Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Using Passion to Build a Wine Brand

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

To celebrate one of the most important holidays of the year, National Wine Day, Kaitlyn is having a candid, informative, and hilarious convo with friend and Director of Operations for Spade & Sparrows, Alexandra Lightman! The two fellow retired party gals are giving the Vinos all the behind-the-scenes details on how Spade & Sparrows got started, how Alex got involved even without any wine industry experience, and what’s coming next for the brand including an exciting announcement that Kaitlyn is hearing for the very first time on mic! Alex shares her experience with imposter syndrome, her take on women having it all, what the hardest part of her role is, and how she feels the brand differs from others out there. Then, they’re taking questions from the Vinos, AKA the brand ambassadors, and getting real honest about Alex’s craziest story that happened after a little too much wine. Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: NUTRAFOL - Nutrafol is offering my listeners $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code VINE.  EARTH BREEZE - Right now, you can subscribe to Earth Breeze and save 40%! Go to EarthBreeze.com/vine to get started.   GAMETIME - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code VINE for $20 off your first purchase. HONEYLOVE - Treat yourself to the best shapewear on the market and save 20% Off at honeylove.com with the code VINE. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, listen up if you love a good slow burn romance, and let's be real, who doesn't? You need to check out the new Audible Original of Pride and Prejudice. It's an intimate performance that literally makes you feel like you're right there swooning with Lizzie Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Marisa Abella as Elizabeth and Harris Dickinson as Darcy, I'm obsessed. So whether it is your first time with Jane Austen or your 50th, this version is such a fresh, fun listen. go to audible.ca slash jane austin to dive in well hello there i just wanted to tell you about a quick podcast study as you know by now we all do our very best to align the right sponsors to the podcast it's

a lot of work actually behind the scenes and i'm incredibly grateful for your support so we're currently running quick little survey at podcasting survey dot com and we're giving the first 150 people a ten dollar digital amazon gift card as a incentive if you will to complete the survey. You know, Amazon, I've heard of it. The information we hear from you about our sponsors is incredibly important to the show, and we can't thank you enough for taking a few minutes to help us out, and it's free. Cut us a break. Upon completion of the survey, you'll be asked to include your email address, and we will send the first 150 people, a $10 gift card from Amazon, so go to podcastingsurvey.com, and thank you again for helping our show and our sponsors.

This episode of Grape Therapy is brought to you by Nutraful. NutraFle is offering my listeners $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutraful.com and enter the promo code Vine. EarthBreeze right now, my listeners can subscribe to EarthBreeze and save 40%. Go to earthbreeze.com slash Vine to get started. GameTime, download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code Vine for $20 off your first purchase. And Honeylove. Treat yourself to the best shapewear on the market and save 20% off at honeylove.com with the code Vine. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now starting.

I literally was like, I think it's too early for me to drink. And I just, I'm so stressed out right now. God. Cheers. Are you having a glass of wine? I'm having the sprits. Cheers. spreads. Rose Spitz. Well, I thought it's 1.45 here, right? I'm in the middle of a workday. I have children. I have to attend to a five. So I was like, let's spritz it on. Spreeze it up. That's always the best call. Okay, but happy National Wine Day, girlfriend. What a holiday. What a holiday. Every other national day, anybody does. I'm like, this is so stupid. Unless it's National Wine Day, National, Fine, Nurses day golden retriever day but like national like baked potato day get the fuck out of you leave exit

yeah i'm not here for it it's just a great opportunity for like potatoes to do like a marketing push that day i'm like who's funding this mr potato we all need our day i'm so canadian of you Alex um so you've never been on the pod before so this is exciting which is funny because if people knew like the history of our friendship or like things that we've gotten into in our past we could do like i mean probably a whole year's worth of podcasting but we're not going to go there because we're professionals now yeah we're ladies we're professionals we're in our 30s we're retired party girls we're too sometimes but most of my listeners um it wasn't a blue moon we can still get after it but most of my listeners know

who you are either from the big wine guy events or spade and sparrow's instagram account you went viral a couple times on TikTok with a spade and sparrows, but for new listeners or one's living under a break and rock, could you please do us the honor of introducing yourself? Yes, I would love to. My name's Alexandra Lightman. I am the director of operations for Caitlin's wine brand Spade and Sparrows. We've been working together for about four years now, and I am coming to you guys live from Colona, British Columbia, Canada, which is the wine region of Canada. And a.k.a. My happy place.

You're happy place that you're coming to soon. I get to see you soon. I'm so excited. I am truly counting down the days because Kelona and the Okanagan in general really is like a place that grounds me, makes me happy. Even the last time I was there, I had a full mentee bee. So who am I kidding? I don't know anymore. You did. But that was a time. Well, that was when I was trying to come off my antidepressants and I was PMSing and I got diagnosed with PMDD and I was very overwhelmed. And there's this whole. thing that people have been talking about where like when you go home sometimes you are

triggered by old patterns and sometimes that gets like brought back up in you but that's for that's for another podcast um this is more and I force you I force you to do a full day a photo shoot and be happy and act like you're having a great girl stay and you did a great job it was a joint effort joint effort for sure um okay so I get so many questions about you know businesses and honestly I'm not the best sometimes that like sharing that part of my life or even sometimes articulating that part of my life because I'm like we'll only have like a couple seconds on Instagram stories and I don't really know how to take someone like in a day in the life and sometimes I just get lazy or I forget so I thought for National Wine Day it would be the

perfect opportunity to bring you on talk business wine life so happy national wine day I know we already said that, but just another reason to cheers and take another step. Cheers. Cheers again. Cheers again. So let's tell people how we did first meet. What is your first, what's your first memory of me or your first? You know what? If you're asking me, like, if when the first time we met, I have no fucking clue, to be honest. Like, we were running in very similar circles. We were in Vancouver, both working at cactus, not the same cactus, but we were in the cactus circle. cactus for those of you who don't know was like the hottest restaurant to work at in Vancouver in our in our heyday we were both dating hockey players we were both going to the roxy you were friends

