After starting the wine brand RedHead Wine while studying at Cornell University, Marisa Sergi-Schumann teamed up with partner Evan Schumann to buy her family’s winery, L’uva Bella, in 2020. Today, their brands are beloved by customers at chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Giant Eagle.
0:00 Introducing Marisa Sergi-Schumann and Evan Schumann
0:35 Becoming A Wine Maker
2:02 The Origins Of L’Uva Bella Winery
3:09 Why Operate Out Of Ohio?
6:15 How Young Entrepreneurs Secured Business Through Major Chains
8:25 How L’Uva Bella Stands Out Amid A Crowded Market
10:00 The Advantage Of Being An Underdog
10:35 Fighting Misconceptions Of Being Young Entrepreneurs
11:28 How Marisa And Evan Navigate Business And Their Marriage
13:52 L’Uva Bella’s Expansion Success
16:44 What’s Next For L’Uva Bella
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I found the best way to stand out is to trust your gut it’s very easy to over calculate over produce a brand for us we like to really focus on making things more approachable more vibrant standing out from the shelves so make sure that the packaging is there to get the
Purchase the price Point’s there to make it an easy sale that’s the key my name is Evan Schuman I am the President of lella Winery I am Marissa Sergey Schuman the CEO I got started in wine making from a very young age I actually have a elementary school memory book that I
Wrote my my goals and dreams and I know in fifth grade I wrote that I wanted to be a wine maker I have been surrounded by the Italian tradition of wine making from birth pretty much my grandparents immigrating here from Italy bringing that tradition always having my father’s
Friends over for dinner meals and just seeing that growing up was really special so every fall they would bring in fresh grapes and crush it in our our backyard and it was so much fun trying the fresh juice and when my father started lofa Bella in the early 2000s I
Was in seventh or eighth grade and seeing that come together was really exciting so I was like wow what could I do when I graduate high school and realized that Cornell University offered a anology and vulture program which is a science of wine making and grape growing
And fast forward to 2020 EV and I came together and put our life savings into uh down payment to afford our SBA loan to fully acquire the business for my parents so they could retire and we could uh write our own next chapter of Bella our company was originally founded
As a juice business and as a a home wine making supply store so back in the early 2000s when MC’s father first started the business we are bringing in wine juices from different parts of the world and selling them to the local market here for people that wanted to take the juice
Home and ferment it into into wine so as the business progressed and we had product left over at the end of the season we’d ferment that out and turn into wine and hence how the winery first started so today it’s still a piece of our business it’s only about 25 to 30%
Of our Revenue we’ve of course significantly grown our our wine business to overtake that that aspect of our company but again today it’s still a a portion of our business the area that we just walked through is our Dock and staging area so all orders that go out
Of this facility are staged in the dock area and then and of course go out from that that Warehouse we decided to stay here in Ohio both I believe for family purposes and of course the winery is being founded in Ohio many of our products were imported from other regions of the United States and so when we decided to acquire the company of course it just
Made sense to stay here in our home Market where the facility is and we’re a bit unique in terms of how we operate as a winery because we don’t grow any of our own grapes so while we don’t have the luxury of having our own estate we
Do have the luxury of being able to grow quickly because we don’t have the restrictions of our own Vineyard to restrict our growth so because of that we are able to Source product from all over the country and we’re able to produce all kinds of unique products that aren’t limited to specific regions
And that’s what’s been unique for us to be able to grow our our business so for us being in Ohio is only a value ad because we’re right in the midst of our major retailers and it just allows us to be closer to our customers my name is Garett Lano and I’m
The head wine maker here at Louella I think Louella being in this this area is great because you know we were able to sort of fly under the radar a bit and and build our Our Brands up’ been able to hire some people here give you know others an opportunity in
This area and kind of get out our our products and it’s it’s Unique because it’s not you know we’re not in California you know fighting with 20 other wineries around us we’re sort of isolated here so it’s nice that you know we have that and we’re able to kind of
Be a big player and a small area but yet as we do that expand outwards too so these are our four outdoor fermentation tanks so the the basics of fermentation is sugar and yeast and that bubbling shows us that it’s a nice active healthy fermentation so each of
