Profile: Central Wisconsin

Kelly Guay and Kathy Johnson - Sunset Point Winery

Mid-State Technical College Season 2 Episode 9

On this episode of Profile, Michael and I visit with Kelly Guay, owner of the Sunset Point Winery and her mother, Kathy Johnson, who is also the Tasting Room Manager and Vice President of the Stevens Point Alliance.

Now, we all have hobbies, but what happens when your hobby becomes a passion, and that passion starts to consume more than just your free time?  This is exactly what happened to Kelly Guay and her husband, Don.  They started making wine at home for fun, which led to more wine and more experimentation. At some point, they decided to turn this hobby into a business. But they needed help.  Kelly’s mom and dad answered her call for help, and they relocated to Central Wisconsin to help with the construction and operations of the tasting room. Sunset Point Winery is now a fixture of downtown, and Kathy and Kelly have become fixtures of our community.

 This episode is really a masterclass on how to turn your side hustle into a career and how a family can band together to support a vision.  You will be sure to enjoy the story of the Sunset Point Winery with Kelly and Kathy. 

www.mstc.edu/podcast
www.mstc.edu/programs
www.mstc.edu/career-accelerator 
www.sunsetpointwinery.com
www.portagecountybiz.com

www.mstc.edu/podcast

Transcript

00:00:00 Kelly Guay

I didn't have the liquid cash.  We took out what we could on our 401K.

00:00:04 Kelly Guay

's and vice versa.

00:00:04 Kathy Johnson

The phone call came home.

00:00:06 Kathy Johnson

Going mom, dad, what do you think if we open a winery in Stevens Point and my first reaction is what insane asylum can I throw you in?

00:00:14 Kathy Johnson

You guys work awful hours.

00:00:17 Kathy Johnson

You have five kids.

00:00:19 Kelly Guay

In a blended marriage. 

00:00:19 Kathy Johnson

In a blended marriage.

00:00:22 Kathy Johnson

How do you expect to do this?

00:00:23 Kathy Johnson

When we lived 3 hours away and his parents lived 3 hours away so you have no family here.

00:00:30 Kathy Johnson

So how is this going to work? Well.

00:00:32 Kathy Johnson

That's it.  Dad.

00:00:33 Kathy Johnson

Needs to quit his.

00:00:34 Kathy Johnson

Job and move up here now.

00:00:35 Kelly Guay

We did math on this.

00:00:36 Kelly Guay

We did, we put the engineering skills.

00:00:38 Kelly Guay

To work!

*break*

00:00:43 Ben Nusz

Welcome to Profile Central Wisconsin.

00:00:46 Ben Nusz

A podcast about the origins of the organizations that make our community thrive.

00:00:51 Ben Nusz

I'm Benjamin Nusz, your host and the campus.

00:00:53 Ben Nusz

Dean of Mid-State Technical Colleges Stevens Point Campus and I'll be joined by co-host.

00:00:58 Ben Nusz

Michael Witte, executive director of the Portage County business council.

00:01:02 Ben Nusz

On this episode of Profile, Michael and I visit with Kelly Guay, owner of the Sunset Point Winery, and her mother, Kathy Johnson, who's also the tasting room manager and vice president of the Stevens Point Alliance.

00:01:11 Ben Nusz

Now we all have hobbies, but what happens when your hobby becomes a passion and that passion starts.

00:01:21 Ben Nusz

To consume more.

00:01:22 Ben Nusz

Than just your free time?

00:01:24 Ben Nusz

This is exactly what happened to Kelly Guay and her husband Don.

00:01:27 Ben Nusz

They started making wine at home for fun, which led to more wine and more experimentation.

00:01:33 Ben Nusz

At some point they decided to turn this hobby into a business, but they needed help.

00:01:39 Ben Nusz

Kelly’s mom and her dad answered her call for help and they relocated to Central Wisconsin.

00:01:44 Ben Nusz

To help with the construction and operations of the tasting room.

00:01:47 Ben Nusz

Sunset Point Winery is now a fixture of downtown and Kathy and Kelly have become fixtures of our community.

00:01:54 Ben Nusz

This episode is really a master class on how to turn your side hustle into a career.  And how a family can band together to support a vision.

00:02:03 Ben Nusz

To tell the story of the Sunset Point Winery, here are Kelly and Kathy.

*resumes*

00:02:14 Ben Nusz

So, we have the pleasure of having, uh, two guests today, both from Sunset Point Winery.

00:02:20 Ben Nusz

If you could just give us a little introduction, tell us your name and.

00:02:23 Ben Nusz

Then your role.

00:02:24 Kelly Guay

Sure, so I am Kelly Guay.

00:02:27 Kelly Guay

I'm the owner of Sunset Point Winery.

00:02:30 Kelly Guay

I started with a business plan and wound up buying a building and having two business plans.

00:02:35 Kelly Guay

So, there's the building and as well as the winery.

00:02:38 Kelly Guay

That's really my role outside of doing the monthly book work.

00:02:42 Kelly Guay

Otherwise, I have a full time position outside.

00:02:45 Kelly Guay

Of the winery.

00:02:46 Kathy Johnson

And I'm Kathy Johnson.

00:02:48 Kathy Johnson

Kelly’s mom.

00:02:49 Kathy Johnson

And I just kind.

00:02:51 Kathy Johnson

Of got roped into.

00:02:52 Kathy Johnson

This I was told that we are starting a winery and that they needed us to come up and run it after retirement.

00:02:59 Kelly Guay

Yep, that's how that worked.

00:03:00 Ben Nusz

OK, well that's the origin shell in a nutshell or origin story in a nutshell.

00:03:03 Kelly Guay

It very much so.

00:03:06 Ben Nusz

So, let's rewind just a little bit and maybe just start a little bit of your personal story.

00:03:12 Ben Nusz

So where did you grow up and what was that like?

00:03:16 Kathy Johnson

Well, I grew up in Sturtevant, WI which is a small, very small community in southeastern Wisconsin.

00:03:22 Kathy Johnson

Right next to Racine, South of Milwaukee.  I am.

00:03:26 Kathy Johnson

The 4th generation of my family living there, and my daughter Kelly would have been the 5th.

00:03:31 Kathy Johnson

Since she was.

00:03:31 Kathy Johnson

Also raised there.

00:03:33 Kathy Johnson

Uhm, great little community to grow up in and as well as getting very much involved up here.

00:03:40 Kathy Johnson

I was also very much involved down there so I was a Police Commissioner and sat on the zoning board and what else did I do?

00:03:49 Kathy Johnson

A Girl Scout leader for.

00:03:50 Kelly Guay

Like yeah, a long time.

00:03:50 Kathy Johnson

13 years and.

00:03:53 Kathy Johnson

And many many other roles as far as getting involved with volunteerism.

00:03:57 Ben Nusz

So, you were engaged in in the community, down there, and and clearly you're engaged in the community here, what what drove that?

00:04:03 Ben Nusz

What, what made you passionate about that?

00:04:06 Kathy Johnson

Just wanting to keep the community a vibrant, wonderful living community, it was a very small community, and everybody knew everybody.

00:04:19 Kathy Johnson

So which.

00:04:20 Kelly Guay

Worse than here.

00:04:20 Kathy Johnson

Sometimes is a good thing.

00:04:22 Kathy Johnson

And sometimes is a bad thing  *laughs*.

00:04:24 Kathy Johnson

So yeah, you know it was just.

00:04:27 Kathy Johnson

If you're, I always look at.

00:04:29 Kathy Johnson

If you're not involved, you don't have a say.

00:04:33 Kathy Johnson

So, get involved.

00:04:34 Kathy Johnson

You have a voice.

00:04:36 Ben Nusz

So, what brings you to Central Wisconsin?

00:04:38 Ben Nusz

How did.

00:04:39 Ben Nusz

You end up here?

00:04:39 Kelly Guay

That's all my fault.  So, we grew up camping.

00:04:42 Kelly Guay

That was one of our pass times.

00:04:43 Kelly Guay

We did a lot of camping and downhill skiing, so we camped at like all the state parks as a kid and the one thing I.

00:04:48 Kelly Guay

Knew is I didn't want to live in Racine, Milwaukee area, which is what Sturdivant is just outside of.

00:04:55 Kelly Guay

Now Sturtevant was a nice small.

00:04:56 Kelly Guay

Knit community, but we went to school in the Racine Unified School District and with that comes all the big city things and I'm like, yeah, I like more outdoorsy things and less concrete parks.

00:05:06 Kelly Guay

And less asphalt around the schools.

00:05:09 Ben Nusz

We have a lot of outdoorsy things around here.

00:05:11 Kelly Guay

We do!  We do, and when I was, I think it was a sophomore in high school I was going through like career prospects, sophomore, junior or whatever and I had a biology teacher ask what I was going to be interested in.

00:05:23 Kelly Guay

I'm like:  wildlife and biology.

00:05:25 Kelly Guay

I was in like my second year of biology.

00:05:27 Kelly Guay

I loved it and he's like you're not going to make any money in wildlife biology, he says, where do you want to go to school?

00:05:32 Kelly Guay

And I’m like:  up north.  And that was OK.

