Wine

Friday, Aug. 08, 2008

Wine Notes: Profit not a priority for winemaking pair

For now, pursuing their dream of creating wine is enough return for Rob and Paula Campbell-Taylor

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It’s the key question that most people who dream of someday owning a small winery in the country ask themselves: Can you make any money doing it? Rob Campbell-Taylor’s answer is a simple “I don’t think so.”

Campbell-Taylor and his wife, Paula, have been following their wine country dream for five years, and they admit they’re still 10 years away from seeing financial success. But that hasn’t discouraged them.

“It’s all-consuming, hard work,” says Paula, “but we’re adoring it.”

Plan A for the Campbell- Taylors was to find about a 20- acre parcel of land with a “gentleman’s vineyard” on it, and to sell their grapes to other wineries. That plan fizzled when the

couple happened upon a stunning 81-acre property in the Pleasant Valley area just north of Paso Robles. Looking out over 360-degree views from every point on the hilltop property, and with an 11- acre vineyard in its seventh leaf, the Campbell-Taylors fell in love at first sight, and bought the vineyard and accompanying double-wide trailer on the spot.

They proceeded with plans for a large farmhouse, which took almost four years to complete, and pursued plans to sell the grapes from their newly acquired vineyard. Unfortunately, their first year on the market was 2005, and grape prices plunged as the result of a statewide bumper crop.

“We heard so many horror stories of growers that would have their fruit hanging on the vines and not having a buyer for it,” Paula explained. So that year the couple reconsidered their plan and decided to make their own wine.

“I just didn’t like not being in control,” Rob said.

With little winemaking experience, Rob—who still works full time as a petroleum engineer—hired Jason Bushong as his winemaking consultant. They found Bushong through Bushong’s wife, who happened to be their son’s third-grade teacher.

They named their wine Graveyard Vineyards after the small cemetery that sits at the bottom of their property. The cemetery was part of a Presbyterian church founded in 1865. The church burned down years ago, but the cemetery is still open to the founding families.

The couple bottled their first 290 cases of wine in August 2006 and started actively marketing their wines and entering competitions last year. They admit they learned each step as they went along.

“We went into this a little blind,” Paula says, “but sometimes naivete is a good thing.”

They increased their production twofold the following year, and they plan to make as many as 1,500 cases this year, utilizing Templeton Wine Services.

In the past two years, they have successfully lined up a local broker to help sell their wine, have poured at multiple local wine-tasting events, and Rob has been active in the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, co-chairing the Paso Robles Wine Festival for the past three years. They also established a wine club that in one year has attracted more than 160 members.

The front porch of their house doubles as a tasting room, which is open by appointment on weekends. They always make sure someone is home Friday through Sunday so they can be there for curious travelers. They plan to build a separate tasting room on the property in the foreseeable future and plant more vines. But paying for those plans can be problematic when the income they generate from wine sales immediately goes back into the business.

Which brings us back to the main question: What about profit?

“Can you be profitable? Yes, if you don’t take a salary out, and you have another job you can live off of,” said Rob. And that, he explains, doesn’t address amortizing any debt or capital expenditures. “That’s just paying the bills.”

But with all the hard work, costs and uncertainties of the wine business, the Campbell- Taylors feel they are finally making progress. Their Paso Tombstone Red table wine just won double gold and best in class at the California State Fair and was rated an impressive 97 points. They’ve also recently earned critical praise at the Orange County Wine Competition and the El Dorado Wine Competition.

With a lot of the difficult start-up issues behind them now, Paula compares starting a winery to giving birth.

“It’s a lot like pregnancy,” Paula explains. “No matter what you do, it has a life of its own. You can’t jump into it halfway.”