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Well, you have your "figure head," someone that makes all the stakeholders "happy." Now what.

Anyone can make lemonade out of lemons. A trained chimp can make lemonade out of lemons, in fact I would venture to guess that a wild chimp could do so since all you have to do is squeeze. The more lemons you have the more lemonade you can make.

The real question is not one of lemonade from lemons, the real question is how many can make wine from grapes because that takes a bit more skill, knowledge, time, patience, effort, to make really good wine is that much harder, to make exquisite wine, well only a few can do that, and for that you have to add passion, commitment, and desire, and maybe even a bit of obsession.

What about starting from nothing but some rocky terrain up in the hills just North of Healdsburg,CA where Rockpile port comes from, they call their port Independence, boy is that appropriate. To be able to go there, start from nothing, get the vines to take, get fruit to come, bring the fruit along over years and to end up with Independence, well that is doing something.

A large number of people could move to Healdsburg, be given the property where Rockpile is now made, be given the wine maker, and the staff, and the budget, the website, the tasting room, and have a pretty good year selling the wine, but how many could have the same kind of year if all they had was the hill, the rocks, and a vague idea of what it takes. How many could do so before going bankrupt, or just plain giving up?

Everyone reading this, for that matter most everyone on the planet, at least anyone moderately reasonable in their thinking, would tell you that the latter is something very, very few could do, and the former is something most anyone would sign up for, and be more than willing to cash the check at the end of the year.

You are welcome.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.