#22: Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery)

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Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:00:00]:
You could really be as creative or traditional as you'd like in the wine industry, and I found that it's really paid off to take a little bit of risk, especially in, like, formulation like that or just having fun and not overthinking things. Because I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, when they're launching a product, they want to be perfect. I totally empathize with that. You wanna be proud of what you've created, but you also have to make it feel right. You can't overthink something. If it's too calculated, in my opinion, and from my experience, it's not gonna work. It has to feel right.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:37]:
Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I'm your resident gardographer here, Jeffrey Stern. And today, we're exploring one of my favorite personal topics, the world of wine and the making of it. Marissa Sergi is a 3rd generation winemaker and one of the forces behind Luvabella Winery located just outside of Youngstown. After studying winemaking at Cornell University and moving out to California to work for the largest winery in the US, she moved back to Ohio to launch her first brand, Redhead, which is now known simply as Red. Just a few years later, red wine can be found all over from Ohio to Tennessee to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, DC, and soon to be North and South Carolina.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:33]:
At the same time, Marissa has been able to leverage the success of RED in the market to acquire her family's winery, Lluvabella, back in 20 20, where she now develops and manages multiple brands, earning Luevabella the title of one of Ohio's fastest growing wine companies and being recognized by Walmart as a lead supplier. We cover quite a lot in this conversation. Marissa is is not only passionate about wine and spirits, but also the entrepreneurial spirit. I enjoyed this one a lot and I hope you all do as well. Everyone's journey and relationship with wine is different, I have found. But I am definitely of the belief that wine enhances life, like full full stop. But it's really one of those things where everyone's perspective and tastes are their own. And I'd love to start really just by exploring your history with wine.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:26]:
You know, where where does that interest in wine come from?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:02:29]:
Honestly, I have loved wine for as long as I could remember. My grandma has this funny classic story she likes to tell. One day when I was like 2 years old, she was watching me and she had placed me in this little playpen so she could do laundry and wash dishes. And maybe 20 minutes goes by, she checks on me, and I'm gone. And she searched her entire house for me, and I'm 2, so where am I gonna go, right? And after she couldn't find me, she started getting really worried and she didn't think I would make it all the way down the basement steps. They were very creaky, very, like, old style basement, not finished by any means, and she actually found me in my grandfather's wine cellar trying to get wine out of a barrel with my sippy cup.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:19]:
Oh, wow.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:03:19]:
So I guess it must really be running through my blood. It's been a family tradition for over 3 generations, and my grandparents immigrated here from Italy and brought over that tradition, so it's really been part of my entire life, My grandparents inviting people over and sharing wine with every meal, and and my family is the same, so it's something that I always thought I was interested in and really liked, but I really refined my passion while studying winemaking at Cornell University.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:51]:
Was that interest to dive into the academic side of studying wine something, you know, growing up, being in a family that has this tradition in wine? Is that something that growing up, that you knew you wanted to pursue, or was that just something that you kinda came into exploring different academic options?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:04:07]:
Definitely not. I mean, I had no idea that there was a major for winemaking. I didn't think you could actually do anything like that in a real career. And when I was a senior in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And after doing research, my mom and I discovered that there was a university called Cornell that offered winemaking. I actually didn't even know it was an Ivy League school. I had no clue. I mean, I come from a very small town.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:04:36]:
Only 53 kids graduated from my high school class, and really, at least for me, I didn't think about going beyond the local state schools. I didn't even consider applying to universities in other states. It's just a mentality that a lot of people have in my small town, in my opinion. Maybe things have changed, but since I graduated in 2011, like, 10 years ago, but it was great that I was able to, 1, find a major that fit something I actually liked and took me a few states away from Ohio so I could get a little more cultured and be part of a student body that's diverse. Cornell at the time had students representing over 90 countries in my class, and for my small town, it was very Catholic and white, so it was definitely a really great experience for me, not only studying and refining my love for wine, but being part of a a more diverse group that's really helped shape who I am today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:41]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So you've discovered this path to professionally pursue, you know, viniculture, enology, this this program at Cornell. How is it that you you kinda transitioned from the study of it and kind of I guess, really, I'm gonna what what is the founding story of Redhead Wine, and how how did that come to be out of your time at Cornell?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:06:03]:
