CMC Magazine, Fall 2005

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Since opening their Woodhouse Chocolate shop last year in St. Helena, the heart of California wine country, everyone from the locals to Hollywood royalty have wanted—literally—a piece of the business founded by Tracy and John Anderson '84. On opening day, a week before Easter, early-arriving customers lined up outside the butter-and-cream colored storefront on Main Street, chanting, Chocolate! Chocolate! while the Andersons, hidden in the attached, private kitchen, crafted trays of their premium confections. Anderson remembers feeling so overwhelmed by the first week's rapid pace that he half-jokingly considered leaving town.

The succeeding months brought rave reviews and steady business, as their exquisite presentation of chocolates in an elegant shop draws the continuous admiration of visitors and residents. Orders through the company's Web site have proved a fulltime commission for Anderson, who wears every hat but chocolatier. "That was always the agreement between us," he says, seated in the kitchen nook doubling as the Woodhouse break room. "Tracy would make the chocolate, and I would do everything else."

O magazine was among the first to champion the gourmet goodies ("stupendous"), while The Philadelphia Inquirer bragged "simply irresistible," and The New York Times credited the brand for taking the Whitman Sampler approach to "an exquisite level." An interesting compliment was paid recently, too, when the Andersons were invited to include their chocolates in Academy Awards goody bags. But with stipulations requiring a minimum $1,000 value for each gift—multiplied by 52 recipients—the couple decided to decline politely.

Exposure on both coasts has amassed a superstar following to boot. Vice President Dick Cheney, Pierce Brosnan, Priscilla Presley, Star Jones, and Madonna, who has packed samples in her guests' party bags, have been counted as Woodhouse fans. Kate Capshaw, already referred to as "one of our best customers," enjoys buying the Napa chocolates for friends, and stocks husband Steven Spielberg's private jet with his favorite almond-toffee candy bars.

While the Andersons may be new to running their own factory, chocolate has been a source of what John calls "weird chocolate experiences" throughout his life—like the time when, right out of CMC, he took a junior executive job for Macy's, managing sales of electronics and—because of proximity—candy. The store then was experimenting with a premium Belgian chocolate line, and it was Anderson's first real introduction. Charmed by the quality, he later sought out chocolatiers across Europe while enrolled in a Christie's fine arts course in London.

Chocolate became a subtext throughout the couple's courtship, as well. They laugh now about a particular Easter eve, while studying abroad together, which found them broke in Venice. Having squandered their cash on gourmet chocolate, they had only enough left for toll roads. For two days, they subsisted on a giant chocolate rabbit.

They also chuckle over the time they brought a matinee performance of Lend Me a Tenor to a screeching halt, attempting to peel foil off a box of Belgian chocolates. Seated within the first 15 rows, Anderson recalls, smiling broadly, "you could hear this crinkle, crinkle as we tried very quietly to get the thing open." Following an exchange of annoyed glances, the actor stopped what he was doing, walked to the edge of the stage, and glared at the young couple.

"We put the chocolate down," he says, "and they went on with the play."

But it wasn't until years later—nearly two decades managing his family's successful sparkling wine business—that inspiration struck. Taking in a movie at the quaint old theater across from where Woodhouse now stands, John and Tracy found their destiny in director Lasse Hallstrom's 2000 film Chocolat, based on the Joanne Harris novel about a chocolate shop that charms the residents of a small town in France.

"Seemingly, someone was always tapping us on the shoulder, whispering, 'chocolate!'" Anderson admits, reminiscing about the genesis of Woodhouse—but it was the film that brought resonance to that faint voice. "It jogged our memories that chocolate was something in which we were always interested," he says. "We began thinking seriously about the industry."

The decision married Anderson's business skills with Tracy's culinary gifts. Tracy, raised in Claremont, was always a natural in the kitchen. After graduating from Scripps College with a degree in art, she completed a 16-month full chef's course at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Before joining John at the winery, where she catered meals for special events, Tracy spent summers on pantry duty in the sweltering kitchens of various Napa Valley restaurants, the heat sometimes soaring to 140 degrees. At Domain Chandon in Yountville, she applied her artistic abilities in the pastry department, sharing space with renowned chef Phillipe Jeanty.

The conception of Woodhouse (taking its name from Tracy's maiden name, Wood) was crafted with careful deliberation. The couple at that point had come to a pivotal juncture. Recently having sold the family wine business, they could pull in their fences and live off the profits. "But we thought, 'No, that's too weird,'" says Anderson. So he went back to school to shine up his credentials with an MBA from UC Davis, figuring the letters recently acquired after his name would serve better on a resume. The extra studies also confirmed how much he'd already learned about business. And then they took in Hallstrom's movie.

