Six weeks ago, Napa Valley winemaker Jamey Whetstone, two partner-friends from South Carolina, Henri Gabriel and Peter Roy, and I launched a wine with attitude called Manifesto! (with that pesky exclamation as part of the trademark).
Our 2006 Manifesto! Sauvignon Blanc has had immediate, and tremendous, ground support and is already in by-the-glass programs at fine restaurants in the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, at Michael Mina in San Francisco, at Charlie Trotter in Chicago, at the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley, and will shortly be on the wine lists of two of the three highest rated restaurants in North America. Not bad for a simple (but tasty!) $13 screw-cap Sauvignon Blanc!
Because I find it somewhat of a conflict to write about our own wine, I am reverting to a detailed story written by David Stoneberg for the St. Helena Star, It is a rich, colorful account of the brand we are trying to build.
2006 Manifesto! Sauvignon Blanc is a "simple wine for a complex world"
By David Stoneberg
STAFF WRITER, St. Helena Star
Thursday, June 7, 2007 12:25 AM PDT
The 2006 sauvignon blanc isn’t an expensive bazillion-dollar wine, but maybe it should be. Why? A couple of reasons: The winemaker knows those who grow the grapes and regularly walks through the two Suisun vineyards during the growing season. The harvested grapes are crushed at Laird’s facility in Napa and the winemaker, Jamey Whetstone, takes great care in the fermenting, cellaring and bottling of the wine.
A Rutherford resident, Jim White, teamed up with partners Henri Gabriel and Peter Roy, both of whom are in the wine and food business from Charleston, S.C., and Whetstone to create the Manifesto! brand. They released their wine, a 2006 sauvignon blanc that retails for $13-$14, six weeks ago.
It’s clear White and Whetstone are having a lot of fun with this brand — you can’t forget the exclamation point, said White, the marketing expert who has created thousands of brands in his career — as they talked about the origin of the brand and wine recently at White’s Rutherford home. (If a charge of vintage rock ‘n’ roll is needed, press the doorbell and a hit by the Rolling Stones will be heard both inside and outside.)
“Manifesto! is my attempt at trying to make wine at a certain price point that is good for the masses,” Whetstone exclaimed. “For the most part, I wanted to make something that I considered a ‘yes’ brand. Something that feels good, is easy on the wallet, tastes good and probably should be sold for twice the price.”
Jamey Whetstone
White said the wine’s credo, or manifesto, is on the wine label and added it is pretty simple. “Great wine is made in the vineyard, doesn’t have to cost a fortune, should complement your meal, not overpower it and should be easy to open and drink.” During the interview, he repeated the wine’s slogan, “A simple wine for a complex world,” more than a couple of times. It, too, is printed on the label.
Common goals, ethics
White said he first met Whetstone when he was managing Mustards a decade ago. White liked the young man and said he thought that he might work with him at some point. But then Whetstone went to Turley Wine Cellars to learn about wine from the bottom up — he was hired to drive a tractor for $10 an hour — and later White said he thought about hiring Whetstone to create a wine brand for he and his wife. He said he could make a $75 or $85 bottle of cabernet sauvignon, like so many others, but “at the end of the day I chose not to do that.”
Afterward, White became involved in starting — and ultimately selling — other businesses, but in the back of his mind, he knew he wanted to work with Whetstone, who he calls a “bright, young and next-generation guy.”
White, who is 60, said he got together with Whetstone, who is in his 30s with a growing family, and came up with common goals and ethics for the Manifesto! brand.
“This brand is to stand for something,” White said. “We’re not going to rip people off and it’s a price fighter with ethics. Some of the money is going to go back to social welfare causes and charities.”
White added, “I understand branding and how to put stuff in a box and he (Whetstone) understands wine. We respect each others’ skills and that is what’s wonderful about the relationship. We have a good time laughing and being together.”
Aiding and abetting
Whetstone, who makes his own named brand wine and wine for other clients with Napa Valley grapes, said they produced 3,200 cases of wine for their first vintage. For the 2007 vintage they plan to produce much more sauvignon blanc — between 15,000 and 20,000 cases.
