All in the family: Coutinhos purchase Avondale Sky Winery
Roles, responsibilities match with individual business strengths
Perhaps the greatest selling point was that they could all get involved in the venture together, as a family.
The Coutinhos — Avila, Louis, Karl, Jaime and Sean — have purchased the award-winning Avondale Sky Winery from Stewart Creaser and Lorraine Vassallo.
Karl Coutinho said they are very excited to be embarking on the family venture. He will serve as the president and operations manager while his brother, Sean, will be the winery’s vice president and general manager.
Karl said he and Sean had always talked about getting into business together. They wanted to find an established enterprise instead of starting a new one, so they could take advantage of what already worked and focus on growth. The burgeoning grape and wine industries employ a lot of people in Nova Scotia and Karl said it’s “kind of a cool industry to be in.”
Karl got his name on an email list to be notified of existing businesses that were for sale and the opportunity to purchase Avondale Sky Winery presented itself. The Coutinhos don’t consider themselves wine experts, but they have business backgrounds. Each brings a unique set of skills to the table and each represents a different demographic.
“With both of my parents recently retiring, I thought this might be an opportunity for all of us to take it on,” Karl said.
The family patriarch, Louis, said they each have individual strengths. For example, Sean has marketing expertise; Karl knows finance, daughter-in-law Jaime is a social media guru and will run the wine club and the family matriarch, Avila, is skilled in accounting. Louis will focus on the vineyard.
Karl said they look forward to learning more about the industry and they want to make the winery even more of a destination. They plan to keep key staff members around to help them continue to produce and sell Avondale Sky vintages.
He said the winery has its own niche market and following. Although it is somewhat “off the beaten path”, they are particularly fond of the location and they won’t get lost in the shuffle with other Annapolis Valley vineyards.
They appreciate the history of the area and they recognize that the opportunity to buy an established winery doesn’t come along very often. They see great value with the land, buildings, staff and inventory.
“We believe in some of the values that they’ve got here, to be more ecologically friendly and to reuse and repurpose things, like they have with the church here that they floated down from Walton, Nova Scotia,” Karl said.
His parents live in Windsor and he lives in Hammonds Plains, so it’s probably the closest winery to them and to the Halifax Regional Municipality. As general manager, Sean will live on-site. Karl said the venture would serve to keep them all closer together than they have been in many years.
Although they recognize that it will be hard work, Karl said, “We hope we can live the theme that if you do something you love every day, you don’t work a day in your life.”
Sean said their parents were considering buying a hobby farm at one point but when the opportunity came up to buy the winery, they decided to run with it.
He has been involved with several businesses and has worked as a business advisor in the past. Sean sees the project as a convergence of various passions and getting to work with his family is the icing on the cake.
He enjoys working with people and looks forward to interacting with the staff and customers. Sean is also enjoying the learning curve involved. When taking an introductory sommeliers course, he began to realize “how much of a passion I have for the wine industry and the making and tasting of different kinds of wine.”
Karl said his parents have done a lot of networking and volunteering in the area, having lived in Windsor for about 15 years now. Louis is the former chief administrative officer for the Town of Windsor.
Louis said they want to work with and engage the community in what they’re doing. The Newport Landing and Avondale areas have a lot to offer visitors, including ecotourism. He hopes those who come to Avondale Sky will take time to visit local farms and other attractions and take part in other activities.
“There’s a lot of good things happening here,” Louis said. “If we can do anything for the local economy, that will be one of the things that we will be working hard at.”
Avila said they have met the staff and several community members. She considers them “a wonderful group of people” and she is pleased that she and Louis can continue to live in Windsor.
Former owner Stewart Creaser said they are very pleased that the winery will be continuing as a family owned and operated enterprise and they “look forward to seeing the winery continuing with its focus on local and sustainable growth.”