SPEAKER_01 1:45

Welcome back to another episode of the Hill Top Glob podcast. Today, we're thrilled to be having a conversation with Justin Wages. I'm the dynamic co-founder of Don Luci Prosecco. Adjusting along with David Kenlock and Andre Grundy are on a mission to create a bright and bubbly future in the world of food and wine. The name Don transcends its title. It's a beacon of respect, authority, and refined presence. Meanwhile, Lucci conjures the energy of joy, grace under pressure, and an unforgettable presence that transforms a simple toast into a memorable moment. Don Luci is more than just a beverage. It's a celebration of rising with grace, honoring your roots while savoring the journey ahead. Every time you open a bottle of Don Luchi, you're not just celebrating the moment, you're stepping into a legacy of elegance, resilience, and excellence. For now, their focus is on sharing your love for wine with consumers, educating them about grapes. I guess it's varietals. Isn't that the varietals? Okay. And regions. And I got to learn a lot about this too, about the regions too. So I got some dope questions about that, Corey, as well. All while continuing their journey of learning. Don Luci Prosecco is available at retail havens like Bottles and Mickey Finn's across the state, and is so and it's a celebrated choice at Charleston's finest restaurants and wine bars, such as Graph. Shout out to our friend, Femi, and Sorrell. Stay tuned as we dive into the fascinating world of wine and dining with the Trailblazing Team at Don Luchi. How are you doing today? I'm good, man. Can't complain at all. How you doing? Doing good, doing good. Yeah, doing well. Awesome, awesome. So I know prior to us, I'm proud of sitting down and recording, I know we got chat a little bit before. And so it's neat because you know sometimes you talk to people, you don't realize how many connections you have. So it's like I feel like I already kind of know you already. Right. Those are some of the mutual connections we have. But with that said, could you just tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you're at?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Man, that's a great question. Background. Sometimes I forgot I've been there 36 years. No, I'm born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Started off in West Ashley, if y'all are familiar. Yeah, west side of Charleston. Ended up moving to Goose Creek, Stratford High School. Always had the entrepreneurial spirit I grew up in, watching my uncles. I got 14 uncles, so they always wanted something. They were landscapers, mechanics, whatever. They always done their own stuff. And I was just always inspired by that. And I always thought that's how it should be. I should have my own thing. So I'm really big into ownership. After that, you know, I was big into football, so I played football up Stratford High School. Ended up going to Benedict College. Things didn't pan out how I wanted them to. Ended up coming back down to Charleston. Okay. And went to art school. Oh. A complete left turn, right? Okay. So I was going to art school actually to do sound engineering. I was making beats. Okay. So a lot of local artists down here, they'll they'll tell you sort of like a hidden legend. I used to make a lot of beats for I made beats for like Molly Maw. Okay. I did Primetime and Diggers album covers. Oh. Like I made all that kind of stuff. A lot of people don't know that's that's like hidden little secrets. Yeah. So I was going to school to do sound engineering. I wanted to be a producer. At the time I got into some situations. I I couldn't. I needed to go to Atlanta to do it. Charleston had its own art school, but they didn't have sound engineering. So they told me, wait a year, we'll have it. So I chose a graphic design. So I learned Photoshop, Illustrator. Never got sound engineering. I just sort of stuck with graphics, but I mean, thank God I did, because I wouldn't have been where I am now if I didn't learn the graphic side of things. Exactly. Yeah, so after that, I got out of school, sort of left school early. I was, I'm just not the school type, man. I just I'm over it. Started, I started selling insurance, awkwardly enough, right? I've been in all kinds of fields, man. Yeah. Got my license, started selling insurance. Then after that, I started my own clothing brand, which was Aluche Royale. Okay. It was the first brand. Then Dope and Rare came after that, and I still have Dope and Rare. We just celebrated our 10-year anniversary last Wednesday. Oh, congrats. So that became a lifestyle brand. And then our newest project is Don Luchi Wines now. It was Don Luci Burseco. We just switched the wines because we got some big announcements coming soon. Okay. I might be able to tell y'all a little something out there. I don't know. All right. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Excellent. Well, one of the things I gotta ask is so, and one thing I just learned, I didn't know, so I have a background in music. So we actually both have a background in music, especially music production. And one of the things I find very interesting about it is, and this is just like tons of people that we know, there's always not that we lose passion for music, but it easily translates into something else on the creative side, especially when it comes to the visual side. Because it seems like that's something that's always messing us. We hear stuff, you know, we hear what we like, we know what sounds good, but it's that's not enough. Okay, so what else do I need to create around the sound? Right? I need an image around it. I needed to learn the importance of those visuals too in the company. And that goes into marketing and all that. Is that something similar that you kind of went through with your interest in graphic design?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Absolutely, because I feel like visuals go with music, right? So that's why I always appreciate a good music video. People that put the time and effort into creating something. AI is perfect now because you can create all kinds of crazy stuff to go with the music. And then I sort of lost a passion for it at some at some point too, because just life hit you, tried to get back into it, it just didn't hit the same. Yeah. I got back into Fruity Loops, and I'm like, it just don't even sound right anymore. I'm like, I'm seeing all these new MIDI keyboards, and I'm like, I gotta buy all of this to I'm like, oh yeah. So I yeah, I left that alone, but most definitely the visuals, I think visuals go with everything, man, being able to tell your story or what you want people to know at that given moment.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Excellent, excellent. And I guess with that said, so how did that transition? How did you get into wine? Yeah, how how that worked, yeah. Yeah, you're going from graphics to wine. No, you got the insurance of the tweet, too.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Right, right. Well, a lifestyle brand, I suppose. Yeah. We do a little bit of everything, man. So the story is we started with a beer. We had a beer idea like 15 years ago. Never moved on it, never knew how to. Okay. There was me, Andre, and a good friend of ours, Josh Lytle. He's uh in the Navy, stationed out in the Norfolk. We just never moved on it. We thought it was funny. We wanted because we drank a lot of beer. We was like, man, we need to have our own beer. So pandemic came around. This is right before the pandemic hit. All the fellas, it's like 10 of us. We're at my house. We want to start a business together. We all love beer. We're like, let's do a brewery. South Carolina has no black-owned breweries. So we're like, man, we can be the first. So out there in the next scenario, we're looking at land, we're learning how to brew beer. Andre's in his his kitchen brewing beer. We're doing the whole nine like for a year. We're getting ready to try to buy this land, build a building. Pandemic hits. We're like, oh we shouldn't be doing this right now. So eventually all that sort of just deteriorated. The pandemic hit. Of course, we know what happened with that. And uh we just pivoted. So at that point, we pivoted to contract boom, which is another option. We don't have to own anything, we're playing the middleman again. Okay. So we had a buddy that owns a brewery downtown Charleston. We reached out to him and we said, We want to make a beer. He's like, let's do it. Okay. So we came out with a peach wheat. It was amazing to us, right? And I told uh, this is when we started learning the legal stuff in South Carolina. You gotta have distribution licenses, all this kind of stuff. And uh, we try to get a distributor. Okay. No luck, man. We for like a year we struggled. No callbacks, I'll call you back next month, we're not interested. It was just like, man, what is what the hell's going on? Yeah. Like, why we can't get this thing rolling? Yeah. In that meantime, we always was big champagne drinkers. Yeah. We like to celebrate. We like to celebrate small wins, big wins. Yeah. Everywhere we go, we we just popping bottles. This was the wave when everybody's sort of coming in to tequila, getting off the brown, everybody switching over to the tequila. Yeah. I was still drinking champagne with dinner.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

