Backhoes and Pinots: An unusual pairing

When you think of excavating, a waft of blackberry and cassis doesn’t envelop your nose any more than the fresh aroma of sweet apple-pear topped with delicate floral notes do. A vision of aged vines and fermented grapes certainly don’t dance in your head. And the corners of your mouth probably don’t reach toward your ears when the word is mentioned on a Friday afternoon in the office.

No, more than likely, when you think of excavating you think of rocks, soil, bulldozers, backhoes, and the crew you drove by on Wollaston, Grange, or Willis Point — with an aroma unique to a hard day’s worth of work. Or, perhaps, you’re more familiar with the trade and zero in on geodetic elevations, trench shoring, and rock bolting....

Layman or technical, the descriptive text and senses evoked by excavating and wine are, unsurprisingly, not the same. However, the business operations are not that dissimilar, beginning with the very essence of excavating: site preparation. If you want a pool built on your property, an addition to your home, or a vineyard planted on acreage, you must excavate. A strong foundation is integral for growth and if you don’t plough you can’t grow, right? Beyond the foundation, you need to establish yourself as a reliable service or product and market your brand as the go-to above all other competition. This rings as true for construction companies as it does for wineries, where loyalty is more than a fairy-tale marriage away.

Nearly half a decade ago Mike Rathjen and Colin Mann, president of Don Mann Excavating, met to discuss what would eventually be their next business endeavour. They shared a hobby and a history of farming and possessed skills that would complement each other’s in the business world.

“I was making apple cider for years with a group of friends, and then a mutual friend introduced me to Mike,” says Colin. “I always wanted to do a business venture in the food or drink industry, but I didn’t have the time to do it. Mike had the time, but he didn’t have some of the other resources needed to start a business. So, we moved forward from there to create Rathjen Cellars, which is still in its infancy.”

Mike grew up in and amongst orchards and vineyards and it was that early exposure to farming and production that sparked a lifelong passion for cider- and wine-making. After university, he moved up Island where he once again had access to farmland.

“My folks made a year supply of apple juice each fall, so we had this crazy production thing going on at the carport” says Mike. “It was just like what we do at the winery now.”

Three years after breaking ground on a leased lot in Saanich, Colin and Mike have opened the doors of their tasting room to local libation lovers. But it didn’t come without growing pains, starting with access to producing vineyards. Rathjen wines are 100 per cent locally-sourced and according to the Wine BC website, Vancouver Island’s wine region is home to only four per cent of BC’s vineyards, with a total of 32 licensed wineries as of early 2019.

“We represent the second generation taking over this vineyard and we’ve had five from the peninsula basically dropped in our laps since we planted this one,” explains Mike.

It takes approximately seven years for newly-planted vines to establish permanent roots, with some winemakers suggesting that the optimum winemaking life of a vine is between 20 and 40 years.

By accepting some hand-me-downs and connecting with owners of older vineyards in the Cowichan Valley, Colin and Mike have begun to establish themselves in the local wine community with only a few years under their belt. Still, the reputation of Vancouver Island wine remains to be a barrier. In the eyes of many consumers Island wine pales in comparison to the rest of the Pacific Northwest, never mind the rest of the world, simply because its relatively new to the game and much smaller in scale.

“The joke amongst the Vancouver Island wineries is that if you put all our production together, we’re only a medium-sized Okanagan winery, and we think we’re a wine region,” Mike says with a laugh. “We think of the Okanagan as our big brother — they’re 300 wineries and we’re pushing 30. We’re 20 years behind them, and the Okanagan is 20 years behind California.”

Obstacles aside, varieties that do better in cooler climates, like the Pinot Noir, are earning a reputation within the local community of oenophiles, as word of Cowichan Valley wine travels beyond the soil its vines grow on. Other wines that do well on the Island include the Pinot Gris, Gamay Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, to name a few. At Rathjen, like several other local wineries, you will also see some lesser-known varieties like the Petit Milo, Epicure, or Schönburger. These offbeat varieties are harder to market, but when consumers take to it efforts made feel that much more worthwhile. One such variety is the Ortego: deemed the darling white grape on the Island, according to Mike.

“Mike really is the talent and the brain behind the operations,” Colin says humbly.

While Mike may have more experience on the production side of things, Colin shares a passion for the vine and brings decades of business experience and support of local connections, including his family. When asked if his family takes part in production, he replies with a chuckle: “The rest of the Manns are not involved in the winery, but definitely involved in the business. They all enjoy drinking the wine.”

In the wine world, much like the construction world, to be a successful business long term you need resiliency and ingenuity to make hay when the sun shines and stand your ground when the market softens. As both businesses are cyclical in nature, showing trends in market demands, and both are ruled by certain environmental factors, it’s as important to prepare for the highs as it is to prepare for the lows.

“As far as the weather goes, there’s always a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C,” explains Colin. “Plan A is that weather is fantastic and the grapes ripen till they’re full and you make wine. But there’s always a Plan B and a Plan C.”

While Colin was clearly referring to the wine business, this also rings true for civil construction. A project could see a substantial cost increase should a delay in schedule for any amount of time occur, whether that’s due to inclement weather, a labour shortage, a highway closure blocking fill site access, or strict municipal or regional district requirements.

As Colin pointed out, if you don’t have a Plan B and a Plan C, you really don’t know shit about business. While that’s far from verbatim, you can take from that a straight up lesson in preparing for contingencies. Both the world of wine, and the world of construction, are bursting with variables that could dramatically shift one’s well-planned schedule and per-contract agreement. From day to day and year to year, these obstacles are inevitable. It’s how you manage them that separates the good from the great, the sustained from the has-beens.

“Something we’ve always done well at Don Mann is adapt to the industry. We specialize in a few different things that excavating equipment can do,” says Colin. “So, if the multifamily residential side is booming, we focus on that type of work. In times when recessions hit, and there isn’t much residential or multi-family work, we shift our focus to government or institutional work: roads, bridges, and installation of underground utilities. We can shift focus depending on what the economy is doing, and that’s allowed us to stay competitive and stay strong even through the hard times.”

And we all know that the hard times do come. But, sometimes, you just need to look to your foundation to find the answer.

Over half a century ago, it all started with a man(n) and a farm tractor in the Saanich Peninsula.

“In 1947, Don Mann took his farm tractor and started turning up fields,” says Colin. “And then he bought a backhoe and started doing excavations, putting pipe underground. It evolved from there to what it is now. My father [Steve Mann] took over in the late ‘60s and is still a partner with us today.”

Colin, his brother Jordan, and his cousin Trevor took over the family business in 2017, making it a third-generation operation. With a business degree, major in finance, Colin took over his father’s duties and officially assumed the role of company president. But it took him many years at Don Mann to earn that title, having been a dispatcher and an estimator beforehand.

“In a small family business, you have to wear many hats,” he says. “On Thursday and Friday, I was excavating. Today, I’ll be in various offices around town. So, I do everything from moving dirt to meeting with bankers and lawyers.”

While you may not consider Don Mann a small family business anymore, it’s decidedly all relative. Orange is a familiar colour throughout the Capital Regional District and the Mann’s retro rebrand didn’t go unnoticed but, at the end of the day, they’re still family owned-and-operated — and we’re all looking to grow. And so, the story continues, as Colin wears yet another hat in another business, as co-owner of Rathjen Cellars. Learn more about their wines on Facebook or on their website at rathjencellars.com.

78 Vancouver Island Construction Association 2019