Meet Heidi Moore: Wine Insurance Specialist and Host of "Wine Crush"
This interview has been edited for clarity and was featured in the March 15, 2023 issue of Merobebe.
Heidi Moore
Hi, my name is Heidi Moore. I am not only an insurance agent [who specializes] in the wine industry and the craft beverage industry, but I have a podcast called Wine Crush that is all about the stories of winemakers [and] the wine industry in the Northwest.
Merobebe
How long have you been in the Northwest?
Heidi Moore
I grew up in Tillamook. I'm a dairy farmer's kid, and I am 4th generation dairy. Not proud of it at the time, but I’m very proud of it now. I ended up in Willamette Valley for college so I could play tennis at Linfield, even though that wasn't my original goal. I wanted to be a marine zoologist at Oregon State, but I get really seasick so being a marine zoologist was not really a good idea for me. So tennis trumped the whales, and I ended up at Linfield University in McMinnville and never left.
Merobebe
What interested you in wine – other than obviously everyone loves drinking wine!
Heidi Moore
Here's the funny story about that. Working for the [insurance] company I do, after you have established yourself, they let you have a little bit more freedom as far as what you can do for work. I always wanted to specialize in something and be good at something, and be really known for it. My initial gut reaction was, okay, I'm going to specialize in dairy because I know dairy cows and I know that industry well. But it’s kind of a dying breed, which is sad to say. It's just not as prolific as it used to be.
So I'm like, okay, what's next? Well, I really like to drink beer, and I knew we had a beer policy being created. I also knew we had a wine policy being created, but I did not drink wine at all. I really didn't like it and had this negative connotation about it. Hollywood has done a really good job of putting wine on this elitist spectrum, where if you don't swirl the wine and you don't smell it right, then you're not doing it right. And I'm a do it right or don’t do it at all kind of person.
I'd go to a tasting room and they’d say, “you need to smell strawberries and tobacco in this wine” but I didn't smell any of that. I'm like, no, just give me a beer. I know exactly what to expect with a beer and at work, I was expecting the beer policy to come first. But it didn't. They brought the wine policy first and I'm like, well crap, I guess I’m drinking wine!
I didn't know jack squat about the stuff other than it's expensive and I didn't like it. Linfield, which is my alma mater, a small liberal arts college here in McMinnville, created this Northwest wine program that is more about the business side of wine. My professor in college was the one that helped start that and organize it, so I called him. I'm like, can you please explain this wine thing to me? Is this a good idea to specialize in the wine industry on the insurance side, or am I barking up the wrong tree? And he said the wine industry in Oregon is young and there aren't these niches coming out yet. This is the time for you to really step into this niche and own it if you want to.
From there, he introduced me to the director of the program who at the time was Ellen Brittan, who is a phenomenal lady. She's just amazing. She spent a couple of hours with me and told me all the pain points of the wine industry when it came to insurance, and what they’ve experienced because they own a winery as well.
So I went back to my underwriting team and asked if we were solving these problems or if we were missing something. We talked about it, and then I went back [to Ellen] a week or two later and she was like, “this is so impressive! You should take our immersion program.”It was every Tuesday and Thursday from May to August, and they basically immersed you within the wine industry. We started with geology and dirt and history, and we worked through vineyard management, pest management, the winemaking process, the business and the sales side of it, all of it. I really felt like I had a really good base for the wine industry.
My dad always said if a salesman or business person came in and didn't understand where the milk came from, he wanted to have nothing to do with them. He said, “you have to know my business for me to want to give you any of my time.” I took that to heart and I wanted to make sure I really understood the wine industry.That’s how I got into wine, and now I drink a lot of it!
Merobebe
There you go. One way or another, we all get there!
Heidi Moore
Yeah, and you know what? That whole Hollywood thing that I spoke about a few minutes ago, it's so false – at least in the Willamette Valley. I can't speak for California or France, but everybody in Oregon, for the most part, are artisans and farmers. I didn't think they would be my people, but they are so my people and I was so blown away by who they were and their stories and where they came from.
That's what I really fell in love with. Not necessarily the wine, which is great also, but I'm very much a people person and that's where I started. I fell in love with the people and then with the wine.
Merobebe
What is wine insurance and how is that different from other commercial or farm insurance?
Heidi Moore
It's kind of all of the above. Wineries are a very specialty business. They're very niche. They have so many components that go into them, and there's a big difference between a winery that is also an estate vineyard, where there’s the farm component of it along with the vineyard, their home, their autos, and so on.
But then, you completely shift sides and you're now on a commercial policy with a product that's being manufactured and made. You have leakage, contamination, business income, employees – all these different things. Then you have the farm side where you're trying to help them with crop insurance. We had a smoke incident in 2020, so how does that fit in?
