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Big Numbers
and why the IRS
is my new best friend.
Fall-Winterer 2007-2008 #18
Big numbers have dominated this past year on our family calendar. In May our daughter Maddy turned 16 (clean the shotgun!). In July my lovely bride Jennifer turned 50 (she has never looked better!).
In September our son Reilly turned 18 (check the airbags!). Next week Jennifer and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (gold star for both!). And in two very short months I will turn 50
(I know I’m forgetting something?!).
In the wine industry this past year we saw some big numbers as in prominent Napa Valley family run wineries that sold out to very large corporate entities for some very large numbers. Rumor on
the street has it that there will be more next year. This echoes a larger trend in the wine business as a whole in that we have been the seeing the consolidation of many family run wholesalers
(just the type of company we seek to do business with) into a small number of multi-state behemoths over the last several years.
The point I’m trying to get across here is that the small family run estate winery is becoming an endangered species.
Of the myriad challenges our type of business faces the most difficult is surely the hand off from one generation to the next. Not only do you have to find someone in the next generation who has
the drive and the ability to forge ahead into the uncertain future, but you have to have the financial wherewithal to appease the suddenly inquisitive IRS.
A large proportion of my energies in the past year have been directed toward the survival of this newly intimate relationship with the IRS. It has been wonderful to discover what
an engaging and deserving group they actually are, so generous with their time, so understanding of my plight. They totally understand that I can’t possibly produce the mountain of cash that
they so richly deserve. And in this tight credit market today where lenders have become much more reticent to extend their dwindling cash reserves to strangers who need loans, the IRS is there
for me, and with such great rates!
Lastly, and by no means least, this last harvest finally gave us a full and very deep crop off the big cab vineyard.
So cheers to future, I strongly believe that we will have one!
--Michael Keenan
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Solar Powered
and Sustainably Farmed Wines.
The 2006 Napa Valley Summer Blend Chardonnay is the
winery's first release bearing the
words "Solar
Powered and Sustainably Farmed." Wine Business reports that the winery,
located in the Spring Mountain
district of the Napa Valley,
recently completed a solar power system on their property.
The system will
supply all of the winery's power needs. When
the winery's reds are released in the fall they will carry
the
same "Solar Powered and Sustainably Farmed" phrase on
the label.
Solar Panels in the Chardonnay Field
The Cellar
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