Ep. 2329 Barbara Fitzgerald interviews Harmon Skurnik of Skurnik Wines & Spirits | Masterclass US Wine Market

Harman is the president of Skernick wines and spirits, a leading importer and distributor of family owned wines and spirits that was founded by Harmon's brother, Michael, in nineteen eighty seven. So our key three takeaways for today and what we're really excited to learn from Harman are first of all, The tariffs in real time. What's happening today? What's at stake? Second, the collateral damage? How these tariffs hurt US wine businesses and consumers? And third, how do you build your business, your wine business in a volatile market? Some lessons maybe we can take from Skernick Wines. Alright. Let's dive right in. Welcome to Masterclass US wine market with me Barbara Fitzgerald. In this show, we'll break down the complexities of selling wine in the US. By discussing the relevant issues of today with experts from around the globe. Each episode serves up three key insights to help elevate your wineries presence in the US market. So grab a pen and paper and let's pave the way for your success in the US. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Masterclass US wine market. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Harmon Skernick to the show. Harmon is the president of Skernick wines and spirits. A leading importer and distributor of family owned wines and spirits that was founded by Harmon's brother, Michael, in nineteen eighty seven. Since joining the company in nineteen eighty nine, after a decade with marketing agencies like BBDNO Hartman has helped grow Skernick from a small startup into a nationally recognized portfolio representing over five hundred states with direct operations in nine US states. He's also a passionate industry advocate serving on the board of the US wine trade alliance. Where he's been a vocal opponent of harmful tariffs on imported wines and spirits. So welcome to the show, Carmen. It's really great to have you here. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. As I mentioned, when we chat before, I'm such a fan of the Skarnig Port Folio. So I wish that we got to meet under more, you know, more romantic circumstances. Well, we could we could always use an extra fan. We love fans. Why we've been successful. We have a lot of fans, but I would like to say at the outset, we are a fan of Italian wine and have been since a very long time, but in the business since the mid nineteen nineties, where we have imported many, many Italian wines from all over the boot And we are have been championing Italian wines in the United States for several decades now. And, it is a particular area of passion for myself, and I drink Italian wines all the time. And So thank you for having a podcast that focuses on the great wines of Italy. I think I think it's the country with the most indigenous grape varieties of any country in the world. And, and I think that a lot of people feel or, you know, think of Italy and they think of Barolo or in Bruno and and some of the great DOCs, but there are literally hundreds of small DOCs with just gorgeous beautiful wines that express terroir throughout the country. And we are, happy to be a leader in importing these great wines. And we hope that we can continue to import them despite the current headwinds in Washington, DC. Yes. Well, thank you for saying that music to our Vititally international ears. But before we dive into today's discussion, Harman, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and and how you came to work in the wine business? Sure. Well, you know, growing up in a suburban household in Long Island and on the south shore of Long Island bedroom community, typical American upbringing, middle class upbringing. I would say our household was a little unusual because my parents in nineteen seventy when I was just a wee lad. Took a trip to, Europe, and they went to France and famously, they left scotch drinkers and they came home wine drinkers. So they came back very passionate about subject, my father built a wine cellar in the basement, and, my mother stocked it with sixty one Bordeauxs and German wines and Italian wines, and and they started drinking wine with dinner regularly. And so I as a child, I got exposed to it at a very early age. You know, fast forward to after graduating university and working my brother, Michael, who's my partner in in this business, was working at the top of the World Trade Center at windows on the world as a waiter and got an opportunity to work in the wine cellar there for Kevin Israeli, who's a very well known today, expert, wine educator, but he was the head sommelier at windows on the world, which was the number one wine destination for any restaurant in the United States from the nineteen seventies to the time of its demise, unfortunately. I started working up there as well when I came back, while I was a student, and I came back in the summers, Michael got me a job up there. So we we both got exposed to wine from a restaurant's point of view early. And while I pursued my marketing career, I was in advertising, worked in advertising agencies over the next several years. Michael Pursuit of Career and Wine worked for Kevin as a seller rat there as we call it. And then, went out selling for one distributor that's now defunct called establishment import company as a salesman and Later on, he got a job working for a burgundy negotiator called Mommission as a national sales rep, went around the country, selling to distributors. And kind of on the side, he met a few winemakers in California, some producers that nobody