00:05:34 Kelly Guay

Everything from Southeast Wisconsin is up north until you get up here, but.

00:05:36 Ben Nusz

I understand.

00:05:40 Kelly Guay

That being said, he said you should really check out the University of Stevens Point and you should really check out the paper industry because you're going to pay your own way through college via, you know grants and loans like most of us.

00:05:54 Kelly Guay

And he says, at least then you'll be able to pay your bills and get a job.

00:05:57 Kelly Guay

So wound up checking out Stevens Point.

00:06:01 Kelly Guay

Really only applied there because I loved it.

00:06:03 Kelly Guay

Got accepted into paper science and engineering.

00:06:06 Kathy Johnson

Bought her first house as a Senior in college.

00:06:06 Kelly Guay

I bought my first house.

00:06:09 Kelly Guay

Yeah, yeah, in Wisconsin Rapids 'cause I my first job was actually at the Rapids Mill and so that's really the foundation of my career and then coming to Central Wisconsin and I love it.

00:06:20 Kelly Guay

I wouldn't leave it.

00:06:20 Kelly Guay

I've got five kids that have gone to school or are going to school in the area and so super passionate about the community and being involved and still super passionate about paper and I'm still in it.

00:06:32 Kelly Guay

And winemaking was a hobby and *laughs*.

00:06:36 Kathy Johnson

Hobby gone awry.

00:06:38 Kelly Guay

Right, yeah, hobby turned business not gone awry it's fine!

00:06:42 Benjamin Nusz

*laughs* Oh no, we went there!

00:06:43 Kathy Johnson

For several years.

00:06:45 Kelly Guay

That it did.

00:06:45 Kathy Johnson

Then we would come up to visit.

00:06:47 Kathy Johnson

And it would be like 30 carboys of wine in the dining room and it stunk like fermentation and there was nowhere to sit for Thanksgiving dinner.

00:06:56 Kelly Guay

This is true.

00:06:58 Kelly Guay

The one year that they the last.

00:06:59 Kelly Guay

Year before we opened the winery, there was literally that many carboys bubbling around the dining room table, so we ate at the small kitchen table and then like the.

00:07:06 Kelly Guay

Countertops and stuff but.

00:07:07 Ben Nusz

So, let's start with the first carboy.

00:07:09 Ben Nusz

Did.

00:07:09 Ben Nusz

Do you remember the first time you ever made wine?

00:07:12 Kelly Guay

So that's also my fault.

00:07:13 Kelly Guay

Actually, it's it's, uh mine and my ex-husband’s story.

00:07:18 Kelly Guay

And he bought me a winemaking kit 'cause he knew I liked chemistry and I.

00:07:23 Kelly Guay

Liked wine so very thoughtful gift.

00:07:25 Kelly Guay

And we started by making an ice wine which is actually where grapes are frozen on the vine and their sugar content is really high.

00:07:34 Kelly Guay

It also is a very high alcohol content, but it comes out very sweet and very.

00:07:38 Kelly Guay

Sugary if you will, and so started there; five-gallon pail kit right from Point Brew.

00:07:44 Kelly Guay

Supply bought on Michigan Street when they were way over there like so.

00:07:47 Kelly Guay

This is a long time ago and.

00:07:50 Kelly Guay

We liked it, right?  And so, I just kind of kept with the process.

00:07:54 Kelly Guay

Took a little class up in Wausau from the yield wine makers shop up there 'cause they were trying to promote selling their kits and did a little forum and in a Community Center one night and wound up buying a little book so that you it's called the Purple Book of Wine Makers and it tells you per one gallon.

00:08:10 Kelly Guay

How many pounds of fruit.

00:08:11 Kelly Guay

How much sugar.

00:08:12 Kelly Guay

What to do with pure grapes.

00:08:14 Kelly Guay

Like all these great recipes and just sort of experimented from there and then.

00:08:19 Kelly Guay

Became you know 250 gallon tanks and eleven of them instead of a 3 gallon glass carboy so I started with that.

00:08:26 Ben Nusz

I I can really sympathize with your story.

00:08:30 Ben Nusz

I have to tell a little of my own story.

00:08:33 Ben Nusz

About 15 years ago my brother and sister and I bought my parents a winemaking kit.

00:08:38 Ben Nusz

You know, it's the same thing.

00:08:39 Ben Nusz

It's the five gallon glass carboy.

00:08:43 Ben Nusz

And on a lark, we're like maybe they'll enjoy this.

00:08:47 Ben Nusz

They don't even drink a lot of wine.

00:08:50 Benjamin Nusz

You know?

00:08:51 Kathy Johnson

Who knows?

00:08:50 Benjamin Nusz

With you know.

00:08:51 Ben Nusz

You you know the experience you look.

00:08:52 Ben Nusz

Over at your brother and sister.

00:08:53 Ben Nusz

And say, “What are we going to get them for Christmas?”

00:08:55 Ben Nusz

Let's get him a winemaking kit.

00:08:56 Ben Nusz

15 years later they have almost 7 acres of grapes in in South Dakota, and it got really carried away fast.

00:09:03 Kelly Guay

See?

00:09:04 Kelly Guay

We have the same.

00:09:06 Kelly Guay

Problem I identify with you and your parents.

00:09:10 Kathy Johnson

Me too, unfortunately *laughs* fortunately.

00:09:14 Ben Nusz

So, you know, I think.

00:09:16 Ben Nusz

I think it's always great when, when a hobby becomes a passion, and that passion becomes an employment.

00:09:21 Ben Nusz

So, you start to get more equipment.

00:09:23 Ben Nusz

You know at what point do you realize we need to turn this into a business?

00:09:26 Kelly Guay

So actually it.

00:09:28 Kelly Guay

Was a connection that she had down in Southeastern Wisconsin.

00:09:31 Kelly Guay

They were trained as wine taste testing judges.

00:09:35 Kelly Guay

And I, she'd been talking about the fact that we were thinking about opening a winery like that.

00:09:41 Kelly Guay

Business conversations were in the works.

00:09:43 Kelly Guay

I'd reached out to Brian Cummins, who owns Great Northern Distillery, and so we were talking back and forth about what does the business plan look like when you're going to manufacture alcohol.

00:09:51 Kelly Guay

And then I'm like.

00:09:52 Kelly Guay

Well, first, maybe it would be good to send to somebody who knows something about wine.

00:09:55 Kelly Guay

I mean I like.

00:09:56 Kelly Guay

What I make but.

00:09:57 Kelly Guay

Who knows about the general population, the general public.

00:10:00 Kelly Guay

So, we mix and match a case out of what was in our wine cellar that we had made at home and sent her with 12 bottles one weekend and she gave one to her friend.

00:10:10 Kelly Guay

And the response from her and another.

00:10:13 Kelly Guay

Judge this so she.

00:10:14 Kelly Guay

Had her plus another one, do the taste testing and they're like they'd be kind of foolish not to.

00:10:19 Kelly Guay

They're fairly good at it, like we've tasted a.

00:10:21 Kelly Guay

Lot of bad homebrew and this wasn't it.

00:10:24 Kelly Guay

So, and we've grown a lot even since that batch.

00:10:27 Ben Nusz

Yep, yeah.

00:10:27 Kelly Guay

I mean, we've learned a lot in.

00:10:29 Kelly Guay

The last six years, but it was.

00:10:30 Kelly Guay

Kind of gave us the confidence to be like OK, we want to go into this.

00:10:34 Kelly Guay

She's we're putting a lot on the line, right financially, time, whatever and and that was kind of.

00:10:40 Kelly Guay

I guess the encouragement needed to just launch.

00:10:42 Kelly Guay

It into the business plan.

00:10:43 Ben Nusz

Why do you think those first wines were good?

00:10:46 Ben Nusz

Is this dumb luck or was this something to do with your chemistry training?

00:10:50 Kelly Guay

Chemistry.  Chemistry, yeah.  There is a lot of chemistry.

00:10:55 Kelly Guay

It's simple chemistry, but we we know how important things like pH are and the condition of the water when you start it.

00:11:02 Kelly Guay

And there's all those little nuances that.

00:11:04 Kelly Guay

Play a role in the final product and the taste of it.

00:11:07 Kelly Guay

And then my husband now, so he is a PhD organic chemist.

00:11:13 Kelly Guay

So, you want to talk about passion on a chemistry front.

00:11:15 Kelly Guay

He takes mine to a whole other level.  And some of it's just experimentation, right?

00:11:21 Kelly Guay

Some of it some.

00:11:22 Kelly Guay

Of our best

00:11:23 Kelly Guay

Wines were founded while drinking wine, mixing concoctions.

00:11:26 Kathy Johnson

Hide wrappers

00:11:27 Kelly Guay

That we weren't sure.  We do like, you.

00:11:29 Kelly Guay

Call it a ladder study in chemistry, right?

00:11:31 Kelly Guay

You start with certain concentrations of one based chemical and then you add different concentrations.

00:11:35 Kelly Guay

Of other based.

00:11:36 Kelly Guay

Chemicals, and except for our chemicals, our wine and the sugar additives that go into it, right?

00:11:41 Kelly Guay

So, if it we're just going to do grape, is it?

