In conversation with The Prisoner Wine Company’s wine ambassador Drew Schneider

I was first introduced to the Prisoner at a wine dinner in 2019. The wines are unique and I’m thinking does it get any cooler than being a wine ambassador?

You know it really doesn’t. It’s a dream job within the world of wine. Not just traveling the US, Canada and beyond but the different aspects of it. Obviously sales is part of what we do in terms of the brand. Were learning a lot about different markets, how we are going to adjust and bring our brand to market. How are we going to be successful because every market is a little bit different. Vancouver is going to be different from Quebec different from Toronto bringing that something to the market. It’s just a fun job because every city is different and we face a different set of challenges and information I get to learn about the consumer market that I can bring back to the wine making team, to our sales team to be better prepared going forward. It’s a lot of fun, I couldn’t have dreamed up a better job.

You do a lot of travelling?

Up to 60%, it averages once or twice a month I’m on the road. For example; I just got back from Tampa, Florida seeing the marketing team in Tampa and we did an event called Corks and Quirks which was a wine and food festival based in Sarasota. There were some seminars and we were able to host some dinners.

You’re coming up for the Vancouver International Wine Festival.

Right, so three weeks from now we will be up there in Vancouver, second year for me at least. I know the brand has been up there a few times now.

You obviously have a great interest in food, wine and hospitality, did you pursue an education in the field?

How my journey first started: I went to a small school up here in Northern California, a smaller school called Chico State where I got my degree in Resort and Lodge Management under the Communication umbrella. A really great program they set up, so I kind of cut my teeth. When it came to the opportunities where hospitality could really reach one of the fields that I was really interested in was in hotels, especially luxury hotels. I wanted to go to the pinnacle of what hospitality was so I put my name in the hat for the Ritz Carlton. Fresh out of school I joined the Ritz Carlton back in 2012 and had the amazing job to travel up to Lake Tahoe, which is a big mountain community here in Northern California, about two and a half hours outside of Napa, and that’s where I started my hospitality journey and worked for the Ritz Carlton for almost seven years. Then back in 2018 my parents were retiring in Napa Valley and I was spending a lot of my time in wine country and I thought that it might be a good avenue to adjust to, outside of hotels themselves. I knew I always wanted to stay in the hospitality space.

Prisoner Wine Company came and I said what a great opportunity to join not only an amazing, innovative wine brand that was created and was really breaking free of traditional winemaking in Napa but it allowed me my creative freedom to go and build my whole hospitality program in 2018. This is the first time Prisoner ever had a hospitality space, brick and mortar that people could come and enjoy our wines and find our wines. I had the lovely job of taking Napa along, back in 2018, as employee number two for the hospitality program. I got to hire a whole staff to educate around the brand, bring that to life, a very visceral experience for consumers to come in and see our brand come to life which is really unique and fun. It was very challenging, we had nothing to base off of prior, so we were building all the standards and culture right there in front of us. So I got to do that for four years.

Recently, coming up my third year with travelling and being the brand ambassador and I’ve been taking this on the road and telling the story of our winemaking team and bringing our brand on the road and bringing a sense of Napa to people. I’ve been with Prisoner Wine Company and Constellation Brands for ten years this June.

Have there been any surprises in this business?

One of the biggest surprises for me was I didn’t realize how big of a brand The Prisoner was, I think that was the first thing that stood out for me, and how passionate people are about this brand. You hear about when you first started, but when we opened our doors and saw the reception people had towards this brand, it had a cult following, and I didn’t know how big that cult following was. I gotten to see it locally for the past three years and now I am surprised when we take it on the road how excited people get about the brand, how they want to talk to us about our brand, that was beyond surprising for me.

You hear about brands and how they affect people. This one definitely has affected people and gotten a lot people into drinking wine and experiencing the great culture that wine brings. Talking about it around food, bringing your family into it, now they’re bringing their kids into it so it is a full family affair.

I didn’t realize how much this touched the community in Napa as we sourced from over a hundred different growers. Just hearing that by itself, Napa and Sonoma. We are a big corporation but we act like a small family winery so that is a big surprising thing to me as well. Not many corporations navigate that space as well as Constellation Brands and The Prisoner. Being able to have that support from a big company, that was very surprising for me as well. The family aspect that this brand brings, in the pride and privilege people say they have, by being able to touch and create this brand.

How big is the winery team?

