Realizing his Cape Cod dream
by Glenn RittDave Roberts may have reached the traditional retirement age of 65, but that’s simply his cue to realize a dream that meticulously combines his love for wine, family and Cape Cod.
At the beginning of this year, he and his wife, Kathy, purchased Truro Vineyards and winery from its original owners – and then invited his son and two daughters to be partners, managing everything from production to marketing.
It happened quickly, if not serendipitously.
“I learned the owners were ready to sell. I came home with this great idea,” he recalls with a smile. “My wife said, ‘What? I thought you were going to retire.’ I think the kids would love it, I responded.”
After a long career as CEO of United Liquors, the largest distributor of liquor, beer and wine in Massachusetts, the company’s owner had decided to sell.
At virtually the same time, Kathy Gregrow and Judy Wimer, who founded the Truro winery in the early 1990s, began looking for a buyer.
They didn’t have to look far. Roberts, a Wellesley resident, long had owned a second home in Truro, within walking distance of the winery at the northern edge of Truro. He had spent many hours roaming the vineyards and getting to know Gregrow and Wimer, who also lived in the handsome colonial that serves as the retail gift shop and wine-tasting showroom as well as second-floor inn.
Who better to oversee management and expansion of the winery than a career executive in the beverage industry? But while Roberts was not interested in a sunset retirement, he surely knew he wasn’t looking for a long-term 60-hour work week.
Thus, a recruitment call to his son, David Jr., in Atlanta, where he was a successful brewer, who was convinced to move full time to the Cape with his wife, Amy and their two children.
Along with Matyas Vogel, a wine maker at the vineyards since 2004, Dave Jr. is managing the vineyards and winemaking, which will be expanding significantly, beginning new quarters for aging, bottling and storing a growing variety of wines. Dave’s wife Kathy has totally renovated the gift shop introducing hand-painted and local pottery, wine accessories, branded wearables and specialty food items. Amy, meanwhile, oversees finance and administration and assists with tastings and tours.
Daughter Kristen is in charge of sales and marketing, including all retail and wholesale sales, while another daughter, Stephanie Roberts Hartung, helps out whenever she can get away from her professorial duties at Suffolk University Law School.
The vineyard’s 3,000 roots may be only 15 years old, but Roberts’ own roots on Cape Cod go back more than four decades to when his family first came to Head of the Meadow beach. He and Kathy honeymooned in Truro 42 years ago and returned every summer since.
Family is a theme as dominant as the wine for Roberts as he walks his new property, pointing with a fatherly pride to the fact that one of the vineyard’s five “equal partners” will always be on the premises to supervise both its operations and customer connections – including a rapidly growing e-commerce division, managed by recently hired Chris Gamble.
On this August morning, Roberts is marveling at the steady arrival of tourists, awaiting the opening of the tasting room at 11 a.m. Cars are beginning to park on roads beyond the winery gates, convincing him anew that another off-season project will be expansion of the parking facilities.
Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, Roberts’ knees don’t look like they belong to a former company executive. They are nicked and dirt-stained, testament to his peripatetic regimen, as he rushes from the bottling area to the showroom to the vineyards that virtually envelop his new lifestyle – this day reflecting a clear blue sky.
This is no pipe dream. It’s serious business, but one infused with passions rarely realized in the conventional business world.
It’s an all-encompassing investment in his family’s future; it’s converting career to legacy; it’s not just loving Cape Cod, but contributing to its economic health and quality of life.
These all manifest in the way Roberts discusses his winery’s abiding attributes. “First, there’s a family – either related literally or through their mutual love of wine – who have committed themselves completely to the hard work of grape-growing and wine-making,” he said.
“Second, they have a historical vision of what the vineyard and winery can become that cuts across years, sometimes generations and even centuries.
“Finally, it's all about location, location and location, very often in close proximity to the ocean, like Northern California, the Loire Valley of northern France, New Zealand, and so many others.”
Building on a strong foundation
As enthusiastic as the Roberts family is in taking title to the 5-acre vineyards, they recognize the need to nourish the original success of their predecessors, which includes several prestigious awards, as recently as one this year from the Tasters Guild International. These include gold medals for the vineyard’s chardonnay, cabernet franc and cranberry light in competitions involving nearly 2,000 wines. The Roberts family has now vinted and bottled all nine types presentably available at the winery.
“We will not mess up what’s right,” he said. That means building on a model of “good value wines at rational prices,” he explains. That means bottles in the $10 to $20 range.
At the same time, Roberts’ experience and passion suggests an evolution in both vinting and marketing.
The family is beginning to plan for several reserve wines, importing and blending grapes from as far as the Napa and Sonoma valleys in California. These will be marketed as Roberts Family Reserves and sell for between $20 and $30, including merlot, cabernet, pinot noir and pinot grigio, which are expected to be available over the next few years.
While most sales have been on the Cape, Kristen Roberts is extending the vineyard’s relationships with local restaurants, especially between Provincetown and Orleans. And with Dave’s United Liquor contacts with retailers, he is well positioned to extend his vineyard’s sales to wine and spirit stores beyond the peninsula.
In addition, Kristen will be introducing a new wine club to build constant connections with customers who visit or increasingly communicate and purchase online.
“We are diligently working to be able to legally ship out of state,” said Roberts. That’s why the vineyard’s online sales are expanding. By next spring, its e-commerce operations move to where wines are currently bottled, as that activity itself requires larger quarters.
During all this transition, the Roberts family also is relying on a board of advisers they have meticulously recruited to provide guidance – from nurturing grapes to expanding facilities. Most prominent among its members is Roberts’ former boss and philanthropist, Ray Tye, who sold his company to the Martignetti family of Norwood.
At 65, Roberts is in the enviable position of building a Cape Cod legacy for and with his family. He’s crafted a game plan that leverages a career of knowledge and relationships in a place he loves, alongside friends and family.
Published in Cape Business November/December 2007
Glenn Ritt Glenn Ritt is editor and co-publisher of Cape Business Publishing LLC. He is the former publisher of Cape Cod Community Newspapers and editor of The Bergen Record in New Jersey. 
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