Column: Arbor Vinous

Marlena Studer sports a moniker that sounds like she might have a career promoting Piesporter or Lowenbrau. But after spending 10 years in academia with a sociology PhD, the Ann Arbor transplant became a wine entrepreneur, creating and importing the Solterra label of Chilean wines since the 2001 vintage.

Last football season, it was difficult to miss the banners, store displays and tailgate parties all over Ann Arbor to promote Bo Merlot, the wine named for legendary Michigan football coach Glenn “Bo” Schembechler. Studer quarterbacks the diverse team that runs the project, which includes Bo’s widow, Cathy, local wine distributor Doug Wanty, sportscaster Jim Brandstatter, and Dr. Kim Eagle, director of UM’s Cardiovascular Institute, which receives a $2 donation from each bottle sold.

Around the same time, I found myself temporarily banished from Studer’s friends list after I called Bo Merlot a “gimmick wine” in a web article. So when we recently sat down to talk, picking that scab seemed like an optimal place to start. Here’s how things went.

Joel Goldberg: Why is the word “gimmick” in reference to Bo Merlot troublesome to you?

Marlena Studer: What we’ve tried to do with the legend of Bo is to carry on building the legacy and promoting not only his name but the cause he stood for. For his first wife, Millie, he raised millions of dollars for cancer research. That’s the kind of legacy that fits with what he represented.

To a lot of people, “gimmick” connotes something that isn’t of value in and of itself. Our wine is a value in every way; we have a quality product in the bottle and we have a great concept in packaging it and representing something that people can connect with.

JG: I frequently compare it to Marilyn Merlot from California, which has been wildly successful for years.

MS: People adored the woman. They’ve created something that’s a collector item, for people who love to collect all the images of what she represented. That’s why it was successful.

It’s a concept that people in the industry call a celebrity brand. A label that uses a celebrity can only be successful if it allows people who valued that celebrity to connect with it.

JG: Where did the idea of Bo Merlot originate?

MS: The credit goes to Doug Wanty [vice president of Ann Arbor's O&W Distributors]. He worked with Cathy Schembechler on the “Heart of a Champion” golf outing, and Kim Eagle is a good friend of his. They had some conversations, just brainstorming, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a wine label with Bo’s name on it?”

JG: You generated lots of favorable publicity when you launched the wine last fall.

MS: We had a lot of people working on it. [Sportscaster and former UM football player] Jim Brandstatter was involved – I love that guy. He is like a big teddy bear, and he is so funny, like a walking comedy act.

He wrote the back label for the wine on a napkin in a restaurant when we first met to talk about the project. I gave him napkin and he said, “Here, let me write it.” I picked it up and said, “Hey, that’s the back label!”

JG: You couldn’t have had a worse football season to launch the wine. Do you think that hurt?

MS: There would have been a lot more celebrating, let’s just say, if we had a good season. And maybe there would have been a reason to buy a lot more wine to celebrate with.

JG: How much did you sell, and how much of that was in the immediate Ann Arbor area?

MS: Starting out, we weren’t sure we could even sell a full container – that’s 1,200 cases. But we ended up selling about 1,800 cases. At least 60% was in the Ann Arbor area.

JG: What are your plans for the coming year?

MS: We’ll have a new label and a focus on reaching alumni around the country, and working to develop some distribution where alumni are concentrated. We’re also going to get a better distribution network here in Michigan.

JG: What about the wine itself?

MS: In addition to the Merlot, we’re going to have a “Bo Blanc” – a California Sauvignon Blanc. We’re doing some tastings right now.

JG: As someone who runs a website about Michigan wine, I have to ask why Bo Merlot comes from California.

MS: I researched getting Michigan wine for our Bo Merlot, but there’s limited juice available. I’m expecting we’ll bottle about 3,000 cases of Merlot this year and probably about 2,000 of the Sauvignon Blanc. Michigan couldn’t come close to that quantity and quality for us to sell at the price point we need to sell it. Down the line we might be able to bottle a Michigan wine, for a smaller production.

This was also Cathy’s choice. Cathy and Bo loved California wine; they spent a lot of time going to vineyards in California, and Bo was all about the Rose Bowl; it was California!

We expect that this year the wine will be bottled in Michigan. I’m in process of applying for a license; that makes it not only a project that’s about a Michigan hero, but also being able to give back to Michigan in another way. When we bottle here, we’re bringing more income into the state.

JG: If you’re getting a Michigan winery license, there has to be more to it than bottling a few thousand cases of Bo wines.

MS: We’re very much interested in wines that can use the value of celebrity names to do good and to give back, and in particular to give back to Michigan.

JG: So are we going to see a Granholm Gamay? Or an Engler Edelzwicker?

MS: It certainly doesn’t hurt them to have their name on a bottle of wine, and it can only help Michigan.

But I’m not thinking so much of politicians. We’re going to have a different focus than other celebrity labels, and that is a win-win partnership for the community, the project and the celebrity. It’s got to be about something more than just a name on a bottle.

JG: In general, how’s the wine business these days?

MS: The wine business is not hurt as a whole. Wine is selling. It’s the pricing; people are buying at lower ends.

JG: That should play into your hands with Solterra, your Chilean wine. You’re at a very popular price point.

MS: It should, but there are a lot of wines at that price point. We’re not the only ones.

JG: You have a new Chilean import label called “In Situ.” What’s the story behind it?

MS: I love that particular winery and the winemaker, and I thought it was a unique story and brand.

It’s the highest elevation winery in Chile. It sits right at the foot of the Andes, right before the pass that goes over the Andes into Mendoza [Argentina]. La Ruta de los Andes is the route that the ancient Incas would take when they wanted to pass by foot. It’s spectacular and beautiful and has some interesting Indian legends associated with it. The wine has the “In Situ” name because they found some ancient rocks with inscriptions from the Indians in the hills over the winery.