These is about 7200 gallons and these are fully jacketed and temperature controlled so we can do fermentations out here any time of the year we found that a lot of our consumers are looking for sweeter profiles and what was really exciting about our opportunity being located in
Ohio a lot of our customers are looking for that profile locally when we’re sourcing more local grape it’s able to be of a high quality wine but able to pass on that savings for our customer which allows us to be well priced in the retail space without sacrificing quality so being able to
Take our talents with wine making and knowing branding and marketing we’ve coupled that into making well balanced profiles that match vibrant brands in [Applause] Store my name is Jeff Stone I represent corporate Affairs in public relations in the Walmart and Borgman Ohio 2017 2016 there was a young lady that came to the Columbus Market I was actually a store manager back then and she was selling and promoting and pitching her wine I
Never knew who she was but when she left I never would forget her because it was such a great discussion and conversation about the product she talked about how it was manufactured here in Ohio which piqued my interest it’s very important to promote Ohio branded product because
We know that when we promote us Manufacturing in Ohio it’s going to create jobs it’s going to satisfy the customers and it’s going to serve the needs of our community because we’re creating jobs is great value good quality at a fantastic price the types of customers that we are
Focused on are of course genz and Millennials but we also have a large Market in the age brackets between 25 and 45 specifically women but also men between 35 and 65 I am Nikki Fury I work for family business which is Sparkle markets I’m Steve mcti I’m the senior director for
Beer one and liquor for Giant Eagle most of the customers that buy this wine are like me they’re women they’re in their mid 20s to like their early 40s and they really love the Purple Rain that’s our number one seller through all of our Sparkle markets they don’t look like a lot of
Other wine brands that are very you know maybe a classic look so I think they’ve gone after a wider demographic and I think the the brand has that type of appeal to it that’s the thing that’s really created so much excitement for our customers they just love it because it
Is sweet it’s fruity and it’s a nice introduction to Wine Our Brands are are great for new wine consumers that are curious about the space because our labels aren’t chatau facing most of them especially are passion brand you could almost taste the wine by looking at the label bold
Fruit the alcohol percentage is highlighted in a nice Circle so you don’t have to search it for many minutes in the wine aisle trying to figure out the location we have easy descriptors and a profile that’s sweet crisp refreshing well balanced something that is very approachable for anyone that’s
Either a wine consumer or just curious about wine over the course of the business we’ve raised around $3 million between debt and Equity the last valuation raise was at a 15 million post money valuation since we have acquired the business our distribution footprint has grown 300% we’ve entered nine new markets since the
Acquisition in terms of retailer growth we’ve grown anywhere between 120 and 1200% in any specific retailer from joh Eagle to walm Mar to Meyer and we’ve been able to maintain growth year every year even with New Market entry and maintaining a foothold we’ve also grown steady depletions on average anywhere between
25 to 30% year-over-year in terms of total Global depletions in all of our Markets we definitely consider ourselves a growing company but also an underdog it depends on who’s looking at us I feel that the wine industry as a whole like the wineries that are producing products for retail might not still see us as a big player but our retailers see our data our sell through
And the opportunity with working with us so we’ve been able to expand to quite amount of doors the last 2 years because of what we’ve been able to accomplish on the Shelf but we’re kind of balancing that out right now which it’s a really exciting time for
Us the biggest misconception for being a young entrepreneur is that we’re not experienced we’re not prepared and what I love to do is walk into a room knowing my facts figures and all the data and showing that any room any opportunity that we’ve came prepared and ready to Rocket being a young
Entrepreneur Evan and myself lived out of a suitcase for over 8 years couch surfing cheap hotels going anywhere we could to spread the word about the product what we’re doing and when we Clos on our home it was such an amazing feeling but also I was able to pack and
Unpack my makeup bag for the first time in 8 years so it was really exciting and we really cherish our time at home and our Greatful for those moments as well being married and operating a business together is always challenging of course Marissa and I when we took the
