Grad’s career takes tasty turn in Washington grape country

Grad's career takes tasty turn in Washington grape country

When Corey Braunel graduated from UW-La Crosse with a bachelor's degree in management, the notion that he would soon be running a winery seemed roughly as plausible as him landing a job on the moon.

But after several years in the pharmaceutical sales industry, and after many client dinners during which he slowly became fascinated with wine, Braunel, '97, took a leap his younger self would have never predicted.

He and his wife, Cindy - along with his brother-in-law, Chad Johnson, and Johnson's wife, Janet - uprooted their lives and moved to grape-laden Walla Walla Valley in southeastern Washington, where they founded Dusted Valley Wines.

Today, 23 years later, the couples manage three estate vineyards and two tasting rooms where they entertain family, friends and customers. Through the years, Dusted Valley has garnered glowing reviews from magazines and wine critics up and down the West Coast, and has raked in awards at several top wine competitions.

"I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams that this is where my path would lead, but I think the message here is that there are a lot of ways you can use your degree," says Braunel, who will discuss his experiences April 10 at UWL, part of the College of Business Administration's Benson First Friday Lecture Series.

The ironic part of Braunel's story, he shares, is "that for the first 10 years of my career, in sales, I didn't draw very much from my business degree. But over the past 23 years in the wine industry, my business degree has really come into its own. It's something I use on a daily basis."

Braunel oversees many of the company's administrative functions, including human resources, budgeting and financing, and forecasting challenges and opportunities within the industry.

But he also brings a grounded, intuitive approach to the agricultural side of winemaking, which he attributes to growing up on a ginseng farm in Marathon City, Wisconsin.

Braunel and his family continue to embrace their Wisconsin farming heritage, even using wine barrels crafted from oak trees grown in their native part of the Badger State.

"Growing up in northern Wisconsin around specialty agriculture, I think I subconsciously developed a good intuition about agricultural farming," he says. "I've had colleagues and other winegrowers acknowledge that in me, even if it's hard for me to see those direct lines myself. I just took it for granted as part of who I am."

He also absorbed his parents' entrepreneurial spirit.

"Having grown up in ginseng in an entrepreneurial family, I think I was getting practice at being an entrepreneur before I even knew how to say the word," Braunel jokes. "That mindset really spoke to me, and it's what led me to pursue my business degree."

Braunel and his family partners have nurtured Dusted Valley from an ambitious vision to a thriving, personally fulfilling business - one that annually produces more than 6,000 cases of wine, which are sold directly to consumers, as well as to restaurants and retailers across the United States.

Braunel takes an artist's pride in his craft, in his involvement in the business from grape to glass.

Together with a small team of full-time and seasonal employees, the family grows and harvests the grapes, processes the grapes into wine, ages and bottles the wine, markets the wine, and finally, sells and distributes the wine.

"The year, the place, the climate, the growing season - there are so many factors that dictate what wine will taste like," Braunel says. "It's less about food science and more about agriculture and art. That's the part that's super intriguing to me, that captures my imagination."

The duality of the work - studying financial documents one minute, getting his hands dirty in the field the next - satisfies both Braunel's passion for business-building and his familial affinity for working the land.

It also holds a lesson, he says, for students preparing to embark on their futures.

"You may have this idea of a perfect job and a perfect company that you see yourself fitting into," he says. "But the important thing is to get started and put yourself out there. It's OK to swing a hammer. It's OK to push a broom. Your path may lead to places you didn't expect."