Well, it's kind of a crazy story. In truth, it was purely an accident. I didn't really wanna do traditional vineyard research or anything like that for my capstone project to graduate, and I asked my advisors, could I potentially create a wine label and document the process and launch that as my capstone project? And they agreed. I was just so so grateful, and I didn't really like anything super intense when it came to being in the lab or working with the vineyards and the the students there, but I really enjoyed being creative and blending wines and making new recipes and blends. So with that I created a label, but I had a bottle of the wine on campus at some point, and I received an email from a professor that if you're a student entrepreneur and like wings over, which is one of my favorite, wing spots ever.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:01]:
One of the best.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:07:03]:
Exactly. So I brought a bottle of wine. I was gonna get a bunch of wings, peace out, and just head back to my dorm, but luckily, and at the time unfortunately I was spotted because I have red hair and I had a bottle of wine that I was a student entrepreneur, I could not escape. And the woman who was running the meet the group said I have to give an elevator pitch. So I freaked out, but I just Googled wine industry facts and slapped something together and ultimately was nominated to be my school's student business of the year nominee for CALS. And I didn't even have it structured to be a business, just a brand and a research project, but I got a lot of mentorship and support from the hotel school on how to structure a pitch and, enter the brand into the competition. I didn't win, but I learned a lot from that experience, and with that I wrote a business plan and sent it to other competitions and actually won or placed every single competition. So, I was like, Hey, maybe I actually have something special.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:08:10]:
So, that's really how it got strung together, just a reason not to do crazy research and do something more creative that's more aligned with my interests. And then, my love for food helped launch this brand that's really changed my life.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:28]:
Yeah. All the more reasons to never turn down wings.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:08:32]:
Yes. Exactly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:35]:
So I'm really curious about this because, you know, wine is one of those esoteric topics, which is interesting, I think, given how, like, common and not academic it actually is in practice. But when you're approaching it from the the business perspective and from the growing perspective, I I feel like there's all these things that that people don't really understand about the process. And I'd I'd love if you could just give a bit of an overview of, you know, what does it look like to actually put together, wine and and get it to a place where, you know, you can actually even think about branding, and and how you market it.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:09:09]:
Sure. At least from my opinion and many other winemakers, great wine starts in the vineyards, so it's really important to source the best quality grapes you can from various places throughout maybe California if you're making a California style wine, or even on the East Coast, we do purchase Concord and Niagara and Catawba varietals. So it's really important to have good partnerships regardless of what wine you're trying to make. But for me, it's definitely a great start to have those fantastic partnerships, but after you harvest and process the fruit and start fermenting and have a final drinkable product, it doesn't always stop there. You're able to blend and make, new, unique experiences on the palate by combining varietals that maybe aren't typically seen in the mass market. For example, my Red's Red Blend is a blend of carmenair and Zinfandel, and that hasn't really been seen in the market. You see a lot of like Cab, Petite Sirah, or Merlot blends. And, Carmenere is typically from South America, but it's grown in certain parts of California.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:10:25]:
So, I thought maybe taking a common varietal like Zinfandel and switching it up with a carmenare to help support some of the fruit and other flavors I wanted to bring out in the the blend was something that I really wanted to do, so just kind of reverse engineering the whole process. You could really be as creative or traditional as you'd like in the wine industry, and I found that it's really paid off to take a little bit of risk, especially in, like, formulation like that or just having fun and not overthinking things. Because I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, when they're launching a product, they want to be perfect. I totally empathize with that. You wanna be proud of what you've created, but you also have to make it feel right. You can't overthink something. If it's too calculated, in my opinion and from my experience, it's not gonna work. It has to feel right.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:11:18]:
It has to just make sense. It's just, like, gut feeling you have to have, and for me, it just all made sense, the blend and and the label, because the blend is sweet and spicy just like a redhead. And, my trademark is you know, red a face of a a redheaded woman. So it just really played well with the brand, and there's a lot of opportunity to really engage with my consumers through those those, fun themes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:46]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I definitely wanna do a deeper dive on on brand and and that specifically. But on the topic of, you know, this being a business and industry that is been around literally 1000 of years steeped in real tradition and entrenched products and companies. You kind of touched on the creative process that you kinda go through as you're thinking about creating different flavors and, experiences. But I love if you could expand upon how you think about innovation in the wine industry, given that it is such a historical and has such tradition, kind of baked into it?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:12:21]:
Yeah. I at least from my perspective and what I'm doing right now at my company, really trying to innovate by making brands a little more approachable. Yes. You can make unique blends and flavors and maybe make a traditional rye a little sweeter or more dry, just depending on what you're trying to achieve. But for me, I feel branding is where you can really innovate in a very crowded space because there are a lot of traditional thinking, large conglomerates out there that have been in business for many decades and kind of have their breadwinner brands and just acquire other successful brands to grow their portfolio, or ways to create values, just having your own small boutique brand that really uses great quality fruit and is very small and exclusive, so you could charge more per bottle and still do very well from a a business perspective. But for me, I'm trying to innovate with a branding narrative that really targets the mass audience to feel comfortable and that our wines are approachable. And there are a lot of labels out there that, in my opinion, are very bland, very boring, or very overdone. And we're really working right now at the winery, Luvabella, on creating brands that really speak to, like I said, a large audience, but also really plays into just the modern day society too, where it's not safe, yet it's still fun and and something that anyone could appreciate, but still interpret in their own way.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:14:04]:
We're working on this right now. We're rebranding 2 wines, and we're actually launching one of the newer brands out in the market in a couple weeks and then the new other brand called Passion in 2022 at some point. So I'm living and breathing this whole branding perspective, so that's why I'm kinda being a little, in-depth about the whole process.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:29]:
Yeah. No, totally. You know, walking into a wine store can be one of those entirely overwhelming experiences where you just you're just inundated with hundreds of options for every great varietal that I've never even come across. And so you don't only have this, like, decision paralysis from, you know, which kind of grapes, but which kind of brands of which kinds of grapes. And when you think about branding and and positioning, you know, Redheadlines and and Luvabella, which I actually wanna get your perspective on and just set some context for the the differences between both of those businesses and and how you're, involved with them. But just to to stick on the the differentiation component because it it really is this overwhelming experience going into a wine store.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:15:11]:
Yeah. And and for us and for me, if you can't see it from over 4 to 6 feet away, it doesn't jump out at you. There isn't a differentiating quality that makes it really something that draws your eye and attention to, we didn't do our job right. And that's one of the most important things when you are a growing business, you might be needing to market. How are you going to get a consumer that is used to purchasing the same several types of wines to want to switch and try something new? It's almost like cereal. If you've been eating Frosted Flakes since you were 6 years old, you're most likely still eating and or enjoying Frosted Flakes. It's a habitual thing. So is wine when you get hooked on a certain brand or varietal that you really like, and sometimes you don't want to switch, or even a Chipotle order.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:16:09]:
I haven't changed my Chipotle order since high school, and I think a lot of people could relate to that very thing. It's

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:16]:
Oh, very much to

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:16:16]:
me the same thing. So how do you make something stand out and, intrigue someone to just take that risk? Are they willing to spend and potentially not like the product? That's the biggest, like, risk factor when you're launching a brand, so you have to make it a product that's appealing enough to say, you know what, I'm gonna try this. This looks great. I like the branding, I like the packaging, or the flavor, or the variety, or whatever it is. We try to make it all appealing so we have that chance to get that one opportunity to become a a lifelong enjoyment for that customer.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:51]:
Sure. Sure. How do you derisk that that launching of a brand? And I'm also curious with that, you know, was the intent always to kind of have tied, you know, a part of your personal brand to the to the wine brand that you've created here?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:17:06]:
A little bit of both. I feel like no matter what brand I'm launching, it'll always have a little bit of a personal spin to it because I deeply care about all of my products and I'm very involved in all of them, but there's only so much you can do for certain brands. Like, I I just rebranded my Redhead brand to Red's to be a little more bold and have the ability to to market in a more broad way, but still communicate just who I am and what the brand stands for, which our tagline is for life's sweet and spicy moments. I I really like that. And for me, launching a brand cannot be derisked, just really well thought out, but not overthought, like I said earlier. It has to

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:49]:
just Right. Right.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:17:50]:
Make sense, and you can visualize it and see that it will stand out, or just take some samples to a grocery store and plop it on a shelf and see how it looks. There's a lot of ways you can help make it a success, but at the end of the day, you can have the most well funded brand launch and it still flops. I mean, that's why, in my opinion, a lot of wineries acquire other brands because they didn't think of it themselves. Right? And they want to build it and change it and, bring it to the next level from their vision. But if they could do it themselves, they would do it because it's internal. It's an owned product. They can control every aspect. That's not how it works.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:18:33]:
The consumer decides at the end of the day. They don't care if your company spent $10,000,000 at launch. You have to roll the dice every time you launch and, count your loot, like, your losses and, your your wins and and hope that it goes in the right direction.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. So so what is the the actual current state of of the business? You know, what what kind of distribution do you have? Where are you selling? Just a little bit about that.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:19:01]:
Yes. Great question. That's where I thrive. I actually, in my current role, control all of our distribution and growth, and also work with the r and d team to launch new products and our formulations, but we are distributing in 7 states right now. 6, technically, but we are launching in our 7th state, North Carolina, at the end of July this year or early August, just depending on how things play out. We're so excited about that, and the markets that we're in right now are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and soon to be North Carolina. We do have our eyes set on Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It's definitely a lot to handle, but once, we kind of get established in North Carolina, we'll probably pick another state or two go towards.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:19:58]:
But right now, we have our products in all the major retailers in those states, essentially. So having that data in those stores knowing that our products are selling well, it's way easier to get additional distribution because those are the stores you need to tell to get a distributor interested in representing your product and, of course, other retailers seeing that you're having success in other markets, but the socioeconomic groups that you have purchasing your wines are similar to theirs, essentially. So it's kind of easy to transition to new business that way.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:33]:
Right. Right.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:20:34]:
I think the hardest part is starting in only a few stores because you only have so much data. So you really have to chip away at that story and really hope someone gives you a chance. But for me, things are a little more simple now because I have real stories to tell and real successes that, retailers are not apprehensive to put my products in in their stores.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:57]:
Yeah. I wanna I wanna talk about starting and and actually take a step back. You know, before you had those stories to tell, how is it that taking this impromptu pitch out of wings over dinner, you know, getting some initial, you know, reception and positive feedback from some of the activities you're doing, but but how do you actually break into local retailers and start a wine company? Like what does that what does that look like?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:21:18]:
Oh, my gosh. So many tears, lots of heart, lots of dedication, and great. You cannot give up. You have to be relentless. You have to be willing to put those miles on your car and go into those stores, not know a single person, find the manager, the person who's in charge of wine, and ask, how do you get products into the store? Talk about your product. Give them samples. Leave a lot of samples behind. Let them see it, and talk about your story.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:21:53]:
I mean, that that whole pitch has to be so refined, and all you need is a couple people to give you that chance, And that's all I needed. I mean, I started in 5 stores and 20 stores, grew to 60, 100, 300, but that took many months years to build. I mean, I've been growing Lulabela's distribution business since 2013. So the fact that we're in 7 states, and I'm able to confidently say that we're doing really well, is because I drove store to store. I went to several markets every week to make sure I said hello to the managers. Thank you so much for carrying Redhead Wine and Purple Rain and Passion and all the other parts we had at the time. And keep showing up, have that consistency. And we I really built the business that way, and and now we have the reputation, that's really great, and our products are are outselling a lot of the larger wineries out in California.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:22:57]:
And I spent at least a good 65% of my career going store to store. Now I'm too busy to do that all the time. I still try to get out in the market, but it doesn't happen overnight. I mean, I can't even tell you how many times I went into a Walmart and my product was up a week before, and then a distributor took it down, put another competing product there, and I had to talk to management to get it back up, or a new manager came and they didn't know what I had going out the store and it sold out and was never reordered. I could just take you in circles about all the crazy circumstances I had to deal with, so we still had a consistent presence in stores. But now that we've been able to build the business, it's a lot easier because I did, I've done the hard work, the work that a lot of people aren't willing to do or don't realize that I've done. But I'm glad that I did it and I could just take a deep breath and know it wasn't all for nothing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:03]:
Yeah, absolutely. If the the hard work, as you say, has been done, what are what are the challenges that that you're working through right now as you think about the future of of the business and and where you wanna take it?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:24:15]:
Definitely. And don't worry, the hard work isn't over yet. But that's, like, the grunt work, like, the work that will make your head spin because of all the crazy things I had to do to make it work. But right now, some of our biggest challenges are the fact that we're growing so fast. We have to be very careful with how we balance our throughput, our supply, and the product flow into our distribution channels, and then in turn into our retailers because you don't want to have out of stocks, especially with wines that my customers are used to having on a weekly, monthly, whatever their cadences basis. And, having out of stocks could be really painful if you have great displays that are in the premier spots in the retailers or a retailer like, in Ohio, Giant Eagle, they give you reserved space in the wine department. But if you're not filling the shelves and they have reserved space for you, you're not using it. They're losing dollars every week.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:25:21]:
So you have to have a balance between not overselling, not underselling, and being patient with the growth period because right now we are under construction of the winery adding more throughput, and we won't have that complete until, like, mid June. So, I've had to hold off a lot, including our launch in North Carolina, so we could build stock up again and then handle the new business that's coming through the pipeline. So what's been great is I've been very forthcoming and honest with all of my partners, and we've been able to mitigate all of our inventory and keep out of stocks of the question or very little. So it's definitely one one thing, but there's many, but that's that's one of the main things on my mind.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:06]:
On your mind right now. Kind of building on that a little, thinking about the future, you had talked about the the importance of that first impact and, you know, the the one shot you get to to make a good impression with the brand up front. But once you've kind of loop someone into that to the product and got them to buy into the brand, I'm curious how you think about the longevity of the brand and and Redhead Wine and and how you think about the impact. Because, you know, from afar, I I get the sense you're you're incredibly intentional about the way that you think about marketing and, you know, leveraging social media and and all these different platforms to to really try and build it up. So I'm curious your your perspective on that.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:26:47]:
Definitely. And and for me, social media is great. I've been slacking a little bit on some of my channels because we've been so busy, and I have to bring in someone to help me at this point. But I feel that the packaging and the experience you have with the product could really play into the the brand's engagement overall. Like, it it's it's so great to have cool social media posts, but if your packaging and the story your products play in the store aren't able to capture the attention and really make a presence, you're definitely gonna fail and not have that longevity. You don't wanna be like an a one off, like those crazy collaborations, like Pepsi collaborated with Peeps,

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:33]:
like, like,

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:27:34]:
a marshmallow marshmallow wine. Like, that's an In N Out. It's cool, but are you gonna drink Pepsi slash Peep soda, like weekly? No. You'll try it once. It's cool, but it's not a long term thing. But I want my brands to have that approachable classiness to, regardless if you see a post on social media or know the story, you still want them. It looks great. It tastes great.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:28:03]:
The quality is there. But for me, my social strategy is to be very go with the flow, not overthought. And I know it's a theme to our conversation, but it doesn't always have to be that picture perfect, professional, photoshopped bottle with the food in Italy or whatever the flute food blogger style is. Like sometimes just capturing a moment raw and real that anyone could envision them taking that picture or being part of the experience or just seeing the behind the scenes like me at stores or those things that are going on at the winery. I don't set rules where I have to have everything color coordinated, all the pictures with the same pantones or filters. I just don't like that standard. I know it looks great and very aesthetically pleasing, but

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:57]:
Mhmm.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:28:57]:
I kind of like to cut through the clutter and if I don't have anything great to post, I don't post for 4 or 5 days, I'm not going to stress over it. I feel like there's so many pressures as a social media manager to post exactly at 10:56 in the morning every day and have only 12 words in your caption or 3 or an emoji and all this stuff. And I just feel like it could be it has been super exhausting for audiences to just see that all the time, and it's kind of refreshing to have a more real, unfiltered view of a brand. It's not just the brand. It's the who and the what and the where and everything in between. So that's what I really like to do with everything and I definitely need a lot of help managing that in the very near future.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:50]:
Yeah. It's a lot on your flight there.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:29:53]:
Definitely. But it's okay.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:54]:
So in the in the spirit of candids, I I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about, you know, your own favorite wine pairings. And, you know, how are you how are you consuming your own products?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:30:06]:
Yeah. So right now, and recently, I did a virtual wine taste for a corporate group last Friday, and I really love to push the limits with food and wine pairings. I had and kind of still have a YouTube series on my channel where I pair out their foods with the wines that we have at Luzabella. And one of my favorite pairings that I've discovered is pairing our Purple Rain Concord wine with either, Reese's cups or peanut butter pretzels. It is such a unique and ultra complimentary pairing. It's like a fruit forward peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly sandwich that's really melted on your palate and it's so good. It's just

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:55]:
this Oh, wow.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:30:56]:
It's like you're eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich in such a unique way that you've never experienced before because it's a Hawaiian mashed peanut butter pretzel or a piece of chocolate. So, that's something I really like right now, but my favorite classic pairing is my red blend with a piece of dark chocolate cake. I just feel like it's such a rewarding, indulgent thing to have on like a Friday evening after a long work week. Any chocolate really, I love to pair with wine, but that's definitely my go to. But I've even paired my wines with hot Cheetos, fried chicken, sweethearts, Pop Rocks, crazy stuff. Because I just want people to feel like you could have wine with anything you're eating. You just gotta find the right one. And there will be a lot of negative pairings you'll experience.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:31:51]:
Like, I tried Hershey's cookie and cream chocolate with the purple wing concorde, and it was not good at all. So not every pairing is created equal, but it's kind of fun to experiment and see what you could discover on your own too.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:07]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Those sound very fun. I will have to try some of those out.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:32:12]:
Yeah. Definitely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:14]:
One of the things I've I'm really curious to get your perspective on that I kind of total aside of I've fallen down a rabbit hole of this organization called the Hinokians, which was this association of companies who've been continuously operating and remain family owned for 200 years or more, whose descendants still operate those at a management level. And there's just a few dozen companies within this group that promote, you know, long term decision making and but but many of them are within the world of wine and spirits. And I I'd love to get your perspective as you think about Redhead Wine and and Louv abella, you know, on the dynamics of kind of multi generational family businesses and what that experience is like and and how you think about maybe generational impact and and the longevity that you've kind of already achieved here.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:33:03]:
For for me, things were a little different. Like, I didn't have any succession planning or anything like that. My fiance and I actually fully acquired the company from my father. Mhmm. So it was a little untraditional. I was involved in the business, although I kind of wasn't. I started our distribution business within Luvabella, but I really used my separate company, Red Hat. I had my own set of books and everything I wanted to be only separate from my family's business, which really taught me a lot.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:33:36]:
But I eventually grew my experience and the business enough to want to acquire the full portfolio and develop the other brands, where the whole generational perspective is interesting because I feel like entrepreneurial qualities are passed on. You kind of learn it from a young age. Me, I always listen to my dad building a business deal at the kitchen table with his friends and, just all those discussions and eventually him starting a winery and just kind of grew up him with him around and conducting business. I feel like a lot of my intuition came from those learned experiences from a young age. You really have to have a lot of risk tolerance, and you have to really just have that entrepreneurial grit and persistence. And although you could be born into a family that owns a company, you might not be a good fit for it. So I found that it's so interesting that like, E and J Gallo Winery has multi generational family members in the company, and they're really well suited for the job, and I think that it could be part of just growing up in the industry and just knowing all those intricate intricate details that you can't really learn from a textbook. And for me, I think it was really being around my father and just his business capabilities naturally just I grasp onto them and I am really confident with the things that I'm doing, but I don't even realize how much risk I take on a daily basis or what I'm really up against.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:35:13]:
I just have so much, ease with my decisions as well as my business partners. So I think those businesses are so interesting, really interesting case study, and very incredibly rare. So for me, we're a little different, but also all the same, but we just acquired the company instead of just, like, inherited it, if that makes sense.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I'd love to understand, you know, as you're growing your own business and thinking about, you know, your your past for growth and going through that acquisition, you know, are there separate mechanisms still at play here? Are you working on integrating the whole organization under one umbrella? What's what's kind of the the more strategic outlook that you have for for the business?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:35:58]:
Yeah. So I did consolidate, Red Brands into Lufabella. So it's Lufabella is a parent company and has all the brands underneath it. So, that was one of the first things I did. And right now I'm just working on growing Ruavela as a CPG company, not a regional winery. A lot of people think Riva Bella is regional, but they don't realize that we're in 6 states, adding our 7th this year, and we don't really have any vision or indication that we're going to be slowing down anytime soon. And for me, that's what I really would like to do in my career is grow it into this large CPG company. And if I do have a family of my own, I think it would be great for them to be involved.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:36:40]:
But again, it just has to work. It has to make sense. True interest, not forced interest or interest that is expected. It just can't be that way. And for me, I was just interested and fell into it. And that's why I'm still part of the company. It's what I really wanted to do. Absolutely no regrets or a second thought.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:37:02]:
So I would want it to be that way, not a forced type of decision.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:08]:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. One of the things that you've mentioned here is, you know, the the challenges of the business really change drastically as you get to different stages in the life cycle of the business, and, you know, you kind of have to to work through those as, you know, with the company. I'm curious from your own, like, personal development perspective, growing, and scaling the the CPG business It's very different, you know, skill set requirements than, you know, getting Redhead wines off the ground in in the initial days. And so, you know, how are you thinking about, you know, team building and kinda the more on the on the company side, and and where are you focusing your time these days?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:37:49]:
We really focus a lot on our company culture. We do our absolute best to empower employees and have them understand that we want them to take the reins and make their own decisions. We're by no means micromanagers. We really want people to have that confidence to step into the role and make it their own and really push for, whatever they'd like to accomplish. And that was something that was really important to us during the transition is to really change the culture to be more of a modern type of culture, not like a mom and pop brand place, which it was. At some point there was a lot of challenges with the transition and the cultural changes, but in a good way. I mean, the company is doing really well. We have great employee retention and really try to embody those values every day and give that support for that development throughout the growth of the company.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:38:48]:
And we definitely want to add more employees as we grow. We probably have to hire another 3 to 8 more employees the next 12 to 18 months with our expansion, and I think people really do see the value of working with us because although if you start in X position, you could really work your way up with more responsibility, especially upon proving yourself for asking. And we just want to do our best to provide to our employees too. We really want to have extremely competitive pay and all the health benefits and all those things that a lot of companies in my area don't offer. And we're out of the Youngstown area and it's definitely not super competitive when it comes to jobs that actually harbor a career, not like anything in retail or something that could be just a quick couple 40 hours a week that you kind of drag on, we want to offer those, actual long term career opportunities.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:50]:
What have been the biggest lessons that you've learned from building and growing this business?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:39:56]:
You need to have incredible amounts of patience and understand that everyone communicates, interprets, and works in their own unique way. If it works for you, it does not always work for somebody else And you have to really be ultra sensitive to your communication style or your management style, or how you structure things so it can work for a diverse group of people. Like, I could speak one way to one employee because I know that's the way they interpret things, use certain key points, or just someone might have more my style. So I think having that capability to understand how to read the room or the individual is super important to have that success with building culture or trust or a confident employee or help them learn and grow. And definitely these experiences and others similar to what I just described has really, have really helped me shape my just life and career and even just personal life. It's, it really makes you ultra sensitive to a lot of things. And that's something that I really am happy to know that I I have because it's really great to be considerate and understanding of all scenarios within work or outside of work. It it really makes a difference.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:25]:
That's awesome. So one of the things that we we do, with every conversation we have here is, ultimately try and paint a a collective collage of not necessarily people's favorite things, but hidden gems in Cleveland and Cleveland adjacent. So I'd love to to just hear about any hidden gems that that you have.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:41:48]:
Definitely. I actually live in Tremont. So I travel to Youngstown on Tuesdays, and then I leave to go back to Fremont on Thursday evening. So we stay in Youngstown 3 days a week, but we have 4 days in Cleveland. And for me, the hidden gems in in Tremont in Cleveland for me are the new it's a new bakery on Scranton Road. It's called Leavened. It is absolutely amazing. Their various breads and cookies and soups are just top notch.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:42:23]:
In the open week 2 months ago, they're super new, but definitely one of the best quality bake shops I've been to in a very long time. I also really enjoy Labatreaux. It's a French restaurant in University Circle. But it's actually Zach Bruhl's, son, Julian, went to Cornell as well, so their Cornell connection there. He also works there and is incredibly awesome and knows, a ton of things about wine. So I always have him pick a really unique wine for us to try if we go to Lobatrout or their other restaurant in Tremont called Parallax. It's like an Asian fusion type of modern restaurant that we really like. I also really enjoy the towpath, the National Parks Towpath.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's phenomenal.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:43:12]:
I go to the Rockside Road location and like to walk for a couple miles to clear my head and it's just gorgeous and having so many nice resources like the Towpath or other parks in Cleveland, it's really great. But if you want to take up a little bit of an adventure, to Bainbridge slash Chagrin area, I love Dairy Island. It's this, like, eighties looking ice cream shop that has the absolute best soft serve ever. I am pretty plain when it comes to my ice cream. I love vanilla soft serve and Dairy Island is the absolute best. Their grand opening was April 9th this year and you betcha, I was at the grand opening. I could not wait. So, that's definitely a hidden gem.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. I will I will definitely add that to my list. That sounds awesome. Well, I really appreciate, you coming on and and sharing your story. I've been super curious about it, actually. The wines classes that I took at Cornell ended up being my favorite and just my introduction, and it's always been just a a fascinating industry to to learn about. And so I really appreciate you sharing your story, and it's it's awesome to see the work that you're doing.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:44:20]:
Thank you. I really appreciate it, and thanks again for having me. I really enjoyed our our conversation and, definitely made me think a lot about just this whole crazy adventure I'm on with this business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:32]:
I'm sure. Hopefully, a reflection is always a little good.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:44:36]:
Definitely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:36]:
If people have anything that they wanna follow-up with you about or questions about wine fairings, you know, whatever it might be, where where is the the best place for them to to reach you?

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:44:46]:
Probably just my personal Instagram. It's at marissa sergi or even just directly on the Luvabella website. It's www.luvabella.com. And I'm always happy to help anyone with anything wine, so definitely welcome to reach out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:01]:
Awesome. Well, thank you very much.

Marisa Sergi (Red Brands & L'uva Bella Winery) [00:45:03]:
Yeah. Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:05]:
That's all for this week. Thanks for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so shoot us an email at lay of the land at upside dot f m, or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland, at thetagan, or at sternhefe, j e f e. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please email us or find us on Twitter and let us know. And if you love our show, please leave a review on iTunes. That goes a long way in helping us spread the word and continue to help bring high quality guests to the show. Takin Horton and Jeffrey Stern developed the Lay of the Land podcast in collaboration with the Up Company LLC.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:42]:
At the time of this recording, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the companies which appear on this show unless otherwise indicated. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Founders Get Funds and its affiliates, or actual and its affiliates, or any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. We have not considered your specific financial situation nor provided any investment advice on this show. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.