had ever heard of before. One is called Bonnie Dune, and the others called William Saliam. Nobody had ever heard of them. And, he started bringing in a few cases on the side as a favor to some friends of his who used to work at windows and now we're buyers at various restaurants around the city. And so he brought in five cases here, five cases there, and that was the beginnings of developing a business for himself. And a couple of years later after he was dabbling in in in that sort of business, he landed a French portfolio that was imported by Kermit Lynch. And, you know, with names like coach Doree and Ravanoe and Viewtelegraph, And the legend goes, he call he gave me a call and said, quit your job and come work for me. That's in nineteen eighty nine. And the rest is history. Yeah. It kind of isn't. It flew by in a nano second. I mean, here we are thirty eight years later, And we're employing two hundred and seventy five people all over the country. We've got wholesale operations in nine states, and we're a national importer many wines from Italy, as well as Germany, Austria, France, and Spain as well. And, you know, it's been a great ride. And it's been a great ride tariff free for thirty four out of those thirty eight years. We had a little bit of a a tariff headache in the twenty nineteen in the first Trump administration. And now it's coming back in spades. Yeah. Well, that's a great segue into our discussion today, which is gonna be again based on these current tariffs. I'd like to note the date that we're recording. It's April sixteenth just because it seems like This conversation is constantly in flux. So this is April sixteenth and we try to turn these tariff episodes around as quickly as possible. But yeah, Harmon really has this great rare, dual perspective. You're deeply rooted in fine wine and experienced in navigating global supply chain volatility. And as we mentioned, as president of Scernic wines and spirits, you've played a pivotal role in growing the company's portfolio from around the world. So you've really become one of the most respected voices in fine wine and spirits distribution. Flattery will get you everywhere. Good. With this decades of experiencing, navigating complex global supply chains, you can bring some really critical insight into how these escalating tariffs tend to disrupt, not just imports, but the broader US wine market. It. So our key three takeaways for today and what we're really excited to learn from Harmon are, first of all, the tariffs in real time. As I mentioned, it's April sixteenth. What's happening today? What's at stake? Second, the collateral damage. How these tariffs hurt US wine businesses and consumers. And third, how do build your business, your wine business in a volatile market? Some lessons maybe we can take from Skernick wines. Alright. So let's dive right in. So we are, you know, kind of in the midst, not kind of. We are in the midst of a trade war. So how would you describe the current state of play? And what do you think are the most realistic steps in escalation? I would say the current state of play is volatile. I mean, everything about this administration seems to be all about volatility instability, uncertainty. These are all adjectives that we don't like to ascribe to the business world. It's not possible to really plan and conduct your business in an era of instability when you don't know what your costs are going to be. You know, right now, I'm sure most of your listeners know and are in the industry so they've been following what's going on. You know, we had threats at one point of up to two hundred percent tariffs that Trump put out in a tweet overnight one night and, you know, it's rattled the the wine industry because it's one thing to have a ten percent tariff, and I'm I'm not saying that's a good thing because I believe in free trade, and there shouldn't be any tariffs. But it's one thing to have ten percent. And you could kind of manage that. And it's another thing to have two hundred percent and or anything in between could put you out of business. We had an experience with tariffs back in twenty nineteen, as I mentioned, and it came all of a sudden. It was on an airbus dispute with Boeing, and, they decided to tariff wine as a result of that. And it not only was it twenty five percent at the time, but it also went into effect overnight. So we had containers that were on the water that we had ordered weeks before. And the ones that arrived, the next day, we had to pay that tariff right up front in order to get those goods. And, you know, you're talking about unplanned expenses of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a business. You can't really operate effectively that way when you don't know what your costs are. So and we were kinda caught flat footed at that time. We didn't know that tariffs could be a thing. We never even heard the word tariff in my first thirty five years in the business. So this time, we tried not to be flat footed. You know, we had created this organization called the US wine trade alliance, which has over a hundred members of the wine trade mostly in distribution, but also restaurateurs and other business owners, you know, we're all aligned on this issue. We're all aligned to be anti tariffs. And so we got together six months before the last election And we realized that this was a big campaign pledge of trump's, you know, tariff is is the most beautiful word in the English language and stuff like that, ridiculous stuff like that. And we realized that we had to organize and get together and and try to fight this from a very