Five distributors currently sell their wine in a number of markets, both to restaurants for sale by the glass and for retail sales. Those markets include Napa Valley and the Bay Area, Chicago, New York and New Jersey. It’s for sale in the local area at St. Helena’s Sunshine Foods, Dean & Deluca and Napa’s Back Room Wines and Farm Restaurant at the Carneros Inn. It’s for sale by the glass, which was a conscious decision by White and Whetstone, at Pizza Azzurro, Napa.
The sauvignon blanc begins in two vineyards in Suisun, which has the perfect weather — both much hotter and cooler than Napa Valley — for growing the grapes. Whetstone went to Suisun and established a rapport with two growers, who had lost contracts to sell their grapes and then began to work with the vineyard crews. Last year, they went through the vineyards, pulled off fruit to increase quality and, instead of harvesting nine to 13 tons, Whetstone sought to harvest five to seven tons an acre. He and White paid the growers twice what they were used to for their higher-quality grapes.
“I know what we are doing is aiding and abetting a wonderful bottle of wine and we’re doing it the right way, rather than manipulating it once it gets into the cellar,” he said.
The wine was crushed, chilled, then warmed up a bit, fermented in stainless steel tanks, left on the lees, racked clean and remained at cellar temperature until it was bottled in mid-April. It saw no oak, which is one of many things White is passionate about. “It is meant to be a refreshing beverage to go with food and complement it, not overpower it. It has the proper amount of alcohol — it was harvested at 13.7 Brix — and it’s not woody. With whites, you don’t need a cord of wood every time you have a swallow of wine,” White said.
Getting closure
The senior partner is also adamant about the closure — steel screw caps — for the Manifesto! brand.
“I’ve been a wine writer for 30 years and I’m so tired of running into 6 to 8 percent of wines that have been corked. I’ve seen so many corked wines that I’m irritated beyond belief both as a writer and consumer,” White said.
For a sauvignon blanc that sells for $13-$14 and sees no oak barrels in its aging process, White asks, “Why would you want to disparage 3 to 5 percent of your end product with a bad cork? This is the way it goes. New Zealand whites use a screw cap and this is as good as any New Zealand wine. Let’s have a nice day and put on a screw cap.”
Whetstone chimes in: “It’s easy to open, it’s in our manifesto and you don’t have to fumble with a corkscrew to open it.”
Food friendly
Whetstone and White both agreed that any white wine they make has to complement food and their sauvignon blanc does that. For Whetstone, the marriage of food and wine is “super important. That’s why we’re going for wine by the glass (at restaurants) and not dumping it for sale at Costco,” he added. He said he would pair the sauvignon blanc with fresh grilled and steamed leeks.
For White, the perfect pair for Manifesto! Sauvignon Blanc is simpler. “My test for a white wine is a dozen oysters. If a wine doesn’t complement an oyster, it sure as hell isn’t going to complement any other fish or complement anything else.”
It’s clear the two love what they’re doing; White said they are “motivated by their passions. We’re putting the right product in the bottle and we can make our money at $12 a bottle. Why do we have to screw anybody? We’re doing the right things for the right reasons and we’re not motivated by greed, ego or avarice.”
He added, “I want wine drinkers to know this is not some 99-point wine that you paid $500 for. It’s a consumable product. Enjoy the bloody thing. You should have no expectations. Buy it, try it. Put it in your mouth and exclaim how good it is and then you’ll come back.”
The interview was nearly over and the bottle was more than half empty.
White offered to make espressos for all but made just one … he had run out of beans and he said he didn’t have enough time to roast more.
So, before White could talk about his experiences as a television news personality and later as a foreign journalist, not to mention being a partner in a business that makes a million muffins a day for Starbucks and other clients or his career as a “blogger” — his most recent blogs are at www.napaman.com — it was time to call it a day, fade into the sunset and walk away with that half-finished bottle of wine.
At home that night, it was delicious, and although it was served with fish, there was nary an oyster in sight.
Shot of the front page of the St. Helena Star business section, where the story originally appeared.