00:11:43 Kelly Guay

You know we're going to do a base of one type of grape and then experiment with five, ten, fifteen% of another grape.

00:11:49 Kelly Guay

Or are we going to do the case.

00:11:52 Kelly Guay

I'm actually thinking of is where it was me and my dad Gary.

00:11:56 Kelly Guay

And my husband, Don.

00:11:57 Kelly Guay

And we're sitting at the island and we.

00:11:58 Kelly Guay

Had this we had.

00:11:59 Kelly Guay

Invested a lot of money in a Frontenac green grape from the western side of the state from a vineyard there.

00:12:05 Kelly Guay

And when we tasted it, it was like we thought it would be.

00:12:08 Kelly Guay

Great like local wine.

00:12:10 Kelly Guay

And it tasted like sour apple, straight off, like when you take a green apple off the tree and you bite in it and you're like, oh, that was bitter and sour and I have no idea what I'm going to do with this.

00:12:20 Kelly Guay

Meanwhile a.

00:12:21 Kelly Guay

Friend of hers.

00:12:22 Kelly Guay

Grow with Aronia berries.

00:12:22 Kathy Johnson

A cousin a cousin.

00:12:23 Kathy Johnson

Of mine grows Aronia berries and he's like, well you guys are opening a winery.

00:12:28 Kathy Johnson

Can you make a wine out of Aronia berries?

00:12:30 Kathy Johnson

And like I don't even know what an Aronia berry is!

00:12:34  Ben Nusz

*laughs* Yeah what, what is an Aronia berry.

00:12:35  Kathy Johnson

I said it’s in the chokecherry family, it's 600 times more antioxidants in it than a blueberry. So, it's very healthy.

00:12:31 Ben Nusz

OK.

00:12:43 Kathy Johnson

But you know what a chokecherry tastes like?

00:12:44 Ben Nusz

Yeah. 

00:12:45 Kathy Johnson

That's what this tastes like, right?

00:12:48 Kathy Johnson

And it's like how?

00:12:49 Kathy Johnson

The heck are we going to make.

00:12:50 Kathy Johnson

A wine out of this!

00:12:51 Kelly Guay

So, I had.

00:12:52 Kelly Guay

Two things going.

00:12:53 Kelly Guay

I had the Aronia berries.

00:12:54 Kelly Guay

In my freezer, which are better chokecherry type flavor.

00:12:57 Kelly Guay

We eat, you know, I’d take one out and it's got the like the dark skin but a white dry center and I'm like:  alright.

00:13:03 Kelly Guay

Well, let's try these two flavors together.

00:13:06 Kelly Guay

I don't…

00:13:06 Kelly Guay

Alcohol may have been a factor in this decision-making skill set, and then we're like.

00:13:10 Kelly Guay

Well, then, how much sugar?

00:13:11 Kelly Guay

So first we muddled.

00:13:12 Kelly Guay

Like a whole thing.

00:13:14 Kelly Guay

Full of one Aronia berry, two Aronia.

00:13:15 Kelly Guay

Berry, three Aronia.

00:13:16 Kelly Guay

Berry yeah, I'm not kidding like I.

00:13:18 Kelly Guay

Muddled that.  And we're.

00:13:18 Kelly Guay

Like: Oh well.

00:13:19 Kelly Guay

This kind of blends OK and then we took that blend and we're like, OK, now how much doses of sugar?

00:13:25 Kelly Guay

So, we took a simple syrup that we made down and we're like one eyedropper or two eyedropper or three eyedropper, and we made like a one through 10 and we found the right.

00:13:34 Kelly Guay

Sweetness combination with the bitter combination and we sell it today, it's called Red Dwarf.

00:13:39 Kelly Guay

It is the front.

00:13:40 Benjamin Nusz

What's it called?

00:13:40 Kelly Guay

Red dwarf is our name for it, which is the Frontenac green wine made to 100% Frontenac green, just pure grapes.

00:13:48 Kelly Guay

And then we add in Aronia berries and back sweeten it to the right sugar content that we came up in our recipe.

00:13:55 Kelly Guay

It has won awards at the State Fair and.

00:13:57 Kelly Guay

Then sold at the State Fair.

00:13:59 Kelly Guay

So, it should have really been named two wrongs make.

00:14:01 Kelly Guay

A right at the end of the day.

00:14:02 Kathy Johnson

That's correct and I tell everybody that at the tastings.

00:14:04 Kelly Guay

It is, yeah, and it kind of has a sweet tart flavor to it, but it's good.

00:14:08 Kelly Guay

It sells well.

00:14:09 Kelly Guay

It's very similar in flavor to like a cranberry wine.

00:14:11 Kelly Guay

If I were to kind of equate it to something.

00:14:12 Kathy Johnson

it comes off as a granny Smith apple flavor to begin with, hence that it that she talked about.

00:14:19 Kathy Johnson

Earlier and that's your first sip, your second sip will start.

00:14:23 Kathy Johnson

Picking up the Aronia Berry flavor and the third sip is what the rest of it will taste like.

00:14:28 Kathy Johnson

Is so you really have to have three sips of it to make the flavors…

00:14:33 Kelly Guay

Kind of mesh in your head.

00:14:33 Kathy Johnson

Mesh in your head.

00:14:34 Ben Nusz

This is such a great story 'cause I I love the way it illustrated one:  That.

00:14:40 Ben Nusz

There's just some.

00:14:41 Ben Nusz

Wild experimentation that's going on, but it's backed by, you know, a very consistent scientific method.

00:14:49 Kelly Guay

Well yeah, Yep!

00:14:50 Kathy Johnson

Kind of.

00:14:52 Kelly Guay

Well, it was.  It was measured.

00:14:54 Kelly Guay

We figured it out in the end.

00:14:55 Kathy Johnson

We also made.

00:14:56 Kathy Johnson

Beer, my husband also made beer at home.

00:14:58 Kathy Johnson

So, which is a whole other story and and we won't get into that today.

00:15:02 Kathy Johnson

Maybe some other day, but he…

00:15:04

Home Brews?

00:15:05 Kathy Johnson

Yep, he.

00:15:05 Kathy Johnson

Yeah, he would.

00:15:06 Kathy Johnson

He brewed for many many years.

00:15:06 Ben Nusz

You you grew up watching him brew beer?

00:15:07 Kelly Guay

Yep, yep, absolutely.

00:15:11 Kelly Guay

With his five gallon pail.

00:15:12 Kelly Guay

And a Star Boy.

00:15:14 Kathy Johnson

Kind of come over and help.  He.

00:15:16 Kathy Johnson

Yeah he had that experience behind him.

00:15:18 Ben Nusz

So, let's get back to this thread.

00:15:21 Ben Nusz

You have a whole bunch of wines that you made.

00:15:22 Ben Nusz

At home you.

00:15:23 Ben Nusz

Send him off to to a professional.

00:15:25 Ben Nusz

They taste him and they say:  this is pretty good.

00:15:27 Ben Nusz

What do you do next?

00:15:27 Kelly Guay

Yep, so then we started.

00:15:31 Kelly Guay

Then I started researching business plans.

00:15:34 Kelly Guay

Online actually for wineries and the University of Iowa, I believe it was had kind of a canned one to start with.

00:15:40 Kelly Guay

4 wineries ironically.

00:15:42 Kelly Guay

And then there was some other really good business resources in the University of Illinois systems.

00:15:46 Kelly Guay

So I took.

00:15:47 Kelly Guay

A couple business plans and then I I knew Brian Cummins was kind of doing something similar, but he was about six months in front of me.

00:15:54 Kelly Guay

For a thought process and the one thing we knew together is that he can't make Brandy without white wine and Brandy is a staple to here, and you also have to age it for two years before you can sell it at a distillery.

00:16:06 Kelly Guay

But white wine to bring in in too much water content to bring it in.

00:16:10 Kelly Guay

From like the coast where.

00:16:11 Kelly Guay

You traditionally would get white wine from and so we kind of worked out a well.

00:16:15 Kelly Guay

I'll buy the first batch if you sell it type of a gig so that kind of we still have that partnership going, which is really cool.

00:16:21 Kelly Guay

So, in tandem, even though we spent six months in front of me in the process, then he helped me.

00:16:26 Kelly Guay

More on the spreadsheet end I kind of have the basic storyline.

00:16:30 Kelly Guay

The business case why Central Wisconsin would make sense.

00:16:34 Kelly Guay

Why a downtown venue might make sense.

00:16:38 Kelly Guay

And then you go with that.

00:16:40 Kelly Guay

Then that's how you get into the banks.

00:16:43 Kelly Guay

So, with that you kind of take your your proposal to the banks.

00:16:46 Kelly Guay

We'd reach out to several of them locally who had read through our business plan.

00:16:50 Kelly Guay

And one of them decided us to take us up on this.

00:16:54 Kelly Guay

I feel like this is the Shark Tank of the, you know, getting launching from paper to the real world, right?

00:16:57 Benjamin Nusz

Yeah, yeah.

00:16:59 Kelly Guay

So, some people give you some fairly critical feedback.

00:17:01 Kelly Guay

Some people decide they want to take a risk on you as long as you're willing to take some whatever financial risk on yourself.

