The Fizz #77: Austin Winery CEO Ross Mclauchlan is betting it all on local Texas wine
In this issue, Ross and I talk about what it takes to set up a fruitful urban winery, why plant diversity is good for business, and the terroir of two Texas AVAs.
In this issue, I interview Austin Winery CEO and co-founder Ross Mclauchlan, based in, you guessed it, Austin, Texas. The state grows some of the USA’s most exciting and diverse range of grapes—over 42 species of grapes grow in Texas. As CEO, Ross has led The Austin Winery (an urban winery in the heart of Austin) for ten years, building relationships with local growers, introducing a new generation of Texans to natural wine, and fostering a strong community that values local agriculture.
In this issue, Ross talks about the business aspects of starting a successful winery, why working with local growers is good for the bottom line, the terroir of their closest AVAs, and how The Austin Winery supports and encourages their employees’ creativity in winemaking. Having tried the Austin Winery lineup recently, I’m thrilled at the work they’re putting in, the fantastic diversity of their lineup, and the delicious wines that come out of it. I’m all in on Texas! (By the way, catch The Austin Winery at Maine Wild Wine Fest this year!)
Margot: There are three people who make up Austin Winery—how did you all meet?
Ross: It’s a fun origin story. When I went to college, there wasn't actually a viticulture oenology program at University of Texas. I started to work out at one of the Hill Country wineries, Driftwood, during my last year of college. I met Cooper playing soccer. He had just moved down from Virginia. He helped me get a job out at Driftwood and our relationship really grew from there—within two months, we were living together carpooling to soccer and wine.
Matt and I met in college and played soccer together too. As Cooper and I were developing the winery concept, we realized that we needed a third person. Cooper really handles the production. He’s what I would call the mother of the wines. I'm technically the CEO, so I do a lot of the sales, building labels, artwork, design and Matt does all the operations—logistics, licensing, all the really fun things in that department.
Margot: What made you guys decide to open up an urban winery in Austin? You could have said hey let's move to California and start a project there, right?
Ross: We explored tons and tons of different models. When I graduated, I got picked up by a wine broker and I was basically an on-premise exclusive liaison for small to medium sized wineries. I was out in California for the majority of the time, taking them to six or seven different wineries that I represented. I got to have this really great fly on the wall experience of so many different winery models. For most people, it doesn't dawn on them naturally that many people are sourcing grapes from lots of different places. Vineyard ownership and estate production is not the majority of winemaking.
Land ownership, planting a vineyard, building a winery, it seemed like something that financially, you could never even dream to get to. We wanted to do something that is authentic and true to the land and sourced from the right places, but financially accessible. We saw that we knew the Texas market, having gone to college here and working in the Hill Country.
At the time, it was so out of sight out of mind in 2010. If you tried to go into a restaurant in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and find a Texas wine on the menu, even in a token way, it was hard to find. I think the perception was that the quality of wine was bad, sweet. A lot of the varietals being grown were very reactionary to California. So tons of Cab, people trying to plant popular mainstream varietals that had recent success in America. It was right at this time that there was a demographic switch and an education and awareness of wine.
We didn't start off as a natural low intervention winery, we were doing things very conventionally. We were using the textbooks and innoculating with yeast, all that. But we saw this major gap in the market in terms of accessibility. Physical accessibility, cultural and financial, too. We figured if we don't own the vineyards and can get with the right people, you can make wine at the marketplace. You're not tied to a vineyard that's 120 miles away or 60 miles away. Why would you put your production facility out there?
We had seen all these Hill Country wineries, the majority getting their fruit from the High Plains, which is our other major AVA at about 3000 feet elevation. Well, we could do it more like the brewery model that was just taking off. We saw an opportunity and a gap there. In terms of business mission, you have to add value to your market, to your community. I think a couple of white guys adding another winery in Sonoma or Northern California was probably not what the world needed. We felt like we have the right perspective and approach to do it here.
