A Very Cerebral Wine Approach Delivers Thoughtful Wine. Meet Winemaker Reid Kinnett.

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Hey, welcome to wine talks with Paul Cade. We are in studio today about to

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have a conversation with Reid Connet. Calls himself

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winemaker, assistant winemaker. Introductions in just a moment. Hey, have a listen to

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Yves de Launay. He is an expert in luxury

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goods, having been with Sotheby's Cartier

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LVMH, selling Louis XIII Cognac, and now with

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Chateau Angelouz in Bordeaux and Saint Emilion. Incredible

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conversation about lifestyle and the consumerism. Also,

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crazy good conversation with Michael Higgins. He is a

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wine photojournalist and has written three wine travel books.

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We're going to Bordeaux in May. I'm taking his Bordeaux book with me

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because it's got so much inside information. Inside baseball in Bordeaux,

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but also written one in Argentina and Central coast. Hey,

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subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

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If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it. But if you do, give

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me a nice review. It's good for the podcast and we get more viewers and

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more shows on the road. Hey, always find what you love at

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totalwine.com to learn more. Spirits not sold in

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Virginia or North Carolina drink responsibly. Be

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21. Never understood what that meant. I guess if

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you just, just say, be 21. Welcome to the show,

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Reed. Yeah, thank you. Somebody said, well, they mean you have to be

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21 to drink. I said, we know that, but like, be

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21. Put some effort into it. Yeah, imperative be 21.

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Yeah, fine. That's no problem. So, hey, welcome to the show. Glad you're done here.

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What are you doing down in SoCal today, this week, anyway? Yeah, I'm down in

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Southern California trying to do some sales, pay for some

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grapes. So I've got kind of a

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tangled web of things I'm involved with.

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I have a personal brand of 90 cases or

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three barrels of wine of Zinfandel called fairy ring.

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And then I also have a wine that I make called toy

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box for a client. And that's Napa Valley

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Cabernet mainly. And then

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also I am the assistant winemaker at a

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winery in Petaluma in downtown Petaluma called Brooksnote, and we're

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Pinot noir specialists. You know, Petaluma, I had

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trombetta on the call on the show a while ago last year,

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probably sometime, Ricky, actually. Yeah, I think it was during COVID actually.

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But, you know, that was, she was part of the instrumental getting

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petaluma as an appellated place. And it's so obvious,

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you know, to me, when you taste the wines from Petaluma, that they deserved and

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needed to have their own appellation. But the

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headwinds to doing this are so complicated. But they are

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fascinating wines. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting

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place. I mean, Sonoma coast was, I think, a frustrating

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appellation for people before, and now

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it's been carved up into so many pieces

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with west Sonoma coast and

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Fort Ross Seaview, and that coming earlier

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on, and then the Petaluma gap in 2017.

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There's definitely distinctions there. The petaluma gap's really cool, though, because

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it crosses county lines, for one, like Carneros does,

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and it crosses a bunch of soil types, which is

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not very common within the Avas. And it's all

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based on the patterns of the wind. It's not just russian river anymore, is

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it? No. Sonoma being such a large swath of land for wine

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and having such, like you said, diverse districts. I mean,

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seaview, Fort Ross,

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amazing. You know, terroir for P and o. It's kind of interesting to

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me. Maybe you could take it, give your take on this. You're young in this

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industry. You came here when to

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start this idea of getting into this whack job

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business? Well, you know, I. My opinion of

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that, absolutely. Yeah. No, we're all nuts, for sure.

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So I was a server in bartender in Long

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beach in the mid two thousands, and another industry full of whack

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jobs. That's true. Maybe

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the whack job part is the passion, because you're so passionate about something that

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you come off as just like. You must be a zealot. Yeah.

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And capable of making good decisions. Right.

