Behind the vine

Sarah Hoffman - Maker Wines - USA

When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?

It's interesting. I started out being really into craft beer! I loved the stories of the small producers, the personalities - I became a home-brewer and spent a year traveling in SE Asia learning all about beer. That was the community I felt a part of, rather than wine. Wine was more intimidating. I think I had a similar amount of knowledge that most of our consumers today have, and I didn’t see approachability in the wine category the same way I did about craft beer.

It wasn't until business school when I joined the wine club that I really realized that it was the veneer of wine that I was intimidated by. Not wine itself. Luckily, living in California, I spent a few months visiting producers and learning their stories. I saw that they were amazing creatives - people who were humble, passionate, and doing this because they love it. That's what connected me to wine on another level. That it is actually like other craft communities and is all about the makers and the artists and the people. That's why we named our company Maker - it's about that connection between consumers and the people behind the product.

What story does your wine tell?

Our first tag line was: every wine has a story. The reason we called our company Maker was that we wanted it to be about the small producers we work with. Each of our wines is an amazing wine, but we also look at the story of the producer - Are they doing things differently, are they from underrepresented backgrounds? Over 75% of our producers are women. We think about how we can lift up these people and stories that we get excited about. 

On the wine side, we get excited about vintage and varietal designate, from single-vineyard producers, that represent and tell a story of time and place. When we get excited about a wine that we both think is great and that has a great story, we take a sample and run it through 2 panels: one is a panel of our can club customers and the other is a panel of industry experts - sommeliers, wine buyers, retailers, people with talent that we trust. If the sample passes both those panels, we are excited. It's what normal everyday wine drinkers love, and people who have these amazingly well-trained palettes.

I think Maker is also a story about canned wine. Because I didn't come from the wine world, I was less romantically attached to the bottle. Historically, people have put lower quality wines in cans, but people are surprised to learn that when produced correctly, the cans themselves don’t impact the taste. We’ve even done our own blind tastings comparing the same wines in cans and bottles, and consumers can’t tell the difference. Cans are convenient, portable, sustainable, and offer a single-serve of wine. It's also beautiful real estate to tell a story, and each of our  cans is designed to reflect the maker’s story.

What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?

There are a lot of rules in wine, but at the end of the day if you want to throw out the rules and do something different, do it. I think in general, we’re trying to break down misconceptions about canned wines. We're turning the idea of cellaring and saving wines on its head. Wine doesn't have to be picking up dust in your basement, you can enjoy great wine in the here and now. We can wine when the winemaker is excited for you to drink it, in the case of our cabernet sauvignon it’s been barrel-aged for two years before going into the can. We always recommend pouring the can into a glass if you're at home for the full sensory experience, but if you're hiking or outside and you don’t have a glass, then great, drink it out of the can! You do you.

What great things about wine do you think people should remember?

We started the company because of the small producers and their stories. That’s the part I fell in love with. Wine is alive, it is such a reflection of where it was grown and the craft of how it was made. I'd encourage people to dig into where their wine is from. Buy from regions near to you and small producers and areas you want to explore.

I also think that sharing the wine, its story, and experiencing that magic nugget with someone else is such a bonding experience. People are craving connection and we found that doing virtual tastings and telling Maker’s stories to connect people to wine when they can’t visit wine country has been a great way to feel that connection. 

What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?

I think the first piece of advice I’d give is to take the first step. I felt like I didn't belong in the wine industry, but taking one step at a time helped me to build the confidence to keep going.. I also recommend reaching out to other women in the industry. I’ve found every person is really helpful. Look up conferences and events - we attended Batonnage, a conference for women in wine with incredible panels and female producers pouring, and we’ve now met two of our producers there! 

Where can women find your wine?

If you’re in the US, you can order directly from our website at makerwine.com. Our primary experience is the can club - you get 12/24 cans of a rotating selection of small-batch wine quarterly. We also offer virtual events and are sold at some small, independent grocers.

Who is a woman in wine you think everyone should know about?

A lot of the women I fall in love with in wine are people we end up working with! We recently canned a Cabernet Pfeffer from Nicole Walsh, who is the producer who started Ser Winery in Santa Cruz, CA. She’s really cool. She surfs, lives by the ocean, and tries to highlight all single-varietal wines with a coastal influence. Cabernet Pfeffer is ultra-rare - there are only ten acres of this grape left in the world. I think it's really bold to build a business that way when such a high majority of wines planted in CA fall into the same category. Those are the types of women I get excited about.