Margot: I love that. You decided to stay in your community, even though it was unconventional. I think that's awesome. Can you talk about how you source your fruit? What goes into sourcing for you? What are you looking for?
Ross: It's been a long journey to come to this, but what we've realized is that when you first start, you're kind of left to the scraps, right? If a grower is growing for five different people, if you have a bill of what you would like, say, no herbicide or insecticide at the vineyard. That's customization. In terms of vineyard management it’s not really up for discussion. It took time for us to make good quality wine, pay on time, and be accountable in relationship building to grow into having an influence in the vineyard. That usually starts with being physically present, not just waiting for harvest and showing up.
So much of winemaking starts in the vineyard. Now we have a couple of growers who grow almost exclusively for us. We work with about four vineyards in the High Plains and about three or four in the Hill Country. We also are really closely tied to a vineyard management company called Precision Viticulture. These are two friends of ours who oftentimes are bidding on sites to get the management contract. Those are several years long and they know that they have a customer in us because we'll also put in manpower and come out and do pruning, we'll do the harvesting, put nets up, all those kinds of things, because that's continued education, continued intimacy, and helps your quality control.
We’re also targeting growers with a cohort of people who are like minded. We're not the only people who prefer no insecticide, no fungicide or herbicide. Our friends Ricky from Alta Marfa, a handful of others, we’re trying to target growers together where we can. Instead ten and twenty tons, we're talking forty tons now. Now we're more important on the client list. Things are going to be a little more tailored to what you want in the vineyard. Creating that chemistry is paramount because if you're not going to be adjusting acid or tannin, the dough that you got is what you're working with.
Margot: That's really awesome that you are putting your feet on the ground. I think that is something really unique about your situation because many folks who are sourcing fruit from growers, they'll go visit the vineyards every once in a while, but they're not doing the work of pruning and setting up nets, trimming. That puts you in a good place because you're able to really understand the fruit more.
At this point, you're bringing in some tonnage, you're working with a bunch of different growers. Why not just invest into your own land?
Ross: Acreage in Texas is so expensive right now. It feels like a whole ‘nother business. That's getting into real estate. As much as we enjoy and are learning in the vineyard, we don't have a viticulture degree. It would just take so much money. It's something we've looked at, and are always like looking at on the real estate of what's for sale, but it's a daunting task.
One of the beautiful things for us, and maybe this is also a slight, but we don't go out and raise a bunch of money. We're employee-owned at about 85% which is really terrific. We would love to have some estate control. Honestly, we really would. Maybe in time. Right now we’re focused on doing one thing really well.
Margot: It's refreshing to hear that actually, because I think as a wine culture, we're so committed to this idea that for some reason, if you grow your own grapes, the wine is better or more connected to the “wine-iness” of it all, which is just the European model.
Ross: It's a terrific asset to have, but if you tied all your money up in an estate vineyard—think about it like an investment portfolio. You can be very vulnerable. That's one of the things that the resilience of having different growers at different sites helps me sleep at night a little bit.
Margot: You're able to have those community relationships with your growers in a way that is meaningful and that you don't necessarily get when you're growing your own estate. What are those relationships like with the growers that you work with?
Ross: It's like speed dating and trial relationships. Here there’s the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association. You get to know people through that, but by and large, the community, while there are a lot of licensed wineries, people who are actually growing wine and producing wine, it's much smaller than the statistics would show you. This is getting into the licensing side of things, but a lot of people like breweries and distilleries and bars have winery licenses because it affords you the ability to self-distribute, to pour samples, to sell by the glass, by the bottle, on premise and off.
A lot of breweries actually have winery licenses just so that they can serve wine, not make wine or anything like that. A lot of distributors and importers also have winery licenses. It's a bit of a misnomer when you're like, wow, there's so many wineries in Texas.