You're advising these clients – not just throwing their information against a wall and hoping that the policy you put together for them is actually going to protect them. I think I have one of the best policies in the industry. It has been very well crafted to where we're not leaving things out.
Insurance is a very, very confusing business. You need to be able to speak the language. With the wineries, I understand the language, and I know what's in my policy and what's not in my policy. So the winery insurance is the winery, the wine, the bulk wine, equipment, the employees, the cars, the vehicles, the forklift – anything that goes into the wine business itself goes into that policy. Then the vineyard is a completely different animal.
There's so much. And then there's a difference between a custom crush versus an estate versus an alternating proprietorship. And are they selling retail? Are they selling FOB or are they selling wholesale? You're trying to look at all these values and how they're actually valuing things, and also educating them at the same time on why, what, when and how.
Merobebe
You mentioned the smoke from all the fires in 2020. How has climate change been affecting your insurance policies or how your customers are approaching their insurance policies?
Heidi Moore
Up until 2020, about 10% of Oregon had crop insurance. On the flip side, Washington is 90% crop insurance and 10% not. Oregon has a climate that isn’t too extreme on one side or the other – not super hot or super cold, or smoke and fire or ice all the time. 2020 was a huge eye opener for people because we did have these wildfires that felt like the whole state was on fire. And in the Willamette Valley, because of the way it's shaped – the fires were really close to the valley and so the smoke just hung there. I mean, it looked like the apocalypse here for about a week. You walk outside in the sunshine, but it's orange outside because you can't see through the smoke.
The difference is that we grow a lot of pinot noir up here, which is a very delicate grape. It's very hard to grow. It's not easy – like cab and cab franc and merlot, they’re hardier grapes that can take the abuse a little bit more. Pinot noir is not that way. It's very thin skinned. It absorbs a lot of that smoke, so depending on where that smoke hung, some of those berries tasted like ashtray – they were just just absolutely awful. So there was that awakening to, oh my God, yes, climate change is happening and these wildfires can happen more often.
There are definitely other changes happening with environmental warming and things like that. You're seeing grapes pushed out more towards the coast, which would have never happened a few years ago or 20 years ago. You're seeing these new areas kind of creep up because it's warmer now and they can get the fruit ripe.
Merobebe
That's so interesting. I hadn’t thought about how – because different grapes need different kinds of care – climate change would also affect varietals and regions differently.
Heidi Moore
Yeah. There has been a lot of crop insurance sold over the last two years because it does cover smoke and smoke taint, and it also covers fire in most respects.
I think it was 2021 – we had a lot of winemakers and vineyard growers call it Satan’s Bubble. We had temperatures of 116 for like two days in a row! We just don't get that hot here. For us to get a couple hundred degree days during the summer is pretty rare, so for us to be at 116 and 112 was just completely mind blowing. And then this spring we had a really late, heavy frost. A lot of people were panicking because they were losing crops.
Merobebe
What have been some of the most important things that you've had to learn about?
Heidi Moore
Honestly, for what I do on the insurance side, it's the process and the equipment and the terminology. A lot of it was just learning the terminology and being able to pair that terminology with the piece of equipment. Because if you can speak their language, it doesn't matter if you don't know anything about the insurance policy necessarily, you can kind of fake it till you make it. I think what has really helped me set myself apart is understanding the varietals and the kind of dirt that we have.
And I'm not a geek about it. I'm not a geek about dirt, I'm not a geek about wine. I have a terrible palate. Me doing tasting notes is a hot mess. It just – it tastes like fruit, you know? I don't know what to tell you! I got invited by one of my clients to do tasting notes and I said, you do realize I’m not good at this, right? This is going to be a shit show. I think we drank through 13 different red varietals and blends that day. Palate fatigue!
When I first heard that term, I was like, oh, whatever, womp womp, it's not a thing. Oh my God, it's a thing. So I am sitting in this group of people tasting all this wine, and I have a winemaker who is amazing and she's like, “this tastes like a campfire on a foggy day surrounded by cedar trees.” And I looked at her. I'm like, where the F did you get that? I'm like, “I taste fruit,” you know? What is that? I don't even understand that. She's like, “it evokes a feeling,” and I'm like, ok whatever. I like hot chocolate and coffee around my fire.
Merobebe
Apparently we need to be drinking more in different environments!
Heidi Moore
Yeah, I need to get out of my living room, I guess!
Merobebe
Being a woman, do you feel like there's been a difference when you talk to wineries about insurance? I feel like insurance is also pretty male-dominated.