That was my go-to. So just one day something hit me. I think I was with a friend, and I'm just, I just looked at the bottom, I'm like, damn, why we don't own anything in this space? How hard is it to own a sparkling wine brand, or wine, just wine in general. Because growing up, you look at wine as I always looked at it as sort of a snobbish thing or uppity, uh, you gotta be make this certain amount of money. You gotta have the right grapes and the right weather and all this. I'm like, I don't know none of that. I'm like, but something hit me, it was just like, man, there's an opportunity here somewhere. There's an opportunity. We're buying all these other brands that we don't know who owns it and does all that. I'm like, why can't we have our own brand? So I did my background research for I even told the fellas. Okay. So I remember we were at Happy Hour one day, and I said, hey, let's pivot. We need to pivot. We both were, we all were down that day because we were like, man, we still can't pick up distribution. Okay. And I'm like, man, let's do some wine. And they all looked at me like, hell no. It was like wine. We don't know nothing about being. I'm like, man, we can learn. I'm like, we knew nothing about beer. I said, man, we can learn. I said, it might be a little bit overwhelming, but I think we can learn this thing. I said, I done did half of the work for you. Look. I sort of had the numbers, I had things just laid out already. They were like, Damn. All right, what's the next step? And I was like, all right, I need y'all to help me with this, the next step. And from that point, we reached out to California called the Sparkling Wine. We were just set on bubbles in general. I didn't want to get into the reds and the whites and still wines. It was just, there's just so many. We just wanted to sell, we wanted to focus on celebration. Okay. Bringing goodbye. So reached out to California. Sparkling wine just did a ring ring right. California Sparkle Wine. I know there's big brands out there, but it just doesn't give a ring to it. Yeah. Reached out to some necks we had in France, Gatekap. Yeah, they were like, you know, one guy, he was like, Yeah, call me back in a year. I'm like, man, we don't got it here. I don't know what life's gonna look like in a year. Yeah, you might not feel the same way in a year. Yeah, it's true. Then we started dabbling around in Italy. This is when I really was introduced to Prosecco and learned about it. I knew of Prosecco. A lot of people know they call Prosecco champagne. I think it's all just bubbles. This is when I started to learn, oh, there's a big difference. A whole nother country, a whole nother process. So I started reaching out to some vineyards there. We had sort of a connect there, also, so I just pitched what I wanted to do here in the States. And we got an email back, like, let's do it. I love it. Oh wow. I'm oh, for real? Oh, this just got real. Yeah. The next step is we talked with them. A lot of people don't know that took like a year, because again, you got to get certain licenses. Okay. And with us, we uh we wanted to have as much ownership in this as we could, right? So we own our import company, we own the brand and we trade everything's ours. Like nobody imports for us, we warehouse ourselves, everything. So you're not just like a brand ambassador. No, okay, uh, we own the entire brand. Yeah, it's it's a beautiful thing. A lot of people own that, right? Yeah, that's a big deal. After that, what was that? Where was I at? I straight a thought up. Yeah, we spoke with them for like a year. We worked out the numbers, worked out the system, then I told the guys, I'm like, we gotta go to Italy. Okay. There's no way I can cut a check for this amount, and we don't meet these people. And they probably should meet us too. Yeah. So we go to Italy. Our first time was last March. Went to Italy. And man, that was one of the most nerve-wrecking trips ever because I got my two brothers with me, and I don't know where we're going next. I don't know where we're going to meet. We, I mean, we might get kidding. I don't know what's happening. But I told them.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Oh, real quick, can you tell our audience? Which region of Italy did you go to?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

