AMERICAN CENTURY CHAMPIONSHIP

July 16, 2009

Dick Vermeil

THE MODERATOR: Dick, welcome. As everyone knows, Dick is a Northern California lad, has a great record over the years coaching with the Rams, coaching with UCLA, and probably more fame than ever with the Philadelphia Eagles, taking them to the Super Bowl in 1980. After that, a great television career on CBS and ABC. And, Dick, welcome to the world of NBC.
DICK VERMEIL: I never worked for NBC. They were smart. (Laughter).
THE MODERATOR: And you're up here today to talk a little bit about some vintage.
DICK VERMEIL: Well, we're serving Vermeil Wines at the dinner tonight. And since 1999 I've been involved with a hobby of making Jean Louie Vermeil cabernet in Calistoga, my hometown, born and raised in Napa Valley. I was born in my great-grandfather's home, his summer home.
We've been making this wine. And some friends of mine said, "The wine is outstanding, let's turn it into a business." I'm not a businessman. I said, "But if you guys want to do it, let's do it."
So last fall we hired a general manager named Tom Ward, hired the winemaker on a full-time basis, Paul Smith, from On The Edge Winery. Signed some contracts for long-term agreements on some grapes out of the Frediani Vineyard on the Silverado Trail there in Calistoga, and started producing more wine.
And then we bought out the stock of the winery, all the barrels they had of wine already produced and aging in oak barrels.
And so we have about 200 barrels of wine right now. We're in the process of bottling under the Vermeil label. Before only the cabernet was under the Vermeil label.
And we'll probably produce about 2,000 cases of wine this year. About 1800 last year, which is the first vintage of everything being under the Vermeil label. Cabernet is our lead bottle of wine. Robert Parker gave the 2002 a 93 rating. And he's a very astute critic of wine.
And we think we make good wine. We have two Zinfandels; one from a 1976 vineyard. Some from a 1908 Luvisi vineyard. We have a Charbonneau, Cabernet Franc, a Syrah and a Sauvignon Blanc. A lot depends on the grapes that are available from the Frediani vineyard. The tonnage that we can get will determine the volume that we produce that year.
But last year we produced I think around 18.5, 1900 cases of wine and varieties of what I just spoke.
In fact, now Trent Green, playing in the tournament today, will be wearing one of these shirts because he's a partner in the winery. Todd Collins is a partner, another quarterback. I invited my quarterbacks if they would like to be involved. And Jaworski said he's coming on, but I haven't seen his check.

Q. What about Kurt Warner?
DICK VERMEIL: I invited Kurt, but I don't think he's going to get involved. But anyway, Trent, who is playing here, is involved. And he's going to help us tonight promoting our product and get it out and let it be known it's no longer just a hobby, it's a business.

Q. Professional golfers, they've gotten bitten by the wine bug. Greg Norman has his.
DICK VERMEIL: Very successful.

Q. Ernie Els and Duffy Waldorf is a big-time wine connoisseur. What is it about that, the wine business that attracts not only professional golfers but athletes in general? Is it because they always taste it when they have a fine steak or something like that?
DICK VERMEIL: I can't speak for what attracted them. I can speak for what attracted me. My great-grandfather's summer home was in Calistoga. He was very successful in business in San Francisco on the Italian side of my family.
And he owned a large piece of vineyard up there. And he had what they call the Calistoga Wine Company. So the interest has been in my family. Then on the French side of my family, the Vermeil side, my grandfather Vermeil made all the family wines.
And as a young child, prior to really going to work in my dad's garage, I helped my grandfather as did my brother, do some of the heavy lifting in making wines.
And so I've had that interest. And when you're raised in a small town, we had 1800 people in the town at that time and your friends were involved, so you always had that interest.
And I think it sort of gets in your blood. Of course you drink it. It's in your blood. I had a choice between milk and wine as a child.
So it's a part of a meal, rather than an alcoholic beverage, and I look at it differently. When I get back to the Napa Valley I know why so many people go there and spend weekends and get involved and excited about the wineries and the tasting wines and the business, because it's a slow-down, casual, warm but serious way to live in terms of the wine business up there.
People are very, very friendly. One of the greatest gifts you can give somebody is a bottle of wine. Why? They drink it. Especially if you made it yourself or your name's on it. And I, over the last, since '99, have probably given away more wine Vermeil Wines than I have consumed myself, and charities and everything else.
But I think it's an atmosphere of togetherness. And even though the wineries compete to sell their wines, they work together. It's a great whole some atmosphere, and I think people that come into that area feel it. Plus it's a beautiful place. The Napa Valley is as nice a place -- it's equivalent to this in a different environment.

Q. Dick, you mentioned a little bit earlier that your wines are going to be served with the American Century dinner tonight. And 400 folks will be over here for dinner at Edgewood. How did you originally get hooked up with the American Century folks?
DICK VERMEIL: Good question. American Century are Kansas City people. And I lived in a condo in the Plaza on the first floor up. I looked out the window, I looked at their building.
They have an unbelievable reputation in Kansas City for philanthropy and being involved. They were deeply involved in a charity called Operation Breakthrough that my wife was deeply involved, a daycare center for 600 kids out of the ghettos of Kansas City. They were deeply involved.
I've been involved with their company in terms of the support of that organization and just always knew about what they were doing for other people of need in that community. They have a tremendous reputation and tremendous credibility. But I didn't realize that they are as big as they are.
When I get here, meet guys from San Francisco and business and around the country, I didn't realize they were that big. And Carl Peterson, who was the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, president of the Kansas City Chiefs for 21 years, knows these people. He's a partner in this winery with me and has been all along.
So he talked to them. He said, "You know, why don't you let us bring up our wine." They said great. So I met some of the people here last night from the organization. And we're here and we'll serve a Vermeil Cabernet. We'll serve the Vermeil Zinfandel, the '05 vintage, which I haven't tasted myself yet. And we'll serve a Sauvignon Blanc. We brought up 14 cases of wine. The way that party was going last night, I don't know if that will last.

