Rescue Dog Wines: Pouring Love into Animal Rescue

In this episode of Starlight Pet Talk, Blair Lott, co-founder of Rescue Dog Wines, shares a heartwarming story of passion, purpose, and pets. Transitioning from a successful music career to crafting wine in Northern California, Blair and his wife Laura turned their love for winemaking into a mission to save rescue dogs. Discover how they’ve combined business and philanthropy, with each bottle of Rescue Dog Wines directly supporting animal welfare organizations across the U.S.

Blair dives into the challenges and rewards of running a mission-driven winery, offering listeners a behind-the-scenes look at the powerful connection between wine sales and animal rescue. Learn about their charitable wine donations, the complexities of wine legislation, and how they’ve made a significant impact in the rescue community. Blair’s personal stories, from shelter visits to meeting the tireless volunteers who make it all possible, bring the heart of their mission to life.

What’s next for Rescue Dog Wines? Blair shares exciting plans for Rescue Dog Month, upcoming campaigns to help animals in areas affected by natural disasters, and a potential new wine line inspired by cats! This episode is not just for wine lovers or animal advocates—it’s for anyone looking for inspiration on how to blend passion with purpose and make a real difference.

Blair’s experience fostering animals offers a heartfelt reminder that opening your home to a pet can be life-changing. Whether you’re a pet parent, a wine enthusiast, or someone looking for a feel-good story, this episode will uplift and inspire you.

Learn more about Rescue Dog Wines or buy wine: www.rescuedogwines.com.
Remember, buy before Oct 31, 2024 and an additional 10% of the proceeds of your purchase goes to helping animal rescue groups and shelters in the hurricane-impacted areas of Florida and North Carolina.

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Rescue Dog Wines
• 12:14 Expanding Reach and Impact
• 18:07 Rescue Dog Wines Impact and Mission
• 26:06 Engage With Starlight Pet Talk

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:00

What happens when a love for wine and a passion for rescuing dogs comes together. You get Rescue Dog Wines, a company that blends philanthropy and fine wine. In this episode, I'm joined by Blair Lott, co-founder and CEO, whose journey from the music world to winemaking is full of unexpected twists you're not going to want to miss. We'll talk about the challenges of balancing business and a mission, and what's next for Rescue Dog Wines. Stay tuned. You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and my guest today is Blair Lott, and he is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Rescue Dog Wines. And I don't know about you, but I mean to have two things in one bottle that are like your favorite things. How can you do anything wrong with that? But we're going to learn more about it.

Amy Castro: 0:59

Blair spent the first years of his career working in the music world, writing and performing in Athens, Georgia, and then moving to Nashville and later on to Melbourne, Australia. He then transitioned into a career as a consumer insights and digital media consultant. During his three years in Australia, he became immersed in the food and wine scene and intrigued with the idea of making wine his vocation. So, after moving back to Atlanta and marrying his wife, Laura, they decided to move to Northern California to be closer to wine country and Laura's family, and I won't tell any more of a story because I want to hear from Blair as to how did that turn into Rescue Dog Wines. So first, Blair, welcome to the show.

Blair Lott: 1:38

Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you Very, very happy to be here.

Amy Castro: 1:42

Yeah, I'm excited. I had not heard of Rescue Dog Wines, but I'm all in now. So how did you go from deciding oh I think I might want to move to wine country, and I'm really interested in that to starting Rescue Dog Wines with its mission and all that?

Blair Lott: 1:59

Yeah, yeah, definitely. The idea kind of took a life of its own. Initially the plan was just to be growers right, I was going to continue my consulting career and then we were going to go grow grapes. I really was pushing for that to live out in the country, Kind of got tired of living in the Bay Area. Laura not so much, she's more of a city gal. So the deal we kind of came up with that if she could foster dogs, that we would move out to the country.

