Will this new Sonoma County wine be a hit with millennials?

The label Billy D. Wines, produced in Sonoma County, is a new arrival on many retail shelves, and the vintner behind it hopes it will pique the interest of millennials, a sought-after market, for its unique varietals and its eco-savvy 500-ml bottlings.

“There comes a time when there’s a need for some disruption,” said vintner Billy Davies. “We can’t let wine disappear with seltzers and liquors. Wine has a great story. If we want to make wine provocative going forward, we have to do something else.”

Millennials, ages 25 to 40, are estimated at 1.8 billion worldwide and vintners like Davies are competing to snag the market share of the largest generational group on the globe.

“Craft cocktails are making a resurgence, and you can see the theater of the bartender making the cocktail,” Davies said. “Why would I want to pay $16 for a glass of pinot noir?”

Indeed, the competition for millennial dollars is fierce, according to wine analysts like Rob McMillan, author of Silicon Valley Bank’s highly regarded annual “State of the Wine Industry Report.”

McMillan said health-conscious, budget-savvy millennials aren’t drinking as much wine as expected and they’re often substituting craft beers and craft spirits for wine.

“In a way, we’re getting beat by non-wine alternatives like seltzers and craft cocktails,” Davies said.

In the past, wine coolers and “fighting varietals” were the gateway to wine. Fighting varietals are mainstream varietals like chardonnay and cabernet priced at roughly $5 to $7, a step above jug wine and just below the less-expensive estate-bottled varietals.

Billy D. Wines, Davies said, are a portal to wine because they’re budget-wise, low-alcohol everyday libations.

Bucking convention

Davies, 59, is the oldest son of the late Jack and Jamie Davies, the vintners of Calistoga’s Schramsberg Vineyards. A billy goat is the logo of his private label; it’s a nod to millennials he’s bucking convention.

Over coffee at the Calistoga Roastery, Davies shares his lineup of wines. His salt-and-pepper hair is more salt than pepper, but he has a boyish grin and visible enthusiasm when he talks about Billy D. Wines.

The label features three uncommon varietals — French Colombard, a rosé of valdiguie and a mountain barbera — in 500-ml bottles with prices ranging from $11 to $13.

The alcohol levels for the French Colombard and the rosé of valdiguie are 11.5%, with the mountain barbera at 14.1%.

“You can actually drink this wine and not need a wheelchair and not get a DUI,” Davies joked.

Five-hundred-ml bottles, which serve three to four glasses of wine, are scarce on retail shelves. They only account for 1% of the market, with the standard 750-ml dominating at 74%, according to Nielson, the company that tracks consumer behavior.

“There’s very little marketed in 500-ml bottlings, but they allow people to try more wine at a lower cost,” Davies said. “I call it the cafe bottle because it’s a nice size for two.”

Local retailers said they’re happy to be the litmus test of this label’s popularity. It’s already drawing attention, they said.

“I’m carrying the label partly because it’s novel but the wine is also good,” said Barry Herbst, wine director of Santa Rosa’s Bottle Barn. “It’s a little early to tell if it’s popular with millennials, but I think it is. They are really drawn to what’s new or different like cans, orange wines or petillant natural (sparkling wine).”

Matt Smith, owner of Sunshine Foods in St. Helena, said he’s excited to have the label on his shelves because it stands out, since few domestic brands use the 500-ml bottles.

“I would expect the label to be popular with millennials, but I don’t have much feedback from that particular group,” he said. “Those I have access to say they like the eco benefits because the packaging offers a reduced carbon footprint.”

The entrepreneur gene

It’s not surprising that growing up on a mountain vineyard with two entrepreneurial parents would inspire Davies to be just as undaunted as they were.

“It’s just fate or DNA, but I just wanted to create something from scratch,” Davies said. “I’m like my mom and my dad.”

Davies’ family moved to Calistoga from Los Angeles in 1965 after purchasing Schramsberg, a neglected winery dating back to 1875, even though his parents had no formal training in winemaking. The Victorian home on the property was full of bats, but Davies’ parents had a vision to create an American version of Champagne.

While a few wineries in the region were making sparkling wine with the traditional French method, no one else was using the classic Champagne varieties of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier.

Davies recalled the phone call that changed everything. It was 1972 and his mother picked up the phone, mounted on the wall in their olive green kitchen. Her friend Annie Carpy of Freemark Abby was on the line and said Barbara Walters just told the world that President Nixon uncorked a bottle of Schramsberg to toast peace with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

“It was really something that these two superpowers were toasting with a California sparkling wine,” Davies said. “Napa wine was hardly on the radar at that time.”

A week earlier, Davies helped his dad deliver the sparkling wine to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield.

“I didn’t know why we were doing it,” Davies said. “We hand-delivered the Champagne in our humble ’69 beige Chevy Nomad Station Wagon. We drove on the tarmac and the uniformed guys saluted us and took the cases on their military plane.”

Davies smiled, recounting how the wine delivered that day ultimately made their house a crossroads for some of the most interesting people in the world.

“You could never recreate the cast of characters that came through our house,” Davies said. “Ernest Gallo, Julia Child, Robert Mondavi and Beverly Sills.”

Andre Tchelistcheff, most notable for defining the style of California's cabernet sauvignon, also performed puppet shows for Davies and his brothers John and Hugh at the hearth in front of their fireplace.

The vintner often heard that there were 12 operating wineries in Napa Valley when his parents began their venture in the mid 1960s. He has watched as Napa Valley cultivated its prestige, ultimately becoming ground zero for cabernets with cult-like popularity. But today, the vintner said, provocative wine is needed to keep people coming back for more.

“Rob McMillan is armed with more data than most people and he’s asking us to recognize the signs that selling $200 cabernets are slowing down,” Davies said. “The big question continues to be, ‘How can we get more people on the escalator to wine?’”

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.