Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right podcast.
Speaker 1: We're super excited today to have with us the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Republican Read Wines, Paul Johnson, is with
Speaker 1: us to talk about wines, tariffs, conversation, all of it.
Speaker 1: Very happy that you're here with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with.
Speaker 3: Us, Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: So tell our audience, give our audience sort of the
Speaker 1: inside scoop, if you will, about the American wine industry
Speaker 1: and what people might be say the most surprised to
Speaker 1: learn about how wine is actually grown and bottled and
Speaker 1: sold and all of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of people think that when
Speaker 3: you think of a winery, you think of a vineyard
Speaker 3: on a winery and they grow the grapes and they
Speaker 3: make the wine and they sell to your doorstep. People
Speaker 3: kind of have this notion of the wine industry. But really,
Speaker 3: while there are some wineries like that it's pretty it
Speaker 3: can also be very fragmented where people just focus on
Speaker 3: growing other companies just focus on making wine, and others
Speaker 3: will be focused on kind of marketing and selling brands
Speaker 3: and something that people don't know. And there's been quite
Speaker 3: a bit of press about this, at least within the
Speaker 3: industry is big wineries especially kind of use this approach
Speaker 3: where they can import up to twenty five percent of
Speaker 3: a blend of a bottle from South America, Australia, Europe
Speaker 3: and put it into a bottle that is labeled as
Speaker 3: if it's made in America. And when you add up
Speaker 3: all of that imported wine, it's roughly equal to the
Speaker 3: shortage that you know, I come up from a farming background,
Speaker 3: so I'm partial to the farming side of things, and
Speaker 3: if you add up what is imported, it is roughly
Speaker 3: equal to the shortage that the American farmers face. And
Speaker 3: so farmers are left dropping fruit on the ground, and
Speaker 3: yet a lot of the big wine companies are importing
Speaker 3: wine and it's you know, you look at this going
Speaker 3: this may be as a good case for tariffs to
Speaker 3: support the American industry. Yeah, so it's something that I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people don't realize and something I
Speaker 3: like to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about
Speaker 2: the US wines that contain all the imported juice. And
Speaker 2: then how do Americans know how they even navigate that?
Speaker 2: How do they even know how to to choose like
Speaker 2: American wine.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, it's like anything else, you really have
Speaker 3: to look into the company that you're buying from. If
Speaker 3: this is something you care about, then you know, take
Speaker 3: a closer look at the company itself. And if it's
Speaker 3: a multinational company or a very large winery, chances are
Speaker 3: they're running at a level where they would consider bringing
Speaker 3: in imports and they're looking very much at their bottom
Speaker 3: line and margins, and you know they're more likely to
Speaker 3: do that. Your smaller wineries, you know, they're less likely
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that you know that this could be
Speaker 1: a good case for tariff so and you mentioned also
Speaker 1: that you have a farming background. So what would a
Speaker 1: pro American, pro farmer tariff policy look like Exactly, one
Speaker 1: that would protect growers and wine makers like.
Speaker 3: You, specifically to do with bulk wine imports. So, this
Speaker 3: wine has moved around, you know, before it's put into bottle,
Speaker 3: it's just sitting in large tanks. You could put it
Speaker 3: into tankers, you can move it around the world. And
Speaker 3: so that's how bulk wine has moved around and imported
Speaker 3: into the country. And so I would support having tariffs
Speaker 3: specifically on bulk wine coming in and not necessarily hurting
Speaker 3: you know, the producers that you know, French wine and
Speaker 3: Italian wine and Argentinian malbek and all these wines that
Speaker 3: people love. There's a place for that, and I don't
Speaker 3: oppose having free trade there. But when we're bringing in
Speaker 3: bulk wine and then blending it into something that says
Speaker 3: it's American made, that's where, especially when it hurts the
Speaker 3: American farmer. That's right. Go wait, you know, I think
Speaker 3: we can have a better policy here, and really it
Speaker 3: would be kind of better labeling laws, especially to do
Speaker 3: with imported fruit, and currently we have there are laws
Speaker 3: at state at least seventy five percent of a blend
Speaker 3: has to be made domestically in order to or from
Speaker 3: an appollation. If it's made in Napa, at least seventy
Speaker 3: five percent of it has to come from Napa. Similarly,
Speaker 3: if you buy a bottle wine, this says California, seventy
Speaker 3: five percent has to come from California. But if we
Speaker 3: were to increase that or at least have a winery
Speaker 3: call out, you know part of this is imported wine.