Blair Lott: 2:28

Yeah. So we looked for properties and even when we were looking for the properties I would always ask about, you know, the grapes, but really it was fostering dogs. It was kind of the top of Laura's mind when we were kind of doing that due diligence around it. We finally found a fantastic property in Lodi and I mentioned along the way about doing a Rescue Dog Wines because of her interest in fostering dogs, and initially she said no. But as we kind of got on the property and saw what it would take, I pitched the idea that as a hobby, I would start this as an online business, and really that's how it started. But, like I said, it kind of took a life of its own.

Amy Castro: 3:11

As do all things that involve dogs, I think, or getting into the rescue life. When it comes to a business, I would think that it might be a struggle and you can tell me it's one thing to be. I'm about money, I'm trying to make business, I'm trying to sell wine, get customers, but it's a whole another ball of wax. I think. When you are mission centric, like you are in you know, basically knowing that the proceeds of your wine are helping save the lives of rescue dogs, how do you find that balance to be a good businessman and a good steward of dog rescue?

Blair Lott: 3:44

Yeah, I mean mission first is really important. We really are a purpose-driven brand. We're not just cause marketing to sell wine. It really the biggest priority to us is being able to help save animal lives and really I think this is. You know, it's a very old business, a very entrenched business. There's a lot of beating your head against the wall. If I was just selling wine, you know, as a newcomer, without a story about how my family had been doing it for generations, I think you know I'd have given up the ghost a while back. But it's the mission that really drives me, gets me up in the morning.

Amy Castro: 4:24

Yeah, that's great. I don't know a lot about the industry, but I know it can be certainly a tough one from a lot of different directions, and so you need something to drive you to keep driving forward. I'm sure how much does the mission impact decisions that you're involved in, as opposed to, maybe, somebody that just has a winery and just sells wine and it's not mission centric? What's different about your day-to-day running of your business?

Blair Lott: 4:49

Yeah, I mean we'd see them as a partner, right, and I think that's kind of unique. And then if we're having a sales meeting and there's a buyer, but the buyer wants a discount and we'll go well, if there's nothing left for the dogs, it's not worth it for us to do right. So having margins to support our mission is always top of mind, and again it goes back to being mission driven why are we doing this? And that really helps guide our choices.

Amy Castro: 5:22

Okay, great. So tell us exactly how does this work, because there's a lot of people that say they give back and it's like such a small amount Not that it doesn't count, but you're exceptional in my experience. Tell us about how that works.

Blair Lott: 5:38

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was definitely baked into the business model, you know, the idea being that if we started this way, it wouldn't hurt, right? If all of a sudden we decided we were going to give a X percentage or whatever. And that was very important to Laura, that we don't just make it some kind of gimmick to sell wine. And not only do I, everyone that works with us gets that. Like I said, when we have sales meetings, the sales guys understand that and it's really, really important and what drives everyone, and we give that in a lot of different ways.

Blair Lott: 6:13

We have done cash donations. What has turned to be in our favorite way to give, but also seems to be the favorite way to receive by the organizations, is us donating wine and sometimes a representative to explain the mission to the rescue organizations. They really love that. They can take a small amount of wine and make a lot of dollars off of that, to the point where we've even had events where they've centered around our wine, maybe paired some food to that and sold tickets in advance for, say, $100, and have a few hundred people, and then, when people get there, they have some wine, they bring out their checkbooks and donate even more, and it's really great to see.

Amy Castro: 6:56

Yeah, serving wine at fundraisers is always a good idea. Loose with the tongue, loose with the pen, loose with the checkbook, it's always good Feeling good about yourself, good about life in general. That's great. So how does that work if I'm going to just go ahead and buy a bottle of wine online? Am I still giving back to rescue pets?

Blair Lott: 7:16

Yeah, absolutely so. 50% of our profits go to rescue dog organizations. As I mentioned before, we really consider rescue dogs as an equal partnership in the business. So that's been from day one and we want to continue that and hopefully one day you know, when I retire and we're gone the company will continue on and maybe potentially do a hundred percent where it's part of a foundation or something like that. Wow, yeah.

Amy Castro: 7:43

It's really something that we or something like that.

Blair Lott: 7:44

Wow, yeah, it's really something that we hope will be around after we're gone.