with jess canuteson who was like really good friends with like a kio when i dated him like there was so much like we were like incestual but like we never like we weren't best friends but we were like so like connected and then then then there was the cleo connection and then like just so many connections. But I literally have no recollection of first meeting you. Do you? I'm trying to I remember thinking you were really pretty and cool. So like, no, but I hated you because I was just insecure and jealous at that time. So I was always like, oh, she seems so cool. And then I, I just remember we had so many mutual friends. And then when I started dating Brett, you were really good friends with his ex who hated me. So she wanted you to hate me. And I had to

hate you, but then it was so hard because I was also like, she's really funny and I really like her. And then my friend was like, you need to fucking hate her. And I was like, okay, sorry. I think you've had like two people in your life now who have told you to hate me because I dated their previous boyfriends. It's very bizarre. So people often ask me for, well, this is funny, because people often ask me for advice on how

to land a job that they love and run businesses. And now if you asked me when we first met and in my life, years and years and over a decade ago, I would have laughed. But now, look at us now. We're running this business. And I just want to learn to know how you ended up as our director of operations since it started such a weird friendship. I mean, I would have to say, like, sex would be the number one

because I'm married to your business partner, right? So sex, blow jobs, those sort of things, sexual favors. A lot of... Married with kids? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Good for you.

Once in a while, obviously that's what connected us over the business because you founded it with Cleo and my husband, Aaron, who's a corporate lawyer. You guys are the three co-founders. But I was on Matleaf, kind of at the time when everything was coming together. So I had worked for Chip Wilson, who if you don't know, is the founder of Lou Lemon. And I'd worked not for Lou Lemon, but for his holding company that sort of managed and oversaw everything from all of his real estate investments, his philanthropy, his private equity, his family wealth. And he's a billionaire. So There's a lot of it. And I'd been there for six years. It was like full on job. I worked just as much as Aaron, who's like, you know, 10-year corporate lawyer at that point. It was absolutely crazy managing all aspects of his life. And I was on maternity leave. You guys started it.

I had Jack. And my idea was I was going to go back to Chip. That was the plan. I was going to take a year off and go back to Chip. And then I realized like having a baby and going back to that job, I would never be home. I'd never see Jack. I would have had a full-time nanny and I would have gotten home, had dinner. you know, my phone all night, gotten out left again. And I was like, this is really not the life

that I wanted. This is not the balance that I wanted. So, and I think simultaneously, all three of you also realized you had so many other projects going on that there needed to be like one person who was constant and who was managing everything and bringing you guys together and just overseeing everything. So I think pretty quickly you're all like, hmm, we better bring someone on. And then Aaron was like, okay, I think it should be you. You'd be great at this. I'm like, I don't know if I want to come work for this wine startup. I'm like, I have a great job. Like in Vancouver, working for chip is like, you've got the golden ticket. Everyone wants to work for him. And so I was like, it was like very ambivalent, but also looking at my life and knowing like, I'm not going to see my

baby if I, if I do this. So I feel like that was a big kind of risk for me. And I was like, oh, let's see how this goes. Because who knows where the business was going to go at that point? It was so, so new. And then, yeah, inch by inch, it just kind of started and sort of like taking on more responsibility and doing a little bit more. And then I was able really to, like, create my own position, really, within the business. And I would always come to you guys with like, how about we do this and how we do this? And everyone was like, game. Let's do it. Let's go. So really, it kind of, it was the right timing. It was the right timing in my life. I had been in my last job six years, had a baby, and was excited for something new, definitely something

creative. Because I feel like I was a really creative person, but I didn't have that in my last You had no, you had no experience in like, you know, the wine world, but you would probably learned so many skills from working for CHIP and speak to people who, you know, want to land their dream job but have no experience and what they need to know going into something like that. Yeah, I mean, I have zero wine industry experience, which I think is pretty shocking for some people to hear. And at times I would have imposter syndrome because I would be like, oh, God, they should have hired some old man with like 20 years wine industry experience because I don't know the lingo. I don't know how to do these types of presentations. Like, you know, you know how that

feels. But then, you know, in hindsight, looking back, I realized that if you hired someone like that, we never would have done a fraction or a quarter of all the things that we've done. Because we all, none of us having wine industry experience came out of it with like fresh eyes. We did things that people were always like, you can't do that in the wine industry. That's not how it's done. That's all how it's been done before. And we were like, okay, that would be kind of like our green light to keep marching forward. So I would say if you're trying to break into an industry, if you feel passionate about an industry that you have no experience in, if you're a resourceful person, if you're a hardworking person, if you utilize, like, I mean, now even with

AI, like you don't need to ask many questions. You can just go ask, just go ask the internet. Explain to me how you do a retail presentation for a wine buyer. It'll probably like write the thing for you now. It's actually crazy. Yeah, just be resourceful. And then when you do get to, you know, sit in with industry experts in any way, just like glean as much information from them as possible. And if you're like a go-getter, I mean, your podcast manager, you're like Alicia. Yeah. She, she was like coming in and wanting to work for you and she knew she wanted to work for you. This is why I respect Alicia so much. She was like, I'm going to get this job. And she found any like avenue to get herself in and prove herself and show her worth and show her

value and then boom look at her now managing everything running the show i literally could not do the show without her and she is the shit and she just what she did was to have a vagina because you know how i feel about balls they're weak um yeah she had she had a vagina and she was just willing to almost like shamelessly plug herself because she knew she could do like a good job and i just loved her hustle and i love that she'd i don't think she had other uh expertise in the podcast space, but she knew that she was creative. She knew she had the same sense of humor as me. She knew she was a hard worker, and she proved herself.