So, Venice. So, about an hour and a half outside of Venice, our our wine is produced in Valubia. Very exclusive region, certain type of grapes, still a glaring grape, but the type of soil, the way the sun hits it, it's all just a premium version of Prosecco. So, right outside.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

So you have done your research. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I mean, we have to now. We got to know. We flew into Venice. The next morning, a black car comes and picks us up. Okay. We drive like an hour and a half out. Our driver barely speaks English. We're like, I don't know what the hell we can do. But our our our connect at the vineyard, he's he's texting me, he's like, Yeah, yeah, we see you in a little bit. We get there, we sit down with the family, we start talking. They don't speak English, so the translator, and that was really the start of our journey. And uh, when we walked in, that was my first time actually seeing the bottle. Okay. So I never seen it on a bottle until we walked in that office, and I didn't notice it at first. I saw some bottles on the table, I'm like, Yeah. Then I sat down and I'm like, I'm like, oh, this is ours. I'm like, oh, we really did it. So that was one of my moments where I'm like, oh, we actually have a product. So that that first trip was just meeting the family, you know, getting acquainted with each other, seeing the facility. We shot a lot of content there. Uh we went to the vineyards, we spent like the whole day with them. They took us, I mean, they treated us extremely well. Took us out to eat, took us to dinner. We came back, spent a little bit more time in Venice, then we were back. And we launched June 2024. Oh well. We did it was crazy. Our timeline was so off. My goal in my head was May.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And it ended up being the end of June. And we just had to, you know, we we dealt with it. We uh did an event that sold out in two hours, and nobody even tasted the product yet. Wow, yeah. Which was we were like, damn, I hope it tastes good to y'all. Man, that's that's incredible. So then four weeks we sold out, had to go back to Italy to talk about expansion, expanding now. So now we have proof of concept, okay. It works, people like it. Now let's focus on growing the brand. And I went out there last August, talk about expanding. Now we go once a year, check on the family, they check on us. We make sure we're all on the same page, talk about our yearly growth plan, what they need from us, what we need from them, and here we are. Wow. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

