The Executive - Spring 2015

you don’t see a lot nowadays. It’s really,
really helpful because you get the
personal touch.”
While Bullard quickly admits he knew
nothing about the wine business before
his investment, Hoffman says he has
been a quick study.

“He has a really amazing ability to see the vision, understand the vision and provide a lot of insight toward that vision,” she says.

She also appreciates his analytic approach to business.

“He’s one of my favorite people to converse with when it comes to strategy. We could do that all day long,” Hoffman says. "For example, we’ve done a lot of talking about our next products.

Moving forward, we’d like to branch
out to different brands of wine and also
different product lines.”
Bullard agrees. “We’re the first
premium spice-wine product in the
United States and there’s a lot of room
to explore and create. There’s no
boundaries to what we can do. We can try
to produce a spicy rose, a spiced white, a
spicy sparkling wine.”
But that is all down the road. One of
the biggest recent challenges has been
developing a new bottle and label. The
process took more than a year working
with a designer. The final product has a
big sultry “S” on the front of the bottle.

“It’s bold, it’s eye-catching. You see
it and it screams spicy at you,” Hoffman
says. “You have to capture the essence of
the brand and product in one vision. We
had to really think about what it was.”
Bullard says the wine endeavor has
been a labor of love. Shortly after he
joined the team, Spicy Vines moved from
San Francisco to Napa Valley in the heart
of California wine country. The company
bought from local growers and wanted to
bring production closer to the source and
to be closer to wine-industry talent.

For Bullard, it has also made for wonderful business trips. He says he loves going out to visit and tour the wineries. As an industry insider he gets behind-the-scene access and complimentary tastings, although he usually finds himself bringing back several bottles from each outing.