And then now she's like my main, my man. She's your main bitch, honestly. And she's like, I'm obsessed with her, like maybe an unhealthy obsession because she is so, like, so funny and just, and she's such a hard worker. And she's so good at what she does and very creative. But like, she was part of the big wine guy club. Like she was like helping create content for Spain and Spare. She was interjecting herself.

She should come on the podcast and talk about this. Like, if you want to get in with someone and they respect hustle and they respect hard work, show them that. And then once you get into the role, just, like, just grind. And then they're going to be like perfect. But having no wine industry experience actually helped us so much because it's an industry that's like, I always say it's ripe for innovation. It's ripe for the female perspective. It's a bunch of older white gentlemen running it. And it was time for some sort of.

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Download Game Time today. last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. What is your take on, quote, unquote, women having it all? I think that women can have it all, but just not all at once. I think that's a pretty common statement. Like right now, the zone I'm in with eight-month-old, Hendricks and a five-year-old, and then managing this business, my main focuses are work and my two babies. you know, the things that are on the back burner for me right now are, you know, maybe my

fitness, like my personal time, my own hobbies, Aaron and I's, you know, relationship and travel and adventure. Not to say that those things aren't happening at all. That's when you get into like the danger zone. But they're just not my focus at the moment. So I think you can have it all, but you just have to prioritize sort of when and where. And if you try to do it all, you're just going to, you're just going to burn out. And then I always always, always remind myself if I don't show up like as the best version of myself for my kids for my work for my husband whatever like I'm serving no one so you really do have to sort of like step back and okay what are the what are the essentials that I need to do for myself to feel like complete and whole

to be able to be able to be like you can have it all we don't expect that for men we don't accept them to like be a dad full time run a business have like hobbies be fit be hot be all these things like why do we expect that from women have there is Self-care time. Yeah, it's true. It's true. The expectations are out of control. What do you think the hardest part of your job is? I think explaining to, like we talked about before, older white gentlemen who are running the wine industry from all aspects, distribution, retail, winemaking, what we have. Why we have something special, why it's different, what's special about you as the face of our brand, as the founder of our brand, getting into things like

TikTok trends, podcast stats, trying to really explain that in the way that they can digest it, see it, and then be willing to take a chance on it, to place it in their stores, to buy it, et cetera, et cetera. That's probably like the most uphill battle that I think we've all felt as a company. And then I would say in the wine industry, and this might be similar in all beverage, I'm not sure, but specifically in the wine industry, it's like such a long life cycle of decision making. So if, for example, we present to a retailer for fall and we don't get in, we have to wait like a whole 12 more months to be able to present to them again. So sometimes it just feels like you're just like, oh, my God, this is taking forever.

And then on the flip side of that coin, when something does happen, it feels like everything happens at once. We get five new retailers. We have like 10 events going on. And it's like all has to happen within these two week time frame. And you're like, couldn't this have happened last month, you know? Yeah. You're right. It's like so many extremes. And why do you think that post Malone's wine is getting taken off the shelves and Caitlin Bristow's wine is getting put on more shelves? So this is the thing about consumers. I think that it's ridiculous that any sort of like, marketing branding agency is looking at consumers and thinking that they're stupid. Like at the end of the day, if you have a celebrity and you just give them a product that

they're not aligned with, they've never talked about, they've never shared that they enjoy it, they're never seen with it. And then all of a sudden they come out with this, whatever it is, wine, a guitar, a vibrator, who cares? It's just like they're just assuming that consumers are dumb. And I think, yeah, no one likes that. it was it's nice like post malone first posted it's a beautiful bottle i haven't tried it but i've heard that it's that it's decent rosé but like why post malone why rosé don't you think he would have

been better with like beer face tattoos like something that you would have been like yeah that's right you go posty but kately bristow has been drinking wine well since i've known you forever but you've been drinking wine publicly in the public eyes since the moment you got on the show and you know like you're you're out there talking to your community about wine going to wine events like you always say you'd stomp the grapes if you could you're actually 100% involved in it in an authentic way you love it you're managing this company it's just you can't sustain a brand like that with post Malone I don't know how long I have to scroll through his Instagram to try to find a picture of Maison number nine right that's yeah it really is I mean it's it's one of the I think number one things to remember and to tell people with wanting to start a brand is you have to like eat, sleep, breathe it, love it, and believe in it before you even start it. And it's wine to me, I was like, how cool. I eat sleep, breathe wine and I'm passionate about it.

I love learning about it. I love the community around it. I love it bringing people together. There's so many things that I love about wine. And so it just felt like such an authentic thing to do. And then not only, you know, do I love it. I get to go to whoever, you know, brings on my wine. and go meet people that are buying it.

And I feel like people like Post Malin and Snoop Dog, they don't really need to. I'm out here grinding, but I love doing it. Well, the thing is, is like, I guess there's a certain level of like celebrity, influencer, et cetera, et cetera, that, you know, they're not going to, they're not going to come to a store and they're not going to meet, you know, this person that's coming to buy their wine and enjoying their wine. But I have been told by several store owners, managers, people that we interact with. when we do these events that they have never seen someone celebrity influencer come in and spend

so much time with each person when there are hundreds of people in line and you know that you're going to be there for hours and hours and hours you talk to each person you talk to them about their wines you hold their babies they bring their dogs like you actually genuinely are so excited to meet these people to thank them to be there to ask them you know what did you think about the wine that you just tasted which one are you buying like it's so it's just so authentic to you are And to be honest, like, if it wasn't, business will chew you up and spit you out. If it's not, if you're not deeply passionate about it, about the product that you're selling or about the business that you're running, like, don't, don't bother because it's not easy.