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That's funny. So, yeah, I

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really got interested in wines while I was working as a

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server. I was working in a

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place called Virginia Country Club with my friend Ernie Henson back in the

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early two thousands. And he was the bar manager there. And he would call me

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in for tastings and learned a lot

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that way. And then I ended up working at a short lived restaurant called Da

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Vinci, right on Long beach airport for a little while,

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and really learned a ton with my friends Corey

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and Zeke there about italian wines. And

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that was just incredible

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experience there. You think that happens a lot,

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that a bartender, waitress, waiter, a server,

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actually embraces this mysterious world called wine, and they just

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kind of go through their day and just forget about it. I mean, I think

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that's the way to wine and wine professionals for a

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lot of people. I think a lot of wine reps

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have kind of come through that pipeline, for sure. And there

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are a fair amount of winemakers

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that have gone through that route as well. I can't think of any

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off the top of my head. These sams have gotten involved, clearly, in

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the last ten years in making wine quite a bit like Rajpar and folks like

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that. I mean, you're out there serving, and you

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look, I did this for 35 years. I keep saying this, but

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some of the employees that came through here embrace it. Many, after we sold the

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company, went on to continue their career in the industry. On the

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admin side, some could care less. And so I would look at

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blank stares when I'm tasting through the wines with the staff because I wanted them

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to know. Right. And other ones were taking notes, trying to figure it out, you

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know? Yeah. Even for me, I was. I did this probably for

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15 years before I started realizing how cool it is. Yeah. You

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know, I mean, I think wine has a way of finding the people

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that, you know, that are just interested

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and curious about, you know? And that's the thing with me, is, like,

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I just love the intersectionality of wine. There are so many different

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entry points, whether it's history or science or agriculture or art.

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It's just endlessly fascinating. I like that word

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crossroads, because I'm following some folks on

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LinkedIn and whatever, and it's a younger generation,

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obviously, than I am, everybody younger than I am. But

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they think they're being disruptive, which is the new word of an

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industry. That is not disruptible, really, in my

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opinion. Or if it is to be, it's very slow to

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do because

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it's steeped in tradition, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think

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there's something to be said about that and that we have to honor that

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rather than try to change it, because

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changing it, you know, hey, there's too many crossroads, you

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know? Yeah, I just thought of that. If you're gonna change the wine

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trade, then you're gonna affect the crossroads of those. Of

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that intersection. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think

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that's a pretty grand view of yourself, to think that you're a disruptor in something

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that's thousands of years old. Right. That's my general

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contention, yeah. I mean, we live within

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a, you know, a tiny sliver of time

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compared to the history of wine. Right. Yeah. You know, and

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I was listening to your podcast with Brian Talley

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on my way down here, and it was either him or Doug

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Frost talking about

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how we're drinking the best wine now that we ever have. Right. And I

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think, well, we can stay on the subject for a

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second. Disrupting

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the. I don't know, maybe they're trying to

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disrupt the outlook of the consumer on wine or the way the

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wine industry looks out to the consumer. And I have this

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contention that canned wines, tetra packs,

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somebody just came out with a paper box, which is tetra

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pack, but it's a little bit different. Trying to reduce the carbon footprint. I

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think that's important. Sustainability is a part of our industry. If anybody's to be

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sustainable, the wine industry should be. But

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at the same time, the quality and the ethereal value of that

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glass of wine couldn't change or shouldn't change

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unless you are just drinking for alcohol. And that's. Hardly anybody does drink

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wine just for the alcohol. There's other ways to do that.

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So I'm interested to peel this back

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further with younger generations like you

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to understand. Let me just turn off this do not disturb. Whatever you gotta do

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here. What do you gotta do? Oh, focus. There it is. Do not disturb. Okay.

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So I see those things as

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blips, cans, tetra packs, trying

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to solve a political problem rather

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than this passion problem, you know, this passion about wine. Yeah,

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well, I mean, I think that there's a

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sincere, I think, desire for a lot of people to actually decrease the

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carbon footprint. And I love that idea. You know, topless Creek's doing

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bag and box with, you know, their rose and bedrock's got the

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odalulu and bag and box

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as well, so. And I think that,

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like, you know, there are wines that you put in the

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cellar and there are wines that you drink soon. And I think

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also, you know, it opens up

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new consumers. Some people are going to

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look at a can and say, you know what? That's like my

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vibe versus all the pomp and

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circumstance with a wax on your bottle and

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all that stuff. I think that's accurate. I think that's very accurate.

