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00:00So let's just start here with the trends that we've seen. I mean we definitely know that through the pandemic stay at home it turned out to mean drink at home. But what are you seeing as lasting trends at the higher end of the wine spectrum. What do people want these days. Well I think one of the things that happened during the pandemic was people a had additional spendable income because they weren't spending money on going on trips and flights and airplanes and hotels. And there was sort of this flight to quality that if you were going to open a bottle of wine at home you're going to open something great and enjoy it with your family and friends. What is the what is the labor crisis. The shortage of workers the supply chain issues what does all that mean for wine producers right now David. Well I think in the you know in the U.S. wine industry we just finished harvest. You know we didn't see a lot of big labor problems. I think we're facing the industry in general is facing the same kind of labor problems that other that the hotel industry is hospitality restaurants. You know finding people to work in the tasting rooms and enjoy those moments with our customers is definitely become a bigger challenge. I mean shipping is my main concern right. I'm going home to Granville Ohio for Thanksgiving. Am I going to be able to find Silver Oak in our local stores. You know I think Matt that we are really on top of that from a Silver Oak standpoint. I think for the industry you know for the country at large obviously supply chains a huge issue. I was reading this morning that there are 100000 trucker jobs available. You know so but we're still we do our own fulfillment at the winery. So our direct consumer you know getting wine into people's hands in their homes is still something that we're able to do pretty successfully. One of the observable trends in the last couple years has been that U.S. wines but especially California wines David got very expensive. The really high end of that market got really really pricey in ways that a lot of people hadn't expected or seen before. Will that continue as this sort of a new maturation for the region. Yeah I really think you know California wines Oregon Washington these North American regions are really coming into their own. And you know for so long people were chasing the old world and thinking about you know France in particular you know French wines by comparison to California wines are way more expensive at the high end. So California wines remain an excellent bargain. And and I think the industry in general has done so much work to improve quality. And so I do believe that you've got a great value proposition and you're getting what you're paying for. You know for four Napa Sonoma California wines in general I want to talk to you about some of the extreme weather. You've been dealing with extreme events. You've got fires going back to 2017. We've got really recent heavy weather. How is that affecting the grapes and what years. You know how will the different years be affected over the past say four or five years. Well I came from California yesterday so I sat through the storm this weekend. And we got as much rain over the weekend as we got in the entire rainy season of last year. So it was it was it was pretty crazy. But I think you know we're super happy that fire seasons over this year that is completely done. And hopefully we'll have a pretty normal pattern. That's with the sort of long term forecast says you know I think we made it through a year without any fires that really affected you know Napa and Wine Country. It was obviously it affected our state in a really big and meaningful way and having been through that personally. You know I feel for the people that lost their homes and lives. But you know I think we're I think we're getting on top of it. There's so much activity that's happening in the industry particularly in Napa Valley. I'm on the board of the Napa Valley vintners and serve on our fire wise committee. And there's just a lot of work that's being done by a lot of people to mitigate fires to prepare and think about it in a whole new way. You know what's interesting to me about Silver Oak and you were talking before about how you deal in a sense with your own logistics. And I know that your dad Ray founded the business so that you would have your own. You're the only I think winery with your own American coverage there. Why is Silver Oak so self-sufficient. How did you realize that was the right way to run it. Even before we had things like the Covid pandemic coming along. I think that I think for Silver Oak you know we are all about what is in that bottle of wine and quality. And so controlling our grape supply chain was a way that we started by acquiring vineyards you know making sure that we could grow and produce wines that were excellent would always be in our bottle. I think the Cooper Bridge was the next thing was to be sure that we could produce barrels that would be of excellent quality for our American oak style of wine. And we're joking now about making our own glass. But I don't think that's gonna happen.

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Silver Oak Winery CEO: Pandemic Spurred 'Flight to Quality'

David Duncan, CEO at Silver Oak Winery, discusses how the pandemic has impacted the U.S. wine industry. He tells Matt Miller and Amanda Lang on 'Bloomberg Markets' that the pandemic spurred a 'flight to quality' with people spending more time at home.

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