It's really not easy. You run out there grinding. I have another question. I have a few more questions. What hurdles have we faced so far as a company, would you say, other than once we've already talk about? Okay. So this is interesting because, and, you know, feel free to cut this out if you don't want to talk about it.

But like right off the bat, you guys face a pretty big hurdles. And I obviously won't name names. It's all confidential. But like before you even sold one drop of wine, you had to go through losing a fourth partner in the partnership because that didn't align with, you know, sort of going forward. And you can speak to that if you want to. But that's really challenging. And then there was an issue with the first producer that we ever engaged with. Basically, long story short, you had come up with a formulation for the first wine that you

wanted to drop and you were super excited about it. And when we received the samples, we all tasted it. And we were like, that's not the wine that you made. And I don't think you ever even shared that story, but we got it and we were like, they're trying to screw us. They're trying to put disgusting wine, cheap, disgusting, so sweet, so sugary. It was awful. Like none of us could even pretend that we liked it in the bottle. And then they're trying to tell you that that's what you formulated. And we were all

like, thank God, we all have a little bit of, a little bit of wine taste, I suppose. And we were able to be like, no, a little bit discerning. And be like, no, that's not it. And then we actually, you know, didn't go into full production with that. And it just wasted so much time. It was like, I think it was very challenging. And my hat kind of goes off to you guys as the three founders. to sort of continue to push forward when right out the gate you face like two major barriers for even selling wine. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine you would be. And like I love that TikTok trend when businesses share their failures and hurdles that they've had to go through, especially if you come out the other side because really at that point, then it's just like it's a

learning lesson and you're better for it. But I love hearing about stuff like that. And I think too often it just seems like businesses are just like on this upward to direction. and everything's going great, but it's not the case. I know. I could do a whole other series. You know, I'm behind the scenes of straight and throws of what didn't work. Obviously, we're going to celebrate what has worked, and we're going to try and move forward and celebrate our wins.

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So do you think that was kind of your answer for what makes Spade and Sparrow's wine different from other brands? It's part of it. I mean, you're a huge part of that, right? So when you have like the face of your brand and the CEO running your brand who's actually 100% engaged, 100% passionate about the product. It makes a huge difference. There's lots of companies where they don't have that and they're still successful. But I think we make really delicious wine. That's that's number one. Number two is that we're marketing it to the people that are actually drinking it. So I think for a long time, I was really trying to understand like, why did all these millennial women drink

J-Lore? And I went back and I went deep and I went far. And I was like, what connected them to this brand. Why do they all drink Josh? Why do we all drink Kim Crawford? Like there's just those specific brands that everyone just always brought to Girls Night, always brought to a party. And it was like, I look at these friends. I'm like, they're not speaking to the female millennial wine consumer at all, like zero percent. And so the thing that Spade and Spares does differently is like we relate to the to the females, to their life, to when they're actually drinking wine, you know, we, we don't glamorize it. It's not about being snobby or exclusive or having this perfectly curated table set amongst like a vineyard. Like, it's like, it's nice sometimes.

And we all aspire to have those, those nights, you know, those girls nights. That's very special when we do. But really, like, a lot of us, if you're like, we just had our nurses content, you have like a long shift at the hospital. You come home, you pour yourself a glass of pina grisio that's already cracked from the night before and you sit down and you just have like a moment to decompress and you scroll TikTok for probably way too long just to like give yourself a break. Like that's the reality of how a lot of us are drinking wine. If you're a mom, it's like, you know, you know what that looks like. And I think because we do create some beautiful content, but I think because we're based in

reality and we're actually talking to the demographic that's enjoying our product, I think that makes us totally different from a ton of wine brands out there. Yeah, I agree. What do you think? I keep looking at myself in this little, I keep looking at myself in this little box thing, I was like Paddington Bear. Like, what is happening? No, I think it's cute.

I like that. Yes, of course I do. I have many of the books. I feel like I'm a Canadian. Get some marmalade and just enjoy yourself. I'm just going to do a TikTok about it. No, I just, I think I agree with everything that you said. I mean, one of the first things that we learned in the wine industry was that it was so marketed to men.

And none of the bottles were popping off to us or speaking to us. And none of the branding of it was either. It was, there's no sort of community with Jaylor or sort of, you know, community with other wine brands. And I don't, I don't feel like anyone's really like listening to their audience where that is our number one. Like I consider all of our wine drinkers, our big wine guys, our vinos, everyone. I, I see them as ambassadors for their brand, for the company. I want their opinions. I want them to like tell us their feedback because we listen because it's, it's, you know, it's for them.

And I feel like we do a really great job about it. I think so too. And I mean, now that I've gotten to the bottom of it, I really think that sometimes you feel like these brands, like it felt like these brands that people had, like let's say Josh, all of a sudden it was just everyone had it. But really,

they'd been working at it for over a decade. And then, you know, as you get more distribution, you get better placement in the stores. And it kind of is this sort of cascading effect, which is why everyone sort of just started drinking it at one point. So it seemed. But we're doing something totally.

different and we are creating those brand ambassadors and we are creating a community and we are getting out there and really like meeting people and talking about the wine and throwing events and just yeah just trying to relate to their everyday reality in a way that I don't see any other brands doing yeah Pino's breathing very heavily into my mic I also figure since you know we might as well use this time to do our regular meeting how do you think how do you think the Costco meeting went for us because that's really exciting I've had Costco target of horse and then Costco's been on my vision board too because the one in Scottsdale I think is the largest wine carrier in like America isn't it? I think so. It's definitely up there. I think the

meeting went very well. The buyer has agreed to launch Spade and Sparrows at Costco's across Arizona and we're actually going to be going down there. So the vinos get to hear first. We're going to be there on Friday, June 23rd for an event in Scottsdale at Scottsdale at Costco. So if you're in the Arizona area, you've got to come on down. I think I was going to talk to you about this. I think this one, this event, we should say that everyone wears pink to the event. We should go big. What do you think?

