Of wine and spirits: An interview with Bob Palmer

Of wine and spirits: An interview with Bob Palmer January 17, 2009
1 2 next In 1993, with a decade of Long Island wine experience under his belt, Bob Palmer sat down with former Newsday staff writer John McDonald to discuss his experiences, his past and his plans for expanding the Long Island wine region. Here are excerpts from that interview.

Newsday: Is it the wine business that brought you to the East End or was it the East End that got you interested in the wine business?
Palmer: It's a little bit of both actually. When I was a kid there was a Catholic boys camp out here in Mattituck. I remembered it fondly. There was a point where I sold this advertising agency and was debating what to do and a friend of mine said why not plant a vineyard in California. I said to myself why go 3,000 miles away when in my own backyard we could do the same thing. So we came out and we saw this particular piece of property and thought it was perfect for us.

Newsday: What was this place like when you bought it?

Palmer: This house had not been lived in seven years. Because the prior occupants were both sickly in their last years, the house hadn't been kept up at all. We decided the house was so much a part of the history of the North Fork that we would fix it up to what it probably was like when it was in great shape.

Newsday: Why would you want to do something like that?
Palmer: It sounds trite to say it's a sense of history but I think that's it. When you look out, you realize that what is now a vineyard was farmed by some of the earliest settlers in the United States. This house was home to how many generations of farmers over 200 years.

Newsday: Did you know what you were getting into when you went into the wine business?
Palmer: Yes and no. I knew it was going to take 10 years to become profitable. I haven't reached that yet. And I suspected it would be difficult to sell a Long Island wine beyond Long Island. I didn't know how difficult it would be.

Newsday: You're selling all over the world now?
Palmer: We are. But it's hard. We have to go there ourselves. It is getting better. When we first started selling outside of New York, in '87 or '88, we would say we're from Long Island and the people would say, "There are wines on Long Island?" And now they know it. They suspect it's pretty good. We still have to remember we have over a thousand domestic competitors. No matter how good our wine might be, say you are talking to somebody from Miami, you are showing them a chardonnay. One of the questions you have to answer is that there are 900 chardonnays made in the United States. Why yours? It is tough. We've been able to win important medals. This business is driven by awards. There is a tendancy of the wineries that open out here to say they'll sell it on Long Island. But there are a finite number of restaurants and a finite number of liquor stores on Long Island. Our marketing strategy is that we take whatever money we make on Long Island and invest it in going farther.

Newsday: What was it that made you want to get into the wine business in the first place?
Palmer: I didn't grow up with any knowledge of wine. My job had always taken me to San Francisco. You go out there, you are suddenly immersed in wine. I met people who could be blindfolded and taste a wine and tell you what year it was made and what part of France. So it got to be a hobby. When I sold the agency, I didn't think I was going to get back into the advertising business. I asked, "What am I going to do?" This is what I came up with. I can stay on Long Island and it is something I can leave behind.

Newsday: What is the best part of the business?
Palmer: Best part is being here and meeting people who come out here. I enjoy working with the public.

Newsday: How has the public's seeming change in attitude toward drinking, the emergence of such groups as SADD and MADD - how do they effect the wine industry on Long Island?
Palmer: I think it works to our favor, because none of those groups are really preaching prohibitionism. What they preach is moderation and common sense. I think wine is a beverage of moderation. On our radio commericials we tag it with a moderation message always. I have no problem with a MADD bumper sticker on my car.

Newsday: Have you ever been in a faraway place and just stopped in a restaurant and seen one of your wines on the menu?
Palmer: Outside of San Francisco there is a great restaurant called the Lark Creek Inn. We were out there on vacation and were on our way to the Napa Valley to talk to some wineries. We stopped and looked at the wine list and there was our merlot. That gives you a big kick.

Newsday: What are you planning to do next?

Palmer: We just opened a retail store in Huntington which sells Palmer wine as well as wine food products. The next question is how big do we need to be and still be hands on. In the wine business there is a point where it is no longer hand-crafted, and I think that shows up in the quality of the wines. We will max out our ability to make wine at about 15,000 cases. We are at about 12,000 now. When we hit 15,000, which I think we'll do next year, then it's a question of is this as much as we can do and keep the personal touch.

Newsday: You mentioned earlier that you are not making a profit yet.
Palmer: I could make a profit this year if I didn't go buy two new tractors; I'm building a storage barn. If you want to make profit, raise prices a little and don't invest in the future. I've another business and I'm not at a point where I need the profit. Although this is what I intend to do for the rest of my life, I can wait a little.

Newsday: So this is a business you plan to retire to?

Palmer: That's not word in my vocablulary. The retire word. I started in advertising business having lied about my age when I was 14 years old. That means I have been 40 years in the business. It's not boring. I love what I do, but there is a sameness to it. I'd rather do this.

Newsday: This is definitely a business and not a hobby?
Palmer: A, it's too expensive a hobby. B, it goes against my grain. I don't mind losing a little now but it's an investment in the future.

Newsday: Anything I didn't ask, you want to say?
Palmer: The whole quality of New York State wines has improved. That is a big help. No matter how much we say we're from Long Island we are, in the minds of America, from New York State. As long as New York State has this association with sweet Concord wines, it is going to drag everything down with it. What is happening, though, is that there is a great champagne upstate, good chardonnays made in the Hudson Valley. Long Island has quality wines [that] are getting articles written.

Newsday: There is a distinction between a commercial winery and a chateau winery?
Palmer: A farm winery. The farm winery act of 1983 is why we have opened so many wineries in the state and why so many are good. Before the act, you had several giant wineries and that was about it. Their product was the one that was, in one case, hurting New York. But they made the farm license inexpensive enough that people were willing to experiment with expensive grapes, like chardonnays. They discovered that up in the Finger Lakes they could grow chardonnays, which they never believed they could.

Newsday: Do you see yourself as a salesman for the whole Long Island wine industry, not just Palmer?
Palmer: By accident, if not by intent. I'm the only one out there. When you go to these wine shows, the public comes in and spends a good deal of money to try wines. A lot of events are seminars and I'm on the panel talking about Long Island. I can't sell a bottle of wine if I don't sell Long Island. I'd be very happy to say I'm the only winery on Long Island. But you can't. You have to talk about how many there are and the quality. I'm a director of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation and vice president of Long Island Wine Council. I say, if you haven't tried a New York wine lately you should, because the quality is terrific. If you have never tasted a Long Island wine, then you are going to have a terrific wine.