Amy Castro: 7:50

Yeah, I would hope so. I mean there's got to be somebody else out there other than you and me and your wife. You know that are like dogs wine like you can't. I'm sorry, you just can't go wrong with it. It's just such a great thing. I've seen a lot of fundraising things and I've seen 10% and I've seen you know 1% and I've seen you know it's. It's kind of like some of these online programs for these ginormous companies where, oh, it's the give back program and everybody's all excited about it. And as the receiver, when I get like a half a penny on the dollar, it's, it's nice, but it's not the big thing you think you're accomplishing. I mean, I get $76 a quarter and I'll take it, I'll use it, but I mean 50% is a whole nother ball of wax. So that just shows the commitment to the mission to me.

Blair Lott: 8:35

Yeah, and then we're blessed that we didn't have to get outside investors or anything like that. We don't have stockholders to pay, so it's something that we were capable of doing.

Amy Castro: 8:46

That's awesome. So what year did you start the company?

Blair Lott: 8:50

So we actually formed the corporation in 2017 and then started work on the first wine and then we released it around 4th of July 2018. And at that time it was one blend. We made just a barrel of that and and thought, well, we'd make enough where if we couldn't sell it?

Blair Lott: 9:14

that we could drink it, or give it to our friends, so kind of a a no risk. You know, a startup and I put the first label we had the artist do before the wine was ready, put up on Facebook and at that time, you know, facebook was very organic and within 30 days we had around 10,000 likes or followers. It was just kind of blow your mind, amazing.

Amy Castro: 9:39

I'm telling you you can't go wrong. You can't go wrong with dogs and wine. It's just a, it's a recipe for success. So how have things grown since then? What are the things you've been proudest of, as you've seen the company and the mission grow?

Blair Lott: 9:52

Yeah, I mean it's been kind of nuts because over the first few years we were growing 100% or more every year, with just online sales, moving from one wine to now I think we have close to 10 different wines or different versions of wines, and then we're in retail stores in California and restaurants and stuff. And then we're looking to expand in California and restaurants and stuff, and then we're looking to expand to other states. But really the biggest milestone in my mind that we reached and that was back in September, so very recently we crossed the $100,000 given, and that, to me, is what it's all about. So I'm very proud of that.

Amy Castro: 10:32

In the grand scheme of growing a business. That's not a huge period of time, that's a huge accomplishment.

Blair Lott: 10:37

Yeah, and we're still very small. You've never heard of us, even though you're an active wine drinker and active in the dog community.

Amy Castro: 10:46

Yeah, but I only drink the cheap wine though so I don't drink the good stuff.

Blair Lott: 10:51

I'm no connoisseur, for sure but I am looking forward to trying that wine. Yeah, yeah, hopefully there were some weather issues with the heat getting it to you before the interview, but hopefully you'll get that soon and I think you will enjoy them.

Amy Castro: 11:06

I'll do a non-connoisseurs review after the fact. Now, you definitely don't want that, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So how do you decide who you're going to help, what rescues that you're going to donate to? Is there a process involved in that, or how does it work?

Blair Lott: 11:24

Yeah, and it's definitely evolved. Initially, rescue organizations would email us. 99% of them they find us and we find that that seems to work better, because I tried cold calling some and their initial reaction is what are you trying to sell me? You know what is, what's, what's the? So if they kind of hear from their people and they kind of get their head around it before they reach out to us. But now we have like a web form on our website. They're able to upload their 501Cs and all that information that helps kind of move the process a lot quicker and we're able to vet them very quickly and get them what they need. You know, if they're having an event, I'd like to have them do it maybe three or four weeks in advance. But you know, sometimes we can. If they're close by, we can do it a lot quicker.

Amy Castro: 12:14

Yeah, I mean and I think that's pretty much that's fairly standard. I mean, any organization that you're going to ask to provide product for an event needs a little bit of a heads up. But you are expanded beyond just your local area. You're working with rescues around the country, right?