00:17:07 Kelly Guay

And invest… it, ironically.

00:17:11 Kelly Guay

Investors Community Bank was the first one that kind of gave us our break, right?

00:17:15 Kelly Guay

They're the ones that said:  If you and you can afford to invest so much, then you meet with an accountant and a financial planner and you figure out where you're pulling the funding from.

00:17:23 Kelly Guay

And that's actually somewhere my dad got involved with the buying of the business.

00:17:27 Kelly Guay

He was able to liquidate his one and only small 401K to help put the 20% down.

00:17:32 Kathy Johnson

Yes.

00:17:32 Kelly Guay

Yeah, and I'm paying him back on that, but it was a, it was a family trade off like I didn't have the liquid cash we took out what we could on our 401K, and vice versa.

00:17:42 Kathy Johnson

The phone call came home going: mom, dad.

What do you think if we open a winery in Stevens Point?

00:17:47 Kathy Johnson

And my first reaction.

00:17:49 Kathy Johnson

Is what insane asylum can I throw you in?

00:17:50 Kathy Johnson

You guys work awful hours.

00:17:55 Kathy Johnson

You have five kids.

00:17:57 Kelly Guay

In a blended marriage.

00:17:57 Kathy Johnson

In a blended marriage.

00:17:59 Kathy Johnson

How do you expect to do this when we live three hours away?

00:18:02 Kathy Johnson

And his parents live three hours away so you have no family here.

00:18:08 Kathy Johnson

So how is this.

00:18:09 Kathy Johnson

Going to work?

00:18:09 Kathy Johnson

Well, that's it.

00:18:10 Kathy Johnson

Dad needs to quit his job and.

00:18:12 Kathy Johnson

Move up here now.

00:18:12 Kelly Guay

We did math on this.  We did!

00:18:14 Kelly Guay

We put that engineering skills to work.

00:18:16 Kelly Guay

We did math on this.

00:18:16 Kathy Johnson

Dad needs to quit his job and.

00:18:18 Kathy Johnson

Move up here now and live in our basement.

00:18:21 Kathy Johnson

Mom, you can.

00:18:22 Kathy Johnson

Stay back in Sturdivant for a couple of years until you can retire, and then you can move up and finish helping us out.

00:18:30 Kathy Johnson

And then the next.

00:18:31 Kelly Guay

Pretty much *laughs*.

00:18:32 Kathy Johnson

Mom, Dad, how much do you have in?

00:18:33 Kathy Johnson

Your 401Ks?

00:18:34 Kelly Guay

Because of the 20 days sent down part.

00:18:36 Kathy Jounson

Dad’s fifty-nine and a half, and he won’t take out penalties.

00:18:41 Kathy Johnson

Where if they took there’s out they’d get pentalites.

00:18:42 Kelly Guay

Well, major penalties yeah.

00:18:42 Kathy Johnson

It would be penalized.  So we're like:  Yep, let's do this and all of our friends thought we were insane.

*break in interview*

00:18:51 Ben Nusz

Hello listener.  We'll get back to our interview with Kelly and Kathy in a moment.

00:18:56 Ben Nusz

One thing we're learning from our guests is that starting a small business is hard.

00:19:01 Ben Nusz

There are the obvious things you need, like a product people want, and a retail space to sell it.

00:19:07 Ben Nusz

But there are likely many things that you have to learn along the way.

00:19:11 Ben Nusz

It's a challenge that we hear about all the time and that's why Mid-State is here to help.

00:19:16 Ben Nusz

You don't need to come up with these solutions alone.

00:19:18 Ben Nusz

Whether you need assistance in accounting, human resources, marketing or developing your business plan.

00:19:24 Ben Nusz

We offer these.

00:19:25 Ben Nusz

Courses every semester.

00:19:27 Ben Nusz

All of our.

00:19:28 Ben Nusz

Business classes can actually be completed in just eight weeks.

00:19:31 Ben Nusz

We have course delivery in length that's designed to meet your needs and to get you back to envisioning how you will make the world a better place.

00:19:40 Ben Nusz

In fact, starting on March 28th we have some business-related career accelerator certificates. You can earn nine credits.

00:19:47 Ben Nusz

In just eight weeks.  Or if you want to spread things out, you can take one class at a time and complete in just over six months.

00:19:55 Ben Nusz

We've been listening to community members like Kelly and Kathy, and when you're starting a business, you can't wait to develop your business plan.

00:20:03 Ben Nusz

That's why we've developed these certificates so you can get started today.

00:20:08 Ben Nusz

The 1st twenty-two students to.

00:20:09 Ben Nusz

Enroll will actually all receive one of the three classes for free.  So check out our website.

00:20:15 Ben Nusz

Or stop in to any of our campuses and we can tell you more about our offerings.

00:20:19 Ben Nusz

If you pop by the Stevens Point campus, you'll even find me!  Seriously.

00:20:23 Ben Nusz

I'd love to sit down and chat, so come in and say hi.

00:20:27 Ben Nusz

Once again, thanks for listening.

00:20:28 Ben Nusz

We can now get back to the story of the Sunset Point Winery with Kelly and Kathy.

*interview resumes*

00:20:35 Michael Witte

So now we know that you're both insane and you're moving forward with this plan anyway.

00:20:41 Michael Witte

Yes, 'cause it's a great idea.

00:20:43 Kelly Guay

'cause it’s a great idea!

00:20:44 Kelly Guay

What's better like it's a tourism thing.

00:20:46 Kelly Guay

It's a good fit for the community.

00:20:48 Kelly Guay

There's nothing like this within 60 miles of us.

00:20:51 Kelly Guay

And if you're going to Door County, you have to drive through us.

00:20:54 Kelly Guay

And if you're going to Minocqua, you have to drive through us.

00:20:56 Kelly Guay

And if you're going to Lake Geneva, you have to drive through us.  Right?

00:20:59 Ben Nusz

Yeah, we’re the gateway.

00:21:00 Kelly Guay

We’re the gateway!  So stop in, say.

00:21:03 Kelly Guay

Hi. Yeah, that was all part.

00:21:05 Kelly Guay

Of the plan, kinda.

00:21:07 Ben Nusz

And part of this plan was you're going to make wines, and then you're also going to have a tasting room that was always.

00:21:12 Kelly Guay

Yes, always part of the plan, yes.

00:21:12 Ben Nusz

Part of the vision.

00:21:14 Ben Nusz

Where does downtown come into play and and how did you settle where you are now?

00:21:17 Kelly Guay

That was only...

00:21:18 Kathy Johnson

We looked at several.

00:21:20 Kathy Johnson

We looked at several locations outside the city.

00:21:20 Kelly Guay

Lots of properties outside of.

00:21:23 Kelly Guay

The city.  In the city.

00:21:26 Kelly Guay

And then our realtor.

00:21:28 Kelly Guay

This one, shout out goes to Dave Pius.

00:21:30 Kelly Guay

Actually. Dave Pius.

00:21:31 Kelly Guay

We curl with.  We curled with him.

00:21:33 Kathy Johnson

Yeah, but he’s also from Racine.

00:21:35 Kelly Guay

He’s from Racine.

00:21:36 Kelly Guay

But also, in realty at the time.

00:21:38 Kelly Guay

So we were using him as.

00:21:39 Kelly Guay

A realtor.  And he goes:  This.

00:21:41 Kelly Guay

Has been on the market, it's.

00:21:43 Kelly Guay

Outside of your price range, but I.

00:21:45 Ben Nusz

Like a good realtor *laughs*

00:21:47 Kelly Guay

Right, but I.

00:21:47 Kelly Guay

Need you to go look.

00:21:49 Kelly Guay

At it.  And I'm like, OK.

00:21:51 Kelly Guay

So, we go in and the bottom floor is all office, like.

00:21:56 Kelly Guay

It's carpeting and cubicles and office walls and cap services have been in and out of there, and bakeries have been in and.

00:22:02 Kelly Guay

Out of there.

00:22:02 Kelly Guay

And it was so the old bakery building, but.

00:22:04 Kelly Guay

Lots of things had.

00:22:05 Kelly Guay

Moved in and out of it, but upstairs was.

00:22:07 Kelly Guay

The scoliosis rehab.

00:22:09 Kelly Guay

Center and a Pilates.

00:22:11 Kelly Guay

Yoga studio, which probably very few people know.

00:22:14 Kelly Guay

At least in this juncture in time, and we walk upstairs, and it's pretty much what you see today.

00:22:20 Kathy Johnson

It's wide open.

00:22:21 Kelly Guay

There's vaulted ceilings with the old boards.

00:22:24 Kelly Guay

There's skylights and they're like kind of walk in.

00:22:26 Kelly Guay

You're like:  Oh yeah, God said.

00:22:28 Kelly Guay

This will be a tasting room.  Like it was.

00:22:30 Kelly Guay

Just like how cool you're going to take this old bakery building, you're going to give it a new vital life.

00:22:34 Kelly Guay

It's got production capacity and the main floor.

00:22:36 Kelly Guay

Oh yep.

00:22:38 Kelly Guay

We're going to make this baby work, and that's when we made the phone call about:  OK, so 20% down on this building was out of our price range.