early stage. So we've been doing this for almost a year now, advocating hiring a lobbyist in Washington, DC, going down and talking to legislators, inviting them to wine tastings, letting them understand why imported wines are so are so good for this country and how it impacts American businesses. It's not something that hurts the only the targeted country, but it hurts American businesses, American workers, and creates layoffs and unemployment and possibly puts companies out of business. So that's where we are. It's very volatile, and we don't know what the end game is. We don't know where we'll end up. We could end up ten percent for the next four years, or it could be twenty, which was what was threatened very recently for the EU, which Italy is a part of, but there were higher rates for other countries. I mean, South Africa was thirty percent. And so It's very, very volatile. But, you know, the thing is back in twenty nineteen, that airline dispute was only focused on one. Now we're dealing with tariffs that are focused on all industries. And so we don't know where it's gonna end up. We do know that they're focused very, very strongly right now on China. Mhmm. That's a terrible thing if you're an importer of Chinese goods. I mean, it's already at a hundred and forty five percent. I don't know how you can survive with that kind of attacks on the goods that come into this country. But it seems like this cold war between the US and China is what's escalating. And the only silver lining of that might be that the EU takes a little bit of a back seat to that and maybe they don't hit us that hard. And one thing that the EU did that was very, very positive in this negotiation or in this, build up They had originally threatened a fifty percent tariff in retaliation on on American whiskey when the US put tariffs on their aluminum or steel, and that's when Trump tweeted the two hundred percent threat. But the wine industry, when that happened, really got together and communicated that you might wanna back off on that fifty percent thread on the on the whiskey and they have. And the fact that they have backed off on that has kind of cooled the jets a little bit. And hopefully, same minds will prevail, and we will end up with no more than ten percent, but hopefully zero. Yeah. So kind of to your point, Right now, the tariffs are in this ninety day pause, the EU tariffs, and it's not really a reprieve. Right? It's kind of a pressure cooker window because, I mean, it it would be great if it drops to ten percent or zero, but it seems like from my perspective that this really is like administration's kind of policy, how they wanna present to the world of, you know, kind of being this this force in this way. So it could also be more than twenty percent. Which means that you guys are you as importers are stuck. How can you make investments not knowing, you know, what happens when this order arrives at your door? So true. I mean, you know, we do have ninety days where we have some I mean, he could change any day. Right. He just don't know because it's so unpredictable, but we do feel pretty confident that over the next ninety days, we have a business climate that we understand. We know that if we buy anything now and it comes in in the next three months, we'll pay ten percent. And we are going forward with that knowledge, but it's only ninety days. We don't know what's going to happen after that. It's interesting because they use the term pause, you know. A lot of people think, oh, well, they just paused it for ninety days. Well, they didn't actually pause it because we have a ten percent tariff now that we didn't have before. Right. So we have this additional cost, but, you know, we won't we won't know until July where we stand. And that's really what we need. We need some certainty. We need to know that the business climate, you know, we need to know what we're dealing with. So that we can plan. Right now, there's we're paralyzed as far as planning is concerned. Right. And when talking about, you know, kind of who else pays the price of a tariff, maybe you can help us trace through the supply chain. You know, what happens the moment? We'll just say twenty percent. What happens from the moment a twenty percent tariff hits your invoice? Well, for one thing, we have to pay it upfront. So, you know, the the goods arrive at the port We have to pay our custom fees. We normally pay excise taxes. It's, you know, it's a small percentage of of the total value of the container. But if it's twenty percent and you have a container worth a hundred thousand dollars just as news an example, gotta write a check for twenty thousand dollars just to release the container. So it's a sales tax is what it is, and it's a tax on American business and American consumers. You know, don't let any politician fool you when they say, we're tariffing these foreign countries, and the foreign countries are paying it. No. We pay it as American businesses. And in the wine industry, we pay more. We are harmed more than other industries. I'll try to give you an example we have a, as you probably well know, we have a three tier system in the American wine distribution business that was set up after prohibition, and there are it's very regulated business. And the law says that imported wines that come in have to be imported by an American company. That's a law. And then they have to in turn be sold to an American owned distributor. That's also a law. That's not the case with other European goods. Louis Vuitton sells handbags. They bring them in a French company imports them in a French owned store