Blair Lott: 12:30

Yeah, that's correct. So through our compliant shipping system we can get wines to I think it's 47 states and as far as I know, I can't remember turning anyone down as far as what they're asking for. I've had to turn down organizations because they weren't properly set up as a charity and by law they have to for us to donate wine to them. But no, it's really fantastic to how widespread geographically at least, that we can reach and help organizations out and as we grow, that will grow. And that's the really exciting thing about this business is the future and how many animal lives and so many different places we can touch.

Amy Castro: 13:11

Yeah, I mean obviously nobody's expecting you you to run all over the country jumping to everybody's event, but you said that you and your wife have had the opportunity to go to some of the events and really enjoyed that.

Blair Lott: 13:23

Yeah, we really do, and we'd like to do that when we can right, you know, we obviously can't do it everywhere. It seems like we're giving something away on an almost daily basis. Now, it's kind of cool and, like I said, 99% of the organizations are legitimate organizations and I just I will give them something, right, and I don't think I've ever had one that just shopped for the moon or something, asked for something that we couldn't give.

Amy Castro: 13:47

That's good. People aren't being greedy about it.

Blair Lott: 13:51

Exactly, exactly, so yeah.

Amy Castro: 13:53

I'm sure you probably interact with people on the wine side of the industry. Do they think you're nuts for doing this?

Blair Lott: 13:59

Yeah, it really varies. It's a wide variety. I know that I had one with me. But our head of sales in California. He's sitting next to a guy during a sales pitch meeting to a grocery chain and someone from the distributor that was there and that guy's like why do they do this? He just cannot get us. Why would you want to give away your money was basically his point of view. So you have that every now and then.

Amy Castro: 14:53

Yeah, I could see people thinking that it's a significant sum. That's for sure. As far as the feedback that you've gotten from rescues or maybe the events that you've attended, is there anything in particular that jumps out at you that says this right here is what makes it worth it, or this story, or whatever it might be?

Blair Lott: 15:11

Yeah, I mean we love a lot of the facilities, will let us tour and, you know, hold the animals or take pictures with them and seeing how their volunteers, our employees, are so passionate, you know, and we see from one-person organizations to. There's an organization in Southern California I think it's 200 employees and 1,400 volunteers, so we see the gamut right. But as a rule, everyone involved in this calls. They're always down to earth, they're always passionate about what they do and they're great people. So it's the people and the animals, of course, but the people that support the animals that really warm your heart as well.

Amy Castro: 15:54

Yeah, I think it's interesting. You know, having done this rescue work as a volunteer the entire time I mean even you know when I started back volunteering at animal shelter it's like there's a certain level of crazy. You have to have going on to get involved in animal rescue, but money seems to be the furthest from anybody's mind. It's like, you know, I'll do it for free, I'll do it for a crappy salary, when I know I could get a better salary over here. And I think it's just that the mission is so important. I mean, how do you put a price on the life of an animal that relies on humans to stay alive?

Blair Lott: 16:26

Yeah, that's, absolutely so true.

Amy Castro: 16:29

But at the same time I will balance that out with the fact that you've got to be smart about it. Like it would do nobody any good if your winery went out of business because of the philanthropy it's like. Then it's kind of pointless and it's the same thing in rescue. I see some people, whether it's mental or physical, driving themselves in the ground, or driving themselves in the ground financially. At some point you have to create parameters and good practices to make things work. But I think, like you had mentioned a couple of times, the mission is the thing that drives everything.

Blair Lott: 16:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Amy Castro: 17:00

So what does the future hold? Do you have big plans or any exciting changes, new products, new programs that you have lined up for the future?

Blair Lott: 17:10

Yeah, I mean, we had a sweepstakes, that kind of attaches to our holiday, that we celebrate Rescue Dog Month, and we're figuring out how to use that to not only promote our brand but also promote rescue organizations. So it's really about saying, hey, if you're going to adopt a dog, this is a great month to do it kind of thing right. It's starting to get ground. This is a great month to do it kind of thing right. It's starting to gain ground. We're starting to figure out how to do that and kind of lead to the end of the year, which is our biggest selling season, into the holidays Because of the hurricanes. We decided during the month of October because the timing was right there and there was an immediate need that 10% of everything people spend in our online store in October goes directly to a handful of organizations in Florida and North Carolina.