The winemaking team itself consists of Chrissy Wittman, Senior Director of Winemaking who founded the wine making process in 2016 when Constellation bought it, she came from Wild Horse in the Central Coast and now she is overseeing and the Director of all the Northern California area, so she is technically the VP of the area, overseeing all the winemaking processes. She started as the winemaker for Prisoner so she is part of a team with the Director of Winemaking, Todd Ricard, for our two brands, The Prisoner, our core line portfolio that you will see up in Vancouver. We have Todd who is the winemaker under Chrissy and we have four main winemakers overseeing the five different brands and then Chrissy at the top of the umbrella seeing all winemakers across all the current brands.

That’s a big team, and obviously our whole cellar crew, the ones that are racking and pumping, topping off barrels all year long. People behind the scenes making these wines and the whole team of growers. Great wine starts in the vineyard so those are the ones who bring all the lives, putting these grapes into bottles of wine.

What kind of yields do you have?

When it comes to case production? Prisoner red wine itself, I’ll just give you a sense, so about 200,000 cases of wine. That takes a full village to put that into bottles year after year and what makes it so unique is we are consistently building a product that tastes the way it does with over 200,000 cases, and that’s a true testament to the winemaking prowess that the team has, the amazing palates they have, because especially when you think of all the small family farmers that we are going ahead and sourcing fruit from, they go down to as few as 3 tonnes of fruit that we are shepherding into the wineries, to ahead and produce our wines itself. So it really does take a village and it is actually a testament, again I keep saying it, but, to the wine we are producing year after year.

How many vineyards would you source from?

So we source from about 120 vineyard sites. A lot of them are third, fourth, fifth family farms that have been working with The Prisoner brand from its first conception was released in 2000. For us its been a labour of love working with them, and I wouldn’t say allowing them, but supporting them, to continue to grow heritage grape varieties. So if you really think about it the Cab and Chardonnay, the two main crop yield here in the Napa Valley, with over 40,000 acres of land, about 50% goes to Cab, another 15, 16% goes to Chardonnay, so just two grapes make up about 65% of the growing population for us. We love the fact that Zinfandel makes up the basis of our red blends and we own a lot of the growing contracts of Zinfandel in the Napa Valley and some of those other heritage grapes like the Petit Syrahs, the Syrahs and we get to partner with these third, fourth, fifth generation family farmers that have been growing these grapes since they first started planting fruit for their families. We love to keep that tradition alive within them, they support us, and its just a really harmonious partnership that we’ve built over the past, as we’ve just finished our 24th harvest for The Prisoner Wine Company label.

Are these vineyards exclusive to the winery?

I depends, it depends on what they are growing. A lot of these growers are producing fruit for multiple different brands. We just have the unique need of wanting Syrah and the Petit Syrahs, and the Zinfandel, that they continue to grow those fruits and not rip it up and plant Cab or Chardonnay or something else that fetches a really high price per ton in the valley, and as those prices skyrocket for Cab, as they have been over the past decade, and continue to do, we do have a Napa Cab within our portfolio, but again the emphasis for us is that red blend.

Tell us more about your winemaking process.

The big thing about the process of making wine at The Prisoner Wine Company is we are deliberately blending and making blends to specifically build wine in this style. What that means for us is a big powerful style of wines that are ripened fruit but also soft in structure, and have the right balance of acid. So the biggest thing for us starts in the harvest. We let our fruit hang really long on the vine, that’s what allows us to do great wines coming out of the Napa Valley, because we have that long growing time in this region. So that fruit likes to hang, develop really nice ripe fruit characteristics, and we can really balance that out, and bring nice freshness, beautiful acidity, to the wines and deliberately make a wine and style that people are trying to find year after year after year.

I think that is a big common misconception in the world of blends. When Prisoner first started to set out to make a California Napa Valley based red blend, was that it was always seen as a lesser wine that we are just taking bulk wine and blending it together, or the leftovers, and blending them to making wine and delivering it out. What we were doing is making a deliberate style wine to get it out to the consumer, by selecting different vineyards, so we can achieve a different flavour profile and blend that to be very attractive. So what we did which was first released in 2000 we created a category essentially, no one was deliberately blending wine to create a category in California as a red blend, especially a super luxury red blend. So that really jumped us off as a starting point in the world of wine and innovation and creative thought process being a full blown blending house in the heart of Napa Valley.

We are surrounded by single vineyard wines the Cabs and Chardonnays, and no one was making deliberate red blends for the mass market as The Prisoner Wine Company did, and no one was doing it with a piece of artwork such as what’s on the front of our wine. That spoke volumes into art as not just in the bottle, but on the label. People can find that and be attracted to that, I think it was a very harmonious partnership that we built by creating blends, starting that jumping off point for California high end red blends, because in the world of wine red blends are nothing new, they are all over the world, every region of the world has a red blend, and some are very super premium wines as well. We wanted to do something similar to that, and make it the norm in Napa Valley, California and beyond.

