Ep. 108 Monty Waldin interviews Rebecca Hopkins (Colangelo & Partners) | Monty Waldin's Let's Talk Wine Biz

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello, This is the Italian White podcast. It'll be Montewood. My guest today is Rebecca Hopkins. Rebecca is the Executive Vice President of a company called Colangelo and Partners, which is based in San Francisco. Welcome. Thank you, Monte. Well, let's just go back to the beginning. Start at the beginning. Where are you from? McLarenvale, South Australia. Okay. And how did you get into wine? I grew up actually in a non wine drinking family, and, I always wanted to be a geologist. And so in Australia, that's a relatively difficult path from a university studies point of view. It's it's a very highly competitive arena. And so I thought Geology. Geology. Because you have all these natural resources, don't you? Correct. Yeah. And a lot of people who would like to enter the field. And so I thought if I came at it still from Earth Sciences side, they came out of through wine and studied wine business at Lead University. So the business side was obviously very important to you. It became more important. I mean, I really wanted the foundation of the agricultural side of things, which living out at Roseworthy campus with eight hundred farmers and of which I think hundred of us were female. It was a very interesting, time of my university life. Well, in Roseworthy is famous for its wine education program to those other things. It is. Yeah. And it's the it's really the Australian Davis or the Australian, you know, Bordeaux University. Okay. So after that, what was your next stuff. So, well, when I was studying, I actually took a job at where or where a vineyard. So I was working in the cellar and cellar door combination of in the cellar operations, but mostly in the tasting room. And then from there, fell in love with an oyster farmer, moved to Tasmania. An oyster farmer. An oyster armour in, in kettering in the south of just south of Hobart, and, we had a hundred acre water lease. And, we were farming oysters and mussels and periwinkles, and then I looked up one day from the lease and saw the Aurora Australia saw going up the Don Tracosto channel and thought, what the heck am I doing here? I have this wine degree, and I'm not using it. So needless to say relationship fell apart. I moved back to Adelaide and, joined Robert Hill Smith. He was running negotiations Australia, obviously, an owns your lumber wines. So why is he important very briefly? He's important because he's one of the oldest family owned, you know, multi generational producers in Australia and, was one of was renowned and still is for having a fantastic import portfolio. And so I worked primarily as a marketing assistant on the import side of the world, which is when I started, really working with Italian wine. Okay. So it's quite interesting that, you know, you've gone to a sort of Australian wine blue chip university. I know you had the sort of shellfish? Are they shellfish mussels? Isn't they? Yes. Okay. At the shellfish? Five elves. By valves. By valves, beg your pardon. I don't wanna offend any bivalves on this show. And you worked for somebody that was making Australian wine, but importing foreign wine, particularly European wine, and that really for you was the catalyst, was it? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That was really I I remember I would sit there and transcribe Clive Coates reviews and transcribe the very early days of Parker, and kit Stevens would would run all of the, aura Bordeaux Negosian business. And so I would It's a briefly easy for the rest of people that don't know who kids is. Kit is, late kit Stevens is one of the great, wine negotiations in the UK and, really was one of the founding gentlemen that really helped grow European wine in Australia. So you're sort of you're starting to hang out with some, high level, highly respected, highly knowledgeable wine icons? I did. I had to pick up Angela Grier at the airport one day, and I took my wine spectator magazine with me to to the airport because I knew what he would look like. And, off the plane, stepped this impeccably dressed, you know, the guiling Italian man. And, I think I found my my calling. Right. And so when when was the wedding? We never formalized it. Okay. Oh, yeah. We'll give us another story we can follow-up at some stage. Interesting. Okay. So you were sort of thinking, meeting blue chip producers next step. Yeah. So a blue chip producer then took me to work for a woman called Pam Dunsford at a company called Pataway Estate. I was the only full time employee. Pam was a Churchill Fellowship winner first female winemaker at Roseworthy, and, I entered and won the Vonage Champagne award. I was the first student winner in nineteen ninety six. What what were you actually being awarded for for your winemaker? For my not awarded for my knowledge and my study and my passion for Allthing Champagne. And, so there was a student, a non professional and a professional sector. So Pam was the one that pushed me through that, and then I joined Pataway Estate, a very, very, very small sparkling house in Pataway, South Australia, which then took me to join Rymal winery and Kuna Wara in marketing and exporting and sales, and then joining, hearty wine company or BRL Hardy as we were back then in my first communications role as their, public relations manager, managing, all of our domestic, you know, wine business. How how big is or was BRL Hardy. Was it sending three bottles a year? Or Oh, goodness. We're an Australia's largest producer by volume and value, and I think ARostat was a bottle of Hardies that sold somewhere in the world every three seconds. And so it was a a big step on into commercial winemaking. And, we were acquired by constellation brands in two thousand and three. And, after the acquisition, I was then, ultimately moved to San Francisco go by constellation brands to set up and establish a luxury communications and events division for constellation brands. So