Speaker 3: I think the consumer just knowing that would would really help.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you. You are a wine guy, obviously, but
Speaker 2: you're also a patriotic a patriotic wine guy, as evidenced
Speaker 2: by your flag on the wall behind you and everything
Speaker 2: that you do. But we had we had an AHA
Speaker 2: moment when we started our company. Gosh, it was like
Speaker 2: almost sixteen years ago now, over chips and salsa right
Speaker 2: at a Mexican restaurant. When was your AHA moment to
Speaker 2: start your small business? And how did that happen?
Speaker 3: Oh man, I remember exactly where I was. I was
Speaker 3: driving down the highway on my daily drive down to
Speaker 3: the vineyard, and I remember having this moment and it
Speaker 3: was born. It was actually born out of my father,
Speaker 3: who I learned from him. He spent a lifetime in
Speaker 3: the wine industry saying, whatever you do, Paul, never ever
Speaker 3: start a winery. Don't do it. Please, if you take
Speaker 3: any advice for me my entire life in this industry,
Speaker 3: don't start a winery in defiance.
Speaker 2: It's defiance, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's part of my nature. But I actually took all
Speaker 3: of his cautionary tales of why you don't do it,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of reasons. But if you go
Speaker 3: into try and sell through grocery stores. You're competing with
Speaker 3: Gallo and Constellation who own the shelf space, so you'll
Speaker 3: never compete there, right, And if you try and stay
Speaker 3: small and do a little tasting room and NAPA, then
Speaker 3: you're one of hundreds of wineries competing for foot traffic,
Speaker 3: and that is an uphill battle as well. What he
Speaker 3: hadn't considered was kind of having a virtual winery that
Speaker 3: lives online and it's focused around people and their passion
Speaker 3: and it's it's something that's so that you could really
Speaker 3: only do online because I mean, sure there's people locally passionate,
Speaker 3: but that's a very small group of people. But once
Speaker 3: you go, you know, out into the world and broadcast,
Speaker 3: you can find really, you know, patriotic people who love
Speaker 3: this country, who want to buy products that reflect their values. Yes,
Speaker 3: And when I looked around because I was I was,
Speaker 3: I wanted to start a winery. I wanted to do this,
Speaker 3: and I thought, almost every winery you think of is
Speaker 3: all about themselves. It's about the vineyard they come from,
Speaker 3: the pedigree, the wine maker, you know, the person's name
Speaker 3: who's on the bottle, and how great they are. It's
Speaker 3: all about that. And I wanted to start something that
Speaker 3: was about something that people were passionate about. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'm very passionate about politics and conservative politics. People think
Speaker 3: California is all blue, and if you were to actually
Speaker 3: look at the state, like it is a huge agricultural
Speaker 3: state and those communities are quite conservative.
Speaker 2: You're so right, you are right about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and we've go ahead.
Speaker 3: No, I've got a campaign I'm going to come out
Speaker 3: with next year that is the heart of California bleeds
Speaker 3: rad and it is yeah, and it is especially going
Speaker 3: into the midterms, and I really want to have a
Speaker 3: splash here in California and just bring attention to the
Speaker 3: fact that we're not all a bunch of you know,
Speaker 3: liberal wag chops. Yeah, And that was actually the reason
Speaker 3: my initial reason for starting the Winery was because I
Speaker 3: was so sick of the narrative of the media portraying
Speaker 3: us as what I call heartless bigots. They're all a
Speaker 3: bunch of heartless bigots, yeap. And my experience with conservatives
Speaker 3: is just so different, like the biggest hearts you can imagine, yep.
Speaker 3: Just we just don't want to rely on the government
Speaker 3: to solve our problems. We'd rather band together and solve
Speaker 3: things ourselves.
Speaker 2: That's our community too.