A lot of people are buying bulk or buying out of state stuff too. Really the people who are making Texas wine, it's an easier community to sift through than the numbers would tell you. Right now, I don't think there's any secret vineyards that we're missing. People are looking for us and we're looking for them.
Margot: Can you talk about the terroir of the regions that you work with? What should people expect when they're picking up a bottle of Texas wine? What kind of climates and soils are you working with?
Ross: The two distinct ones that are probably the most prevalent is the Texas Hill Country AVA and the Texas High Plains AVA. They're vastly different. They're separated by almost 600 miles. The Hill Country AVA is just west and southwest reaching up from Austin. Typically the main issues that you're going to have in that area is heavy rain especially late in the season, we get these late summer hot rains, and that will put you at risk for wet feet or mold or mildew. Rot, things like that.
Whereas the High Plains is at about 3000 feet elevation, and you're gonna get a lot more much bigger diurnal shift also. So because it's higher elevation, it's gonna get colder at night. Rainfall is a little bit less. That wind also can help to mitigate insects and mildew and mold and things like that, keeping things nice and dry. Up there, you're also going to have the risk of hail because you have the confluence of the three weather patterns coming together. So you have the high plains, Chisos desert and the mountains all at once.
In the Hill Country too, you will get some cold snaps. Probably not hail as much as you do in the High Plains, but some cold snaps can happen—you need some cold hardy varietals too. In the Hill Country, there's about a 12 to 18 inch layer of clay. You'll have limestone beneath that. In the High Plains, you have a lot of sandy loam. So it aerates a little bit better, but, drier, windier, colder at night. You'll have some overlap of what people are planting, but one of the best things about Texas right now is there's so much diversity in plantings where people are experimenting.
People will ask me, what's the primary varietal or what wines should I be looking for? If you go to all these different vineyards, you're going to see people with Aleatico, Alvariño, Sangio, Merlot, Tempranillo, Marsanne, Roussanne, such a nice diversity. Instead of Texas having a hit single, the whole album will be good.
I think California drinkers are bored. I think they've had all the Cab, all the Pinot, all the Chardonnay, for 35 years. We find that we sell really well in Los Angeles, because I think we're exotic to them and they see prices continue to rise in California on the shelf. They’ve supported their local producers for a long time, but I think they're looking for a relatively exotic new wine that fits a value proposition.
Margot: That's awesome that you have so much diversity to work with. I see that represented in the wines that you make. You've got a lot of different cuvees. What are you looking for when you’re sourcing? Do you have like a vision in mind of what you're trying to make?
Ross: Yeah, usually I try and have a vision, but we're always open and exploratory. If you're building out a wine roster or portfolio, what's the first thing that you're going to produce? This is a real question, not a hypothetical.
Margot: Probably a wine that everyone's going to want to buy.
Ross: There you go, right. So you're going to go probably a medium bodied soft red, in my opinion, right? For that, usually our blend is usually something in the Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah kind of range there. Then you're going to need a light, crisp white wine. So now we're talking Alvarino or Vermentino with a touch of skin contact on it, but stainless steel, pretty clean. Then we're going to go to a light bodied red and sort of jump around from there. Fill out what you think people are going to look for.
With us having the winery and tasting room in the city center, we're oftentimes selling a tasting experience and people want to try diversity. That's not necessarily like the most efficient thing for the bottom line. Shark Tank or somebody would say you need to make four wines. Part of the story for us though, is understanding our impact on the climate. You can't have avocados all year round if you're really about sustainability. We want seasonality to be built in with each vintage really showing a story and the illustration of what the climate and the situation was like that year. Once people understand that a little bit better, it turns a light bulb on.
Margot: That makes sense. You've had the winery since 2014—congratulations on ten years! I'm curious how you've seen the wine community around you change in that time.