That's really cool, man. That's dope. So I didn't know there was a difference between and sparkling wines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the thing?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Talk a little bit about that. So champagne and prosecco, man, we battle this every day, all day. Everybody texts me, man, I love your champagne. I'm like, all right, thank you. It's prosecco though. Because champagne was always looked at as that celebratory thing. Posecco in Italy is everyday drinking. Okay. You know, you get home, you pouring, you drink proseco every single day. So the main difference is I tell people there's three. The first one is country of origin. Champagne can only come from Champagne, France. Posecco comes from basically Posecco, Italy. It was renamed. But the Benito region in Italy, Northeast Italy, that's the main difference. Second is the grapes. Posecco can only be made out of a glare of grape, one type. Champagne, three different types of grapes. It's a Pinot Noir. I forget the other one. I don't really focus on champagne anymore. Sorry. Focus on Posecco. But it's a mix, you can do a mixture of all those three grapes. But uh that's where you get champagne and then the method. Champagne is fermented in the bottle. So it's fermented in the tank, then in the bottle. This is how you get the vintage and whatnot. This is why the price point is also higher. Prosecco is fermented in the tank twice. So it's a little bit cheaper, right? And this is why with Prosecco, we always tell people don't hold on to it. People like to, yeah, I'm gonna save it five years. I'm like, nah, you gotta drink it fresh. It's one of those bottles when you get it, drink it. Okay. But uh shelf life on it is two years. But our rose, our rose is vintage, that's 2023 there, because it's mixed with Pinot Noir. 85% Glara, 15% Pinot Noir. So those are the main differences. Champagne Prosecco. And like I said, we battle it every day. Some days I'm just like, yeah, man, our champagne's amazing. I don't even worry about it. I'm like, if you want to call it champagne and champagne, just let me know what you think. It's good, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So, with that said, one of the things I gotta ask, and I think when it comes to when you when you have conversations about entrepreneurship, people always talk about, of course, whatever product or service that you have to offer. But a lot of times we don't really talk about the creative aspect of it or the storytelling aspect, because in order for someone to value your product or service in order to per you know to purchase it, there has to be a there has to be a compelling story behind it. So how do you go, so how did you go about crafting that story?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Man, you know, about this project, what was big for us that we haven't did, that we didn't do in our other projects is hire a marketing team and really get professionals behind. So we hooked up with DreamC ran by Jessica Boyd. Shout out to Jessica, she is phenomenal. Us working together has been like magical. She's probably one of the only people I can have a vision, a thought in my head, and she can create it some kind of way for me. And I'm like, oh, that's perfect. Everybody else always gets it, they want me to adjust to what they see, and I'm like, that's not what I saw. Like, so the marketing, I think when we launched, the way we did it was beautiful. Also, we just didn't come out and say, hey, we gotta recycle brand. We we released these slow videos just giving hints about what's happening, right? Yeah, and people just got curious. So we love one of our things that we do is leave people curious. What's next? What are they talking about? What are they trying to show us? Just on leaving you on the edge of your seat, something to look forward to.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

So, you know, that that just plays a huge part in building a brand, building the community, the marketing, how you present it. Because, you know, the product speaks for itself, right? And then you had a lot of brands out here that have great marketing, great storytelling, and the product ain't good. But you just know you love the story so much, it's like you still buy mess with it, right? There's a bunch of brands out here that do that. And I think what us is special because we have a great product, and we have a great story. Like I said, we're the first black and second brand in South Carolina, North Carolina. You don't hear people flying out to Italy, meeting with a vineyard and importing it back. It just is something that doesn't happen every day. So I think our story and the way we tell it is is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So what's next for y'all? Man, one of the things we uh we don't like to tell people is next. That's that's a good that's a good role, though. Yeah. I I could tell you what we do have in the works is because when would this release?

SPEAKER_01 20:11

This is so this one will be uh this will be on December. So this will be a couple weeks about my house.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

So I can tell you this one. Online shipping is about to happen.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Oh it's just tough. It was tough.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Yes, it is a huge logistical nightmare. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

But it's something we don't have to handle, but the the laws that are in South Carolina, you sort of gotta pivot around things. So that's one of our biggest things we've been gearing up for. We've been trying since last year because we know there's so many people around the country that email and call us. Yeah. Can we get a bottle? Can we? I'm like, I can't do anything. You gotta you come to SC, come get one. Yeah. So now that we have the ability to, or somebody else ships it, we we can't ship under South Carolina law, we can't. Really? That's so weird. Yeah, you know, South Carolina has that three tiers. Right, right. Gotta keep it all. We're considered producer, wholesalers, and importers. We can't be retail, also. You know, some retail can ship, but we can't. So we'd rather be in those two tiers anyway. Right, right. But somebody else can handle it for us and has to be in another state. So we finally got all that figured out. That was a nightmare. Like we say, we like to pivot. Whatever obstacle we run into, we just pivot. And we finally got this to work. Took a year, but finally that'll probably open up a whole nother stream of revenue for us, which we're looking forward to. Okay. So that's that's that's what's next. Other than that, some maybe another wine. Sure, sure. Yeah, something next year, something special.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

So, next question I got. So, of course, like I said, when it comes to marketing, of course, and the business, everything looks good on the outside, obviously. But what does day-to-day look like for you and your team? Yeah, like what does a Tuesday look like?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

So we just got back from Italy in September, right? And, you know, when we talk with marketing, and when I talk to just people in the community, they're like, man, we want to know what it's like behind the scenes. Like, what do y'all really have to do? We just see all the pictures, yeah. They're like, what's it really like? I'm like, it's it's it's tough. Yeah, it's really tough pushing this brand. So we started doing a lot of behind the scenes content now. I bought a little DGI or whatever, a little camera. Yeah, did a lot of behind the scenes in Italy. And now we do it here when we have an event, we show people behind the scenes. I'm like, yeah, we outside every day pushing our brand. So a typical, I mean, meetings, I like I told the fellas, I've never been, I've never been on so many Google Meet, Zoom, whatever it is. Yeah, my life. All of them. I'm like, oh my goodness. It's like every day we got one.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

