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CEO & Co-Founder Dave Schavone Explains Wine Standards for RedThumb
Have you seen the labels on RedThumb Natural Wines?! RedThumb was founded on a transparency premise, and its founders think it’s important you know what goes into the bottle (because it matters what goes into your body). Which is why they put an ingredient label and nutritional info on every bottle.
Have you seen the labels on RedThumb Natural Wines?! RedThumb was founded on a transparency premise, and its founders think it’s important you know what goes into the bottle (because it matters what goes into your body). Which is why they put an ingredient... Have you seen the labels on RedThumb Natural Wines?! RedThumb was founded on a transparency premise, and its founders think it’s important you know what goes into the bottle (because it matters what goes into your body). Which is why they put an ingredient label and nutritional info on every bottle.
CEO & Co-Founder Dave Schavone Explains Wine Standards for RedThumb
Why is it hard to find great natural wine that is both affordable and consistently available? That’s the challenge best friends Dave Schavone and Diego Vasquez set out to solve when they founded RedThumb Natural Wines.
Dave and Diego, who met in college in New Orleans, both came up in the wine industry. As a buyer for Whole Foods, and then the boutique grocer Urban Radish, Dave Schavone often struggled to get a consistent supply of the natural wines he and a growing cohort of his customers wanted to drink.
Meanwhile, Diego moved from serving at their college dive bar to sommelier at Commander’s Palace to overseeing the wine program for all Wynn Hotel restaurants in Las Vegas. Despite two decades in the industry, Diego hadn’t seen the kind of enthusiasm—both from winemakers and drinkers—that he encountered at the natural wine shows Dave would bring him to.
Still, their different career tracks shaped their views on natural wine. Dave was experimental, with a tolerance for flaws because natural winemaking standards ranked higher among his priorities. Diego, on the other hand, prioritized an excellent product and varietal typicity first, and anything else—winemaking methods included—second.
With RedThumb Natural Wines, the two sought to satisfy both of their priorities. The first step was to agree on natural winemaking standards. The lack of transparency in wine as compared to food or any other beverage was a grievance for both Dave and Diego. They knew from the beginning that they wanted to put both the standards and all ingredients front and center on their labels. Where they landed in regard to standards—from zero additives to dry farming only—is essentially a “do no harm” philosophy. It was a win-win for the environment and the quality of RedThumb wines.
Newly established standards in hand, Dave and Diego set out to find winemakers that shared their philosophy, and could produce the level of quality they sought. Several trips to France and Spain later, they partnered with their first producers: a family making organic DO Navarra wines in Estella, Spain. In Quaderna Via, Dave and Diego found a like-minded winemaker to create the first three RedThumb varietals: tempranillo, chardonnay, and rosé.
Philosophy
Our focus is making great natural wine that is affordable and consistently available. We believe you have a right to know what’s in your wine. That’s why the very first thing we did when we founded RedThumb Natural Wines was to establish winemaking standards. Organic grapes, native yeast fermentation, minimal sulfites, vegan friendly, dry farming, and no added sugars—our standards are essentially a “do no harm” philosophy when it comes to winemaking.
Transparency is a core tenet. You shouldn’t have to do detective work to find out what you’re drinking. The truth is that mass-produced wine is often more weird science than what we think of as winemaking. Once we’d developed our standards, we wanted to communicate them as clearly as possible, and how better to do that than list them front and center on our labels?
In the News!
Founders Dave & Diego Serve the Inside Scoop on RedThumb Natural Wines Read More.
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