The Executive - Spring 2015

Making a

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Drew Bullard has found his way to the business of making red wine. After six years in Tuscaloosa, the MBA graduate certainly knows something about crimson.

Bullard, 25, spent four years playing football for Alabama. He joined the squad as a preferred walk-on in 2007, having turned down athletic scholarships from places like Princeton. He played inside linebacker and on special teams and kept a 4.0 GPA in his major as he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

But it was during a school break from his graduate studies at the Culverhouse College of Commerce that he began thinking seriously about wine.

Bullard had gotten to know a
newcomer who had moved from the San
Francisco area to work as a tennis pro
in his hometown of Florence, Alabama.
One evening the friend invited Bullard to
try a wine that a childhood acquaintance
was making in California. This was no
mere cabernet sauvignon. It was a spicy
beverage, similar to a European mulled
wine but not as sweet and of much higher
quality.

“I really liked it,” Bullard says. “But
I really didn’t realize how much I liked
it until I got back to Tuscaloosa, and I
thought, ‘I’ve got to get some more of
that wine.’”
The product had been inspired by
a trip one of the founders had taken
to Europe. She loved the spiced wines
she found there and searched in vain
for something similar in the United
States. Finally, she concluded she would
have to make it herself and teamed up
with a friend to start a wine company,
Spicy Vines.

The beverage — a blend of zinfandel, syrah, petite syrah and grenache — is mixed with brandy, fruit and spices. Some describe it as having a cinnamon-citrus taste and say the flavors remind them of Christmas or Thanksgiving.

During a Christmas break, Bullard again saw his friend, who had become a Spicy Vines' investor. Bullard liked that the wine could be consumed in a variety of ways: cold during the summer or while tailgating, room temperature with a meal, or heated and sipped from a mug during cooler months. It also can be used to make cocktails.