Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right podcast. We're super excited today to have with us the founder and CEO of Republican Read Wines, Paul Johnson, is with us to talk about wines, tariffs, conversation, all of it. Very happy that you're here with us.
Thank you for being with.
Us, Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
So tell our audience, give our audience sort of the inside scoop, if you will, about the American wine industry and what people might be say the most surprised to learn about how wine is actually grown and bottled and sold and all of that.
Yeah, I think a lot of people think that when you think of a winery, you think of a vineyard on a winery and they grow the grapes and they make the wine and they sell to your doorstep. People kind of have this notion of the wine industry. But really, while there are some wineries like that it's pretty it can also be very fragmented where people just focus on growing other companies just focus on making wine, and others will be focused on kind of marketing and selling brands
and something that people don't know. And there's been quite a bit of press about this, at least within the industry is big wineries especially kind of use this approach where they can import up to twenty five percent of a blend of a bottle from South America, Australia, Europe and put it into a bottle that is labeled as
if it's made in America. And when you add up all of that imported wine, it's roughly equal to the shortage that you know, I come up from a farming background, so I'm partial to the farming side of things, and if you add up what is imported, it is roughly
equal to the shortage that the American farmers face. And so farmers are left dropping fruit on the ground, and yet a lot of the big wine companies are importing wine and it's you know, you look at this going this may be as a good case for tariffs to support the American industry. Yeah, so it's something that I think a lot of people don't realize and something I like to talk about.
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about the US wines that contain all the imported juice. And then how do Americans know how they even navigate that? How do they even know how to to choose like American wine.
You know, yeah, it's like anything else, you really have to look into the company that you're buying from. If this is something you care about, then you know, take a closer look at the company itself. And if it's a multinational company or a very large winery, chances are they're running at a level where they would consider bringing in imports and they're looking very much at their bottom line and margins, and you know they're more likely to
do that. Your smaller wineries, you know, they're less likely to do that.
So you mentioned that you know that this could be a good case for tariff so and you mentioned also that you have a farming background. So what would a pro American, pro farmer tariff policy look like Exactly, one that would protect growers and wine makers like.
You, specifically to do with bulk wine imports. So, this wine has moved around, you know, before it's put into bottle, it's just sitting in large tanks. You could put it into tankers, you can move it around the world. And so that's how bulk wine has moved around and imported
into the country. And so I would support having tariffs specifically on bulk wine coming in and not necessarily hurting you know, the producers that you know, French wine and Italian wine and Argentinian malbek and all these wines that people love. There's a place for that, and I don't oppose having free trade there. But when we're bringing in bulk wine and then blending it into something that says it's American made, that's where, especially when it hurts the
American farmer. That's right. Go wait, you know, I think we can have a better policy here, and really it would be kind of better labeling laws, especially to do with imported fruit, and currently we have there are laws at state at least seventy five percent of a blend has to be made domestically in order to or from an appollation. If it's made in Napa, at least seventy five percent of it has to come from Napa. Similarly, if you buy a bottle wine, this says California, seventy
five percent has to come from California. But if we were to increase that or at least have a winery call out, you know part of this is imported wine. I think the consumer just knowing that would would really help.
Okay, So you. You are a wine guy, obviously, but you're also a patriotic a patriotic wine guy, as evidenced by your flag on the wall behind you and everything that you do. But we had we had an AHA moment when we started our company. Gosh, it was like almost sixteen years ago now, over chips and salsa right at a Mexican restaurant. When was your AHA moment to start your small business? And how did that happen?
Oh man, I remember exactly where I was. I was driving down the highway on my daily drive down to the vineyard, and I remember having this moment and it was born. It was actually born out of my father, who I learned from him. He spent a lifetime in the wine industry saying, whatever you do, Paul, never ever start a winery. Don't do it. Please, if you take any advice for me my entire life in this industry, don't start a winery in defiance.
It's defiance, that's what it is.
It's part of my nature. But I actually took all of his cautionary tales of why you don't do it, and there's a lot of reasons. But if you go into try and sell through grocery stores. You're competing with Gallo and Constellation who own the shelf space, so you'll never compete there, right, And if you try and stay small and do a little tasting room and NAPA, then you're one of hundreds of wineries competing for foot traffic,
and that is an uphill battle as well. What he hadn't considered was kind of having a virtual winery that lives online and it's focused around people and their passion and it's it's something that's so that you could really only do online because I mean, sure there's people locally passionate, but that's a very small group of people. But once you go, you know, out into the world and broadcast, you can find really, you know, patriotic people who love
this country, who want to buy products that reflect their values. Yes, And when I looked around because I was I was, I wanted to start a winery. I wanted to do this, and I thought, almost every winery you think of is all about themselves. It's about the vineyard they come from, the pedigree, the wine maker, you know, the person's name who's on the bottle, and how great they are. It's all about that. And I wanted to start something that
was about something that people were passionate about. And you know, I'm very passionate about politics and conservative politics. People think California is all blue, and if you were to actually look at the state, like it is a huge agricultural state and those communities are quite conservative.