And it's like trying to remember. I've never used Google Calendar so much in my life now. Yeah. The whole Google Suite. Like, I need a sponsorship because we we use everything. It's it's it's it's a lot. But I mean, it's nothing. I mean, we ask for it. This is what we asked for. Right. I mean, it could be the other way, it could be super slow and we nothing's going on. Could be doing it for somebody else. Yeah. So, I mean, we're definitely blessed to be in a position we're in and people support us, and we actually have a good product. But yeah, behind the scenes, just it's a lot. We run into a lot of issues people don't see, and we make it look good at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Like our Italy trip fell apart, and a lot of people don't know that. But we just pivoted and we made the best out of the situation. A lot of things fall apart around us, logistics-wise, getting product from Italy to Charleston. Yeah, so many things can happen. And you just sitting there like, oh my goodness, please. Like I the other day we got wood so I can knock on something. Some containers fell off a ship in Los Angeles. And I'm like, oh, that's gotta be our biggest nightmare. Like, mm-hmm. I'm like, what if I uh I'm like, I only want things. Think about that. So it's like so many things that go on that happen from logistics to just the business in general to working with Italy to keeping up to date with your licenses, the money, just tariffs. Oh yeah, tell me about it, man. I mean, again, we just adjust. We pivot, we adjust, then we keep going.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

So what is it like having to, I guess because you're of course your customer is of course consumers, right? The people who want to drink, right? Who want to drink prosecco, right? But it doesn't end there. Really, it's about connecting with those those restaurants, those bars. What is it like having to build relationships with those bars, restaurants?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

So our brand, we you know, we have a product, but we always say we're community first. Okay. We do like to build with our community. Okay. And that's why we sponsor a lot of events. We just did the Red Cross sickle cell event. Okay. There's a Heart Foundation Gala Tonight on James Island we sponsored. We want we always want to be a part of our community. So when we're building those relationships with these bars and restaurants, thank God. What's funny, during the pandemic, we used to throw these house parties, right? Okay. We used to rent out these Airbnbs downtown. So all the industry people, they'd get off early. Yeah. Like restaurants was we'd throw parties with them. So we met so many people. So when we started this, we already had our foot in the door a little bit. We would call in a lot of favors. We'd be like, hey, you still work at, you know, such and such over here. Can you connect us? And a lot of it, some of the cold, like the cold calling stuff, I mean, it's cool. I mean, we're all all three of us, we're charismatic, we got confidence, we can walk in any room and take a look at this. Yeah. Do a tasting, whatever. So some people is it's it's easy to build that relationship with. Some others, you gotta come see them like 10 times. Yeah, that's our figure. Before they actually budge. Some that first time is like, boom, they're there. Some of the bigger I mean, for us, man, just knowing somebody helps. Somebody just say, hey man, I got a guy, one of my friends got this brand, they want to come talk to you.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Cool. Like some of the big restaurants like Sorelli, downtown Charleston, which is a great one of my favorite Italian spots. Just having that connection to the psalm there helped us get in there. Legani, another really dope Italian spot. The owners, we were introduced to them through some friends, really cool brothers. That connection helped us get in there and they wanted to support local. So, I mean, it's it's really big. You really gotta build that relationship. You gotta, you gotta come to that bar, that restaurant, spend a little money sometimes, support the cause. And then we send business there.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

You know, one thing we do with an account is if you pick us up, we announce that you picked us up. Okay. And some people may not know about you, and then they learn about you through us posting you, right? So it's like in an exchange, you know, you rub my back, I rub yours, sort of. So yeah, I think it's very important. Community is important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Sounds like you've got a really good vision for what parts of it you want to own and maintain, and what parts of it you want to outsource and allow somebody else to do. It seems like it's such a wide scope of what is needed to maintain that brand.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah, I think but we we highlight what we're good at. We don't try to get great at stuff we're good at. Right. Right. So we're just good at something like marketing, we're like, we can do it. Right. But can we do it at the highest level we possibly can? No, we couldn't. Right. We need to get somebody else to do it. Right. And it takes up too much time. So we really focus on things that we're great at. What are we great at as a group? And then we sort of attack that. And then the other stuff, we just get people to do it for us. Yeah. That's what you gotta do. So everything can be like A1 across the board.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