that's what got me to the US. So you founded your own company in the States, or you founded a company under that umbrella? No. No. I was working for Hardy. And then, we were acquired by Constellation. And so I was an intercompany transfer, considered a micro move from, Ranella, South Australia to San Francisco, California. So how was the transition for you on a personal level? Difficult. Very difficult. I think, you know, although I was working obviously for a publicly listed Australian company, we were still very much run like a private family owned business. And Good thing or a bad thing. Both. I would say a good thing from a values point of view, but obviously there was a reason they were sold. And, stepping into the, as I call, the mothership of constellation brands was quite a culture shock. And I, luckily, at the time, our CEO was a gentleman called Jose Fernandez, who was one of the great leaders and thinkers of the wine business, and he really he'd come up through the ranks. He was actually a Juliet grad conductor, was his background was music and composition, but he was running the wine division for constellation. And so, you know, coming over, we were a little protected because we were the coast outpost of the headquarters in New York. But, you know, a Australian stock exchange reporting and trading is very different to New York stock exchange, investor relations, corporate communications, and of course brand public relations. So Well, much tougher, much more competitive, much, to be much more precise. Precise transparent. I would I would say that, the amount of regulation, of course, because this was all after you know, two thousand and eight, obviously came in pretty quick and hard. And so we we went through the, you know, the global financial crisis and, being a publicly listed company at that point, there was a lot of rules and regulations. For me, I was far more focused on the on the brand communication. So side of things. But, you know, it's it's run as a, you know, kind of Fortune five hundred top companies. So So did that then morph into Colangelo and partners? Yeah. I did. So I stayed with, Constellation, and obviously we acquired and divested a number of companies in that time. And by the time I left in two thousand and twelve, I actually joined Michael Mondavy for F polio Fine wine partners because I was done with corporate wine. Why why did it? Why was it a relief to get out of corporate? I'm not a corporate person. I never intended to be a corporate person. I just That never would have guessed. Yeah. I just ended up there because, you know, it's it's where my career path took me. And I was actually getting ready to go back to Australia. I was done. I still have my house in McClaren Vale I love going home. It's where I'm, you know, most at peace. And so I got a call from an ex colleague at Constellation who asked me to produce a celebrity chef tour of which I would rather, lay on a freeway than produce another high profile trial event. And I said, no, thank you. But I was fascinated to meet Michael Mondabi and the Mondabi family because, of course, with constellation, I had written a lot of the books on the Sam's viewpoint of of the deal. And, we, we'd managed Mr. Mondabi's passing. The sad Sands family, which is the owner of consolation. Right? Yes. Yes. The family, and and still owned by the two brothers, Richard, and and Rob, the sons of Marvin, the founder. And, so I wanted to meet Michael Mondabi. That was the whole reason I took the interview. And, it was my birthday. And, I walked in the room, and somehow someone had told Michael, it was my birthday. So he sang to me, sang me a birthday tune, and, gave me a bottle of champagne, somehow knowing that was my weakness, and, I signed on with folio, you know, the day, a day after. And I stayed with them for, just shy of six years. And then Juno Colangelo, the owner of Colangelo and partners, runs a very successful wine communications agency out of New York City ten years old at the time and said to me, look, you know, we were working together because Colangelo was the agency portfolio. And, you know, it was an opportunity to build upon a really successful company. You know, we're growing at, you know, ten to fifteen percent. We're now fifty five people. We're the largest and wine and wine, you know, communications agency in the US. What are the marketing speak terms that drive you mad? Bullpark. Catch all, circle back, ring fence, value engineer. I feel like I'm in a sales meeting at Constellation right now. Not with me. No. I'm not with you. You wouldn't be at you wouldn't be in that meeting. I would I wouldn't even be the janitor for that kind of thing. How did you guess? Yeah. We used to actually play bullshit bingo in, in marketing meetings. And, we'd have a little cheat sheet of the nine top words. And and you have we gave each other a really obnoxious word that you had to say and weave into a sentence when you when you actually got all nine. Do I give you an example? If you were given x word. Noxious word would be, Xantheum. What is that? Because we just make it up. It's just been obnoxious made up work. Yeah. So we would have to work it into a sentence that you'd have to be standing in front of the CFO or the SVP of finance and and argue this exact subject of late because we I was not in the right place, so I'll definitely tell you that when we're in those meetings. Alright. So you talk about selling wine with words, and words are very, very important to you. Mhmm. I'm not just talking about bivalves, but, obviously, words are very important to you. Why are they so important and why do we and I work in the communications business often get it wrong and how do we get it wrong and how can we stop getting it wrong? I think sometimes we don't wear too afraid to be who we are, and we're afraid to be vulnerable and tell the parts of our stories that are not what we would consider whistle clean. And we worry too much about how we're going to be perceived and we don't understand necessarily our audience is and