00:22:45 Kelly Guay

20% down on what was in our price range was in our plan, but like this was sort of out of scope and that's where we roped dad into the building ownership with us.

00:22:56 Ben Nusz

So, give us a.

00:22:57 Ben Nusz

A date for this about when were you…?

00:22:59 Kelly Guay

It would have been a.

00:23:01 Kathy Johnson

We bought the building in October 6th of 2014.

00:23:04 Kelly Guay

Right, and I wrote the business plan starting in April that year.

00:23:07 Kelly Guay

It was a crappy April.

00:23:08 Kelly Guay

I'd had a really bad long weekend working in a paper mill.

00:23:12 Kelly Guay

And I'm like:  I need an out plan at some time at my delineation.

00:23:16 Kelly Guay

I don't want anybody else that would say on it, so, yep; so it turned from a like cloudy, gross April like me on the web, researching business plans to signing paperwork in October at McDonald title to take.

00:23:32 Kelly Guay

Over that building.

00:23:32 Kathy Johnson

And Gary moved up in December lived in, in their basement for 2 1/2 years.

00:23:36 Kelly Guay

Yeah, two and a half years.

00:23:38 Ben Nusz

What incredible generosity from my parents, let's just take a moment and and and acknowledge that Kathy.

00:23:45 Kathy Johnson

It was crazy.

00:23:46 Ben Nusz

Yeah, and brave!

00:23:48 Ben Nusz

I mean, and there's a certain amount of bravery.

00:23:49 Kathy Johnson

Well, yes and no.

00:23:51 Kathy Johnson

Gary was ready to move.

00:23:53 Kathy Johnson

He and we knew that our other daughter lives in Eagle River, so we knew that Northern Wisconsin.

00:23:59 Kathy Johnson

Is going to be home eventually, although our friends want us to move to Florida, but that's not happening.

00:24:04 Benjamin Nusz

I was going to say.

00:24:04 Ben Nusz

A lot of people retire in Florida.

00:24:07 Kelly Guay

Including their friends.

00:24:08 Kathy Johnson

I don't like sand.

00:24:10 Kathy Johnson

I prefer snow.

00:24:11 Kathy Johnson

It's so Central Wisconsin, Northern Wisconsin is not a bad place to retire.

00:24:16 Kathy Johnson

So you know, we always knew we were going.

00:24:19 Kathy Johnson

To move north.  Now, we thought we'd live somewhere between the two, but when this opportunity and I'm going to look at it as an opportunity when this opportunity came around, we jumped on it.

00:24:30 Kathy Johnson

One you always try to help your kids.

00:24:33 Kathy Johnson

But two, it brought us north and.

00:24:36 Kathy Johnson

Probably five years quicker than we would have otherwise, so it you know it really, and our money.

00:24:42 Kathy Johnson

Yep, we didn't put it into the winery.

00:24:45 Kathy Johnson

We put it into the building so when our friends thought we were crazier than crazy, we're like you know what a 401K can crash just as well. But a real estate.

00:24:56 Kathy Johnson

Is kind of more sustainable than the 401K, so we didn't feel like we were really.

00:24:57 Ben Nusz

Yeah, yeah.

00:25:02 Kathy Johnson

Jumping in and rounding, yeah, or even had a chance to drown it because real estate would always.

00:25:07 Kathy Johnson

Be there.

00:25:08 Ben Nusz

So, if I asked someone to imagine a winery, they would say Napa Valley they would say Italy they would.

00:25:15 Ben Nusz

They would picture, you know, a field of grapes.

00:25:18 Ben Nusz

Yep, in a barn next to that.

00:25:21 Ben Nusz

We don't have a field of grapes, we are, we are downtown.

00:25:25 Ben Nusz

So where do you get your grapes from?

00:25:27 Ben Nusz

And talk us just a little bit through the winemaking process.

00:25:29 Kelly Guay

So, we get our grapes locally as close as Amherst from Rock Ridge Vineyards.

00:25:34 Kelly Guay

The Kottke brothers out there have land, so we get as close as there.  We do.

00:25:38 Kelly Guay

Get him from another Danzinger vineyard also.

00:25:41 Kelly Guay

Out of Wisconsin and then we get him.

00:25:42 Kelly Guay

As far away as.

00:25:44 Kelly Guay

California, Argentina and Italy.

00:25:47 Ben Nusz

Sure.  Are you bringing in grapes or wine or?

00:25:48 Kelly Guay

New York and New York.

00:25:50 Kelly Guay

Yeah, we bring.

00:25:51 Kelly Guay

Yes, there's a variety of ways to bring it in locally.

00:25:55 Kelly Guay

Bringing in in grapes, we crush it into stomach, in in house, and so that's all taken care of.

00:26:00 Kelly Guay

Literally in our yard.

00:26:02 Kelly Guay

Farm properties.

00:26:03 Kelly Guay

And then we do the stuff that comes from Italy actually comes in as semi crushed with juice with the skins.

00:26:10 Kelly Guay

And stuff in it.

00:26:11 Kelly Guay

So, what they do there is they spray the natural yeast from the area on those grapes.

00:26:17 Kelly Guay

They crush them destem them, and then they put them in a container they're partially fermenting on the way over so that they don't spoil.

00:26:23 Kelly Guay

So, that's part of their business model and then we get them delivered into Pennsylvania off of a barge.

00:26:29 Kelly Guay

And then we get a truck and we get it here and then.

00:26:32 Kelly Guay

A lot of the stuff that comes out of Argentina in California is actually crushed locally, destemmed locally, and then they concentrate it.

00:26:38 Kelly Guay

So similar to how you can go to the store and get Welches.

00:26:43 Kelly Guay

Grape concentrate and you can put it in there.

00:26:45 Kelly Guay

It's just different varietals.

00:26:47 Kelly Guay

So, if I make a Pinot Noir.

00:26:48 Kelly Guay

It's a Pinot Noir concentrate, not Concorde grape, right?

00:26:51 Kelly Guay

So Welches Concord:  grape, Pinot Noir, Pinot noir: Grape.

00:26:55 Kelly Guay

So there's just different ways to bring it in.

00:26:58 Kelly Guay

We do things here to make it taste like the skins have been fermented in it in the Reds.

00:27:03 Kelly Guay

We'll actually keep crushed red grape skins, local ones.

00:27:07 Kelly Guay

We'll freeze them and will.

00:27:08 Kelly Guay

Add them to the concentrates so that we're imparting our local flavor to it, even if it's a Pinot Noir, but you want the tannins and stuff out of those skins, so in the in the tannins out of the grape seeds that's in part of what imparts the flavor.

00:27:21 Kelly Guay

So, we kind of conserve that way.

00:27:23 Kelly Guay

I guess if you want a little bit of reuse and recycle on process for us.

00:27:28 Kelly Guay

And then other fruits we get in, we get in cranberries locally we get apples crushed up at Helene’s Orchard.

00:27:36 Kelly Guay

So, for our Apple based wines.

00:27:40 Kathy Johnson

Chut’s blueberries.

00:27:40 Kelly Guay

Chut’s blueberries.

00:27:41 Kathy Johnson

We just got those dropped off.  

00:27:43 Kelly Guay

Yeah, we've tried to keep some of the more local type fruit local.

00:27:47 Kathy Johnson

Rhubarb 

00:27:49 Kelly Guay

Rhubarb from local rhubarb farmers like just and our backyard.

00:27:51 Ben Nusz

Your your field is just a little bit bigger. *laughs* Right, it's it's the community.

00:27:55 Kelly Guay

Well, yeah, it's the community, yeah and I guess out of our view we have the Wisconsin River.

00:28:02 Kelly Guay

I mean we overlooked the Wisconsin River, which faces West.

00:28:03 Ben Nusz

Yeah, yeah.

00:28:05 Kelly Guay

So, you can catch.

00:28:06 Kelly Guay

Some pretty cool sunsets come out.

00:28:08 Kelly Guay

Of the upper area there.

00:28:10 Kathy Johnson

Hence the name Sunset Point.

00:28:10 Kelly Guay

Yeah, yeah.

00:28:12 Kathy Johnson

But there's another reason behind that, so why don't you.

00:28:15 Kathy Johnson

Tell em that?

00:28:15 Ben Nusz

Yeah!  Tells us the history with the name.

00:28:17 Kelly Guay

The name occurred to me at 2:00 in the morning.

00:28:19 Kelly Guay

Uhm, because

00:28:20 Kelly Guay

All of my bizarre creativity happens to come to my brain between 2:00 and 4:00.

00:28:24 Kelly Guay

AM and wake.

00:28:24 Kelly Guay

Me up good, bad, or indifferent.

00:28:26 Kelly Guay

That's how it is.

00:28:27 Kelly Guay

For me, so I.

00:28:29 Kelly Guay

My husband and I were married on Sunset Lake in Amherst.  So, we rented.

00:28:34 Kelly Guay

Out swez; we both were graduates.

00:28:36 Kelly Guay

Of Point.  We were doing this whole blended family.

00:28:39 Kelly Guay

Thing so super chill.

00:28:41 Kelly Guay

And we live in Stevens Point, so that's where the name came from.

00:28:45 Kelly Guay

2:00 in the morning.