Heidi Moore
It is. When I started 14 years ago, I think 5% of the agency’s salesforce were women although we’ve definitely grown since then. I've had this discussion with my husband several times because – When my kids left the house, I bought myself a really nice car. I'm like, I'm done with the mom car. I deserve something nice. But here's the thing. I work with a lot of farmers and a lot of them are very old school. Good, bad or indifferent, that's just how it is. So when I step out of my rig, it's strike one. She's a chick. I don't know if I really want to work with her, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know very much. She just stepped out of a Range Rover, strike two. She's definitely not one of us.
I have to really make sure that I'm dressed appropriately. I drive a pickup now, and I had that argument with my husband. I'm like, I need a truck. And whether it's a truck and the Range Rover or just a truck, I need a truck so when I go and meet these people, they don't automatically write me off just because I'm a girl. So I have really struggled with that on the insurance side, not as much with the winery insurance but farms in general. So now, I drive a Dodge pickup. I always have rubber boots. I always have a pair of jeans on and usually a flannel or some sort of jacket in the car. And it's not that I feel like I'm dressing down because that is my true, authentic self.
True, authentic Heidi is a pair of sweats – actually, probably a pair of booty shorts and a pair of rubber boots with some wacko socks and a sweatshirt.
Merobebe
Love that!
Heidi Moore
It’s such a great look. We have a small farm at our house and I love the backpack sprayer. It makes me feel good to go out and spray weeds and make them die. I always make sure I'm brightly dressed so that if the cows run me over, my husband can find me in a pile somewhere because I'm a neon color. But he's like, “are you seriously wearing booty shorts?” They're more like volleyball shorts, you know? I mean, it's not like I'm wearing a bikini out there!
Merobebe
Hey, it’s your farm, you do you.
Heidi Moore
It is, and it's totally me-do-me! I think with the wine industry it's been a little bit different. If it were not for the podcast, I would not be as successful as I was because I'm able to go in and create relationships first.
If I walked into somebody’s showroom and said, hey, I sell insurance, do you want to buy some from me? They would show me the door and tell me to never come back. But being able to go in and say, hey, I have this really cool show that is all about you. It's about your story, your wine. It’s listened to internationally. It doesn't cost you anything. You just have to come to my office. We're going to drink wine, I'm going to feed you afterwards, and we're going to have a good time! People are like, oh, yeah, that sounds kind of cool.
So, it's been a really great – I hate to call it a marketing tactic, because that's definitely not what it was and what it started as. But it definitely helps with the whole grand story. But if I didn't know my business, it wouldn't have mattered.
Merobebe
Speaking of the podcast, tell us a little bit about what makes the Pacific Northwest special for wine. What is it about Oregon, Washington, and also Idaho? I have to be honest, until I saw on your podcast, I didn't even know there were wineries in Idaho.
Heidi Moore
Oh my God, we could spend hours on this for so many different reasons! We'll start with Oregon.
So, Oregon was really unknown. It was just kind of this little podunk, country cowboy kind of state and nobody really thought much about it. And then you get someone like David Lett, the Ponzis, David Adelsheim. They discovered Oregon and decided that maybe this could be a really good place to plant grapes.
When you look at a map, and you look at Burgundy and Bordeaux in France and Oregon, they are all pretty much on the same latitude and they’re basically a very similar climate. They have a similar topography, too. I think that's why they chose the Willamette Valley. Then, when you look at the Willamette Valley and start looking at the dirt, you have the Missoula floods. You have this oceanic imprint on the soils. You have all these amazing fertile soils that – even in our [home] which is 750 feet above sea level. If you dig, sometimes you find shale and shells and remnants of what was probably the ocean bottom at one point in time. So you add these volcanic soils and these ocean soils and you get this ground that is perfect for growing grapes.
They really hit the nail on the head when they decided to explore and come up as kind of “wandering hippies,” I guess is the way their son explained it. And they started planting grapes – and they didn't know what they were doing. And so, yes, they chose the wrong varietals and the wrong clones, but over the years they honed that in. There's just so much you can do in the Willamette Valley. It really is kind of a plethora, like a mecca, of agriculture in general between orchards and hazelnuts and grapes and stuff. And what grows so well here is pinot noir.
Pinot is obviously what we’re known for. You can get pinot’d out, because everybody does pinot on some level. But pinot is so versatile that you can make it into so many different styles – not only reds, but you have white pinot and rosé and you have a sparkling that they're doing with pinot as well. Chardonnay also grows really well here.
We now have about 1,500 wineries in the state of Oregon and it's growing every day. They still say we're in the juvenile phase of the wine industry. Napa is pretty mature, and we're kind of in that teenage phase. People are finally starting to see us as a legit [wine] area. With that, you're starting to see some cabernet sauvignon being planted. There's definitely some hybrids. There's a lot of riesling, pinot gris, I'm seeing tempranillos come in.