That's awesome. It seems like from what this from where I gather, this from time talking, especially the people that that we'd have in common, you definitely seem like somebody that you like you said, you can walk into any type any room and you can talk to anybody from any walk of life and you can still relate to them. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's really key with, especially in the business sense, with being able to build that rapport to you know, to be able to be successful. And I think a lot of times when people have products or services, we don't realize that there has to be a personality associated with it. Most definitely. And I think you mentioned that earlier, just if you like your product, you don't necessarily gotta have the best product, but if you can, it's about that story being able to connect and being personable that can get you to make you successful. And I think that's the dopest thing about it.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Definitely in the beverage space too, because it's it's like all of them are an image thing, you know. It's all like the difference between Don Perion and it's all an image. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

That's true. That's true. So with that said, what's your what's your favorite dish to eat with with Don Lucchi? Oh man. Because of course, that's what you know, that's what it's made for, it's to be accompanied with meals. Lately?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Man, you know, I'm born and raised in Charleston, man. So blue crabs. I get a pan, I get a dozen of blue crabs, and I can pop the rose. Best night ever. Other than that, I mean a typical like in Italy, oh my god, the pasta over there is it's a different animal, eh? Oh man. I mean, you don't even feel it after you're done eating. You just feel you can get up and still walk thing ten miles down the street and you're fine. Other than that, man, I eat everything with it. I mean, really, low country red rice, fried fish, but oysters too. Oh man. Yeah, we did an oyster event with Pearls. We did a partnership with them. We did a Pursec one Pearls. Oh. And that was great. So it was like oysters all day. Yeah. And you get a bottle with it.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

So oysters, I'm I'm a connoisseur. That's that's one of my things. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Cool, cool. Yeah, that's really dope, like I said, because I know I'm looking forward to checking it out. Because you like I said, I think a lot of times when we think, especially beverages, especially when we think about things like wine, right? When I talk about champagne, our prosecco or sparkling, people don't really talk about sparkling when it comes to meals. It's usually other wines that we all usually talk about, right? When it when it comes to table wine. And so it's really neat. And so I'm kind of curious myself, just what the experience, you know, is good the difference is between having something like a prosecco more on a sparkling side versus where you're traditional.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Just say it's more of an Italian thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

It is. It is, man. I mean, over there, every restaurant, it's prosecco everywhere. It's just an everyday drinker, it's just that's your go-to. Yeah. So it's ours now too. So it's just after a long day, pour you up a nice cold glass.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Nothing better than. And I know earlier we were chatting about this, and it seems like that'd be such a great combination with brunches, too.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

So we used we used to get a little agitated when people used to mix it with orange juice. You don't man, you don't cut our stuff. Like, who does? You go get that other stuff out of the grocery store, but this is now eventually now we're like, no, whatever the the consumer wants to do, it's your bottle. Yeah. If you want to put pineapple on, whatever, and it tastes even better. You know, it tastes when you mix with, I'm not gonna say the other brands, but you mix orange juice with them other brands, you try ours and orange, you're like, oh, that's the world a different. You can just taste the difference in it. So brunch is really big. Like I said, we're we're moving up in Charlotte right now, and they have a huge brunch scene that we're about to be a part of. I think we're about to get in some of these spots our own Sundays, Don Lucho Sundays. Look out for that. Okay, that's coming up. I can take that. That's coming up. Absolutely. Okay. I think it starts in December. We'll we'll check back when we go back in November. But yeah, we'll be a big brunch item. Like I said, that Italian wine, man, we're popular in all spaces though. Yeah. Nightclubs that use this as bottle service.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah, we're big in the bottle service space, you know. Because I think we're getting to the point too, everybody, when you're going out, you don't want to spend all that money.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Everybody's getting sections and it's just so expensive to get this bottle and that bottle. Why not have something that doesn't break the bank and it tastes good? Yeah. Facts. So we're yeah, we're bottle services. That's the way I like to drink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're bottle servers now, man. Yeah, they got sparklers, all that. We got signs, okay. So we're on white tablecloth, we're in clubs, we're at cookouts. Yeah. We're we're everywhere. We're red solo cups. Every crevice, man, it just works.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Whatever your luxury is. Yeah. And that's awesome. That's that's really beautiful, man. That's really beautiful. I said, just hearing I said the story and then the journey. Because when I was doing the research, and I was like, well, and because of course I just like Google, what's Prosecco from. And then you know how you do the search search and it brings down the rabbit hole. I was like, oh, I was like, this is gonna be really interesting, just hearing how you guys got, especially as I said, northeast, northeastern Italy, right? And it's just so much, you know, of course, there's a lot of history in that area as well and stuff. So it's just neat. And I'd have said because the longest time, I've always known about Prosecco, but I didn't know what the difference was. Yeah, me neither. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know it was different countries, I didn't know any of that. I didn't know it was different grapes. And I think to be honest with you, probably about maybe maybe the last year, I didn't realize how much of a difference there are in grapes. And this is what I found out from from a friend of ours, mutual friend of ours, how much of a difference there is when it comes to that. So it's just always great just getting the history behind. And those things are made. So we appreciate you for that. But with that said, I do got one more question for you. Okay, man, because you're doing so much stuff. Like, where do you find time to find balance if there is balance?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Man, we always uh we always say that we don't think there really is balance. I think it's just pockets are sort of like I I sort of know when I'm like almost burnt out and I gotta like like I just said I told you we were in Charlotte the past five weekends. Like for us, that's just something we know we have to do if we're gonna grow the brand. But then we also understood like when we got back, we're like, all right, we're gonna take a couple weeks off now. I'm gonna sit at home on a weekend and let's relax for a second. We got it rolling, then we'll go back up to it and make sure we like the fire then.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