Ross: It has changed tremendously. It's been a total revolution where, even for us, like I said, we started off making wine really conventionally and we didn't switch to doing native yeast fermentations and no filtration until six years ago. I think we made our first piquette at that year too, and a pet-nat. We've changed a lot, but the market has changed too. I think wine is very in vogue right now, or at least natural wine. We saw this explosion of interest and not just Texas wine, but wine in general and from exotic regions and lesser known varietals, people's wine IQ has gone through the roof.
The exposure is really high. I think there's some fetishization too that happens with like pet-nat and orange wine. But if that yields even half of those people being more educated and aware, then I think that's great too. Ultimately if it yields a better understanding for the customer, that's just empowering them. People will like wine more if they know what they like and can explain it and order it themselves.
Margot: I love that. It sounds like you've really seen a change in the way the consumer is responding to you.
Ross: I still expect an open minded skepticism. That’s all I can ask for. Some people are still surprised. They ask “is Texas wine good”? But I think by and large, people can at least wrap their mind around grapes being grown outside of California, France, Italy, and Spain. That's a big step just alone. Texans are so patriotic, almost nauseatingly so about Texas, but then weirdly with Texas wine, they're like, but our wine sucks probably, right? People are coming around slowly but surely.
Margot: That’s good to hear. What advice do you have for folks who are wanting to go in your direction? I talk to a lot of people who are interested in making their own wine, but they don't know how to get access to grapes, they don't have their own land, they don't have a million dollars of daddy's money. What advice do you have for those people?
Ross: Get involved! Whether you're ready to leave your career or not, you can always stage or get involved in a cellar or a tasting room. We actually have a program here. This is one beautiful thing—when we first started making wine and thought we were bringing wine to the city, we were also bringing winemaking and the ability to get into winemaking. Hospitality can have this sort of ceiling.
Adrian Ash is a great sort of case study of this, but she's one of our winemakers, and one of our owners too now. She's from Tahoe. She was working in the restaurant industry for a long time, loved the wine side of things. She was like, hey, I'd love to get involved, be your tasting room manager, but I also want to learn how to make wine, get in the cellar, all that. Now she even pours her own amphora.
One of the things we set up was that as we're building out a winemaking team, everybody who's on staff has the ability and encouragement to actually to make their own wine and we'll set the label up. Once you have a winery license, you can have infinite brands underneath you. They pay for the fruit. They use all the space and equipment. We take a small operating fee if it's being sold out of the tasting room, but it's completely theirs. It helps for people to be playing at work and it helps us too because people are becoming better winemakers, we're getting exposed to different trial and error and stuff. The advice is just get involved and find good people.
We have these two brothers who don't work for us, but they had started to make some wines through a negociant method. They wanted to do more of their own stuff, they pay us rent and we incubate them, and we can have some economies of scale of sharing some fruit, using some vessels. It takes time. Get into it now, because it can take a while.
Margot: I love that you support your employees in that way.
Ross: I think that's really important and should be the model for the way that wineries are set up. It helps us retain talent too because they may get offered a better higher paying job at a different winery, but can are you gonna be able to make some wine over there for yourself on a little side project? If you're threatened by that as a winery, you're not doing a good job.
Margot: We’ve spoken a lot about the business aspect of running a winery. Where is the joy of working in wine for you?
Ross: I have a tremendous pride in what we do. Your business has to add value to the community, and I believe in walkable communities. I believe that everything really starts local in terms of your impact and footprint. I love that we're a place where people can come together. You can pitch to whatever customers you want, but they really pick you. We have like this beautiful demographic of locals and tourists, a great range of people who come to the winery without any snobbery, making people feel welcome.
I love that I'm empowering creative people and that we're championing and elevatin the understanding of agriculture, of making something that's real. I love the creative side of it. I'd say a third of my job is manual labor, some of that being in nature. A third of it is really quiet and creative, and a third is really social. Those are the things I really like take joy in.
Margot: Amazing. Thank you so much for chatting with me, and I’m so excited to come visit the winery soon! Cheers!
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It has been a pleasure knowing the guys at The Austin Winery for the last 10 years. They are doing good things!