Is there one base that you start to create your blend that is always the same?

Yes, there is always the essence of Zinfandel. For example in the 2022 Prisoner Red Blend, that should be hitting the market in Canada right now, that red blend is about 35% Zinfandel, that makes up the base of the wine, and then we start to layer and fold in different grape varieties so we bring Cab to the table, a very unlikely mix, you have the bright red bell pepper characteristics of Zinfandel but you have that tiniest structure mid palate of Cab and nice acidity and then you have Petit Syrah, you have Syrah. Syrah is going to add that colour, Petit Syrah is also going to add some colour, fold in a little Merlot and Malbec to add a little more softness on the palate, and the smooth finish, and when we blend all those things together we are trying to highlight what the grape does well, and kind of hide what the grape doesn’t do well, and I think based on different environmental factors that are happening, not just all over the world, but especially in California and Napa, each vintage is going to change a little bit on the ratios we are putting into that wine. But also that is what makes a blend so significant is that we can adjust those ratios for what that vineyard did for us, that region did for us, and how it shows keeping in barrel, and that starts from the very first barrel ferment that we are starting to taste through all the way throughout the given year as we start to taste the wines to see how they are developing and what that final blend is going to look like as we’re building those out together.

If Zinfandel is your base is there a wild card that comes into play in any particular vintage?

Recently, right now, its been the Merlots and the Malbecs of the world. The private outlier is a really obscure grape, Charbono, that grew in the Napa Valley, there is about one hundred acres planted throughout California and I think we own about 80% of that in Napa Valley itself, so 80 acres planted. That was the first wild card I was thrown at Prisoner itself, that we put an obscure bit like Charbono in a blend with Cab and Zinfandel, it really was an unlikely mix of grape varieties that created that first blend. Today, it’s mostly we’ve added a little bit of Merlot or Malbec at the blend, as well with the Malbec being more of a traditional kind of blending grape, but also the story of California and Merlot has kind of as an afterthought. You know the movie Sideways a lot of people say that was a tribute to that, but I say people have fallen out of favour with Merlot, I personally love Merlot and I think it is kind of an amazing blending grape variety. I think it’s fun for us to add such an old school, old world grape variety that has lost kind of favour within Napa Valley. Obscurities we are throwing into a blend with Zinfandel. 2008 is a far cry from what is going on in today’s world,  I am sure as, hopefully, new wine consumers can find Merlot and not be completely thrown off by a movie.

I wish marketers would pay more attention to the over 50 crowd but I think more relevant to wine consumers, what is happening with the other age group?

The scary thing in my world, I’m kind of right in between those age groups I’m 35, not as many people are finding the world of wines, and it’s hard for them to find, maybe it’s a little pretentious for some, or it feels scary to ask questions about a wine, and they can’t find it in ways that meet them where they are currently. I think that’s the scary thing for us going forward as brand marketers that we want to be able to be approachable to the younger clientele. In the greater world of wine to be able to find wine that is approachable. What is amazing about The Prisoner Wine Company is, why really love it is, this is very approachable wine. We have multiple different wine skews that are finding a younger generation. One of our brands, Unshackled, which is at a price point that is more economical for a younger consumer.

What I’m seeing for the younger generation is that they are not willing to spend their money on something that they don’t know a lot about, and take a risk on. If we can find something that is a price point they like, that is visually approachable to them, that is fun, it’s unique, it’s something they can show off to their friends, that they can say look at this brand I found and the wine is phenomenal. We’re trying to create wine that is approachable for that. That is what The Prisoner was always known for, approachability, the style of the wine we are producing, it was something for the new consumer just getting into the world of wine, or someone who has been drinking wine for a long period of time. So when you think about that, and your 20 year old all the way up to where I am at, and 50, and beyond. That we are really trying to do is that the people who found The Prisoner back in the day, and continue to drink it, and continue to buy it, hopefully they are going to be influencing their kids and family members to go ahead and try wine, not shackled by the $20. price point, and as they graduate through their wine drinking journey that they are finding The Prisoners of the world when they can afford the $50., the $60., the $70, the $100. bottles of wine.

As a brand we try to build out to do the best of both worlds, to make really approachable style wine not only from a flavour profile but something at an affordable price point as well.