I'm so down to it. Yeah. I think so. We've got enough time. We can get it out there. Let's get in like a sea of beautiful women and pink at Costco. Yeah. Or guys could wear pink too.

Whoever wants to show us. Guys can come. Whatever you want. dogs, babies, whatever. Bring them all. Yeah, I too love going to Costco on Friday. I do that a lot. It's like, not that busy on Friday nights and we need to get some groceries for the weekend and that's like our little date night right now. Balance.

Some samples? We do. We sample it up for dinner. We attach Hendricks and the carrier. We walk around. We see things. We get out of the house. It's quite a time. That is incredible. I do love a date night Costco night. That's your painting a very cute picture. I've already talked about the story of developing the first wine on the pod because it's funny, but we spent a day tasting different wines, and this is the second time. This is the second time where we spent the day with John Sebastianian sons, and we were tasting different wines, fine-tuning it, finally thought we'd created the masterpiece. By the end, we're all just very drunk. And the next day, I tried it, and it basically was a third-grade masterpiece at best.

So back to the drawing board, we went. But so many people asked, how did we choose our varietals? And I have, again, I've told that straight before just where we thought it was so good. And then we're like, okay, we were just drunk. I understand now where the spit buckets come in. But, yeah, how did we choose our varietals? I mean, it really came down to you. Like, when we sat down and thought about all the different wines that we could produce out of California,

working with our winemaker, he has access to vineyards across California. So there was, you know, no shortage of options. But it was really like, what do you love? What are you going to drink? what do you want to share? Because we didn't want to create anything that you wouldn't want to bring to your best friend's house to go hang out, play cards, enjoy with all your friends and loved ones. So really, it came down to you. And that's why we started kind of with the reds. And we found the perfect formulation for your Pino Noir, which is your number one love and your cab. And then found a rosé and a

white that you love because those aren't necessarily your go-to. But when we created a rosé that wasn't too sweet. It was like fruit forward but dry, similar to a French rosé. You were like, I love this. So crisp, so delicious. And same thing with the pino grigio. Like people always ask, why did you a pino grigio? And not a chardonnay. It was because the pino grigio for us was so thirst quenching, so easy drinking with citrus and like crisp green apple. It's just like you could really pair it with almost anything. You could drink it with food without. It's not super sweet again. It's low sugar. It's just something that we thought would be a real crowd pleaser and that you really enjoyed drinking. So, I mean, I think that's the long, simple answer. It's because you

love it. It is because I love it. And a lot of people want to know if there are different or more varietals coming in the future. And I think the short answer is yes. I think so. I think it just has to come down to you finding again something that you love. You're not going to put something out there just because someone says, oh, this varietal is popular right now or orange wine. is having a moment or whatever. You're not going to just put that out because of that. You have to love it. The amount of people that have asked for me to make a moscato and I'm just like, I can't do it because I've got to be able to enjoy my own wine because it really is the only wine that I drink. So I've got to enjoy it. I used to not like chardonnay now. I love a chardonnay. I love bubbles. I love so many other

bridles that we're thinking about. And we are so lucky to work with an incredible winemaker that I can literally talk about my palette too and what I like and he can make anything happen and it's really freaking cool. Yeah, we're very lucky. We have such an amazing team and I think that there's definitely more coming out on the horizon. But also, I think it's, I think in business in general, it's a bit of a risky proposition to extend your product line really, really far. When would you know we have four solid products right now, what we really need to focus on instead of expanding the product line is really just getting our four very solid offerings into stores so that people can be shopping and just pick it up off the shelf.

Yes. Before we expand, we must expand National at Target and get everywhere. And let's get it to Target a bit because I remember when it was such a pipe dreamer, like we call it from our cactus days, the be hag, the big, hairy, audacious goal was always to get into Target. And I remember just thinking it was such a huge dream. And now we are in Target and we're growing in Target. and we're proving ourselves to Target.

So let's tell the story about how we got into Target. So this is funny because this comes back to what I said before about the wine industry having this really long sales cycle. So we were like, I think we had just missed the opportunity to present to them at one point and it was like going to be another year before we could present again. And these presentations, the way that they go in the wine industry, is that you fill out at like a PowerPoint. You feel like you're in 1999.

It's like the most archaic PowerPoint. you're like dragging in images that you've saved. I'm like, who's making these? Anyways, you send one of those in. You talk to no one. You see no human beings. You send that into your distributor. And then your distributor, at that point,

we were with a different distributor that sucked. And they didn't know anything about our brand or the power of our brand or you or anything. So I knew, even though they had this PowerPoint that I put together for them, that they weren't going to do a good job of representing our brand when they went and talk to Target. And I was just like, guys, we're hitting our head against a while. So we need to talk to Target. We need to find the Target wine buyers and we need to get in front of them. We need a Zoom call with them. And so that's kind of when COVID was kind of in the thick of it. And TikTok was just like blowing up. And I became so deeply addicted to TikTok. I remember being like,

let's do a TikTok trend. And that's like really going off. And let's call them out. And so we did, I think the first one we did was there was the all I want for Christmas, Mariah Carey's song, and then people would put like, you know, like my mental health back or like just like something like very funny on the next slide. And I was like, let's do it with Target. Let's say to get your wine to Target and see if we can get their attention. We did. And of course, the vinos, the big wine guys came, it came out like in droves with comments and tags and to the point where like Target couldn't ignore us. And then that's when we got our first call with them. But that was like, that's going back over two years now.

So this is not something target. I don't think, I can't speak for them, but I don't think that they make any quick decisions. I think that they really make sure that they're putting the right brands in their store, and that's why they have such a good offering. That's true. That's true.