So just we sometimes I don't know. I'm thankful like I got people in my corner that sometimes they're like, hey, yeah, go go chill out for a little bit, like you burnt out, man. So because I'll keep going. I'll just keep going, because we got a million things happening all the time. But um we sort of know now, older I get, your body tells you to. Your body's like, you gotta sit down, hang off a little bit, go get some sleep, take a day off. So we fit that in there. I did a little bit of that yesterday, I'm gonna do a little bit today, and then we back rolling tomorrow. Yeah, we seven days a week, man. We we do we do something towards the business every single day.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Whether if it's on computer, we're doing something.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

But yeah, it's you gotta you do you gotta find, you can't do anything without your body, you know. That's true. So, and then we're working out, we're all working out now, just talking about health, because we're all getting older.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Yeah, yeah, I'm the youngest one in the group, so it's different, man, when you hit that other side of 35. Yeah, man. Oh Lord. Yep, yeah, man. My hip was hurting this morning.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

I was like, Yeah, the cold weather comes in and all the old old injuries start aching and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Oh Lord. I was stretching. I was like, last time I just like sat down and stretched for 15 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was like, man, ain't no way.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Man. So it's too, man. Especially, man. I remember this back in the day. I remember when Friday night would hit. It seemed like you, it'd be like when 10, 30, when 11, 12 o'clock hit. You could stay up until at least, I remember, at least four or five.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah, 10 o'clock is when you started. Yeah. You didn't go anywhere until 10 o'clock. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Now, man, please. Oh man, I let it get in the bed now. It hit different, man. I sit there and put on old TV from old TV shows and stuff. I go up there, what I used to watch. I'm Pluto. Okay. Yeah, old stuff. I watch the most random stuff. So um, I was watching In the Heat of the Night, so I started watching that. Oh lord, so I go back to bitch doing that. Man, I said they just watch me. You know how you know old folks used to talk about letting TV watch. Now TV watches me. Oh, all the time for me, man.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

I'm the type of shoes I laid out them out.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah. There's no in-between. Now I am. God. Didn't used to be that way. But I imagine, too, with a brand where you're out there, you know, partying as part of the the connection with the clients and man.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

We we have our ways now of uh how we handle that. Yeah. So we just did an opening for a club in Charlotte. We were part of their grand opening. We just sort of know how to we be in and out. That's our figure. We give you a solid hour. Bottles coming sparkling, hey, we having a great time. And then Boop boop. All right. I was straight to the hotel. I'm like, I'm done. We got you. Yeah. So we we sort of know how to maneuver it now. We just not out there for the four hours, three hours, just partying. I can't, I can't handle it. But eventually hope we get some some reps and people on the team and they can get they can go do all that all they want. You know, we'll send them to every spot, just make sure everybody have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Yeah, excellent, excellent. So, with that said, man, as we're wrapping up, one of the things I did want to ask is if anybody was interested in learning more about Don Lucci, and of course, trying Don Luchi, how would they go about doing that?

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Man, so the the great thing about websites, man, people don't click on them no more. But we do have a dope website called Don LuciWines.com. Our Instagram is also Don Lucci Wines where you can learn about our upcoming events, learn about our process, learn all kinds of stuff about us. We've got a tab on our website called Vibes, and it's playlist we curate. If you got something going at the house, you bought some bottles, you can turn that on and just jam out. Oh, it's nice. You know? So we like to, like we said, we like to create the experience and just bring you something new and something different. So Don LuchyWines.com, that'll have our store locator on it for North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. You type in your address, it'll show you what store is closest to you, where restaurant, what bar, whatever. And then the online shipping will hit November 3rd, man. So that'll be clicking ship. And our merch is coming. We got a lot of cool merch. They've been begging me for those candles we dropped at our anniversary. That's coming. Okay, cool. They've been begging for those candles. So we actually take our bottles and cut them down. They don't fill. So we reuse our bottles. Oh, yes. So that's that's all. So uh, and then we got a lot of cool merch coming. Everybody's been acting for merch, so definitely look out for that. That's gonna be knowing that I already designed clothing, it's gonna be, I've been in the kitchen on this for a while.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Now I'm gonna step back real quick. Now, these candles that you're talking about, are these our soy candles?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Man, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

