CEO Stories with Laura Swanton, Laura Michael Wines

She spoke with This Is Capitalism about founding and running LauraMichaelWines.com, what she brought with her from her high-tech career that was useful, and some of the counter-intuitive business lessons she’s learned.

WOMEN AND WINE

Though Swanton and her then-husband bought the winery and started it together, within a relatively short period of time, it was just Laura. She notes that there are still relatively few women owning or running wineries in Napa Valley, particularly self-funded ones. She didn’t know about making wine, so her first hire was a consulting winemaker.

TRANSFERABLE KNOWLEDGE

Swanton’s 17-year high-tech career had taught her about product distribution, and how to make a sell a product, and her college degree in organizational management gave her the knowledge around how to run a company. She says that her lessons go back even further, to watching one of her grandfathers work as a farmer. She prefers to call herself a “farmer” rather than a “winemaker,” which she says helps keep her grounded.

SILICON VALLEY vs. NAPA VALLEY

The notion that a rising tide lifts all boats is one of the key tenets of capitalism, and that rings true for Swanton when talking about the wine industry. Where Silicon Valley is about competition, Napa Valley is about cooperation, she says. Less conventional ideas that she had to embrace as she embraced her new career were that growth isn’t always the goal – Swanton is content to produce just 1,600 cases a year – and that not having a distributor but instead selling directly was her path to profitability.