00:28:45 Kelly Guay

I know the name of the winery.

00:28:46 Kelly Guay

It's going to be Sunset Point! And it seemed to fit kind of on the family level as well as the Stevens Point local level.

00:28:53 Kelly Guay

So, and the logo is actually a design of my friend who's a graphic artist from Racine and she also graduated.

00:29:01 Kelly Guay

From Point and I said the only thing it needs, DeeDee, is has to have seven rays in the sunshine or the sunset if you will, because there's seven of us.

00:29:08 Kelly Guay

There's five kids plus us two, so the logo is also speaks.

00:29:12 Kelly Guay

It's more than just the winery logo.

00:29:13 Kelly Guay

It's also a little bit of a family logo if you will.

00:29:15 Kelly Guay

So, when she designed it with that in mind.

00:29:18 Kelly Guay

So, it takes the whole entourage of.

00:29:20 Kelly Guay

Us to pull this off!  *laughs* So…

*break*

00:29:28 Ben Nusz

More from Kelly and Kathy.

00:29:29 Ben Nusz

In a moment, just a quick break.

00:29:31 Ben Nusz

To share some brief announcements.

00:29:33 Ben Nusz

The spring term at Mid-State is now underway, but we always have a great slate of continuing education courses available that are refreshed every week.

00:29:42 Ben Nusz

From learning how to design a website for your own small business or to learning how to brew your own beer, our continuing education department.

00:29:50 Ben Nusz

Has a lot to offer.

00:29:51 Ben Nusz

The courses are designed for both personal enrichment and professional development.

00:29:56 Ben Nusz

Sometimes what you

00:29:57 Ben Nusz

Need to succeed.

00:29:58 Ben Nusz

Is just a little.

00:29:59 Ben Nusz

More learning or the next credential and Mid-State can help you on your way.

00:30:04 Ben Nusz

Check out upcoming classes at mstc.edu/continuing-education. Also, one more reminder about our career accelerator certificates.

00:30:14 Ben Nusz

9 credits in just eight weeks.

00:30:17 Ben Nusz

Mid-State offers certificates in communication essentials, competitive sales, human resources, foundations, small business accelerator.

00:30:24 Ben Nusz

Social and mobile marketing, team leadership, and business skills.

00:30:30 Ben Nusz

It's a lot of offerings, I know, but we want to make sure that we are meeting.

00:30:34 Ben Nusz

Everybody needs right now, as our college president, Doctor Shelley Mandic likes to say, do it today, not someday.

00:30:42 Ben Nusz

Now let's hear more of the story of the Sunset Point Winery with Kelly and Kathy.

*interview resumes*

00:30:51 Ben Nusz

The winery is established, you’re downtown.

00:30:53 Ben Nusz

What's what's happening next?

00:30:55 Ben Nusz

Are you developing additional types of wine?  And and and.

00:30:59 Ben Nusz

What what is your.

00:31:00 Ben Nusz

What's the next phase of your business model here?

00:31:03 Kelly Guay

So, next phase of our business model is probably focusing a bit more on our wholesale and broadening what.

00:31:08 Kelly Guay

We've got with.

00:31:09 Kelly Guay

What we have to offer to a broader audience than probably within the local 60 miles and then getting more thought thought of throughout the state of Wisconsin.

00:31:20 Kelly Guay

From the wine development we have Earl, who is a new production manager for us, and he's been experimenting, kind of with his own palette, right?

00:31:30 Kelly Guay

And what does he want to bring to the table?

00:31:31 Kelly Guay

So that's kind of neat 'cause you get just different people.

00:31:33 Kelly Guay

Takes on it, he's been able to develop an awesome white fruit blend for us from Wisconsin grapes, which I'm super excited to release this Spring.

00:31:42 Kelly Guay

So, I think some of it's just working with the people you have in their flavor profiles and what do they want to see develop and what does the community want to see developed?

00:31:50 Kelly Guay

Originally, we've done like a like a survey like on the counter.

00:31:54 Kelly Guay

Hey, what do you want to see.

00:31:55 Kelly Guay

Bring brought to the table?  And you know that kind of guided us for a little while.

00:31:58 Kelly Guay

So, what did people want to see brought into our winery for us to make or try ourselves.

00:32:03 Kelly Guay

I think a lot of investment into the local I.

00:32:06 Kelly Guay

Think is going to be important.

00:32:07 Kelly Guay

So as climate change happens, this is my take on what I think the Wisconsin wineries and vineyards could be.

00:32:15 Kelly Guay

When I say this, is that as their climate changes, it makes our climate more desirable for growing grapes and the grape development and the University of Minnesota has invested heartily into that realm, right?

00:32:27 Kelly Guay

That's where a lot of our local grape varietals come from is their research and development.

00:32:31 Ben Nusz

Yeah, my parents have some.  *laughs*

00:32:32 Kelly Guay

Yeah, see and so and so you think South Dakota.

00:32:35 Kelly Guay

Like you mentioned, where your parents are.

00:32:36 Kelly Guay

Growing; same type of investment, it's a long term one right? We might not really reap all the benefits on that for 50 to 100 years.

00:32:44 Kelly Guay

But hey, if we're in front of the curve, we're in front of the curve.

00:32:46 Kelly Guay

I'm I'm OK with that risk and so I think some of it is also continuing to partner with the Wisconsin wineries and their associate.

00:32:53 Kelly Guay

There's an association we belong to there.

00:32:55 Kelly Guay

And where does the.

00:32:57 Kelly Guay

Consumers say we should take our market, take our skill set, you know, and then learn from what California has done and try to bring it to the Midwest.

00:33:06 Ben Nusz

So, one of the programs we have at Mid-State is in agronomy and and is in the science of growing, and you mentioned something like University of Minnesota.

00:33:15 Ben Nusz

How does the grower.

00:33:16 Ben Nusz

Influence the individual taste?  And I have to share an experience.

00:33:20 Ben Nusz

We Mid-State, we have an exchange program with a comparable school in in Frankfurt and.

00:33:26 Ben Nusz

In Germany and we went on a tour, and we visited a 200 year old winery.

00:33:33 Ben Nusz

Driving past all of the the different grapes and they were able to say:  OK, this particular year.

00:33:41 Ben Nusz

It grew on this slope, and it imparted this sort of flavor because this is what the season was like.

00:33:48 Kelly Guay

Yep.

00:33:48 Ben Nusz

So how do you as someone who's making wine interpret what's happening?

00:33:53 Ben Nusz

In the soil and was happening in the Earth into what we eventually drink?

00:33:55 Kelly Guay

So, I think the closest regional thing I can talk about is been working with the Cockies on their farm and.

00:34:02 Kelly Guay

Uhm, they have.

00:34:03 Kelly Guay

They do have a nice facing slope faces SW ish so they get the nice afternoon sun and this year was not one of the better years and it has to do with the amount of waterfall like so the amount of rain that comes in what's going on in the soil when that happens so it can be imparted.

00:34:22 Kelly Guay

By runoff, it can be imparted by just the age of the grapes and how deep those roots are down into the soil beds. So 200 year old grapes have root bases that go way, way down there. Insanely deep root systems.

00:34:36 Kelly Guay

Y’know?  And and it's always a learning experience for us.

00:34:39 Kelly Guay

And them because we're kind of on this again, this learning adventure together so that growers can do some things to adjust like pHs of their soil.

00:34:47 Kelly Guay

They can do things that are just.

00:34:49 Kelly Guay

Do they burden at it?

00:34:51 Kelly Guay

Do they waspen at it, because those bugs can even impart different flavors.

00:34:55 Kelly Guay

So, so we've learned some things the hard way.

00:34:58 Kelly Guay

I hope to one day be able to go to a cocky vineyard and be.

00:35:02 Kelly Guay

Like:  So this.

00:35:03 Kelly Guay

Batch came off of this slope and this year and this year is different from last year.

00:35:07 Kelly Guay

Because of that, I think we're in such an infancy.

00:35:09 Kelly Guay

We're not there yet, but the toure of the soil, as they say, is the flavors that come out of the soil into the grape and then impart the grape flavors, and that can change seasonally based on weather conditions, so.

00:35:22 Kathy Johnson

Some of it also comes down to the pruning too.

00:35:24 Kathy Johnson

So, if we have cloudy days throughout summer, you're not going to get that flavor, and the sugars that's needed in those grapes.

00:35:33 Kathy Johnson

And then it comes down to the pruning aspect.

00:35:35 Kathy Johnson

How many leaves do we actually prune off the vines in order for the sun to hit the grapes versus burning the grapes?

00:35:43 Kathy Johnson

So, there's that fine line that has to be crossed in the.

00:35:46 Kathy Johnson

Vineyard end of things.

00:35:48 Kathy Johnson

And there again they are learning as well as we are through this process.

00:35:53 Kelly Guay

Yeah, being yeah that hope the one thing I will say is I love land.

00:35:58 Kelly Guay

I love living on land, but I do not want to be a farmer like they are blessed.

00:36:04 Kelly Guay

That is a.

00:36:04 Kelly Guay

Blessed group of people right there.

00:36:06 Kelly Guay

I just have there.

00:36:07 Kelly Guay

Is so much that painstaking agony goes into the weather and the.

