Winery Restructures Into Leaner, More Agile One Guy

Following what it described as a comprehensive review of its operations, a 30,000-case Central Coast winery announced Monday it had restructured into a leaner, more agile organization consisting of one guy, sources confirmed.

The guy is Kyle Bettinger, 29, formerly a cellar hand, who is now also the winemaker, chief financial officer, direct-to-consumer manager, tasting room lead and forklift operator.

“What we’ve built here is a genuinely flat structure, and I’d argue we’re more responsive today than we were at 34 people,” said owner Dennis Ruhl, adding that the restructuring had eliminated the delays and internal friction that come with departments. “Decisions that used to take two weeks now happen in the room. There’s no room, technically. But there’s no delay either. Kyle has full autonomy and full accountability and I think if you asked him he’d tell you it’s the best thing that ever happened to his career.”

Bettinger was not made available for comment, as he was operating the bottling line.

At press time, Bettinger had scheduled a company-wide meeting for 3 p.m.