Amy Castro: 18:02

Okay. So that's awesome, and for those of you who are listening to this right now, there's still plenty of October left. No excuses to go ahead and order some wine. I mean, we've all seen the videos, seen the things on the news. I mean it's devastation for humans and animals alike, so I can only imagine. I mean I know what it was like just trying to hold down the fort here at my little rescue ranch during Hurricane Beryl, and you know, let alone, we didn't have any massive damage afterwards. But they're going to definitely use all the help they can get, and you get a bottle of wine for it too.

Blair Lott: 18:35

So you know, everybody wins in that instance. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.

Amy Castro: 18:37

And it is such an immediate need? Yeah, for sure, and we're going to put links and things like that up on our show notes so people can get to your website and, you know, get to more information about what you're doing. What else can people do to help support your cause other than buying wine and, you know, telling their rescue friends? Hey, you need to get connected with rescue dog wines.

Blair Lott: 18:54

Telling their rescue friends. Hey, you need to get connected with rescue dog wines. No, really, it's like be a part of the rescue community, I think. Volunteer your time, open up your checkbooks, all of the above it's such an important need. Spay and neutering very important for specific programs that support that to make the situation more manageable where there's not so many animals out there that get in desperate straits. So I think, yeah, we need to culturally rethink how we think about our pets and our farm animals and stuff like that.

Amy Castro: 19:27

Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's something that we try to stress a lot on this show is that pets are for life and you've got to. You know, you've got to take care of them and the spay and neuter and the, you know vaccination and everything else you know, appropriate to their age and all of that is just so important. But yeah, I know that I know California really struggles, because I think California is the number one state for shelter, euthanasia, and we in Texas are right behind you as far as the hundreds of thousands of animals being euthanized. I think the primary reason is lack of spay and neuter. It's just that perpetual cycle of puppies and kittens being born and not enough people to take them in. So we all need to work on that for sure.

Blair Lott: 20:08

Yeah, no, we'd really love to see where the 100% of the US was no kill, where there was no need for that.

Amy Castro: 20:16

Definitely All right. So now I'm going to get personal. So tell us about. Do you have foster dogs now? Is that where Laura is? She's taking care of those foster dogs while we're on this call.

Blair Lott: 20:27

We are currently between fosters and we recently lost Daisy, but we do have five rescue cats.

Amy Castro: 20:37

Ah, that's right, you said you had your cat guy or you have at the moment, right At the moment, it just again.

Blair Lott: 20:43

It's something that's kind of evolved in its own Three of the cats we found among many cats. Laura got very active with the kind of the trap and neuter program and was able to place most of those kittens, but two of them we were fostering them in Foster Field and then one slightly older cat, about a year old cat. He showed up one day, jumped into my arms oh, wow.

Blair Lott: 21:14

And initially I thought, well, this is a neighbor's cat. But we did all the things that you should do put up posters, took him to see if he had a chip that identified him, and so eventually he ended up, made his way into the house and into our hearts, and then we ended up getting two additional cats. Laura's sister passed away and she had two rescue cats, and so we ended up getting two additional cats. Laura's sister passed away and she had two rescue cats, and so we took those on as well. So we're a quickly growing cat family.

Amy Castro: 21:42

For a couple of years, yeah, you know what that means, though, don't you?

Blair Lott: 21:46

What's that?

Amy Castro: 21:47

You got to start a whole another line of product, rescue cat cheese. Don't they do cheese in California? I mean, I know Wisconsin's cheese, but I know there's cheese.

Blair Lott: 21:56

There is. There is. That's a good idea. We do have one uh, very nice sparkling wine on our website. Only that has a cat, and that was for one of Laura's sisters. It's called the Liesel. Her sister was named Liesel and it was. We did that in her memory.

Amy Castro: 22:13

Oh, that's nice. That's nice. So you do have a cat product. I got to check all the products cause.

