SLO Down Wines breaks mold with Sexual Chocolate(2)
Forsythe immediately started crashing Cal Poly's viticulture classes so he could absorb as much information as possible. Together, he and Allen pitched a tent on the property and camped out until they got the vineyard planted.
The former Navy SEAL was soon happy with his vineyard and told Forsythe and Allen that they could keep the fruits of their labor - literally. It would take some time before the vineyard would produce, so the guys continued to beg for, borrow and steal their grapes to keep their bootlegging operation going.
Going legit
Forsythe was still crashing viticulture classes and became particularly inspired by a marketing lesson he audited. The gist: Separate yourself from the pack.
After graduation, Forsythe got a job at San Francisco's Crushpad, a make-your-own-barrel venue that has since moved to the Wine Country. Silliman moved to the city, and the three friends decided to go legit "with licenses and stuff" and set up an office in Dogpatch. Although Allen remained in San Luis Obispo, where he began attending Cal Poly full time to study agriculture business, he contributed his life's savings to the venture - $5,000 - to buy grapes from throughout California.
Without any other capital, they'd have to carry the business on their good name. So they borrowed one from Eddie Murphy, whose character in the movie "Coming to America" had a band called Sexual Chocolate. They printed the Sexual Chocolate label to look like it was written by hand with a No. 2 pencil.
In part it read, "We started making wine knowing it would be used for late night drinking, and that the French are annoying ... We came up with this full bodied red that pairs well with Wednesday nights and pizza ... We recommend this be drank immediately and shared with girls. When you want more just call us."
And once again, they put Forsythe's cell phone number on the label.
'What's a MOMA?'
That's how they found out that their wine was featured in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's "How Wine Became Modern" exhibit. Attendees saw Forsythe's number on the bottle and on a lark called it.
"I was getting all these calls from people saying, 'Are you the guy whose wine bottle is in the MOMA?' " Forsythe said. "And I said, 'What's a MOMA?' "
The experience, however, gave them even more motivation to finish what they'd started.
No longer delivering to the dorms, they now have 120 accounts, including retail outlets K&L and Draggers. The wine, which retails from $22 to $37 a bottle, is being made at a winery in Santa Barbara. And instead of rolling their barrels under a bridge in San Luis Obispo, they store their bottles in a 1967 Volkswagen bus Forsythe found rusting in some vineyard.
"It's our corporate wine cellar - and a part-time bedroom," he said.
