We recently connected with Stephen Hemmert and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Stephen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Growth is exciting, but from what we’ve seen across thousands of conversations with entrepreneurs it’s also dangerous if costs aren’t watched closely – sometimes costs can grow out of control outpacing revenue growth and putting the viability of the entire business at risk. How have you managed to keep costs under control?

Keep your finger on the pulse of your business and as importantly your customers. You can’t afford to lose any of them. For us in the winery business, we have quarterly wine club member pickup parties which to be honest is the life blood of our business. It infuses our business more than any time of the year. So from a income perspective every customer is critical but also our review and analysis of our expenses. as well.

Wineries are super heavy in expenses. From barrels to tanks, grapes to bottles, labor, winemaking lab equipment and enzymes to utilities, rent to repairs. We have to keep our eye on all of these items and more or things can quickly get out of hand. We ask ourselves, do we really need this new tank, or piece of equipment? Can we make it another few months before we buy new glassware? We have a credit line but than can easily get out of hand if we don’t ask ourselves the right questions and hopefully provide the right answers.

Stephen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I made wine for home consumption since 1997 and then in 2009 found a winery in Agua Dulce where I could make wine professionally and that allowed me to start selling it. I was working a full-time job at the time for a large food distributor, so winemaking was still in a way a hobby.

In 2012, I took a bottle of my wine to a party in Hollywood where I met Nicole, which is not only my business partner but my fiancé. She loved the wine and suggested we do something together. She took the reins and developed a business plan for us to start a winery of our own and in 2014, Stephen Hemmert Wines brand was born. However, were still making wine under a very limited co-op situation and really needed our own space. A friend suggested a place in Lancaster CA which had been an old Firestone tire store since 1954. We met the owners, and they loved our concept and so, we signed a lease in March of 2018 and started renovations on the rugged yet viable location.

Nicole and I were still working full time jobs and together self-financed this daunting project and opened to the public the first week of November 2018. We think people should know there is an old saying in the winery business. Do you want to make a million dollars in the wine business? Start with two million! Sadly, there is not a lot of profit or money to be made in this type of business. It truly can be a wealthy person’s game but not every great winery is owned by a person who made a fortune elsewhere. We are living proof of that persistence, dreams and passion are just as important and therefore Wines of Passion is our part of our logo and our mantra.

We are most proud of the fact that this is a family-owned micro (less than 1k cases) business. Occasionally we would call on our 4 adult kids to help in the tasting room, harvest, and bottling. We truly believe people see the love, passion, and effort we put into our business, and we believe it shows in the final product, our wine. We only produce 350 cases a year of multiple varietals. Some well-known, and some exotic and less recognized. Due to demand, we doubled harvest the last year and will bottle over 600 cases this June. Even through Covid and barely open a year, we grew double digits and have every year since being open, so we would like to think we are doing something right.
We would love people to visit our beautiful tasting room and see for themselves our commitment to what we do and believe in!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Some people questioned the location we chose for our business. The Antelope Valley was not a mecca for wineries or for enophiles per se. We also were in an older industrial area with some buildings in desperate need of repair and upgrade. Also like many areas in Los Angeles County , we were faced with homeless issues and vagrancy. However we were determined to make our place the “Oasis” of the area. We painted and bricked the outside of our building. We built a patio, planted agaves and added lights to adorn the outside. We created a beautiful tasting room that even Paso Robles and other well known wine making areas would be proud of. We worked with the City of Lancaster, Sheriff’s Dept and the Chamber to get help in cleaning up the area and making it a place everyone would feel safe and comfortable in. In was not an overnight project but it’ something we are very proud of. We have a large gated parking lot and a wonderful relationship with all of our neighbors. The City even refurbished an old building down the street into a Community Center which is great.

All of this took effort but surviving COVID was our biggest challenge. Only open a little over a year and trying hard to get customers, the pandemic hit. Scared to death we clung to faith in what we had built and the people who loved our wines. Miraculously we survived and are flourishing today.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

We funded our business through a small amount of savings over the years after deciding to start the business and borrowing from a 401k. We also worked with the building owner to do some costly construction things for us in exchange for a higher monthly payment that would save us from a lot more money up front. You have to be creative and work with what you have.

Contact Info:

• Website: stephenhemmertwines.com
• Instagram: [email protected]
• Facebook: [email protected]

Image Credits
Customer photos