You're so right, you are right about that.
Yeah. Well, and we've go ahead.
No, I've got a campaign I'm going to come out with next year that is the heart of California bleeds rad and it is yeah, and it is especially going into the midterms, and I really want to have a splash here in California and just bring attention to the fact that we're not all a bunch of you know, liberal wag chops. Yeah, And that was actually the reason my initial reason for starting the Winery was because I was so sick of the narrative of the media portraying
us as what I call heartless bigots. They're all a bunch of heartless bigots, yeap. And my experience with conservatives is just so different, like the biggest hearts you can imagine, yep. Just we just don't want to rely on the government to solve our problems. We'd rather band together and solve things ourselves.
That's our community too.
We totally get.
Absolutely yeah, well and we've loved that. So much of the messaging around your brand has been about how wine is meant to inspire conversations, that you drink it when you're in the company of loved ones or friends or family or whatever and so and we get that because so much. I mean, one of our most watched videos ever was when we were drinking wine and having some and enjoying it during a debate night or an election night, during a live stream like this was, you know, a
couple of years ago. But that is when you think about drinking and socializing with friends. It's all about conversations. I'm curious to know if you've gotten feedback because that's been part of your branding. Have you gotten any good stories from people who have had that had your wine on the table and it has started conversations and can you tell us about those?
Oh? Man, I mean it's countless people, everything from I give to this to my liberal aunt as kind of as like as a little bit of a jab because they're you know, and you know, and it's actually ends up sparking a conversation where you actually make some headway or you start to kind of understand each other a
little bit more. I hear it all the time. And it's even within you know, conservatives, we have I have this, you know, it's kind of a play on the wine, but we call it shades of Red, where even within our own party, there are certainly things that unite us, you know, the big themes, right, but how we get there, how we want to achieve those goals. There's a lot of different opinions, and that's great. That's the whole point of a democracy is having different opinions and the best
ones rise to the top. And the only way you know what the best ones are is through discourse. This through conversation is through sitting around with a glass of wine, you know, not taking shots and you know, just sitting around civilly with a glass of wine and some food around the dinner table or the porch or wherever you have and just talk and and be civil.
And you can't get mad at somebody who'd forgiven you a gift, right like that, if you want a door opener, Like, if you're gifting someone, how can they get mad? Right?
Yeah, We've had I've had people contact me saying, you know, there was it was given to our liberal it was given to them as a gift. They soaked the label off. They were it was so offended to buy it. They soaked the wine God and then poured the wine and was like, it's actually really good wine. The wine.
Yeah, yeah, so.
Don't waste the wine. But even there, you know, it's I've had so much fun with this project and so many people. I mean, we work with conservative organizations. They use it for fundraising, they use it their events. It's just it's been a really fun project. And we have a whole new phase of our of our company coming
up that exciting. A huge success over this last election, and I've taken some of that success and reinvested it into the business and we're really doubling down on creating community and doing more things like live tastings and going to be going around the country with events and doing different things. So it's an exciting time for us.
That is awesome. Well, we've loved having a chance to talk about your wine and your company to our audience, and we've made sure that they know if they would like to check it out, they can go to Republican Red dot com and I know right now there's a special offer for our audience where they can get the Patriots Starter Pack, which is the four bottles of wine right ten percent off and free shipping when they use the code Chicks at Republican Read dot com, do you
have anything you'd like to share about what's included in that Patriot Pack.
Yeah, it's it's kind of it's our best sellers. So we've got our Chardonnay, pino noir cabernet in a sparkling wine. So people think Republican Read you must be all red wine. No, we have white wine too. We just figured we couldn't call it Republican wine community. So we had a had an internal joke and I knew it wasn't going to work well, but it was going to the campaign was going to be Taste the Privilege, and.
I love it.
Just you know, that's that edgy side of me that wants to kind of poke the bear a little bit. But I decided better better judgment, let's not do that. And so everything is Republican Read. And but we have a you know, Chardonay, a sparkling wine, which is it's so delicious, and then pino and CAB and then we have special addition labels, and we're constantly coming out with new things because they're conversational pieces, and so we're every you know, you join our wine club, every shipment you'll
get kind of a new set of conversation pieces. You know, the consistent, great quality wine.
That's awesome. Well, it's been great to talk to you more about the business, the brand, the wine itself. We appreciate you being here.
Thank you so much. I really really appreciate it being Thank you