on Fifth Avenue sells them. There's no dom perignon store on Fifth Avenue. It has to be sold by an American company. So the re the result of all that is for every dollar that we spend on imported wines, it generates over four dollars and fifty cents of American revenue to American companies. So the impact of tariffs are much greater on the American importers and the American distributors, retailers, restaurants than it is on the targeted country. And that's why tariffs on wine are a bad idea. Where were we there? Where were we? Well, you're talking about how, you know, basically for every one dollar of tariff, it's costing American businesses consumers about four fifty. Right. So so these these tariffs do do tremendous damage to American businesses. We have you know, three hundred and fifty thousand restaurants in the United States. We have fifty thousand wine retailers. We have six thousand wine importers and distributors. All of these companies employ a number of American workers. As I said before, If we were to get a hundred percent tariff or a two hundred percent tariff, it could put us out of business and and cause an incredible amount of unemployment. So these tariffs are destructive, and they do tremendous damage to American businesses. Then, you know, of course, there's just a whole way of life argument. I mean, you know, an Italian restaurant who has a beautiful Italian menu, and they have to have Italian wines on the list for the authentic experience. It's incredibly important. I mean, you think that an Italian restaurant can just be forced into buying American wines. These are not fungible commodities like steel and aluminum. You can tariff steel and aluminum and create a market that's better for American steel manufacturers because the seal the steel is the same produced in America as produced in China. But brunello de Montalchino, that can't be produced in America. Barolo Gave. So, you know, these wines are unique. They reflect where they come from, and they're authentic. And this is the world we grew up in. This is the world having the availability of these great wines at retail or in, you know, our great restaurants. I mean, this is this is the American way of life that they're threatening. I actually, a couple weeks ago on the same topic, talked to Jason Haz from Douglas Creek, and he was saying, you know, we've kind of come up, you know, this golden era of not just having this really robust wine production area, but having the kind of greatest diversity of wines available to us of anywhere in the world. And that's been a real, like, gift to Americans, and I'm not sure that consumers yet understand what this threatens for them and what, you know, the the kind of accessibility they're used to. Jason is totally right, and he's been a terrific advocate from the standpoint of American wine producers. I I think that's something that people don't always understand either that most American wine producers, domestic wine producers are anti tariff too. And which doesn't enter reason. It may not be the case with other industries, but they understand the same regulations apply to them. I mean, American wine producers need to sell to a distributor, by law and other states. So if That distributor sells both domestic and imported wines as to lay off half their staff and has to be threatened to go out of business. That's not good for the American wine producer either. So the vast majority of American wine producers are anti tariff and and that's counterintuitive in the tariff argument. Yeah. Even too, it seems our own administration because they think this is gonna benefit our domestic production. Not true. Yes. All the producers are really trying pushing back hard against that. So some of the things that some people have been doing to maybe try to mitigate risk, etcetera is like, you know, trying to stockpile a little bit more pre buy. But can you explain why those strategies might backfire? Would they backfire? Yeah. Well, it's interesting because back in twenty nineteen, we had an an experience with that. Not only do we have the twenty five percent tariff, but we also had a threat at one point of one hundred percent tariff against Champagne. I don't know if if everybody who listens to the podcast remembers that, but because it never went into effect. It was a threat just like this two hundred percent threat. And the champagne producers and we who import a lot of champagne kind of panicked a little bit, and we brought in unlike a year's supply of champagne in anticipation so that we would be able to get through that period. And it never came to fruition, and we ended up, you know, overloaded with inventory for quite some time, and which really puts a damper on your cash flow. It makes it difficult to operate. So this time, we have decided not to panic. And panicking is not a good way to run a business and not and not to stock up because, you know, cash flow is everything in this business. You you you can't have all of our cash tied up in inventory and operate effectively. And because of the volatility and because it's always changing and and the unpredictability, we don't know what the business rules will be in three months or six months. And so it's not a good gamble to do that even if you have the cash to do it. Right. And the fact that, you know, a lot of economists believe that we're headed for a recession. So, you know, if you're stockpiling online at a certain price point and then we head into this recession, you might be stuck with that. You might have to drop the price, take a loss. So No. In fact, in fact, it was quite quite the