With gourmet chocolate, the couple believes they are on the cusp of a renaissance—at the beginning of a new, old industry. Anderson says Americans are discovering that great chocolate is worth seeking out, that consumers can trade up to eat something better. Surely, his parents greeted their vineyards with the same loyal enthusiasm.

Not long on the heels of San Francisco's Summer of Love, visions of success in the self-made wine business permeated American households. John Anderson's parents, Stanley and Carol, of S. Anderson Champagnes and Chardonnays, were among the starry-eyed pioneers to buy land in Northern California for $1,500 an acre in 1971. Dad was a dentist, and mom, a former dental hygienist-turned-homemaker, would soon enroll in the School of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, to study for their new adventure. "It was a time when anything was possible," John Anderson says of the era.

With John in the back seat with his three older sisters, the family eventually would spend as many as 50 weekends a year driving from their home in San Marino to Napa Valley to tend the crops—breaking only for Thanksgiving and Christmas. By his sophomore year at CMC, the Anderson label was succeeding, and John frequently hosted wine-tastings in his dorm room and organized at least one road trip to Napa with Tracy and a few friends for harvest. Those years, he says, shaped his life. "The wine business taught me that success was as much about showmanship as anything else."

Thirty years later, when the family sold to a Canadian billionaire for $200,000 per acre, the wine industry had long-outgrown its bohemian roots. Only 20 or so wineries existed when the senior Andersons bought in. Now they number more than several hundred. "It's not a game for anyone but the extraordinarily wealthy," John says of the fiercely competitive market. "It went from being a little business that was kind of fun—where you could buy some land and work hard—to being a glamorous, worldwide industry, with wines selling for great deals of money," Anderson says. "And we felt it was an industry that we no longer wanted to be in."

The pair spent three years prepping for their foray into chocolate, frequently packing their bags for Europe and visiting as many as 20 chocolate shops and manufacturers a day, to observe their operations. And thank goodness for the Internet, Anderson says. "We knew nothing about the industry—what the machines looked like, or what they were called, or who made them."

The next hurdle was location. The couple began paying the lease on their Main Street shop in January 2003, while Anderson and his stepfather tore the building—built in the 1800s—to mud and stone walls and redid the electrical and plumbing. Tracy next dove into the buttery color palette and decor, resulting in a breathtaking showroom where her artful chocolates rest in formation under gleaming glass cases, resembling a fine jeweler's. The kitchen, accessible through a common door, is where Tracy spends most of her time, while the eldest of their two teenage daughters, 17-year-old Christina, assists customers. "I could never see my dad working for someone else, and creating in the kitchen is what my mom always has loved to do," says Christina. "So I wasn't surprised at all when they decided to open a chocolate shop."

Anderson's inherent love of art sometimes made him feel like a square peg in a round hole at CMC, both academically and socially, he recalls, but being challenged in every facet of his studies prepared him to run the business. He particularly recalls the emphasis on writing and research: "The most important thing you will ever do in business," he says, "is communicate an idea successfully. CMC can be very philosophical and thoughtful, but they teach you to get a good job done.

"At CMC, you feel like you're supposed to go out and conquer the world and run GM and all those sorts of things," Anderson says, smiling. "And yet, strangely, a few of us end up in a little chocolate shop in St. Helena."

Pausing briefly, he recalls a buddy who once told him that he could never be an entrepreneur. "He said I worked too much in my business instead of on my business," Anderson says, emphasizing the difference. "But for me, it's what I've always known and done. I come from a long line of insane people who like to make things. My wife likes making things, too, and we enjoy watching how people respond to what we do—another reason why chocolate made sense to us.

"We were never set up to hit a price point or fill a niche," Anderson says. "The goal has been to make the best chocolate in the world, and we'll keep striving to do that."

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Chocolate-making for the Andersons is especially feverish during the holidays. Last December, the couple filled orders until the week before Christmas, leaving no time to shop for their daughters. As a result, the family has made a pact to close for two weeks every January for much-needed R&R.

Anderson, whose parents pioneered the S. Anderson wine and champagne label in Napa, met Tracy at a Claremont Colleges dance in 1981. Although they were only freshmen, their connection was immediate. Today, Tracy's mother, an oil painter, works in the Woodhouse kitchen. Dad was an architect. "Tracy was the first person I ever met, where, when I said my parents drank champagne every night, she said, 'So do mine,'" Anderson says. "A lot of people would rather die than work with their spouse, but we're just the opposite. We specifically plan things that we can do together. Of course we argue and have our run-ins, but we really complement each other."

Within weeks of opening, Woodhouse was turning the heads of prominent department and specialty stores—first, San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma, then stores including Nordstrom, Marshall Fields, Robinson's-May, and, even, Lands' End. Despite the success of their well-known suitors, the couple turned every single one away, and say they have no plans to mass market. "I'll probably regret it 'til my dying day," John Anderson says. "But it's just not where we want to go with this."