One of my favorite wineries and favorite bottles of wine is a cool weather syrah that they grow on the west side of McMinnville, which is towards the coastal range, and it's mind blowing. I think there's so much to explore here. There's nothing wrong with Napa, but the typical Napa chardonnays are not my cup of tea. I don't like the oaky, buttery chardonnays. I like the crisp, Granny Smith apple kind of flavors that have a great acid and sugar balance, and you have that in Oregon. Southern Oregon does have a lot of the hotter varietals – the merlots, the cabernet sauvignons, tempranillo, syrah, things like that.
And when you move into Washington, you're seeing a lot of cideries start to pop up. You're also seeing a lot of those big, hot reds over in Walla Walla. And then Idaho is a completely different story. They don't know what they're known for yet. It's exciting!When I went over there and really started to explore it last year, I did R&D for my podcast. I’d go over for a couple of days, stay with a girlfriend, and go drinking for three days. Not a bad research trip!
In the Willamette Valley, the sweet spot has always been between 600 - 800 feet above elevation. That's where the fruit will ripen for sure, unless it's a weird year. Well, over in the Boise area they’re at 3,500 feet elevation, so they're super high. They get really hot and they get really cold, and they have a lot of riesling planted over there. They had a lot of grapes planted pre-Prohibition but when Prohibition hit, they were forced to pull all those grape vines out so they've been reemerging. There's probably 80 to 100 wineries in Idaho, but it's a very hidden area right now. People are just maybe starting to discover it a little bit.
Merobebe
I don’t remember seeing much Oregon or Washington on wine lists before but these days, even at smaller restaurants, I definitely see more and more of them which is fantastic. I can’t wait to start seeing Idaho and other areas in the U.S.
Heidi Moore
Yeah, it's going to be exciting because you are seeing it pop up everywhere. They say there's wine and vineyards in all 50 states, including Alaska which is kind of hard to believe!
Merobebe
If someone were to visit Oregon for a wine trip, for how long and where should they go?
Heidi Moore
Well, let's start with the fact that I could be drunk every day of the year. I'd never visit the same winery twice! There's more alcohol per capita in Oregon than anywhere else in the world.
Merobebe
Oh, wow. I did not know that.
Heidi Moore
Around McMinnville, which is where I am, there's so many different AVAs. An AVA is an American Viticultural Area. Each AVA has its own personality, so I would say give yourself a week because within the Willamette Valley you are 2 hours to Mt. Hood, you're an hour to the coast, and then there’s so much you can see in the valley – not only as a tourist but as a wine person. I mean, you could visit a different AVA every day and see something completely different.
There are some great accommodations. There's some amazing food around here. We're really starting to get some amazing Michelin-type chefs bringing in restaurants, especially here locally in McMinnville. So I would say come to McMinnville because it really is kind of the hub in the heart of the wine industry, and from there you can branch off in so many different directions.
Merobebe
One last question for you: You said in one of your podcast episodes that “wine lives inside the bottle.” What do you mean by that?
Heidi Moore
Wine is a living, breathing thing. Just because you put it in the bottle doesn't mean that the yeast and all the cellular pieces of it are done growing. Even when you open a bottle, you pour your first glass and it tastes one way but then you let the oxygen take effect and the taste changes – [even] the texture sometimes changes. The wine never stops changing because it's still technically alive in it.
Merobebe
That's amazing. It's so fascinating how wine is, to me at least, the perfect combination of art and science. And I think it's so funny how you went from dairy to wine – literally the perfect pairing!
Heidi Moore
Yes, cheese and wine! Every farmer's daughter worked in the Tillamook cheese factory for their first job. I always thought dairy is 24/7. If you don't milk it, it dies. The cows are meant to be milked to feed the world. When I started getting into the vineyards, I thought, oh, you just stick them in the ground, and then they grow, and then you pull the stuff off them, and you squish it and you put it in a bottle and that's wine! And oh, my God, that's not even close to what it is. The baby sitting of the vineyard is amazing – how much work goes into it.
We have about eight acres where we live, and we're in prime vineyard ground where we decided to buy our house several years ago. I get asked all the time, when are you going to start your own wine label? When are you going to plant a vineyard?
Well, I did have a vineyard when we moved in. They had just planted it. They didn't tell us what it was. And I systematically, in my booty shorts and my boots, killed them with Roundup. So there we go. That's Heidi for you in a bottle!
I don't want a wine label. I just don't have the arrogance needed to have my own wine label and it is so much work. It’s so much work! I love being able to try everybody else's products. I don't want to have to sell my own. I like to go away and not have to worry about it.
Merobebe
You already raised three children, you don't need another one.
Heidi MooreExactly! I don't even have a dog right now because we're gone so much and I work so much. I have cows most of the year and that's about as close to being tied down as I am, and having a winery or a vineyard would basically eliminate all the rest of the stuff.
Listen to Wine Crush here, and find Heidi on Instagram and TikTok!