opposite rather than stocking up when we were worried about the two hundred percent threat about six weeks ago or so, the US wine trade alliance advised all of its members to stop buying wines from the EU because we didn't know whether that tariff was gonna come into effect, and we didn't know whether we would have a goods on the water exception. And so, you know, the unpredictability of this look, well, let's just stop buying because we just don't know. And until which time we had this ninety day reprieve, that's when we started shipping again. It's no way to run a candy store. I'll tell you that. Right. Yeah. Are there certain price segments or or even specific wine categories that you think are gonna feel the pain first? Yeah. I think the value price point is the one that's most at risk. You know, if you have a wine that sells for a hundred and fifty dollars a bottle on the luxury side and it's now a hundred and fifty five or a hundred and sixty, you know, that well healed consumer may not bat an eye. But we know our retail friends, you know, they'll tell you they have certain price points on the shelf that really move. Let's just take take nine ninety nine. The famous price point retailers like to charge rather than dollars. They know that if it's nine ninety nine, they're gonna sell a certain amount. And if it goes up to eleven ninety nine, and they're gonna sell half of it. Just, the nature of the economic model. And so I think the value winds will be affected the most And then, of course, there's the discussion between the importer and the supplier on how might we mitigate these tariffs. And some producers are willing to contribute to mitigating that tariff by reducing their prices. And some are not. And so the ones that do mitigate in concert with the importer have a better chance of maintaining the market share by keeping the prices steady While those who don't, the prices have to go up because, these types of things do get passed on. We just can't absorb them. Right. Well, let's talk for a moment, you know, you have in your career seeing probably a lot of disruptions. I know you've talked a bit about the previous Trump administrations tariffs on French wines, but what feels different about this moment? It's just the unpredictability. We've had disruptions before, like you said. I mean, COVID was a big disruption. That had a ton of unpredictability at first. We didn't know whether, you know, the economy would just go into a depression and we would you know, our sales would drop by fifty percent. Restaurants were closed for god's sakes. You know? We didn't know. So there was a lot of unpredictability there, but it wasn't man made. You know? Yeah. It was getting a handle on on a situation. You know, following nine eleven, we had a know, similar kind of recession and, of course, in two thousand eight, the great recession financial crisis. But eventually, after a certain number, a certain amount of time, the conditions, the playing conditions become evident. And you're able to plan. You know, crisis planning is all about possibility. I always say, you know, plan for the worst and hope for the best. But the conditions become evident with time. And hopefully, that will be the case here But it, you know, for the last six months and now for another ninety days, we still have a period of uncertainty and we don't know what the business conditions are. So it like we said before, it's hard to plan Yeah. In those conditions. We hope it will become evident shortly, and then we can deal with it. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So what would you say, you know, especially for some small producers or importers Do you have any advice for what they can actually do right now to stay resilient? Again, I, you know, don't panic. Don't make any panic moves. Work with your suppliers to try to mitigate risk. If your supplier will give you a ten percent discount to so that you don't have when you pay that tariff, the prices can remain stable. That's good for them. It's good for you. And, you know, guard your cash flow. I mean, it's, in periods of instability, you've got to be flexible. You know, unfortunately for for the producer who, you know, many of whom are listening here, this kind of environment is is kind of like a paralysis. You you can't commit to large purchases. Like you normally might. That's a great vintage. Let's commit to x number of cases. If you don't know the business conditions you're operating under, it's really hard to do that. So, you know, for the small and medium importers where cash flow is tough to begin with. You just gotta be careful and don't make any rash rash moves. Yeah. That's good advice. Because you've also been, you know, so active in advocacy, you know, it's very important right to show up as a unified voice. So how can other businesses really plug into the work you're already doing here with the US wine trade alliance? Thanks for asking. Yeah, we can use as many members as we can get not to mention the donations too. I mean, this this stuff is really expensive to hire a top notch lobbyist firm in Washington DC is very expensive, and we've gotten tremendous participation. Right? Many, many importers across the country, and we're really, really thankful for that. We have a website. It's US Wind Trade Alliance dot com, I believe. We have a Facebook page called US Wind Trade Alliance, which you can join. And it's good to be a member not only to help in the cause, but there's a lot of information that we're constantly sharing with the membership because it's changing so radically so often. Right. And so you get