Business over we both kind of sat down and agreed that we’d speak from one voice and so we of course have internal discussions quite often and then how that gets translated to the team is spoken between both of us and and made sure that it comes from comes from one
Voice so I handle certain aspects of the business and merca handles other aspects of the business I think the number one thing that drives a success for us is mutual respect if you don’t have that and you don’t respect what the other person is saying and doing then you’re
You’re bound to fail and so it’s really important to both of us that we get back to Common Ground and understand if we don’t agree on something which doesn’t happen very often that there’s a common ground of what direction is is best and at the end of the day we’re both looking
For the best interest of the business and both looking for the best interest of the overall organization I think being married for me and working together especially the last 12 months I’ve realized the importance of vulnerability and communication and we’ve definitely learned a lot about one another and
We’ve really built a stronger Foundation than ever I am feeling really excited about our future together and of course with the business it’s so funny I’m all about just energy and understanding just how the market feels and how like conversations or situations feel and we really try to read one another really
Well especially working together and I feel that we’re more in sife than ever especially with the stronger communication that we’ve built yeah that being said of course you know there’s challenges every day and we argue and we get frustrated with each other and so transitioning that from home vacation is
Is very challenging we fight with that every day and I think you know a lot of people in our position probably have a s similar issue and something that we work on consistently but you know overall I think in terms of what we have and what we’re doing we’re very fortunate to be
Able to work with each other the way we do but you know there’s always room for Improvement currently lffa Bell is in over 5,000 stores nationally looking at all the new ads we just got with Food Lion and and Target we just found out today that we are going to start selling in Target North Carolina so very excited about that yes we have looked at
Expanding outside of the US uh Puerto Rico in particular for some data trends that we’ve seen for some of our flavor profiles and our products however right now we have so much ground to cover still domestically that it’s a little bit of a of a stretch for us right
Now we are very excited to be sharing our our new items in the next few months we just launched our passion orange Mimosa in our passion party punch which will be in all Meyer stores in Ohio starting in the fall and I’m sure we’ll have more locations as well but meer was
The first chain to see the opportunity with those two new SKS going back to our original premise with especially our passion branding we really wanted to create a wine that was approachable for not only those who like wine or curious about wine but are also enjoying rtds
And seltzers a brand and an item that is approachable and not typically seen in the wine department but is wine based I really love seeing that she has come this far I mean I remember several years ago just talking about it her telling me about this dream that she’s
Doing now and she’s living it and you know a lot of people they have these dreams and they don’t take off or it takes forever but she just said you know what I’m putting my foot in the door and I’m getting in and she has whatever she
Wants to put in here it’s always a yes because you know she comes in and she promotes and we try to help promote her as much so whatever path she wants to go we will always support her 100% as I believe we are the first stores that
Have agreed to carry her when she first started and we continue to carry her you know because her product works I think based upon what we’ve seen since the Genesis of the relationship in 2016 and how it is exponentially grown I I think that the sky is the limit so as
Luella continues to evolve we can be part of their success story we started out with just a handful of stores and we now are up to 100 stores they have distribution in every one of our stores so we’re excited to see the evolution of the brand Brands
And how the brands can continue to grow so we think we’re just at the beginning we’ve doubled our business with them over the past 3 or 4 years and and we think we’ve just scratched the surface I want my legacy to be really based on the success of this
Organization we’ve already grown from a local Winery to Distributing our products in in nine states but we have so much more to grow and and so far to continue to to go I would like my legacy to be knowing that I’ve put my best foot forward every day in this industry or in
My personal life to take time to help people do the right thing and keep building something special and I’m able to do that through lumabella Winery
3 Comments
I’ll have to try it!
Interesting 🎉
Great company with interesting story and entrepreneurs
Well deserved 👏🏻