Speaker 3: We totally get.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, well and we've loved that. So much of
Speaker 1: the messaging around your brand has been about how wine
Speaker 1: is meant to inspire conversations, that you drink it when
Speaker 1: you're in the company of loved ones or friends or
Speaker 1: family or whatever and so and we get that because
Speaker 1: so much. I mean, one of our most watched videos
Speaker 1: ever was when we were drinking wine and having some
Speaker 1: and enjoying it during a debate night or an election night,
Speaker 1: during a live stream like this was, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. But that is when you think
Speaker 1: about drinking and socializing with friends. It's all about conversations.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know if you've gotten feedback because that's
Speaker 1: been part of your branding. Have you gotten any good
Speaker 1: stories from people who have had that had your wine
Speaker 1: on the table and it has started conversations and can
Speaker 1: you tell us about those?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, I mean it's countless people, everything from I
Speaker 3: give to this to my liberal aunt as kind of
Speaker 3: as like as a little bit of a jab because
Speaker 3: they're you know, and you know, and it's actually ends
Speaker 3: up sparking a conversation where you actually make some headway
Speaker 3: or you start to kind of understand each other a
Speaker 3: little bit more. I hear it all the time. And
Speaker 3: it's even within you know, conservatives, we have I have this,
Speaker 3: you know, it's kind of a play on the wine,
Speaker 3: but we call it shades of Red, where even within
Speaker 3: our own party, there are certainly things that unite us,
Speaker 3: you know, the big themes, right, but how we get there,
Speaker 3: how we want to achieve those goals. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of different opinions, and that's great. That's the whole point
Speaker 3: of a democracy is having different opinions and the best
Speaker 3: ones rise to the top. And the only way you
Speaker 3: know what the best ones are is through discourse. This
Speaker 3: through conversation is through sitting around with a glass of wine,
Speaker 3: you know, not taking shots and you know, just sitting
Speaker 3: around civilly with a glass of wine and some food
Speaker 3: around the dinner table or the porch or wherever you
Speaker 3: have and just talk and and be civil.
Speaker 1: And you can't get mad at somebody who'd forgiven you
Speaker 1: a gift, right like that, if you want a door opener, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're gifting someone, how can they get mad? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, We've had I've had people contact me saying, you know,
Speaker 3: there was it was given to our liberal it was
Speaker 3: given to them as a gift. They soaked the label off.
Speaker 3: They were it was so offended to buy it. They
Speaker 3: soaked the wine God and then poured the wine and
Speaker 3: was like, it's actually really good wine. The wine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Don't waste the wine. But even there, you know, it's
Speaker 3: I've had so much fun with this project and so
Speaker 3: many people. I mean, we work with conservative organizations. They
Speaker 3: use it for fundraising, they use it their events. It's
Speaker 3: just it's been a really fun project. And we have
Speaker 3: a whole new phase of our of our company coming
Speaker 3: up that exciting. A huge success over this last election,
Speaker 3: and I've taken some of that success and reinvested it
Speaker 3: into the business and we're really doubling down on creating
Speaker 3: community and doing more things like live tastings and going
Speaker 3: to be going around the country with events and doing
Speaker 3: different things. So it's an exciting time for us.
Speaker 1: That is awesome. Well, we've loved having a chance to
Speaker 1: talk about your wine and your company to our audience,
Speaker 1: and we've made sure that they know if they would
Speaker 1: like to check it out, they can go to Republican
Speaker 1: Red dot com and I know right now there's a
Speaker 1: special offer for our audience where they can get the
Speaker 1: Patriots Starter Pack, which is the four bottles of wine
Speaker 1: right ten percent off and free shipping when they use
Speaker 1: the code Chicks at Republican Read dot com, do you
Speaker 1: have anything you'd like to share about what's included in
Speaker 1: that Patriot Pack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's kind of it's our best sellers. So
Speaker 3: we've got our Chardonnay, pino noir cabernet in a sparkling wine.
Speaker 3: So people think Republican Read you must be all red wine. No,
Speaker 3: we have white wine too. We just figured we couldn't
Speaker 3: call it Republican wine community. So we had a had
Speaker 3: an internal joke and I knew it wasn't going to
Speaker 3: work well, but it was going to the campaign was
Speaker 3: going to be Taste the Privilege, and.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Just you know, that's that edgy side of me that
Speaker 3: wants to kind of poke the bear a little bit.
Speaker 3: But I decided better better judgment, let's not do that.
Speaker 3: And so everything is Republican Read. And but we have
Speaker 3: a you know, Chardonay, a sparkling wine, which is it's
Speaker 3: so delicious, and then pino and CAB and then we
Speaker 3: have special addition labels, and we're constantly coming out with
Speaker 3: new things because they're conversational pieces, and so we're every
Speaker 3: you know, you join our wine club, every shipment you'll
Speaker 3: get kind of a new set of conversation pieces. You know,
Speaker 3: the consistent, great quality wine.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, it's been great to talk to you
Speaker 1: more about the business, the brand, the wine itself. We
Speaker 1: appreciate you being here.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I really really appreciate it being
Speaker 3: Thank you