Entrepreneurship in a Bottle: The Making of One Hope Wine Pt. 1
Join Jake Kloberdanz, the founder and CEO of ONE HOPE Wine, as he shares the inspiring journey of building a wine company from the ground up, starting in a public storage unit and a U-Haul truck. With a passion for wine and a mission to create a community-centric business, Jake reveals how personal challenges, including a close friend's cancer diagnosis, sparked his entrepreneurial spirit and led to the creation of a brand that stands for more than just wine—it's about hope and giving back. He discusses the hurdles of sourcing grapes and establishing a brand in a highly competitive market, emphasizing the importance of trust and community support. Throughout the conversation, listeners will gain insights into the challenges and triumphs of launching a wine company in Napa Valley's regulated environment. This episode is not just about wine; it's a testament to resilience, innovation, and the power of collaboration in pursuing one's dreams.
Your Host: Forrest Kelly is an experienced Radio/TV broadcaster who has interviewed some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities, from Garth Brooks to Kevin Costner. A lover of wine who is fascinated by the science behind it.
Voted One of The Best Travel, Top 5 Minute, and Top Wine Podcasts.
Takeaways:
- Jake Kloberdanz's entrepreneurial journey began after college, fueled by early experiences in the wine industry.
- The inspiration for ONE HOPE Wine came from a friend's battle with cancer, igniting passion and purpose.
- Starting from a public storage unit, Kloberdanz built a successful wine brand with community support.
- Kloberdanz emphasizes the importance of community ownership in the Napa wine industry.
- Building trust and brand recognition in the wine space is a challenging yet rewarding journey.
- The Napa Valley community played a crucial role in supporting Kloberdanz's innovative vision for ONE HOPE Wine.
Forrest Kelly
Welcome. Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast with Forrest Kelly.
It's not every day that we hear a story about a wine company being born out of a public storage unit, a U haul truck, and a whole lot of passion. Get ready, we've got a great ride. Here we go.
Jake Kloberdanz
Hi, I'm Jake Kloberdanz, CEO and founder of One Hope Wine, the best five minute wine podcast.
Forrest Kelly
The web address is onehopewine.com
Jake Kloberdanz
It onehopewine.com onehopewine.com and you can also visit our flagship property at onehopewinery.com which is more focused on our Napa property.
Forrest Kelly
Let's start with a little bit about your background and we'll get to all the accomplishments and there are a lot of them. You didn't get there without having some kind of background that prepared you for that. So tell us about Jake.
Jake Kloberdanz
My career starts right after I graduate Cal Berkeley. Really my entrepreneurial journey started since I was a young kid, but we can dig into that a little bit later.
But my first real corporate job was with the largest wine company in the world.
And I started out in selling wine down in Newport beach, which sounds really romantic, but I found myself in the back of grocery stores and Stater Brothers Ralph's, things like that. And I would get there early and do manual labor with the team so I could get the best display spots to put my wine.
And so that's my initial introduction into the wine industry is merchandising and calling on 15 grocery store accounts and selling wine to them, mostly cheap wine and large volume wines ranging from Bartles and James wine coolers to Carlo Rossi to a handful of really good wines as well.
Forrest Kelly
Did you have a hand in founding that or in starting it? Buying it? How did you get there?
Jake Kloberdanz
Yeah, so started the original company. Like I said.
April 2006, I get a call from one of my best friends from going up and her voice is quivering and she shares the unfortunate news that she has blood cancer and is going to be starting treatment in the following week. And she wanted to be the person to tell me.
And so I fly home to see her the next day and I say, I've had this idea for, for six months and I've done nothing. And I'm going to get started tomorrow and I'm going to start building this company while you're going through your fight with cancer.
And I go back to Newport Beach, I incorporate the business. You know, 15 weeks later she's beat cancer and she's cancer free. And I got the very Start of the business.
The first, you know, crappy designs of labels. And had filed all the paperwork via winery the abc and found a winemaker to make the first few pallets.
And another year later, I'm driving the first three pallets down in a u haul truck and drive them down to where I still live at the time in southern California, and load them up into a public storage unit. So that's the beginning of the overall business.
And we were sourcing wine from anybody who would sell us their grapes and give us space to make the wine in. Early on, we didn't have a vineyard. We didn't have a winery. It's not until 2014.
So flash forward from June 2007 I officially recognize as starting to sell wine out of that public storage unit.
Seven years later, we've grown bit and we decided to take the leap to start a real estate and hospitality business that would give us the ability to buy this vineyard that had come onto the market.
And it was in this ridiculous location with the most famous architect in napa valley history, blueprints, and architectural plans to build a winery there. And I just thought, this is a generational opportunity. We have to figure out how to get it.
And even though we couldn't afford it at the time, had had the idea to build kind of an old world co op, if you will, Take that model and apply it to the new world of napa and buy and build out amazing vision with a community of entrepreneurs and families that wanted to support this vision and also be a part and owner of the property itself.
Forrest Kelly
You didn't get any pushback from the valley, did you?
Jake Kloberdanz
I didn't actually get that much, surprisingly.
I think after I shared, you know, how I got to where I have gotten to and that I needed partners to be able to build out this project and that I was going to build something that was about a small community, owning something together, versus a really wealthy tech billionaire or a big conglomerate or something that has been passed down for four or five generations, which most of us aren't lucky about. I think it resonated. I think they. They actually bought into the idea of this innovative way that I was going to build this community.
And at the same time, napa's highly regulated. It's very hard to get a lot done here for good reason, because everything's about protecting the agricultural preserve here.
You know, it is hard and it is slow, but. And I did face some setback.
There were definitely a few people here and there, but for the most part, the napa valley and the families here, including the Mondavi family, the Renteria family, the Staglin family, and a bunch of others, really helped me as an ally and as an advocate for us. And so I'm thankful to the Napa Valley that they responded that way.
Forrest Kelly
You made some pretty good progress right off the bat for a year.
Only taking a year to be, you know, loading up that u haul with wine because as you can imagine, all the growers that are giving their grapes, you know, selling their grapes, everybody wants their grapes. So for somebody new to come along, regardless of what your mission is, they're saying, get in line, buddy.
Jake Kloberdanz
Exactly.
It took a while to on the supply chain side, and then it takes a while to build a brand that people trust and where they know what the values of the brand are and the people behind it and have had an experience connected to it. And so it's definitely an uphill build and push to build any type of brand, let alone in the wine space.
Forrest Kelly
The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast. Don't forget my favorite part. Please, please like and follow. Oh.
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