JG: You made a mid-career change into the wine business. People do that for different reasons – some because they’re passionate about wine, others because they see a good business opportunity or because they have the right connections.

MS: It was serendipity for me, because I didn’t get into this thinking it was going to be my business all my life.

I followed my ex-husband here; he got a job. I didn’t have any job or connections. I’m not the sort of person who sits at home and makes cookies.

JG: That’s a Hillary Clinton line.

MS: When I first moved here in the fall of 2001, all I was doing was taking care of the kids and baking cookies.

But I did plan a trip to Chile, a wonderful three-week adventure to visit a very dear friend. That’s the connection that changed my life, because her family owns vineyards in Chile. They grow grapes and sell them to wine labels. When I went there and tasted the wine that came out of the area where their vineyards were growing, I said, “Wow, this is remarkable.”

And yet they didn’t have the marketing or sales arms in their family to do anything with the grapes. The idea of selling it in the U.S. is just so far from somebody who’s a farmer in an agricultural region. I said, “That’s what I do. I do sales and marketing.”

But I never imagined how difficult this industry would be to break into. Never, ever. I thought, “I have a great wine, I’m going to make up a great name, put a great label on it – and I’m going to sell it! And I had no idea how difficult that would be.

JG: Was there one thing that totally overwhelmed you?

MS: The whole concept and structure of alcohol distribution. I had no idea what I was getting into, or what the nature of the business was.

What I didn’t understand was Michigan franchise law. I didn’t understand the three-tier system. I didn’t create any kind of strategy about how I would develop distribution or sales, because I didn’t know how the business worked.

JG: You just say you’ve got a good product, so stores put it on the shelf and it will sell.

MS: And I didn’t realize that isn’t really how things work. Especially in this industry where there are so many different labels competing for the public’s attention, and over the last 10 years when the number of labels has skyrocketed.

That was part of what drew me in. I saw other new labels coming on the market and becoming successful, so I said, “Why shouldn’t mine?”

JG: You can be the next Yellow Tail…

MS: Exactly! I really believed for a while that I should be able to achieve the success of Yellow Tail. Why not? If I can learn how to do what they did, or what Barefoot Wines did, or what any of these other small labels that came from obscure places…

I was so crazy to think that I could take this on. I was a sociologist. I was an academic.

JG: What were you teaching?

MS: I was at Tulane for 10 years in sociology, the sociology of the family.

That’s still part of me, but ultimately I was not the perfect academic, either. I didn’t like just sitting in my office all day and just writing. I actually felt isolated in academia – it was a microcosm of the world that wasn’t very real in a lot of ways. But I was an academic in the sense that I like ideas, I believe in the power of ideas.

I also knew that I liked the whole idea of packaging and developing a product. I had worked in advertising, at Leo Burnett in Chicago and I had done sales and marketing – a short time, in between my master’s and PhD for one year.

So when I saw the idea of wine I thought it was an interesting project. Of course, it was just a hobby at the time.

JG: Do you think that your experiences starting and running this kind of business are different from those that a man might have had?

MS: This business is, as we know, dominated by men, in a unique way. There’s no question that there are more challenges for a woman in this business.

JG: Such as?

MS: Being taken seriously, being able to “talk the talk,” being seen as credible. It’s a business in which there’s a lot of entertainment, a lot of deals that are made, and sometimes women are shut out of those opportunities if they don’t “buddy up” in the same way men do.

As a woman, I understand what the obstacles are for me. So I have to overcome those in a different way, by taking ideas that will work not just for you, but also for your partners – putting things together that are successful for everyone involved.

JG: I’ve heard that you have another life as a jazz singer. What do you like to sing?

MS: I love the old standards. I guess it’s the romance of them, everything from the ’20s to the ’50s; that was a great period of time.

JG: Who are your vocal idols?

MS: Carmen McRae had a wonderful quality to her expression, her treatment of the standards. I love Sarah Vaughan’s voice; it’s a classic, beautiful voice. I don’t adore Ella as much as some of the others, but she’s a genius with pitch and rhythm.

JG: Have you always sung?

MS: I didn’t start singing professionally until after my mother died. That was 14 years ago, in New Orleans.

The one thing she had always loved and supported was my voice, and I never really did anything with it. After she died, I said, “I want to sing.” It was something I was going to do in her memory, and I want to go and sing with a band, do a professional gig. Just one – I just wanted to have one.

JG: Who did you sing with there?

MS: I sang with a 20-piece band my first gig, on New Year’s Eve. It was at the Fairmont Hotel – I performed in front of a thousand people my first gig.

I was so nervous that my voice just shook; I had a real strong vibrato. But I did OK. Afterward the bandleader said to my husband, “She’s pretty good.”

That was just going to be a one-time thing, I thought. But then I just liked it so much that I said, “I want to do it again.”

JG: And now you’ve got two CDs out.

MS: Both of them were done here, with local musicians. I’ve been doing about one gig per month, regularly, just for fun. It’s time-consuming. I love it, and wish I had time.

JG: What else are you involved in?

MS: My kids. Jenna is in 9^th grade at Pioneer, and Michelle is in 11^th grade at Greenhills. Just keeping up with them is another full-time job!

About the author: Joel Goldberg, an Ann Arbor area resident, is editor of the MichWine website. His Arbor Vinous column for The Chronicle is published on the first Saturday of the month. If you’d like to keep up with local wine events, visit MichWine’s Ann Arbor wine calendar. To list your event on the calendar, submit it here.