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In the News
As see in the Rochester Democtrat and Chronicle July, 2005
By Amy H. Wu, Staff Writer
Award-winning wines from an unlikely source
(July 2, 2005) — For a woman who is sunburned from long hours in the fields and has been up since 4:30 a.m. working, Amy Hoffman is surprisingly giddy.
"This is part of the fun," says the 44-year-old owner of Rooster Hill Vineyards, one of the Finger Lakes' newer additions to the wine industry. "I'm not one to sit around and read a book. I love it here!"
"Grape hoe in hand, work boots caked with earth, this life is far from Hoffman's corporate past. Among her former jobs, she oversaw a staff of 220 as a marketing vice president at technology company Ingram Micro during the Internet go-go days in the 1990s.
"Hoffman and her husband, David, a former accountant at Ingram, say they are accidental winemakers.
"In 1999, the couple made a dramatic lifestyle move when they left their Costa Mesa, Calif., home to move to Keuka Lake. They fell in love with the region's beauty during a vacation, and with the move had planned to return to their entrepreneurial roots.
"I definitely have an entrepreneur streak in me," says Hoffman, who with her husband has launched a video store, consulting firm, mobile home power washing business and miniature golf course.
"We thought maybe a little coffee shop, maybe a deli, maybe something in light manufacturing — we were open to lots of ideas," Hoffman said as her 64-year-old husband, the quieter of the two, looked on.
In the meantime, they began tinkering with an old neglected vineyard across from their home and toying with the idea of starting their own.
Friends and colleagues say that once Amy Hoffman gets an idea, she jumps full-speed into it. Rooster Hill in Penn Yan is no exception.
After talking with neighboring winemakers and taking a series of winemaking workshops, the Hoffmans bought 35 acres of land and began building a tasting room.
They hired a wine consultant, who helped them navigate the business nuances for a year. They admit that there is a lot at stake, including a seven-figure investment.
The venture has not yet turned a profit, but the number of visitors grew from 9,000 in 2003 to 17,000 visitors in 2004. The vineyard produced 3,000 cases from the initial 1,700, with plans to add another 1,000 cases this year. And the wines have won awards at a number of competitions, including the San Francisco International Wine Competition.
Nevertheless, Hoffman says she wants to shy away from becoming the next big name, instead envisioning the winery as a niche player for the premium wine drinker, producing no more than 7,000 cases of wine a year.
The tasting room is upscale and was partly inspired by Hoffman's regular visits to Napa Valley. A DVD of Sideways sits on a shelf for staff to watch.
The couple grow their own grapes, own their own machinery and do their own production.
"If you really want to control quality, I think you have to have control," Hoffman says.
"Our goal is to maintain the quality. Our goal is not to become huge," she says. "When you get too big, then you're worried more about accounting and banks. ... I've run a department with 200-plus people. I've done that!"
Hoffman's former colleagues say that she has the chutzpah to make Rooster Hill fly; at Ingram Micro in southern California she introduced flexible hours in her department and frequently used sports analogies to motivate staff.
They say that beneath the tomboyish-exterior lies a driven businesswoman.
"I had no idea she knew anything about wine," said Lisa Murray, marketing vice president for Entrepreneur Magazine, who worked with Hoffman when she was a publisher. "But I know Amy is very much an entrepreneur at heart. She's a very driven person who really does her due diligence on anything she gets involved with."
"She's very much about networking and maintaining relationships," Murray said, recalling that Hoffman hosted get-to-know-you luncheons. "She prides herself in that she runs in very different circles."
"Amy and Dave are going to be able to do this. They will be passionate and they will be successful," says Lori Curie, a vice president at Ingram Micro.
Hoffman insists that, unlike some of her other ventures, she is in the winery business for the long term. Many mornings she rides her scooter to the vineyard, holds her breath and crosses her fingers for a good harvest.
"You have to be patient, you have to have a vision for where you're taking the business and you have to be patient about your growth," she says — before taking to the fields again.
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