We really had to, you know, use and abuse the old vinos and tagging target, but that's why I called them my ambassador. That's why they help, and that's why if they keep going, they can get it at their liquor stores. They've done wonders for Sweden. sparrows and that's why I love going to beat them and being like, let me kiss you on the lips because you are amazing. French kissing, but I wanted to actually, I was, I knew I was coming on here

and I was like, going to text you this weekend, but then I was like, no, you know what? I'm going to tell her on the pod. So this is like for real. Everyone, I'm telling Caitlin this for the first time. So last week, we received an email from our distributor and the Target has approved expansion in Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and then all the stores in Georgia and more stores in Texas starting in the fall. I know. She's speechless.

So it's very, very, very excited. We got the same date. When I say it rains where, when it rains it pores in this business, we got Costco, Arizona, and then that news within 40 minutes of each other. I was like, that is fucking awesome. Oh my gosh, because I'm seeing you're thinking like, you know, like I, I just, I want to go national so bad. I want the wine to be available for everybody. I know shipping is so expensive.

I live for the big wine guy club. Like, I know all these things and I just, it's one of those things that I just envision every day. I'm like, my wine will be national. That's just, that's what I want. I want to go to every state. I want to shake everybody's hand. I want to hug everybody. I want to meet everybody's babies.

I want to go everywhere and just have the wine. available and that is like the coolest thing because one of my favorite things would do with spade and sparrows was the community i always i even said on jason's podcast i was like i am beating a dead horse about community but it is the most important thing to me to the brand to businesses and to have it go national and even just like start to grow like that's so huge yeah so those are all set for fall like i don't have any more information except for we saw an excel spreadsheet and it had those states and it had spade and spares varietals listed in them and it's like i think over 550 new placements starting in fall so it's happening and it doesn't mean like that's not national yet i know

that target everyone's always asking when can i get it at my target so just to give you know some information not every target can sell alcohol so that's one thing even if you have target in your states like in tennessee you can't buy alcohol at your target right but in all the in all the States that cancel alcohol, that is our goal to get into every one of those stores. And this is a huge step in the right direction. But still, they're watching us. So that means that when it is in the stores, all the vinos need to go out, buy it up, drink it up, post it, share it, tag target. You know the drill. Yeah, they do know the drill quite well. I'm obsessed. They know the drill. I'm obsessed. I love them. Get into them because they have questions. So questions from the

I just told them in the Facebook group to ask us some questions about spade and spares, and this is what we got. You just answered one because they said, when will spade and sparras be in all targets? Next, how do you balance being a mom and working? I don't know if I do balance it. I guess I do. I think if in all honesty, it's having help. I don't think they, like, we used to mother in villages.

I always talk about this. we used to have our mothers and our aunts and our sisters and we all used to be together sharing the load. And now we mother very much in isolation. So you have to really have to buy your own village now. So when I was pregnant with Hendricks, I had a very first, a very hard first sort of year with my first son, like tons and tons of anxiety, a lot of postpartum anxiety. It was very, very hard for me. So I was like, okay, if I'm going to do it again, I'm going to do it totally differently. And I don't want this to come off like I'm so out of touch when I say we had a night nurse because we budgeted and saved for it for the whole year knowing that we wouldn't

take a vacation or we wouldn't go shopping with my clothes because I was like. I'm like I think it's important though because if you realize that like that people are like oh well she can do that because of X, Y and Z it's like we set out knowing we're going to be spending this much on a night nurse so that my mental health can stay up here. I can continue working. And, And then we also have a nanny that helps me with Hendricks and Jack goes to preschool. So really, like, the balance comes in having support and help and, yeah, mine helps. I know. It's like, well, and people also could be like, well, I can't afford a nanny.

And then it's like, but the thing is, if you can, you're going to. If you have help, like your mom comes down and helps you sometimes, you know, like, ask friends and family to be there. I wish Kat would ask me to come watch Chandler all the time. I'm like, ask me. Use your community, use your friends, your family. I know. We don't, though. We don't.

It's so weird why moms don't. And we don't ask and then we just suffer. And I think the thing that I always say, the friends like you, because I have friends that say the same thing, I'm like, just show up. Yeah. Just show up at any point in any time. Because at any point in any time, there's something that you could help with. You can just literally like, hi, I'm here.

I'm going to go play with him. Yeah. That's what I used to do for my friend. I would be like, I'm going to unload your dishwasher. I'm sorry if things are in the wrong place, but I'm just going to do that for you. I do think that's such a good call. Just show up and do something for them. Because moms are so like, they're like, no, I can do it.

I can do it myself. And we keep telling her, because we have to tell ourselves that every day to try to get through. But then you got to be careful because I was like, no. Those unwanted friends might show up and you've been avoiding them. And they're like, I just show up. Caitlin said too. No, no, not if you're one of those friends. But if you're the bestie, if you're one of those people and you're like, you want to help,

Just show up. Bree has a good question. How do you approach your job differently than a man would? Oh, hmm. I mean, I think it's interesting. We have an all-female team except for Erin, but besides Aaron, it's all women. And so it's been a very different dynamic than my previous role.

In my previous role, there was a lot of like direct communication that could almost be viewed as being like, you know, a bit of an asshole. But it was just very direct. You knew exactly what they wanted. But with all women, I think there is a lot of like just being more concerned and thoughtful about someone's feelings, about someone's, you know, state of mind, not offending them. And I think sometimes we have to find a better balance in that. Like we always talk about this, how it's like, this is business where it's not personal.