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Consumerism is what drives this and always has driven this industry.

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Yeah. And you kind of want to. I always kind of want to put wine

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on this pedestal and it's like, this is the way it is. This is what

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we're going to be you're going to enjoy it or you're not going to enjoy

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it. You figure it out. You don't figure it out, whatever you want to do

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with it. But I think you're right. I think the consumer drives the

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need for some of these changes, but I don't think

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it changes the value of that glass of wine as to why you

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drink it. Right. How you drink is probably one thing, but why

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you drink it's another. Yeah, I mean, I. You know, I have different beverages

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for different times. You know, like, so modelo

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especial, you know, on a hot day when I don't feel like being

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challenged, an orange

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wine on those days where I'm feeling like being pensive or something,

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but in general, I would like my

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wine to come from a certain place and

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evoke a certain kind of feeling.

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I've always tried to, through this club,

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after all this time, to get a

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consumer to the point where they feel like

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something to drink and it changes. In other words,

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you and I come home from work and we go. Like you said, I feel

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like a modelo. I often feel like gin. But if I'm in

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the wine world at that moment, do I feel like a burgundy or a

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pinot, or do I feel like a cab or do I feel like a

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lean wine from Spain? I mean,

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whatever memory

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that those wines have evoked in you, that you feel like that.

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And one night, not that long ago, I opened three different bottles before I

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got to a profile that I was trying to crave. Yeah.

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Yeah. That's frustrating. Yes. Well, you know, my wife drank one of

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them. Yeah. But that was my objective, was just to

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have people understand the nuances and not necessarily understand why or what

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you, you know, whether it's clay or slate or whatever, who cares at that point?

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Cause I think the wine industry does self propagate. The

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aristocracy that, you know, has plagued the industry. But if you

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can get people to understand that there's a difference between a petaluma gap

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pinot and one from the central coast, you know,

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we've kind of done what we've done. Yeah, absolutely. Are you trying

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to pull out of these wines that you're making that

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exact story, that the terroir like this is where it's coming

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from? Yeah, I mean, I think that

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if you're not. I mean, we all want to make a delicious wine. That's gotta

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be the goal. And clearly, you're working with

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factors with weather and

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things like that, that kind of push decisions one way or the other, and

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logistical challenges and things like that. But if you're not

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trying to make, in the world of fine wine, a wine that's

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expressing a site, I don't know why

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you're doing it. And that's the magic, especially with something like Pinot

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Noir. Pinot noir is just so expressive of sight.

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Is that the objective I see at your toy box? Which is funny, I looked

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up in my database of tasted wines, which I've tracked

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everything I've ever tasted, at least here at the office, all the stuff I've

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tasted off campus doesn't get recorded. Well, it does get

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manually recorded. Is that your objective with toy box?

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00:14:19,622 --> 00:14:22,870
Is like, produce something, or is the proprietor of toy

232
00:14:22,902 --> 00:14:26,606
Box more interested in just getting a value oriented wine

233
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that has a little less character based on terroir because they get

234
00:14:30,438 --> 00:14:34,034
a better price, or what's the objective? Well, I think

235
00:14:35,334 --> 00:14:38,990
our top tier wine, generally, year

236
00:14:39,022 --> 00:14:42,786
over year, is going to be our Cabernet Sauvignon, and

237
00:14:42,810 --> 00:14:45,414
that's a Napa Valley appalated wine.

238
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And with that, it's something we sell on our website for $90

239
00:14:51,226 --> 00:14:54,690
a bottle. So at that price point, I think

240
00:14:54,722 --> 00:14:58,546
that you've got to be doing more than just making something that

241
00:14:58,570 --> 00:15:01,874
tastes good. You've got to be getting to that next level.