00:36:12 Kelly Guay

The whims of the weather and what you're trying to produce and like that is too stressful for me.

00:36:17 Kelly Guay

Taking a risk on a building.

00:36:19 Kelly Guay

And my parents and a business downtown.

00:36:21 Kelly Guay

That's my risk.

00:36:22 Kelly Guay

But the weather I'm not capable of doing that.

00:36:25 Kelly Guay

Which is great.

00:36:26 Kelly Guay

That there are people capable of taking that.

00:36:28 Kelly Guay

'cause it's huge, and it's underestimated.

00:36:30 Kathy Johnson

And that was the beauty of this.

00:36:32 Kathy Johnson

They didn't want a winery.

00:36:34 Kathy Johnson

And we didn't want a vineyard, so it was a perfect blend, a perfect marriage of two companies coming together to make this happen so.

00:36:43 Kathy Johnson

And they started growing grapes about two years, 18 months to two years ahead of us, and they were ecstatic to hear that there was a winery coming to town, 

00:36:51 Ben Nusz

It's perfect.

00:36:52 Kathy Johnson

It was.

00:36:52 Kathy Johnson

It was a.

00:36:52 Kathy Johnson

It was a perfect marriage.

00:36:54 Kathy Johnson

It really was.

00:36:54 Kelly Guay

And it just so happens they have ties to the paper industry as well.

00:36:56 Kelly Guay

You know some things are meant to be for a reason, right?

00:37:00 Kelly Guay

People meet or cross paths for one reason or another, and there's happen to workout with ours.

00:37:05 Ben Nusz

So take us into the tasting room right now.

00:37:08 Ben Nusz

If uh, if we left this interview and went over there, what are some of the delicious things.

00:37:13 Ben Nusz

I could drink?

00:37:14 Kathy Johnson

Oh, right now there's a lot! There's about 22 different flavors out there right now, and several on their ways so.

00:37:24 Kathy Johnson

Right now.

00:37:26 Kathy Johnson

Well, of course my favorites are locally grown because I think that's so important that we work together.

00:37:32 Kathy Johnson

So, my favorites are the Pocus Stamp.

00:37:35 Ben Nusz

Pocus Stamp?

00:37:35 Kathy Johnson

Pocus Stamp.

00:37:37 Kathy Johnson

Yes, Polish community, perfect garden and.

00:37:41 Kathy Johnson

And farmers Polish family vineyard, exactly so Pocas Stamp is a Frontenac Blanc, grape wine.

00:37:49 Kathy Johnson

And it’s a off sweet.

00:37:52 Kathy Johnson

It's not a sweet wine, but it's not a dry wine, so I'm going to call it off sweet.

00:37:57 Kathy Johnson

And then we have Blazing Brianna, which is a Brianna grape, and that is my number one favorite, and that is a sweet white.

00:38:06 Kathy Johnson

Our Standing Rock Red is a.

00:38:08 Kathy Johnson

Red blend, that's all.

00:38:09 Benjamin Nusz

I love the name.

00:38:10 Kathy Johnson

The Reds grown out there and of course their farms are near the Standing Rock Park, so it's standing rock red.

00:38:17 Kathy Johnson

But along with that, we have Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot noir, Cabernet, and then, of course, our fun wines.

00:38:26 Kathy Johnson

Which will run into our pomegranate flavored our BlackBerry flavored our Mandarin orange flavored our pineapple.

00:38:33 Kathy Johnson

Flavored and those are kind of our fun ones and then our.

00:38:37 Kathy Johnson

Of course, you know we've got our dessert wines, which are always great so.

00:38:41 Michael Witte

So is blazing Brianna, the one with the Amherst grapes?

00:38:45 Kathy Johnson

Yep Yep Yep.

00:38:45 Benjamin Nusz

Yes, yes, yeah.

00:38:47 Michael Witte

I have three bottles of that.

00:38:48 Kelly Guay

Oh OK, it's delicious.

00:38:50 Kelly Guay

That one is my favorite.

00:38:50 Kathy Johnson

It is my number one favorite, yeah?

00:38:51 Kelly Guay

It's really good.

00:38:52 Michael Witte

It is.

00:38:53 Michael Witte

It is tremendous, absolutely.

00:38:54 Kelly Guay

Yeah, well, thank you.

00:38:55 Kelly Guay

I'm glad you.

00:38:55 Kelly Guay

Like that one so.

00:38:57 Kathy Johnson

And of course you can buy a tasting up there, which is a flight of six flavors.

00:39:01 Kathy Johnson

And go from there and taste whatever you want and then buy glasses.

00:39:08 Kathy Johnson

Or take a bottle home or two or three or

00:39:10 Kathy Johnson

Four; we prefer a case.

00:39:11 Michael Witte

OK, we're done here, let's go.

00:39:12 Kelly Guay

Yeah, exactly right and for the non-wine drinkers that happen to come with the wine drinkers, there is a whole bunch of local craft beers in the cooler.

00:39:21 Kelly Guay

So which is nice.

00:39:23 Kelly Guay

We want to offer that and as well.

00:39:24 Kathy Johnson

And Point soda.

00:39:25 Kelly Guay

We do offer Point soda.

00:39:26 Kelly Guay

I think people think winery and they think not family friendly or maybe a little bit stuck up and snobby.

00:39:32 Kelly Guay

Just because there are some connotations to wine drinkers, but we own a winery in Central Wisconsin, and we have five kids, so this is a very family friendly winery.

00:39:43 Kelly Guay

There's coloring books at the back bar if you just ask for them.

00:39:46 Kelly Guay

There is.

00:39:46 Kelly Guay

Uhm, there's chocolate bars and point sodas and munchies and snacks and swing chairs.

00:39:53 Kelly Guay

And just a very like you should feel like you can wear your shoes in my living room type.

00:39:57 Kelly Guay

Feel right?

00:39:58 Kelly Guay

Like hang out, bring a board game if you want.

00:40:01 Kelly Guay

It's like those.

00:40:02 Kelly Guay

Types of things are all OK with us, yeah?

00:40:03 Kathy Johnson

Coloring book.  We play Wino bingo and we have art classes and just fun things going on and don't call him swing chairs please.

00:40:11 Kathy Johnson

When you're saying family OK, I have to.

00:40:13 Kathy Johnson

Stop the kids from swinging.

00:40:14 Kathy Johnson

In them!  Or they'll fall off!  No spinning and swinging please.

00:40:17 Kelly Guay

Respectfully swinging.  They’re hammock chairs.

00:40:19 Kathy Johnson

Come and relax!

00:40:22 Kathy Johnson

No spinning or swinging please!

00:40:24 Kelly Guay

For safety sake.

00:40:27 Ben Nusz

So I think it it.

00:40:28 Ben Nusz

It really gives people just a great downtown experience.

00:40:32 Ben Nusz

And so I I do want to shift just a little bit and talk about your involvement Kathy with.

00:40:37 Ben Nusz

The Stevens Point Alliance.

00:40:39 Ben Nusz

The Downtown Business Association that we have here, which does tremendous things for the downtown community that maybe a lot of people don't know about.

00:40:48 Ben Nusz

So maybe tell us your your role there and and give us a cliff.

00:40:51 Ben Nusz

Notes for things.

00:40:52 Kathy Johnson

Sure, well, one thing that I did miss in the Sturdivant history was I also sat on the Community Development Authority in Sturdivant for 24 years, so I.

00:41:02 Kathy Johnson

Knew a lot about.

00:41:04 Kathy Johnson

Developing an area and how to bring that to life and I always think that sometimes new eyes see things differently and so when moving it well, when we thought about the building in October, I think by November I had already signed us up to be a member of the downtown alliance.

00:41:24 Kathy Johnson

Because I felt that if we're going to be in the downtown.

00:41:28 Kathy Johnson

Area again like I said earlier, you need a voice.

00:41:31 Kathy Johnson

But it's also.

00:41:33 Kathy Johnson

To help people know who we are.

00:41:36 Kathy Johnson

And and to make recognition of our business so it works both ways in being involved.

00:41:42 Kathy Johnson

And so yeah.

00:41:44 Kathy Johnson

So getting involved right away.

00:41:46 Kathy Johnson

Becoming a member. I couldn't do much because I was in Sturdivant for 2 1/2 years waiting to retire from the post office, but.

00:41:55 Kathy Johnson

I still whenever I was here, which would be monthly, I would come up at least once a month. I was very much in contact with people in the downtown area working at the winery and helping out that way before the retirement. Once I got here in 2000… May of 2017, I moved up permanently.

00:42:16 Kathy Johnson

And with that, I don't know how quick I was appointed to the board, but I think.

00:42:21 Kathy Johnson

It was instantly.

00:42:22 Kathy Johnson

I don't remember any timeframe in between.

00:42:25 Kathy Johnson

I think it was like instantly you are on the board and no sooner was I on the board of the Downtown Alliance.

00:42:32 Kathy Johnson

But then I was also asked to be on the board for the Visitors.

00:42:36 Kathy Johnson

Bureau and Convention Center, so I also sit on that and again, just being involved getting to know people, people getting to know me I think was so.

