Ep. 58: A Winery Business that Resonates with You and Your Values with Michael Juergens

In today’s episode, let me introduce you to Michael Juergens, founder of the Bhutan Wine Company.

He is a senior partner with a Big Four consulting firm, where he runs the Winery Solutions practice, overseeing the portfolio of services the firm provides to wineries. He is also a certified specialist in wine, a certified sommelier, and a Stage 2 candidate to become the 58th American to qualify as a Master of Wine. Michael has written a number of books on wine, and runs the wildly popular Drinking & Knowing Things wine blog. He is the founder of the Bhutan Wine Company, and is leading the development of the wine industry in this magical Himalayan country. He owns the award winning SoCal Rum company, which was recently awarded the highest point score in history for any silver rum (95 points). Michael is also a professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of CA, Irvine. Michael plays the drums in a punk rock band, and spends his free time running adventure races in exotic locations around the world, building.   

Let’s dive into his wine story!

[00:01 – 10:15] Getting into the Winery Program

• The importance of two professional certification tracks  
• Michael shares how he started wanting to learn more about winery
• How he convinces his firm to start a winery business, and be in charge

[10:16 – 23:49] Starting Side Projects on Winery

• Starting as a small sommelier
• Deciding to write wine novels
• Michael shares his experience on Bhutan and their wine culture

[23:50 – 35:40] Lessons Learned During Winery Business

• The Importance of the story of your wine business to resonate with you and your values
• Differentiating winery as business, art or as an assignment as the spectrum
• Aligning story against demographic as a scale with economic viability 

[35:41 – 44:12] Closing Segment

• Learn everything you need to grow your wine, business, or brand with Wine Business Bootcamp where I help other wine producers master the fundamentals of digital marketing, nail their customer experience, and convert more wine tasters into their wine clubs and other offers. Just send me a dm or email at [email protected] the subject: Wine Business Bootcamp
• Favorite Wine: Burgundy
• Favorite go-to pairings
• • Vintage champagne with steak
  • Sauternes with caviar
• Wine Resource
• • Drinking
  • Knowing things

Connect with Michael 

Website: http://www.bhutanwine.com/ 

Let’s continue the Everyday Wine Conversations and connect with me through Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]. You can also check out my website at ​www.​klevywineco.com.

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Tweetable Quotes:

“If you can grow the best guava in the world, you should be able to grow some pretty damn interesting grapes for wine.”  - Michael Juergens

“You've either got to be on the, we're selling a product to make a product to sell. Or we're trying to do something interesting. I think the people in the middle of that are gonna be less successful than the people on the outside.”  - Michael Juergens