. Even the even the photos that you guys post don't seem like the typical winery posts, right? It doesn't seem like that. It seems very inviting and welcoming. And, and it's you guys actually in your work gear right inside of the actual winery, you know, tasting the wines next to the large barrels, wearing your aprons. And so I think that's what kind of drew me to it, because it's like, oh, this, this is what the behind the scenes looks like, you know, and so that was kind of cool.

Jacob Gray  48:16  

Yeah, I think we have a lot of fun that a lot of people aren't used to seeing in that industry, let alone with other winemakers. We like me and Channing, you get a seven foot NBA champion in a dark cellar with a winemaker talking about soil science and we start breaking his balls and having a laugh and telling him it shuts delicious. Stop being so hard on yourself like we have we have some fun in there. Now. Have you ever had what you just said is you got the name of a brand, the pitchers of the brand authenticity through social media? Have you ever had that experience with another wine brand?

Gabriel Flores  48:45  

I can't I I've the only time I will. I'll admit the only time I've actually reached out to other wineries have been the direct to consumer when like I've been on their property, I've tasted their wine like Oh, that's really good. But I have never I will be completely honest. Or even any drink product per se except for maybe better housewife, which is another former guest of mine who does really good on advertising. I've never really felt like drawn to their social account the way I was drawn to you guys it was it was pretty quickly. And I think the color you guys is used as kind of like a nice subtle cream or like nice subtle brown background. It's very welcoming. You can kind of feel the Oregon vibe from it for some reason. And maybe that's just me, but I really do enjoy the the kind of authenticity behind it because you guys are kind of you know, in your in your work attire, and it's not. It doesn't seem to stage maybe it is right, right. There are probably certain moments of some staging, right, some lighting that needs to happen. But those photos look very authentic and organic, right. And they just kind of done, which is really kind of opening.

Jacob Gray  49:48  

That's cool. That's but that's I think that's a compliment. And I think if we can do that a few times over and a few different places and people take that so now the key to that is does that person engage with the read enough to go, this is cool enough. But I also trust to spend 3550 to $100 on a bottle of wine, or times six, or John join their club. And then you know, learn through them, excuse me, build that trust and fall in love with it enough to become a consumer of it. And I think that's the juxtaposition that we're always living in, especially if me and you can't drink wine together every time, right? And I think you get in a room with Channing night and drink our wine and you don't like our passion and in the wines themselves, and we would never care if you don't buy him. But I hopefully think that that is a different hallmark of creating consumers. And we haven't really had a lot of that we're trying, we're going to start doing more of that. But it's been to hearing you say that it's kind of means we've been doing our job a little bit, right,

Gabriel Flores  50:39  

yeah. And I'll say, I'll be completely transparent. I have not tasted your wine yet. But seeing your guys's social media handles and things, I certainly do have plan to get out there and taste some wine. So hopefully once the weather kind of turns a little bit, it's been raining last couple of weeks. But I certainly am interested in getting out there and visiting you guys location. Because I'm

Jacob Gray  50:59  

well chosen is just just to be transparent. chosen is an online econ brand. At the moment, we don't have a tasting room, or a winery, we make wine at other incredible wine arrays that we have relationships with. We will have events like tasting events in Portland are at specific locations. And we're going to watch a wine club on Monday where if you join the Club, you'll get invited to events to come pick up wine and taste all of our wine, stuff of that nature. And then we'll hopefully be in certain stores and places as we launched distribution. But we're not in a typical, like you can't just come to our tasting room. So most people buy our wine through our website, and we're gonna find other ways to make sure they can get access to our product. But that's that but if you ever need to go wine tasting wine country, I'm

Gabriel Flores  51:36  

sure we could love it. So tell the folks tell the for the folks at home that are listening a little bit more about that. How can they how can they get the one? What's the website? What's the social channels, how can they kind of find you guys?