on that mailing list so that you can be updated on the ever changing circumstances. Yeah. I mean, these are kind of like the key words of the topic, volatility, unpredictability, and as you said, how can a business strategize in that landscape? It's really difficult. Yeah. It's, it's impossible. And so we hope it'll be short lived and the rules will become apparent shortly. That's what we could do. We can hope. Hope for the best. Yes. Well, you know what? I was gonna ask you before we wrap up, I was gonna ask you this one final question. What is giving you hope right now? Anything? It's hard. Great wine gives me hope. Yeah. I look. I I'll tell you what. The unity of of the wine industry against this gives me some hope. You can get a bunch of wine importers in the room and retailers and restaurant buyers, and you can talk about anything, and you will not get agreement on almost any topic. You know, be, you know, everybody has a different opinion on what's good and what works and what's right. But when it comes to tariffs, there's more unity than on any other topic. And so we're so so fully aligned on it that it gives me some hope that and we've had some successes. You know, this last announcement on the tariffs did come with the goods on the water exception, which means that all the goods that were on their way to the United States were not subject to the tariffs. And that was a good thing, and it came because of our advocacy. Yeah. And, you know, we just hope that at some point, we've had a lot of good discussions with senators and congress people. They understand what's at stake. But again, it's not just the one industry that's threatened right now. So it's kinda hard to stand out, but we hope someday they will realize, when they do come out with a list of what products ought to be tariff, they ought to leave wine off of it. Yeah. Because as you said, we can't have Kiente Cholasico in California and, you know, burgundy and and Those wines. Canon or. Yeah. Those wines are special for California and Washington, special for other reasons, but not because they're Kiente or or burgundy. No. We believe in terroir. We're in the wine industry. We believe in terroir. These products are unique. And, you know, California makes great chardonnay in Cabernet, but it, you know, it's not burgundy in Bordeaux. And New York state makes an amazing riesling, but it's not Mosel or Rhingau. And those products are unique. And in the United States, we like to have access to all of these products from all over the world. It would be a sad day of We were forced to only drink American wine as much as I love American wine. We started out as a company being a distributor of American wines. And, we today, you know, almost half of, what we sell is is American produced. We're big fans, but It doesn't mean that we should force our economy to only buy American ones as patriotic as that sounds. It's also patriotic to have access to goods from all over the world. This is this is America. This is land of free trade. Yeah. Milton Friedman, there's a video going around where who he's an economist from the nineteen six seventies and eighties who I I used to follow. He's a free trade economist. And when he was talking about tariffs, He said, you know, yeah, there are countries around the world that tariff us, but should we respond by tariffing them? He said it's like being in a boat and the your friend who's in the boat takes a gun and shoots a hole in the bottom of the boat. And it starts to sink. And your response to that is to shoot another hole in the boat. Yeah. Is that the proper response? No. Because we believe in free trade, you know, you tariff us. We tariff you. The goal the ultimate goal of all of this we hope would be zero zero tariffs. Europe can be protectionist and they do have tariffs on on some American but it's not not wine. I don't think the tariffs on American wine are very high at all. But if if the negotiators get together and they actually say, let's make it zero zero. We won't tariff you. You don't tariff us. We'll be very, very happy with that outcome. I hope that's what they will do. Unfortunately, I think that this administration is kind of drunk on these. Sorry to use the industry lingo. On the potential. They're intrigued by the potential of the revenue that they're gonna get from these tariffs. You know, they want to make their tax cuts permanent on their constituents and their billionaire buddies. And the way that they can do that, the only way they can do that is by taking in this revenue these tariffs. I mean, that's I think the way they're thinking. And if that's the way they're thinking, then they're not gonna be incentivized to go to the zero zero result. Right. Hope they do. Yes. Me too. I hope that it's kind of the history and the sociology even of the product is where we've we're supposed to share it with other countries, other cultures, other peoples, and connect with each other through that. So That's the way it's always been. I hope we get back to that someday. You know, Americans love to travel to Europe. We love to go to Italy. We love everything Italian. We love Italian food. We love Italian wines. I hope, Sainter mines will prevail. Part of this the results of this latest, spat with Canada is that Canadians are not traveling to the United States to on vacation anymore. The airplanes are empty. I mean, the publicity on this for the American way of life around the world is so negative. Yeah. And I really hope we can get back to America being viewed by the world as this beacon of freedom and this beacon of of hope and not as this negative