Blair Lott: 22:17

I didn't look at.

Amy Castro: 22:18

I didn't look at all of them. I need to check them out. Do you have a favorite product, Like if somebody was like I can only do, let's say, two bottles of wine. I'm going to order two bottles of wine to check it out what's your, what's your go-to.

Blair Lott: 22:31

I love our Cabernet.

Amy Castro: 22:31

I'm a Cabernet drinker, you're a Cab guy, okay.

Blair Lott: 22:34

And I really, yeah, I think our Cabernet will stand up against anything from Napa, and it's just, it's exquisite.

Amy Castro: 22:43

Nice? All right, I'll have to check that out. What about on the white side, because I'm more of a white wine drinker.

Blair Lott: 22:49

I really like the Sab Blanc.

Amy Castro: 22:51

I'm writing this down, by the way.

Blair Lott: 22:54

Yeah, one of the first wines I was introduced as a young man was I took a trip to Europe and Sainte-Blanc. It's a Sainte-Blanc basically from the Rhone wine region and Lodi has a very similar climate, so it presents itself very similar to those wines. Instead of being like a New Zealand Sablan, it has a very floral nose, cut grass, Anyways, it's almost like a different wine compared to even coastal Sablans in California or New Zealand. It's very much more like it's a hot Mediterranean climate, like where Sancerre is, and it's very similar wine and I love it In the summertime. Yeah, great, by the pool. It's very refreshing.

Amy Castro: 23:39

That's what I was thinking when you were talking about cut grass and all that. I'm like oh, that sounds like a good summer wine for me there.

Blair Lott: 23:45

Yeah, for sure.

Amy Castro: 23:46

Although I'm in Texas, so it's summer all year round. I can drink it whenever I want, for the most part.

Blair Lott: 23:52

That's right.

Amy Castro: 23:54

All right. So my last question. I don't know if this is going to be a clunker or not, but if Rescue Dog Wines was a breed of dog, what breed of dog do you think represents the wine and why?

Blair Lott: 24:06

Yeah, I'm going to have to say Boxer Daisy was a boxer and she was truly the inspiration for the brand and she really taught us the value of a rescue animal and was a great companion for 15 years to Laura and myself, and so just a fantastic animal, and I think she was probably a year old or more when Laura found her. So, yeah, she changed our lives.

Amy Castro: 24:33

Awesome, that's great. Well, golly, Blair, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm so glad for the opportunity to hear about the wine. I can't wait to get it and try it, to learn more about the mission. I can only imagine being on the inside of a rescue all the amazing impact that your generosity has had on the rescues who've been involved with you. So thank you for not only being here, but for you and your wife. Tell her thank you as well for everything that you do for rescue animals.

Blair Lott: 25:02

Well, thank you so much for having us and helping us spread the word.

Amy Castro: 25:06

All right, awesome. And thank you again to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. Don't forget to check out those show notes and don't wait, don't say I'm going to do that later. Go do it now, because we're we have that special opportunity to help people in Florida and in North Carolina the rescues that have been impacted there by checking out the wine, buying it now, before the end of the month, to have that extra give involved. So make sure you check that out today, as soon as you're done listening. So make sure you check that out today, as soon as you're done listening. And again, thank you for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. We'll see you next week. As we close out today's episode, I want to make sure that you realize that the journey doesn't end here. We have tons of information for you in our show notes, including additional resources, links that you can get further information, and sometimes we might even have some surprises there for you as well. Keep in mind, too, that our conversation is a two-way street. This is your show, too, and we want you to get involved If you have questions stirring in your mind, ideas you're burning to share or a story that you think the world needs to hear.

Amy Castro: 26:06

Don't keep it to yourself. Let us know about it. Your thoughts, your questions and your ideas are the lifeblood of the show, and we cannot wait to hear them. You can find all the ways to contact us in the show notes or on our website. So don't be a stranger. Drop us a line, send us a note, send us a voicemail, get in touch on social media. Let's keep this conversation going and build a community that's driven by curiosity, empathy, understanding and our shared love of pets. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk and if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.