Business as Usual

by Robert Haas

Or, maybe I should write business as unusual: then and now.

As you can see from the photo view, we are starting new construction on the third and last phase of building Tablas Creek Vineyard’s winery: adding 8,000 sq. ft. to give us one-third more working space in the winery and in the offices, and a new tasting room integrated into the cellar on the east side of the winery, facing Adelaida Road. A rendering of the new tasting room and entrance shows what it should look like at completion.

We've come a long way since the winery’s original construction in 1997:

Thanks to a little serendipity we are able to operate our tasting room without inconvenience to our visitors throughout construction. We are able to do so not because of thoughtful planning on our part but because our original business plan did not include a tasting room! Our original thinking about how to market Tablas Creek followed the French model, where wineries are largely absent from the marketing of their product. Château de Beaucastel, like most top French estate wineries, is open to tasters by appointment only and direct sales represent only a tiny part of their business.

By 2002, we had come to the conclusion that our lack of a tasting room was a mistake. Guests who made appointments and came to visit left like disciples, and we would hear stories months later of people with whom a visitor had spoken who had themselves become excited about Tablas Creek. It became clear that making it easier for people to experience our wines and learn our story would only help us distinguish ourselves within the world of wine. What’s more, we calculated that the direct to consumer sales allowed by a tasting room were essential for our bottom line. So we converted our original entrance foyer on the west side (facing away from Adelaida Road) into a tasting room, and three years later expanded into what had been our conference room and my office. We chose this space as the only reasonable area for a tasting room within the current building. Not at all in our thinking at the time was that our second and third phases of construction were planned for the opposite side of the winery.

And oh, do we need the extra space. We’re outgrowing our cellar space, our offices and our tasting room simultaneously. The cellar has been saved the past few years by drought-reduced harvests, but we have nowhere to put the new upright fermenters or additional foudres we’d like to add to the cellar, and have had to store barrels in a refrigerated barn down near our greenhouses. All our staff are double- or triple-bunked in offices. And those of you who have come to see us on weekends have at times been asked to wait while we clear up space at a tasting bar, or have been served at the folding tables we set up in our barrel room every Friday. Even better, the new tasting room will be integrated into the new cellar construction, with walls of windows into both fermentation and barrel storage and – we hope – ongoing educational opportunities for everyone who comes to taste.

So, once again, serendipity plays its role. Visitors will see the new construction as they drive past the winery, but it will be far away from the tasting room itself and should be unnoticeable to guests.

Harvard Business School teaches (or at least it used to teach), “Build your business plan and then stick to it.” But my own 60 years of business experience has taught me, “If the plan has flaws change it.” So we did. And here we are in 2010 expecting to comfortably receive about 24,000 visitors, all the while preparing our premises for future decades.