In the corner of an office facade in a sparse-yet-spacious green-painted warehouse, text filled with marketing strategies and business plans cover the entire span of a poster-sized sheet of paper.
“It looks like a mess,” said Chase Drum,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Chase+Drum@@ a University junior physics major. “But I can still understand it.”
Apart from the large stove, glass carboy jugs,@@http://www.midwestsupplies.com/winemaking-equipment/fermentation-equipment/carboys-and-glass-jugs.html?limit=all@@ 250-gallon plastic tanks and the smell of fermenting alcohol in the 5,800 square feet warehouse near the intersection of West 3rd Avenue and Lincoln Street, most of the remaining space is mainly reserved for the hopes and aspirations of three University undergraduate students, including Drum.
What began nearly a decade ago as a small, family-run hobby has now grown and developed into a popular wine company that brings a unique, yet pleasant product to the wine industry: mead, a honey wine with origins traceable back to 7,000 B.C.
“We have an interesting challenge ahead of us as far as the education goes on the product because it is different, and something that most people have never had before because it is a mead,” company co-manager Drum said. “It gives the individual a unique drinking experience.”
However, unlike other meads that have a viscous type of texture, he said the company’s product, Blue Dog Mead, has “a much drier and enjoyable experience.”
“You do get this sweet white wine taste at the beginning,” he explained, “but as you consume it, it turns into this really nice, dry, red wine kind of finish. It kind of gives you the best of both worlds.”
The business was originally started in 2001 by the mother of Simon Blatz,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Simon+Blatz@@ another company co-manager, whose dog, Blue, provided the namesake for the company’s brand. After spending several years to perfect the taste of the mead, she began to sell it to a welcoming market. After the demand became too large, Simon’s mother passed the company over to him last February.
“It’s extremely exciting to have my own business,” Blatz said. “I also get to learn a lot and I still get beat up, so there still some things that I need to figure out, but it’s great. We’re learning a lot more now than we did sitting in a classroom.”
After meeting in the University’s Entrepreneurship Club, Drum said he, Simon and a third co-manager, Simon Spencer,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Simon+Spencer@@ spent many late nights and weekends over the year to do research on the company and keep it operating out of the company’s small hand-brewing unit in The Dalles. However, doing so was no easy task.
“There was a time where we had to make a lot of sacrifices instead of focusing on other things,” said Blatz, who is a full-time University business student, operates his own mobile lockout business and has a part-time job on the side but still manages to dedicate nearly 12 to 14 hours of work to keep the company running. “My grades were a bit lower and my other business operated on a reactive versus proactive basis, so it’s been tough but straight focus and execution is key.”
Despite the competition from Eugene’s 14 wineries, Dick Sloan,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Dick+Sloan@@ the University’s innovation and entrepreneurship undergraduate coordinator, said Blue Dog Mead’s product is unique because it has a different sort of taste than most wines and caters to a particular demographic: beer drinkers and aging individuals who haven’t had much experience with wine.@@aging? Really?@@
“Wine can be a complicated area to get into, so they’re offering a product that is easy to understand and is novel,” Sloan said. “The demographic that they’re looking at is constantly looking for new opportunities.”
Although the company has already begun to distribute their product to retailers in the Portland area and The Dalles, Drum said the company will be reaching its “make or break” moment when it will release nearly 1,900 bottles of wine — the company’s first round of large batches — near the end of the month around Thanksgiving.
“Right now, we’re all pretty stressed,” Drum said. “More than anything, I think we’re looking forward to what’s going to happen in the next month.”
Although the company is hopeful to expand its distribution throughout the state, Drum said the company will continue to keep its roots grounded in Eugene.
“This is a great environment if you’re trying to start a new business specifically for this industry,” Drum said. “We’re neither limited by money nor product. We’re just really limited by how much we can sell.”
Business students bring fresh face, publicity to fledging wine company
Daily Emerald
November 2, 2011
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