bullying country that just wants to browbeat its friends and enemies with these, tariffs as as a cudgel. I hope they'll we'll get away from that. Here here. Because speaking of patriotism, our American wine brands are hurting because of this perception. I mean, we know in Canada, they're taking off the shelves, but there's other countries too that are starting to turn away American tenders, and there's just no appetite for American products right now in the global context, and that hurts our small producers or any size producer here, but especially, you know, the little guys that have invested so much. It's man made self destruction. There's no winners in it. In a trade war, there are no winners. Yes. And I think that's an important point to to drive home because we want our global industry to understand that know, there's no really part of the supply chain in the US that supports what's happening with tariffs on on alcohol right now. No. And, you know, I feel bad for the three hundred fifty thousand restaurants in particular because, well, first of all, they went through hell during COVID. And now the business is pretty good for for restaurants, you know, they've come back quite a bit, bounced back from that experience, but they don't make any money on the food. Restaurants don't make money on the food. Margins are razor thin. Where they make money is online on their wine list, particularly imported wine, if you're an Italian restaurant. And if we make those wines unaffordable, then I I fear for these restaurants will go through another period where they'll have to go out of business. And it's just, you know, haven't they suffered enough? Right. Well, on that note, we we will start winding down here, and we like to wrap up master class US wine market with a rapid fire quiz where we ask our guests three questions to help our listeners just better understand the US wine market and and specifically this episode. So just answer in a couple sentences if you can, but number one, what is your number one tip for mastering the US wine market? My number one tip for mastering the US wine market. Well, I would say hire good people have a couple of adages that we have repeated over and over again is, you know, to be successful in this business, You have to have good product. You have to have great wines, and you have to have great people. And if you have both of those things, you know, you can you have a chance to be successful. I love that. We try to and I think we apply the same kind of skills to hiring people as we do to which wines we select for the portfolio. Those are the two key components. Yeah. It's beautiful at the end of the day. It's about people. I love that. Okay. Number two, what is something you would have told your younger professional self about selling wine in the US? I would say, you know, master your craft and know your product product knowledge and it is incredibly important and also know your customers and be cognizant of their needs. I think some there are some people in the wine business who are very full of themselves, you know, but it's really all about the customer. And, you know, Steve Jobs, there's a video that goes around, back in the day. I think that's what made Apple successful not only their innovation, their product innovation, but they were very, very customer oriented customer focused. And if you focus on your customer's needs that will help you be successful in any part of this business, Yeah. That's great advice. Again, back to the people. So first, the people who you who's getting the product out there and then second, the people you're getting it to. Exactly. It's all about. It's a people business. That's for sure. Yeah. Okay. And last, We move around a lot in the wine industry. So what is your favorite travel hack when doing market work? Travel hack is not a a phrase that comes from my generation, but I think what you mean is, you know, something when you're traveling the Yeah. Some practical advice went on the road. That's the most practical advice I would get when you're traveling is don't check your bag. Take a small bag, put take it on board, get off the plane and you're you're done. You know, you don't have to worry about your bag being lost, but I don't know. Is that a travel hack? That is. And I'm also a disciple of the carry on luggage. It's like, yeah. It's the only way to go. Well, Carmen, thank you so much for your time today for joining us and giving us all these incredible insights. How can our listeners connect with you? Well, they can just go to sternic dot com as our web site or, on social media, we are pretty active on Instagram. I believe it's at sternic wines as well. And on Facebook, we don't do much on X these days. And you can reach out there on my own page on Instagram and and Facebook is also there. H Skernick, I believe it is, you know, happy to see you there. And, or you could send me an email. My my email address is h s at skernick dot com. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for all of your time today. I hope we get to do that warm and fuzzy sharing of wine sometime soon. Yes. When this is all over, let's do that. Yeah. Alright. Cheers. Take care. Thanks, globally. And that's a wrap for this episode of Masterclass US wine market. Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode and want to stay up to date with the latest industry trends, remember to like, follow, and share our podcast. And if you find value in our conversations, please leave us a review to help others discover the show and grow our community. Stay tuned for new episodes every Monday. Until then,