The Prisoner has always been a brand that is easy to pair wine and food with. We have a full culinary program here in Napa Valley, we have executive chefs and sous chefs and a lot of wine cooks that are building out food programs that are pairing our wines, and it’s very unique to have a red blend, because we compare it with a lot of different styles of wine, and this wine is so approachable and easy to drink, and is an absolute power house food wine, and that definitely changes both the food program but also the wine profile.

What I love about bringing this wine across the United States, and now we are getting into Canada, some of the other cuisines of the world, and it’s allowing us to pair those wines together. The people that are typically showing up on those are over 50 years old. Maybe there is a price point attached to it, but this brand being a fun, cool driven style of wine, easy drinking wines, I am seeing, hopefully, younger generations starting to show up a little bit more to those as well. Who is telling them about that is not necessarily kids their age, it’s the older generation that’s telling them, “this is the wine you should drink” that’s something I’m seeing a lot of.

I think they want us to meet them where they are at. They want to be the ones to say “oh look what I found” too. “I don’t want to necessarily drink my parents wine, or my grandparent’s wine I want to drink the wine of my generation.” How do we create the wine of a new generation? It starts with the ability to be approachable and not be pretentious., at The Prisoner Wine Company I like to call it an all inclusive wine brand. We are open to anybody, any background, any colour, it doesn’t matter, we want people to show up and feel comfortable drinking this wine, and sharing with their friends and family and saying “look what I found” and I love that aspect of what we do.

How do you get your wines into the kind of places where the young people are?

Find them where they’re at. A lot of things we have done over the years is show up at music festivals where the young people are, like Coachella here in California, Outside Lands in San Francisco. Showing up at those places, being on lists at those institutions where they are, and have a younger generation that are coming and consuming wines in wine bars. One of the big, new things, is the hip world of wine that started with that generation of organic wines. The trend of organic wine bars that a lot of the younger generation are flocking to here in the States. I hope that trend eventually ends, and that people are going to come back to the stable wine houses that have established themselves over the years.

For us it’s going into really unique places, for example, our brand did a whole stint in Washington, D.C. and we did a pop-up winery and the crowd that came to that was very much a younger crowd ,and being that hip, young place defined as pretty much an urban winery that is showcasing wines such as Saldo, which is under our Prisoner portfolio, and that’s the way we do it is we bring Napa into unique, fun places.

We do a thing we call Prisoner Ball that we hosted in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We hosted a big party and invited a lot of influencers, and different vendors, from the greater New York/Jersey area to come in and enjoy an evening of art, advocacy, music and phenomenal wines. Doing that, showcasing our brand in places like this is the way we are trying to attack the younger market, so younger consumers can find us and say “I drink the Prisoner and not only am I hip but I know what I am doing when it comes to drinking really high end wine”.

We have also partnered with the NBA where we have gone into different wine events and dinners. We have some NBA superstars that are now representing The Prisoner Wine Company and have come into the winery and done blending seminars with our winemaking team.

We are trying to show up in a multitude of different ways for the younger consumer to see us and say “hey this is a brand I want to attach myself to”.

We have noticed that a lot of the players in the NBA are drinking wine, and they are posting about drinking wine, and getting interviewed, and talking about wine. That’s something that has really created a trend over the past couple of decades within the world of wine, and becoming more and more prevalent. We thought what a great opportunity to partner with some of these really big wine advocates and put The Prisoner in front of them and some of their teammates to showcase what it is.

Wine is meant to be celebrated, it brings people together. When you’re on the road and you are with your road family, essentially your teammates, you can sit and have a meal, and have wine over it, and discuss and talk about the game, talk about life, talk about futures, and wine is a great conduit or that.

In an interesting discussion recently on a panel as our winemaker representing The Prisoner in Sarasota, Florida, talking about this healthy movement in the world, and we know that alcohol is not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world, that is nothing new for us. But wine goes so far beyond just the aspect of alcohol, because through the culture and the roots of people and families and culture, and as hopefully, especially in the United States here, we can start building more of a culture around this product that it is more beyond trying to achieve a certain mental state that this is something that has been a part of culture forever, all over the world. So if we can advocate for that, it goes beyond just that and I know, in a lot of different spaces a lot of different people suggest drinking red wine as a healthy state of being. I’m not advocating for this as the healthiest thing in the absolute world but I’m saying it goes far beyond just trying to get drunk and being that aspect type of things, for people it goes well beyond that as a commodity that brings a lot of different people together, an international language, it’s meant to be drunk with food, it has a lot of different unique elements that hopefully the younger generation can see, not as an evil but as something that can bring people together with and share.