If you don't like the same label that I like, it doesn't mean we can't still be, can't still be cool when we get off the call, you know. And so I think we, the one thing I do like about working with with a lot of women, though, is that we stop and we consider external circumstances a lot. Like, yeah, how have you, did you sleep last night? Like, how's it going? You were sick. You know, we check in with each other. It's very supportive. And then I think, you know, like we talked about before, we, we market to women and their experience and their life and what the way they're actually drinking wine and the way that they're actually coming together enjoying our product. It's not all about like perfection. It's just about like having a moment that you enjoy, maybe in solitude

by yourself after you put the kids to bed or maybe, you know, with your girlfriends having a girl's night in, just like dancing on the kitchen counter, being wild and just getting that like really good soulful feeling from it. It's like we just men can't speak to that experience. So yeah, I think that's, I don't know if I answered that. You did. I like that. And last one, somebody said, when are you coming to Florida? The same person who wants to know when we're coming to Florida wants to know how all our wines are so good and low sugar.

I mean, that's an interesting thing, right, with low sugar because you don't like sweet and I don't think a wine has to be sweet to taste good. There's so much more that goes into the flavor profile than sugar. Yeah. Right? So it just, it depends what you like you said, if you're like you said, If you want a Givertseminer or something like that that has that really sweet flavor perval, you probably won't love our wine.

It may not be your go-to. But like with everything else, with all the notes and everything like that, they're so smooth. They're so delicious. Like vanilla isn't super sugary, but the Pinot Noir has this, like, lovely vanilla note that's so smooth and so delicious with like a little bit of spice. It's like there's so much more that goes into wine than it's just being sweet. So, yeah, all of them are low sugar, which is nice. Let's hangover, too.

Less hangover, too. I always like to tell people, too, if they want it more sweeter, you can always make wine more sweeter yourself. Like, you can literally put fruit in your wine and make it sweeter. You can literally dunk a piece of, like, you know the watermelon when it's not like super like white and dry? It's like really juicy. You just, it looks beautiful in a wine glass.

You literally put that in your rosé. Like, there's so many cool ways. And, you know. Popsicles, sour keys. Yeah. What do people always do? like fuzzy peaches in the rosé like you can easily make it sweeter if you want to but yeah i don't think it needs to be it's so like she said it's so delicious without being it really is sugar

that's why the best part because it's low sugar um our our wines still have a fruit forwardness to it so it's not super sugary and still like can give that those people who love something sweet it will satisfy you but it's for also for dry wine lovers who don't want you know all the Sugar. Okay. It's it's the time to be honest. If I'm being honest, it's time to be honest. Am I drunk already? No, I'm not. I hope so. I mean, no, I'm really not, but it is midday and I haven't had too much to eat, so maybe I'm a little. Oh, hi, Pino. So if you're being honest, what is something that's happened to you that you're maybe a little embarrassed about after a couple too many glasses as a beano. So I'm trying to think, like, I wanted to give the, I want to get the vinyl something

good. So there's not, like I said, more of a retired party girl now. There's not too much that I'm getting up to now besides like snod sucking. Like I catch, I caught like a live action poo yesterday. That was, that was unique. And so I'm thinking like, should I go like, you know, maybe like an old school story? Yeah. Do you think that they need to hear the Leo story? What's the Leo story? you never told you this I don't know tell me now

like Leonardo DiCaprio story oh tell that story yeah I do know this it's either that or like how I used to No you gotta tell that now okay okay I have to tell it now it is also very timely I don't know why he's so he's on TikTok all the time right now

he was in Ken's film festival and he looks like he's on Molly or something and everyone's getting these hilarious clips of him so it's very very timely because he's hot again right now okay so going this must have when he was hot if it was back in the day. I was 21. I'm 36 now.

Not good at math. I was 21. So you guys do the math. But it was our first girls trip, like big girls trip to Vegas. There was about 12 of us. And we'd never been to Vegas. We were like, you know, used to going out in Vancouver, never done like the super club thing, bottle service, none of that.

This is all new. So we're at the pool one day in my cousin, Laura, who, you know, who's hilarious and awkward and funny and hot and all these things all together she's just amazing she comes running back she's like i met a promoter and we're all like what's that like we have no idea and like i don't know it's some guy that like works for a club and and it's like if you come to my club tonight i'll give you a bottle of vodka so i'm like we're all like hell yeah we'll do anything for a free bottle of vodka at this point like little like sewer rats like sure and so we're we're you know whatever We're partying at the pool all day.

We go get ready. We're drinking tons of wine in the room. And when I say get ready, it was that era where we're all wearing Bay Bay dresses, probably like the same, but in a different, like, rainbow of color. We used to tape our boobs. So we'd get, like, we all had electrical duct tape, and you'd tape from one side to the other. Like, tape your boobs together, and they have to fill the gap at the bottom. So we'd have, like, socks or, like, whatever in there.

And then we all looked like we had huge fake boobs. And we all had the same, like, big barrel crimper wand. So we all had, like, this huge crimper hair at the Bay Bay Bay, the like six inch heel like you just have to like I have to set the scene because it's a lot we go to this we go to the lobby of this hotel and um this guy comes up and he's like yeah okay girls like I'm gonna take you into the club whatever so we go into this club and they bring us to kind of this back area that's like a little bit sectioned off from the main area which was like kind of popping off at this point now and we're all kind of like back there and we're sort of by ourselves in this like

big booth and we're like oh like we don't really want to be back here we want to be like one with the people. We want to be on the dance floor. We want to be getting down. But the guy's like, no, no, just like stay. And then he kind of like arranges us. Like he puts half the girls on the ledge of top and like half of us sort of like on the like lower seat part. And he's like, can you guys dance? We're sure. Whatever. Whatever you want from us will, we'll do it for the free bottle of vodka. So we're dancing. And then all of a sudden, in comes walking Leonardo DiCaprio with him and Mark Wahlberg. And we were like, oh, okay. Like we're all like so stunned but I will say like kudos to my group of girls everyone like kept it together