Q. How many cases of wine are out there for this group tonight?
DICK VERMEIL: I tell you, we don't have a lot of wine. But there will be enough to have a good sampling of what we're doing. And I think they'll leave with a real appreciation and respect for Paul Smith's winemaking ability.

Q. A lot of folks in Lake Tahoe really enjoy going down to the Eldorado Hills, Napa and Sonoma being so close to us, what is your idea for some marketing? Are you going to open up the winery for tours, et cetera, that kind of thing?
DICK VERMEIL: Our winery is not the kind of winery right now that you tour. It's up on the side hill below Pride Mountain up on top, which is a big beautiful winery and very successful winery.
This is a home, a family home with the basement built and designed to be a winery for about 700 cases. And it got much bigger than that. We outgrew the facility.
What we plan to do, if we find out we can be successful in winemaking, we will then go ahead and build a winery, preferably on the Silverado Trail there.
But the wine tasting room has been totally remodeled in Calistoga, very nice room. Made it a sports memorabilia room, too. Rather than being the typical wine room with wine bottles, there's wine bottles, but you'll see a lot of pictures from my career and other people in Calistoga, and sort of the history of the wine venture between the Vermeils and the Fredianis over the years.
It will be a little different. But it's a beautiful place. On Lincoln Avenue just before you go over the Napa River Bridge in Calistoga. But people enjoy visiting there.

Q. Did spending time in Philadelphia, did that kind of enhance your wine knowledge, with a lot of the Italian flavor in Philadelphia?
DICK VERMEIL: You know what's amazing about traveling around the country like I've had the opportunity, when people know you like wine, you get invited to some of the greatest dinners and wine tastings in the country. I've been invited to wine tastings. I meet Napa Valley wine growers that are there showing their wines.
And I'm going to tell you, there's 50 different wineries there and I'm tasting. But the dinners in Kansas City -- I tend to end up -- the only people I know outside of football coaching are people that deal in buying and selling and drinking wines and eating good food wrapped around it.
So that's been a real positive, regardless of where I was.

Q. It's a real nice family tie-in. Spend time with family and friends.
DICK VERMEIL: It really is. Very much so.

Q. Is it true, I heard from a friend of yours that your father got sent home from school with wine?
DICK VERMEIL: That's a true story. In junior high school. He was like a sixth or seventh grader. Jean Louie Vermeil is my dad's name. Vermeil, really. And Jean is J-e-a-n. And his great-grandfather came over from France. His great-grandfather came over from Italy. They drank wine.
And my grandparents put wine in his thermos. True story. And my dad always used to love telling that story. They found out, when he poured this stuff in the cap of his thermos bottle it was not white, it was red. And so they sent him home from school. I think he was about a sixth or seventh grader at the time.
It wasn't much. It was just a little bit. But they believed you should drink wine with your meal.

Q. Did your family also coach at times throughout your life, as you mentioned your grandfather and your father growing up, did your family ever make wine in the basement like a lot of families?
DICK VERMEIL: That's how my grandfather Vermeil did it. He made it in the basement. In the basement. In fact, he moved wine from barrel to barrel based on the moons. It was a process that came from Gautier (phonetic} France, from his descendants and his family.
This is how they did it. And he wouldn't move according to what -- he would move it according to the moons, the different times of year.

Q. Favorite flavor?
DICK VERMEIL: Cabernet.

Q. Franc?
DICK VERMEIL: That's very good. It's normally a blend. The first person that ever bottled Cabernet Franc in a bottle was Gene Frediani, who owns the vineyard I'm involved in, in 1978. He passed away that same year.
So it never materialized. I still have some Cabernet Franc in my basement. The 1978 Palisades Winery, it was called. But he passed away and the whole process disintegrated. But now there are Cabernet Francs, like Charbonneau.
There's only 70 some acres of Charbonneau in the entire United States. And I think nine acres of it are on the Frediani Vineyard properties. It's an outstanding red wine, but people don't know much about it. Once they drink it, they like it.

Q. Are you going to bring that back to life, Coach?
DICK VERMEIL: Yes. Definitely. In fact, ladies like sometimes different wines over other wines. And my wife, when I go, she usually gets together with three or four gals. And I say, "What bottle of wine?" She'll take a Syrah or a Charbonneau. Whenever she takes a Charbonneau, they go through that thing like it's orange juice. Women like it. They like it. It's rich. Goes great with pastas and red sauces.

Q. Can we get you up here to play golf?
DICK VERMEIL: The last time I played golf here was Bill Walsh. He was over on the other side, Squaw Valley. Remember he had a home right on the lake and boat and everything. We used to come up and spend time with him. That's the last time I played golf in Tahoe. It's a great memory. Bill was a left-handed golfer. And he was better than I was and I'm bad.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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