Thankful for Wine in the Glass: A Tour of NM Wineries

It's Thanksgiving week so this post will be about what we are thankful for...at the winery.

Vivac is owned and run by my husband and his brother, myself and my sister-in-law. The 4 of us have given blood, sweat and tears to the winery over almost 2 decades and hope to reach a point where we can pass it on to our children as a lucrative inheritance. As we built this winery, literally from the ground up, we have moved from working outside jobs to fund buying grapes and barrels, bottling at night at the end of a long shift and doing every last part of the process personally, to now having a division of labor, a fantastic staff and we are no longer on food stamps! As the winery has grown, so have we. We have won International wine competition awards, learned the hard way what works for us and what does not and are deeply involved in the development of the industry in the state as a whole. We have learned not to take every last thing so damn seriously and that taking time off is just as important as the time put in. So what better idea is there than to gather up our staff and visit some of our friends wineries to do a little compare and contrast; give us perspective on what we can be grateful for and where we need to improve?

We hired Cindy with New Mexico Wine Tours to take us around Albuquerque on her luxury bus and back home to Dixon. I highly recommend doing this at some point, Cindy is fabulous and having a bus allows you to imbibe safely. She can tailor the tour to your needs/ wants and get you up to visit us where you can drink in the view. There are several wineries on the way up to us and (cue unabashed plug) with phenomenal wines, local beers on tap, local cider, handmade chocolates, handmade cheeses, and all kinds of goodies, you really shouldn't visit NM or live in NM and not make it up to see us.

We couldn't include every single winery we wanted to or we'd drown, so we selected a variety to show different sized wineries as well as different approaches to winemaking and/ or customer experiences. I hesitate to name the wineries we visited because I want to share some of the things we learned and some of that may color your idea of that winery, which isn't fair. We all have off days or things that don't go smoothly. It is important to go out and visit all the wonderful wineries in our state without prejudice.

And let the complaining begin! You didn't think you'd escape my complaining just because this is a post about being thankful and doesn't include running did you? Silly readers, I always complain!

Of all the wineries, the thing we walked away with is that we are a thirsty group and most of the time the wine flowed like molasses. No joke! Perhaps you have had the same experience? It took too long to get a glass in your hand or too long between pours or too little of a pour...whatever it is (and we have dealt with complaints too), it comes down to POUR THE DAMN WINE! It is a legal standard that we all have to adhere to with how much to pour, but if the tasting is going so slowly that you spend most of the time twirling your empty glass, it feels like you were not given enough wine. Also, if you are not being entertained, the lack of wine becomes your focus. At one winery, we had to wait so long between pours and with absolutely no information or "entertainment" that we left. Lets face it, we are in the service industry and people expect you to 'dance' for them...so do it! At another winery conversation became too personal with the server oversharing to the point that it felt more like a therapy session...AND we had no wine in our glasses. It was borderline painful, clearly not the experience customers want. We are thankful for those that are not shy to ask for a taste of the next wine.

At one of the wineries, there was actually too much entertainment which made the tasting take too long. We all agreed too much was better than too little, but that the focus also needs to be on the group enjoying themselves and a little less about the winery's need to lecture. That said, the wine flowed well and constantly which made for a happy group. We are thankful for drinking wine in the morning.

At another winery, they relied on reputation to do all the work for them. This made that winery pale in comparison to other wineries. This is definitely not the desired goal. I don't think any of us want people leaving our tasting room saying "that was nice, but..." and while reputation may have gotten people in the door, it is your job to wow them while they are there. Here it is again, do the dance people! We are thankful for delicious wines even if there is no fanfare.

We also managed to sneak in lunch at a place that was fabulous with beautiful atmosphere but crap service. I am pretty understanding and give people a lot of slack, but this poor girl couldn't have figured out how to take an order or remember what she was supposed to do to save her life. It was a great lesson to our staff in how being distracted or flustered makes for a terrible experience for the customer. Breath, slow down and BE NICE! Seems simple, but over and over again that seems to be the challenge, just being nice. We are thankful for getting to finally leave.

Then there was the winery that had such screwy hours that it became difficult to visit, even with a scheduled appointment. When we were late (we know that is an annoying thing to do to someone that is waiting to meet you, but also unavoidable that day) and we could not connect with the owner to update our timing, we showed up to a locked gate. The high number of signs during this interaction  that said to us "I don't care" really wasn't good for business. Talk about a good learning opportunity! We are thankful for ordering drinks at lunch to get us through the dry patch.

Not to sound full of myself, but in truth, most wineries, even in high profile areas like Napa, roll out the red carpet when they hear winemakers are visiting (yes, we are now totally spoiled). We hope that our staff does the same in return. However at one winery, the staff was so busy that they were not only distracted, but gave us the distinct impression that we were a pain in the ass for being there. Pretty sure that winery did NOT want us to have that experience. Server after server came through, trading off who would throw wine at us, each server worse than the last. At one point when I asked the server to share with our group the story of the winery, she said with an exasperated huff "I really don't know". Hmmm...that sucks. We are thankful for knowing when to leave an abusive relationship. Yes, our experience tasting wine is a relationship.

It wasn't all negative though. Over all the wineries were lovely and welcoming and we had an amazing day tasting wines that were different than ours. We had a wonderful time with a group of incredible people that made us so thankful they are our staff. We were able to make that trip happen and take a day off to play, boy oh boy are we thankful to be at a point where we can do that! We saw that our staff is engaged and excited and that they are doing a fabulous job. Each one of them is always trying their best, and for that we are so very thankful. We also saw that the industry as a whole is growing and evolving and yet showing individual personality and that is very exciting. We learned that we are doing so much right and that we need to be grateful for how far we have come.

So this Thanksgiving, be thankful for the little family owned businesses around you, be thankful for the people that make your dreams come true, be thankful for the changes you've made in your life and above all, lets be thankful for the wine in our glasses!

*this post is brought to you by the newly released Heaven & Hell Artist Series wines: Divino & Diavolo. These wines are off the charts amazing, the label art by Jessamyn Lovell is mind blowing and they are a must have for your Thanksgiving meal.

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!
www.VivacWinery.com