00:42:45 Kathy Johnson

Important and as far as doing things downtown, my whole purpose is bring feet to the street.

00:42:52 Kathy Johnson

That's all I want.

00:42:53 Kathy Johnson

So, whatever I can do to bring people to downtown, it benefits my business and it benefits every other business in the downtown area.

00:43:02 Kathy Johnson

And that's what I'm all about.

00:43:03 Kathy Johnson

Is just benefiting downtown.

00:43:05 Kelly Guay

Yeah, one of the key messages that.

00:43:08 Kelly Guay

I have heard.

00:43:09 Kelly Guay

Um, sitting on late night City Council calls or whatever.

00:43:14 Kelly Guay

There's still some misconception about what our downtown is.

00:43:18 Kelly Guay

There are people that have not been downtown that live in our community in years because they think of it as the bar scene and the frumpy storefronts that it once was.

00:43:29 Kelly Guay

And I lived.

00:43:30 Kelly Guay

In that during college, so I know.

00:43:32 Kathy Johnson

What it looked like.

00:43:33 Kelly Guay

And I know what it is today.

00:43:35 Ben Nusz

So well, this was a.

00:43:37 Ben Nusz

This was a mall.

00:43:38 Kathy Johnson

You’re sitting in the mall!

00:43:38 Kelly Guay

Right, yes, great.

00:43:40 Kelly Guay

We're sitting in the mall right now in the Mid-State.

00:43:43 Kelly Guay

The nice, beautiful renovated JCPenney building and the the downtown streets are filled with tons of adorable little businesses, right, and they're all entrepreneurs that are local and they live here and it isn't.

00:43:58 Kelly Guay

It isn't a bar.

00:43:59 Kelly Guay

Every other you know spot.  Now.

00:44:01 Kelly Guay

Are there still some really good places?

00:44:03 Kelly Guay

Absolutely, I mean hello, somebody we need something to do after midnight.

00:44:07 Kelly Guay

But that being said, it is, uh, even that has taken on a different life.

00:44:11 Kelly Guay

And so what we're trying to break the barrier on with, you know, my mom being from an outside perspective.

00:44:19 Kelly Guay

But trying to bring the feet to the street and make it a community involved area where there's something for everybody downtown.

00:44:25 Kelly Guay

You think of it, we have everything from rental kayaks to high.

00:44:29 Kelly Guay

Like really beautiful clothing shops to nail salons to art studios, to a winery to what's going to be, a distillery to ice cream to coffee.

00:44:40 Kathy Johnson

To a tech college!

00:44:42 Kelly Guay

To a tech college.  There is so much here and people don't see it.

00:44:45 Kelly Guay

It's like.

00:44:45 Kelly Guay

Get out like I've heard people say I didn't know you owned a winery like I've been in business six years.

00:44:50 Kelly Guay

What rock have you lived in?

00:44:52 Kelly Guay

Get out in your community.

00:44:53 Kelly Guay

Explore it, go see what there is to see and like by doing things like bringing the kayak launches or the ice rinks downtown.

00:44:58 Kathy Johnson

The ice rink to downtown.

00:45:01 Kelly Guay

Yeah, you know the fighting we had on the ice rink from the general public.

00:45:06 Kelly Guay

'cause there's gonna be a bunch of drunks and there's gonna be puke and blood everywhere on the ice. I have yet to see it. It's been here two years or three years now. 3 winters.

00:45:14 Kelly Guay

Here's what is what I do see, though, is people getting engaged in front of the Christmas tree on the ice, and little kids playing crack the whip and hitting snowbanks.

00:45:23 Kelly Guay

And you know, that's the memories.

00:45:26 Kelly Guay

That's the fun stuff that you know should be bringing people downtown, not what used to be.

00:45:30 Kelly Guay

So let it go; calm down.

00:45:32 Ben Nusz

And I think I think of some of the events that the downtown alliance holds.

00:45:36 Ben Nusz

You know, they started notes at night, so every Wednesday night there's live music on the square.

00:45:41 Ben Nusz

There's a vibrancy to that.  The the winter parade.

00:45:44 Ben Nusz

The downtown alliance.

00:45:45 Ben Nusz

Runs that and all of these things you know add to the vibrancy and into the community, down here.

00:45:52 Kathy Johnson

Yeah, in the last five years we put the dock on the river because again I saw that you know the people on the river have boats and if we want them to come up and have lunch.

00:46:02 Kathy Johnson

And a beer.

00:46:03 Kathy Johnson

Why don't we have a dock down there for them?

00:46:05 Kathy Johnson

So we got the dock on.

00:46:06 Kathy Johnson

The river and.

00:46:08 Kathy Johnson

You know the reindeer.

00:46:09 Kathy Johnson

This past year the the parade came back, the ice rink just all of that is all about the vibrancy and bring people and families downtown.

00:46:21 Ben Nusz

So, there's a a question I always ask.

00:46:24 Ben Nusz

What's next for Kelly and Kathy and Sunset Point Winery?

00:46:30 Kelly Guay

I think what's next for us is probably figuring out the transition plan so my dad officially retired this last July.

00:46:37 Kelly Guay

That is, in Mom's couple year plan here. So, we've got to sort of figure out. What does that look like.

00:46:44 Kelly Guay

For us?  And how do we keep the quality of the wine and the quality of the experience?

00:46:49 Kelly Guay

And you know the quality of the staff.

00:46:52 Kathy Johnson

The quality of your life.

00:46:54 Kelly Guay

And the quality of our life.  And how do we manage and manipulate that going forward.

00:46:57 Kelly Guay

Probably the next two years is gonna be a little bit of a transition in that realm, but well, we'll navigate through it like we do everything and put our best foot forward and keep marching.

00:47:06 Kelly Guay

So yeah, I don't know that I have a.

00:47:08 Kelly Guay

Full firm plan.

00:47:09 Kelly Guay

Yet, but got some things in the words.

00:47:10 Kathy Johnson

We keep looking at it.

00:47:11 Kelly Guay

I like I do.

00:47:12 Kelly Guay

I'm I'm actually very excited to have the distillery come down 'cause we've partnered well in the past, even with them.

00:47:17 Kelly Guay

Them being in Plover so having them come across the street from us, it's going to be a really big deal.

00:47:22 Kelly Guay

I'm kind of looking forward to partnering with them.

00:47:24 Kelly Guay

District One and us also do a lot of partnerships and you know.

00:47:28 Kelly Guay

So, I think maybe we can get some collaborative stuff going with the Portage or the craft collective in Portage County, and maybe do some bigger things along that realm.

00:47:37 Kelly Guay

Bring in more of the tourism aspects of that right.

00:47:40 Kelly Guay

Hit up your populations in the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, Chicago.

00:47:44 Kelly Guay

See if we can drum up some different business, so.

00:47:47 Kathy Johnson

And turn us into a destination.

00:47:50 Kathy Johnson

In downtown Point.

*interview ends*

00:47:57 Ben Nusz

Thank you for listening to Profile Central Wisconsin.

00:48:01 Ben Nusz

Special thanks to Kelly Guay and Kathy Johnson from Sunset Point Winery and to Michael Witte for joining me in this conversation.

00:48:08 Ben Nusz

Profile is a production of Mid-State Technical College out of the Stevens Point campus.

00:48:13 Ben Nusz

If you want to learn the business management skills to turn your side hustle into your career.

00:48:18 Ben Nusz

Mid-State has a two year associate degree in business management.

00:48:21 Ben Nusz

Or a one year technical diploma in entrepreneurship with flexible delivery and both online and in person options. It's the type of program made to help you advance. Learn more at mstc.edu/progams.

00:48:35 Ben Nusz

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00:48:48 Ben Nusz

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00:48:55 Ben Nusz

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00:49:01 Ben Nusz

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00:49:07 Ben Nusz

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00:49:15 Ben Nusz

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00:49:21 Ben Nusz

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00:49:22 Ben Nusz

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00:49:26 Ben Nusz

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00:49:28 Ben Nusz

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00:49:30 Ben Nusz

Thanks for listening.

*interview clip resumes*

00:49:39 Kelly Guay

To get us started in the equipment realm, uhm, we had some of it.

00:49:44 Kelly Guay

We started with glass carboys and.

00:49:45 Kelly Guay

What we could afford.

00:49:46 Kathy Johnson

A little crusher.

00:49:49 Kelly Guay

A little baby itty bitty local.

00:49:50 Kelly Guay

It was cute.

00:49:51 Kelly Guay

It was like 20 gallons.

00:49:52 Ben Nusz

You didn't, you didn't stomp the grapes?

00:49:54 Kelly Guay

Oh no, we did that once, but that's a different story.

00:49:56 Kelly Guay

Maybe I'll get to that yet, but.

00:49:58 Michael Witte

Was alcohol involved?

00:49:59 Kathy Johnson

No, not that one.

00:50:00 Kelly Guay

Maybe the thought of it was.

00:50:01 Kathy Johnson

Well, maybe.

00:50:02 Kelly Guay

The thought of it for sure.

00:50:04 Kelly Guay

Uhm, we were thinking Lucille Ball style.

00:50:07 Kelly Guay

It wound up more like a plastic swimming pool that was really slimy anyway.