Jacob Gray  51:48  

Yeah, best place to get our wine is our website, which is WW dot chosen family wines.com. If you're in the Portland area, we do have the option for you to buy those wines then come pick them up at a location and not pay a shipping fee. If you want to ship wine, we'll ship it right to your door shipping fee. And people that don't buy a lot of wine, they get surprised by shipping fees. That's not something we can control. It is what it is. And we appreciate it. We don't recoup any dollars on that. That is the third party of sending something and alcohol. But the more you buy, usually the cheaper it is not to be that person but a true or if you buy a case or more which is 12 bottles or more. They wait we waive our shipping and most most brands would do that. Our social media on Instagram, which is our probably our hero channel at this stage is chosen family wines. Follow us on Instagram, go to our website, sign up for our newsletter. That's what we've kind of been a digital brand. That way you can do that through our website. We've been kind of almost like a non traditional wine brand up into the stage with that, like it's almost like we do product drops like a sneaker like of course, we don't tell you that boom. Here's a brand new Rosae. Here's a new Pinot, like if you're if you want like first access, because at first we weren't making a lot of wines. So they'd sell out pretty quick, which is really cool. Yeah, we still have a little bit of that. But we're trying to make more wines, we're trying to have different structures and have the ability for people to get their wine or be a part of our member where we send them wines when we release wines. But we're just you know, I don't like always like the word disrupting but I think we're just trying to do the wine industry our way try to make it feel like something we'd want to be a part of something we'd want to spend our money and time on as a consumer and living and learning and growing as we go. But I think our website and our Instagram would probably and then signing up for our newsletter is always very helpful. So those three channels should get you anything you want. And then I'm Jacob at chosen family wines.com for an email, we have cheers at chosen family wines.com as kind of like you know, informational place or ask any questions but if you need anything we're all hands on chanting saying we're all doing this. We're living as a small business as much as the name is not always small. I guess you could say chanting seven feet tall and knows a few people but we're we put them to work. We're working.

Gabriel Flores  53:54  

I love it. I love it. So man, I got I'm gonna go back to that question that I might have just jumped over. What advice would you give yourself looking back on everything you've gone through what advice you have for yourself

Jacob Gray  54:10  

do it keep going don't stop and believe like you just got self belief as a mofo you know, I mean, and everyone goes through the way I don't care how talented you are cocky or arrogant. You are like self belief and comfortability in your own skin. Everyone deals with, let alone when you got money on the line and other people's money on the line. But I think you do things that you're passionate about for a real reason, right? And I think if you're gonna jump into something and start a business, you got to show up for it right now. I think one of the things we didn't talk about on this is always tricky for us. A lot of us do this not as our primary job at first, right? It's still, I'm still juggling a bunch of sales. So you just got to really don't quit. even yourself. And then you know, I think a lot of people life's built around, we built a system around money, right? Like, I need money to do this. It's the it's the, it's the golden handcuffs, it's the golden parachutes, I need to hit this amount to pay for my mortgage, my, as an entrepreneur, that's gonna be a little tricky sometimes to just live by that. And I think sometimes you're gonna get stuck, if all you try to do is just be able to pay your bills and make a certain amount of money. Now, if it's about making a lot of money, you have to take a lot of risk. If it's just about freedom, which I think the most valuable thing in this world is our time, especially as we get older, it can't buy it, you cannot pay for it and can't get it back. If you have a family, if you have kids, if you have friends, if you want to travel a little bit if you want to feel freedom, and when you wake up when you go to bed, and when you make your best decisions. The corporate structure wasn't always there for us as entrepreneurs to go like, Oh, Jay gray thinks is best at 2:30pm, after he went for a run, worked out, had a great lunch, made 10 phone calls, wrote his emails, like I think that I've had to create some of my own infrastructure so that I can succeed at the highest level possible. And I think that that's been freeing a little bit like, but it's hard to do, right? I think but yeah, man just You gotta believe in yourself. Got it. Got it. gotta believe in yourself. Get out of your own way. I mean, I want to tell myself to not stress as much I wish I could have slept better a few times. But man,

Gabriel Flores  56:15  

that is what it is. It is what it is. Jake Gray, chosen family wine. What a conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I think this is gonna be a phenomenal episode. I really enjoyed the conversation. I think you have an amazing brand. I'm excited to try the wine I'm certainly going to literally as soon as we log off I'm probably gonna order myself a couple bottles. And then I will definitely sign up for the newsletter. So when that so when the membership comes out, maybe go ahead and sneak on that membership as well because we have been looking at doing a new winery anyways. Jay Great. Thank you so much, man. I phenomenal conversation for those folks at home. Please join us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram on please subscribe to the newsletter on the shades of e.com and you can also subscribe to the podcast. Thank you and have a great night.