what they want to hear. And we become quite product focused and and really interested in our own perspectives of what we think is important. And what we lose is the humanity of of the story. It's you know, of of course, that involvement in our communication changes depending on who we're talking to. If we're meeting with a distributor or we're meeting with a, you know, the PL CB, the Pennsylvania liquor control board who really come in at price and, and, you know, shelf set. They're less interested in the more romance or the emotional connection of a story, but then you have a consumer and a consumer wants to be entertained. You know, they want to be educated, and and they want to love what we do and and the wines that we enjoy. Okay. So at the moment, what campaigns are you working on at the moment? Right now, we're working on a California wine institute campaign, which is an ongoing program and Is that a global program, it's it's a US program. All of the programs that we do really are US focused. We have a couple of to that with, the Frisco Bal is obviously because they have a very strong communications focus here in Italy. And so we partner with them for Europe and US to and mostly online to make sure everything that's being communicated, you know, across geo refuses consistent. But the California project is is interesting, and it's a, you know, obviously a fantastic campaign because we are talking about some of the most beautiful wine growing areas in the world. But, of course, we've just been through the wildfires, and so the amount of of, the focus that has to shift quite quickly. We're obviously dealing with very sensitive subjects because we're talking about, you know, topics that are just you can't plan for them clearly. Sure. I mean, isn't isn't one of the issues with, I imagine, I think, you know, can look correct me if I'm wrong. The threat of millennials falling in love or refooling in love with French, Italian, natural, whatever you want a European wine to want of a better word, which they perceive as having more romance and possibly, you know, lower alcohol, not really maybe sustainability. And they're exciting because they're from the old world. Is that has that left California wines in the shade in California in the US? I don't think it's left them in the shade. I would say, you know, imported wine in the US is still probably only ten percent total market share in terms of sales. Absolutely skewing high with millennials, but we don't think that's a negative thing because if they're drinking wine, they're not drinking craft beer or spirits or other, you know, share of stomach. And so we look at it and say, you're coming into the beverage alcohol sector, and if you're coming in with a love for it and a discover there's an endless you know, wine is about discovery. It's this endless want to learn, and the the, you know, the beauty is with something like California that can actually come and see it. Right? These the demographic wants things they can touch see, feel, and engage with. Virtually or physically? Physically. Absolutely. Virtually is obviously because they're all of our digital assets are at our fingertips. Right? We can check-in. We can GPS our way to places and we can take a photo of a label and look it up to hear what others have said about it. But to be able to come to the vineyards or visit the winery or see a harvest in action or smell a ferment or taste a barrel example, you know, is something that I think is so unique to wine. And it's not new. We were doing this when I was working in tasting rooms. You know, one of the greatest things we do is bring in ripe grapes straight from the vineyard so that people could taste, you know, the raw product. And really, that's where your education process starts. I think the beauty with millennials is they won't be marketed to. They can find out any amount of information that they choose. Our challenges and industry is we need to go and meet them where they are and stop assuming that they're going to come to our tasting room. And by the way, if they put that case of wine in the back of the car, we better make sure we can follow where they go, what they do with it, how they drink it, who they share it with, and follow-up with them in a way that it's a conversation they wanna have. It's not just, oh, good. Now we've got your email address, and we're gonna blast you with a whole bunch of meaningless carry on. So final question, what happens when you, when you sort of leave the wine industry and go back to Australia and McLarenvale? What are you gonna do? You're gonna have grow vegetables? Are you gonna just put your feet up? I mean, you sat you seem like quite a a driven person who is always on the go quite wider. Are you are you capable of relaxing? Yeah. I'll never number one, I'll never leave the wine business because I'll never leave the land. It's something that I've I love. My happiest place is when I'm home or on the beach. And what would I do We always have a joke. My best friend is a wine maker from Tasmania, and we have a joke that we'd probably just have a really big shared house with all the families together. We'd have rocking chairs with champagne bucket in the middle. I would have at least two studios, one for yoga, one for meditation, a very large dining table, and we just see out the rest of the days. I have a very, juxtaposed life, I guess, because I'll leave here and go and, you know, sit in the desert in silence for a week very happily. Take water. A lot of water. Yeah. Health health and safety is a big concern for this, podcast. Just to say thanks very much to Rebecca Hopkins, Executive Vice President of Colangelo and partners in San Francisco, but originally from a very nice part of the world, McLaren unveiled. And it looks like one day you will probably end up there. Yeah. Thank you, right, Monteu. Thanks so much for having me. Enjoy enjoy the rest of your time in America. I will. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming in. 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