I love candles. I am too, man. I don't so we partner with Charleston Candle Co. Okay, yeah. Shout out to them for taking care of us. So we partnered with them. I don't remember because I don't take them down there to get filled, but you know, I made the me and some other friends made some connections with them.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Okay, cool. I want to say, yeah. Okay, I'm pretty sure, yeah. I think they I think they are soy.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

What's the deal with soy candles?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So when it comes to like, because you have like your synthetic candles. Right, your paraffins and things. Supposedly they're healthier for you because they're natural. Oh, because it doesn't put all them paraffins in the air. Okay, okay. Yeah, that was something my wife put me on too. And then also, shout out to our homeboy Danny Foxworth, too. He has a whole podcast where he talks about candles called Wicked Good Time. Oh, yeah. It's real dope too. But yeah, but we're real huge on candles in our house. So my wife, yeah, we're real huge on candles. Enough candles. So you definitely have to have some customers, even on that candle, because we could buy some candles.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Oh, they'd smell amazing too. People are going nuts over them candles. So, hey, shout out to my fellas, man. Shout out to David and Andre. You know, we're here holding it down. We like we like to call it divide and conquer. You know, we we it's hard to get us all three together, but we always divide and conquer. We'd be all over the place. So, shout out to my guys. Just shout out to everybody that's been supporting us through this journey. Like I said, we've only been out a year and five months now.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah, congratulations on that. That is that is really hard to get a brand up and running. And yeah, especially an import, like like that's a major accomplishment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah, I tell people it took two to three years to actually get it up and going, then to launch it, and everybody always says the uh the first year is the hardest. I'm like, nah. I'm like, man, you gotta surpass what you just did the first year. Yeah. Like we had a great first year. Now you have to maintain that and keep going. I'm like, first year should be easy because you're trying to, you still you can make these mistakes and sort of. I'm like, older you get, you know, older we get, we can't make certain mistakes, right? It's like uh we gotta get better every year now. Yeah. So yeah, coming into year two, learning the wine calendar. There's a wine calendar.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Really?

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Like wine events across the country, you gotta be familiar with. Certain like National Prosecco Day, National Rose Day. It's like it's all kind of stuff you gotta so I'm just thankful for the people we've connected with that have taught us willingly without charging us. Yeah. Community. Yes, community, building the community. We're big on that. So yeah, I appreciate y'all for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

It's it's always an honor to have people on. We're we're still uh I don't know, sometimes people come in and there's lights and cameras and everything, but it it it still feels very small and organic to us. Yeah, and it's it's always an honor to have people on. And while I'm talking about it, shout out to the studio, Link Studio down in Somerville for having us. You've got a lot of nice spaces. It's available on Peer Space.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Peerspace. Yep, Peer Space. Yep. So if you have, like I said, if you want to do, like I said, one-on-one YouTube style stuff, or you want to do a podcast conversation like this, you can rent space out about an hour. And like I said, it is on Peer Space, so we'll have that information and descriptor as well. And other than that, social media, yes. Yeah, he dropped the socials.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

What's your socials? All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

I gotta edit all that out. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

What's your socials? Well we're looking at my looking, okay. On Instagram, it is Don Luci Wines, D-O-N-L-U-C-H-I, W-I-N-E-S. Facebook with Don Luci Wines. Are we on TikTok? We we a little older, so we don't we're gonna get on TikTok. We gotta get on TikTok because I can't learn no more apps, man. I'm just too much happening. YouTube channel, I think it's official Don Lucci, but everything will be Don Lucci Wines, like I just said, we just did the name change. So follow us. We do a lot of events. People say we're a wine brand, but we do a lot of events for the community from food events to we got an annual oyster roast that we're doing now. We got a Rose weekend that we did in March. Our annual one-year anniversary we call the Ruby Black Tie event we just had in June. So we love bringing the community together. We love people dressing up and just having a good time and relaxing for a little bit. You know, we want to take the weight off your shoulders for a little bit, come party with us, come relax with us, have a good time. We just did movie night at Terrace Theater. We went another movie theater and we showed the wood. Oh, nice, yeah. So we did, it's called Throwback Theater. We do throwback movies once a month over there. So just different things, man, to bring the community together, meet new people, and enjoy the best in the country right now. In the world. In the world. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Awesome. With that said, Skip was Mike. I'm Mike. And we've been here with Justin Wagers and Don Lucci. That's it. Hilltop Globe Podcast. See you guys next time. Until then. Tell somebody you love them. Peace. Peace.