no one like went absolutely apeshid or like fainted or went like my favorite movie's the Titanic nothing like that yeah I can like absolutely but we didn't have like we we didn't have someone like that thank God who sort of like screwed it for all of us so we're just like being casual introducing ourselves dancing he's pouring drinks whatever then we're all like now we're all starting to get like pretty drunk and he's like this club's fucking boring. let's get out of here let's go to another one so we like are like okay whatever and so he takes us like you have to walk through the casino and i have never in my life seen like the sea part like it like moves as he walks like people are and then every head like snaps and i was like

oh god like i've been with you i've seen some crazy stuff this was like something i have never seen before he is leo and so then we get in the limo and basically we go club to club to club. I think we went to four different clubs with him. And we are just having like the best time. And then this is like the funny, the funny drunk part for me was that he took us back to a suite at the Bellagio where he had like an after party, catering, pool, gym. Like there's like so much going on in the suite. And at this point, I don't give a shit anymore because everyone was not taking pictures because they didn't want to like, you know, he said no, like no pictures and whatever. You didn't want to like be.

intrusive with his privacy. But I didn't care. I was so wasting. I'm like, Theo, just let me take a fucking picture with you. Like, no one's going to believe this. Like that my, I got to tell my mom that I met you. He's like, Alex, like, you can't. But here, let's go to the gym. He's like, I've got an idea. I'll do a photo shoot with you. And I'm like, okay. And so I'm in my baby dress, my tape boobs, my crimpedare, my high heels. And he's like, get on the treadmill. I want you to run like as fast as you can in heels. And he's like, I'm going to do this like photo shoot. So I've got my wine. I'm on the treadmill. I'm running. And he's like done. He's like,

Got the camera. He's like, click, click. He's like, no, like, work this angle, work this angle. And I'm like living for it, like loving it. I still have the photos. So we might have to throw one of those up on the off the vine group. Yeah, you have to. And so anyways, that was my moment with him. But then we ended up going back up to a sweetie, taking a liking to one way girlfriend. She'll remain unnamed. But we went back up to the suite. We're like shooting the shit with him. I know you do. And then, yeah, they went off to a room and did their thing. And that's my story to tell. And then I was just. waking up on the couch his friend tried to look up with me and they said no excited boyfriend stupid me but um uh I wake up my like dresses around my like my like robes my eyelashes are coming off we're like walking down the hall in the morning there was like bodyguards at the entrance and we didn't even like talk until we got in the cabin I'm like what happened she's like I slept with Leonardo DiCaprio I'm like anyways that's like my best story ever I really she would and she would But she's the cutest, like, she's the cutest girl. And guys just always loved her.

And I could just see the moment he got there. He was like, but he wouldn't let us take any photos because he probably was dating like a hottie or whatever at that point or whoever, whatever Victoria's Secret Supermodel he was dating at that point. How old is he now? I don't know, but I feel like he loves like 18 year olds and it's like questionable. Loves a young inn. We were 21, so it was legal.

But I think it was 15 years ago. So I would put him what? Is he 45 now? What do you think? He probably just doesn't, like, he probably is stuck at the age 21 when he was in his prime. He probably can, like, always just stay there. So he can always just get those girls. I feel like it's like him, like John Mayer, like a few of the other ones. Like, I'm like, they're never, they're never going to George Clooney yet. I don't know. I just don't see it for them. Well, they should. I feel like that's whatever. Not of my business. Hey, I don't eat there, yum. No, yeah. That's, that's my craziest drunk wine. night crazy. Me on a treadmill running with wine. Leon taking a photo of me. That's an incredible

story. I love that story. And the vine knows will too. So thank you very much for sharing that. They would appreciate it. I saw that. I said it goes. No, Roman's leaning on the light fixture and he like came up and then put, I think he's holding the light on right now, which is really funny. Well, that's all we have time for. But that was, I hope everyone got a little insight into the behind the scenes of spade and spares and work life and work questions but there's so much more than what we even talked about but i think that was a good little you know hour of that was a good start yeah good start yeah start yes and i'm just so grateful for you and for our team and for all the supporters and buyers and i just love it i'm just so happy with where things are at because usually

i thought i had i had to have like 80 things on the docket to you know look look look forward to or have. And now I'm like, I just want to eat, sleep, breathe, spades, get it everywhere and podcast. Is that funny when you really like hone in and focus on your passions and then you watch those explode and grow and evolve? And it's amazing. I think sometimes spreading yourself too thin is a bit of a... I've done that. And it was really fun and I could do it and it got me doing, you know, dance with the stars and certain things like that. And if other opportunities come, I've still got the, I've still got the, um, what is it? The mojo. I still got the mojo for it.

That's fun. Yeah, I could do it. I can do anything. But love you. And thank you for being on the pod today. Love you. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now ending.

And if I'm being honest, I wouldn't mind a rating and review. I'm John Glover. Emmy Award-winning researcher, John Glover, and I'm Marissa Pinson. Critically unaclaimed TV writer, Marissa Pinson. And we're the host of the new podcast, On Brand with John and Marissa. Join us every week for an exploration of the world's most interesting and iconic brands, like Walmart. Do they still have the old people who say welcome to Walmart? No, they got rid of them.

So you just want more old people in the store? I want every staff member to be over 90. And Heinz. Heinz. Heinz. Heinz. I say, I'm a German dictator. And while you learn about these legendary brands, you'll also learn a bit about us.

Hey, John, do you still sleep in shoes? There's probably, I would say probably three times a year I fall asleep in shoes. You told me the thing that you should never look under a Costco chicken. Well, I don't think you should ever look under a chicken. So tune in every Wednesday for a brand new episode of On Brand with John and Marissa. Available May 24th, wherever you get your podcast. See you there. See what's streaming free all month long during Amplify AAPI Voices on Pluto TV.

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