James Laube
Raising the Stakes in Santa Barbara
When you live in an intimate winegrowing area where everyone knows everyone else, own a high-profile wine shop and a prominent restaurant with an award-winning wine list, you might think that entering the winemaking business would be risky. It is.
That’s essentially the scenario that Doug Margerum stepped into a few years ago when he started Margerum Wine Co., which specializes in Santa Barbara County wines. But, he's proving he's got lots going for him as a winemaker: He knows wine, knows the area’s best winemakers and understands the lay of the land, keeping a focus on rich red wines from Santa Ynez Valley, an area well-suited for grapes such as Syrah.
As a result, Margerum's wines have been, by and large, well made, reflecting his knowledge of what it takes to make a complex and compelling wine. His wines typically earn high marks, and three of them scored in the very good to outstanding range during my Santa Barbara futures tasting.
Margerum already had a big stake in Santa Barbara wine when he decided to start making it. He founded the Wine Cask, which is both a restaurant and a retail outlet in the heart of Santa Barbara. Both feature great wine lists with a comprehensive global selection, from Bordeaux to Barolo, and are major wine hangouts.
As a retailer, Margerum has learned the importance of pricing. Most of Margerum’s wines fall into the $25 to $30 range (and less if you buy futures), and as such, are solid values given the quality. Perhaps he would like to sell his wines at higher prices—many winemakers do, for obvious reasons, be they egotistical or financial or anything in between. But I suspect Margerum understands that keeping his wines priced where they are allows him to do what he wants—create distinctive wines of place in his little winery.
So far he’s been able to walk that political tightrope. He’s able to promote and sell his wines as part of—not apart from—the Santa Barbara wine scene, and apparently that works for both him and the region.
Living the Wine Life
I was in our neighborhood supermarket with my son, who is now 6 years old, shopping for who knows what. As we turn the corner down one of the aisles, he screeches out loud, “Daddy’s WINE, Daddy’s WINE!” He has been doing this for as long as he could talk and I am now used to the stares that I get from those around us. This is our typical weekend trip to the supermarket and I guess my life in a nutshell. I am surrounded by wine all of the time, as my son could attest to, from my work on through to my daily life. But this is the life I have chosen and I must admit that it is not a painful existence.
You are probably asking yourself, who is this guy and what gives him the right to say that he is “living the wine life.” I guess a good place to start is to tell you how my love for wine started. It was 1989 and my junior year at UC Santa Barbara. For reasons I cannot recall, my friends and I suddenly decided that it was time to get “cultured” by taking a wine tasting class at the university. Up until that time, I never really enjoyed wine. Sure, I had drunk wines before but it was usually just cheap wines to get drunk or wine coolers to relax on the beach. The teacher of the class was a guy named Doug Margerum who owned a small restaurant/wine bar in downtown Santa Barbara called the Wine Cask. Doug had a passion for wine. I was addicted. Doug introduced my friends and I to the world of wine both inside and outside the classroom. He invited us to wine tastings at his restaurant and we received special discounts at his wine shop. For the next several years up until graduation in 1990, my friends and I spent every extra cent we had at the Wine Cask, on wines and on wine tasting road trips in and around Santa Barbara. I knew at that moment that I wanted to be involved with “wine” somehow, someway.
In 1991, Doug and the Wine Cask expanded the wine store and moved the restaurant across the hall to a beautiful gold dining room. In 1993, the restaurant received the Wine Spectator Grand Award and has received the award every year since.
As for me, after graduating and a year or so traveling around the world, I ended up in Japan and in 1998, having never been in the wine business before; Robert Mondavi came knocking on my door with an offer to head up their Japan operations.
After a glorious 7 years, I left Robert Mondavi and joined WineInStyle in 2005 with the dream of creating the top importer of premium wines in Japan. While in California on a wine buying trip, I decided to call up Doug to see if he had time for a drink at his restaurant to catch up (remember, it had been over 15 years since I sat in his classroom!) Instead, he asked me to come up to visit his winery. What a shock that was. Doug had basically traded in the knives and forks for a garage full of grapes and barrels!
I spent the next few days tasting Doug’s wines and on February 14, 2005 (yes, on Valentines Day), out on the terrace of his home up on the Santa Barbara “Riviera”, we agreed that WineInStyle would import Margerum Wines into Japan.
So, the story has come full circle and I am still amazed how life, or should I say, the wine life works. Since launching his wines in Japan back in 2005, Doug has visited several times. He has always said that he only sells his wines where he wants to visit and at this point, it is only in 4 markets – California, New York, Las Vegas, Aspen and Japan. Be sure to look out for Doug and his wines thoughout the iWine site and at restaurants and wine shops around town.
Writing this first newsletter is the start of a new journey for me and the company as we launch iWine Japan. Our aim is to create a wine lifestyle and commerce portal where wine lovers of any age, means and nation can buy great wines, with quality guaranteed no matter what their price range. We also want to build a sense of wine community by holding events and tasting to bring people with a passion for wine together to share a glass, a smile, a laugh and in so doing enrich peoples lives through wine and wine friendships. In my 10 years in the wine world, I have had the pleasure of meeting of wine lovers from all ages and walks of life—from winemakers and celebrity chefs to baseball managers and rock stars. I plan to share some stories and snapshots of these “chance” meetings as I live my daily wine life. Over time, I hope the iWine team and I will get to meet you all at some of our events and tasting and share a few tales.
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