242
00:15:01,994 --> 00:15:05,490
And particularly when it says Napa Valley on the label, you've got to be

243
00:15:05,562 --> 00:15:09,050
achieving a. A certain level of quality and then a certain level of

244
00:15:09,082 --> 00:15:12,620
typicity. And what do you think's happened with Napa and

245
00:15:12,652 --> 00:15:16,224
its typicity? It's a good word.

246
00:15:16,764 --> 00:15:19,516
You know, if you'd look, if you talk to some folks that are sort of

247
00:15:19,540 --> 00:15:22,212
new into Napa wines, they're going to tell you about silver oak and camus and

248
00:15:22,228 --> 00:15:25,996
these sort of fruit forward big bombs, extracted wines.

249
00:15:26,100 --> 00:15:29,388
Sure. And then the other day, I had a

250
00:15:29,436 --> 00:15:32,628
wonderfully balanced, structured,

251
00:15:32,796 --> 00:15:36,548
acidic napa cab. And that would. That excited

252
00:15:36,596 --> 00:15:40,208
me, that, you know, enthused me that we're not headed down this path of

253
00:15:40,356 --> 00:15:43,752
sheer opulence in a wine. Absolutely. I

254
00:15:43,768 --> 00:15:47,360
think my goal is to strike a balance with that. And I know that

255
00:15:47,392 --> 00:15:51,168
that's clearly a subjective word, and about ten

256
00:15:51,216 --> 00:15:54,984
years ago was a real controversial word in the wine

257
00:15:55,024 --> 00:15:58,720
industry. But I can tell

258
00:15:58,752 --> 00:16:02,496
that you and I probably like a similar style of wine where

259
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,272
there's good structure and acidity in the wine. It's something you can age in the

260
00:16:06,288 --> 00:16:09,744
cellar and it's something that's not destroying your palate

261
00:16:09,904 --> 00:16:13,724
with tannin and oak after a sip. And so

262
00:16:14,064 --> 00:16:17,792
I think that we've definitely seen the pendulum swing back. I

263
00:16:17,808 --> 00:16:21,520
think that the wines of

264
00:16:21,552 --> 00:16:25,352
the late nineties and two thousands got really out of

265
00:16:25,368 --> 00:16:29,032
control. And I came up being interested in

266
00:16:29,048 --> 00:16:32,512
european wines. And I

267
00:16:32,528 --> 00:16:36,368
think in this last ten or 15 years, we've

268
00:16:36,416 --> 00:16:40,184
really seen a lot of new California producers producing wines that are more restraint

269
00:16:40,224 --> 00:16:43,416
and balanced. And there's people that have been doing it the whole time, like Kathy

270
00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:47,240
Corson making some of the most

271
00:16:47,272 --> 00:16:50,720
elegant cabernets out of Napa Valley, for sure. Steve Mathias.

272
00:16:50,752 --> 00:16:54,472
And has been kind

273
00:16:54,488 --> 00:16:57,616
of the lead, the tip of the spear with that kind of new

274
00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:00,644
California producing more restrained,

275
00:17:01,354 --> 00:17:05,050
acid driven and structured wines. But there are

276
00:17:05,122 --> 00:17:08,714
a bunch of others too. I really like the wines from

277
00:17:08,754 --> 00:17:12,586
cade. I like the wines at Lark Mead. Have been

278
00:17:12,610 --> 00:17:16,266
really great over the years. And those are the wines that, to

279
00:17:16,290 --> 00:17:19,634
me, they have a nice, rich fruit

280
00:17:19,674 --> 00:17:23,178
profile but not too much oak and pronounced

281
00:17:23,226 --> 00:17:27,014
acidity that really reign all that fruit in.

282
00:17:28,044 --> 00:17:31,580
I would say, you know, those are some of the wines that

283
00:17:31,612 --> 00:17:35,036
inspire me from Napa. It's kind of funny. We've

284
00:17:35,060 --> 00:17:38,516
had, at least compared to the Europeans, we have a young

285
00:17:38,580 --> 00:17:42,300
industry, but compared to other countries. I'm gonna pick

286
00:17:42,332 --> 00:17:46,068
on Armenia a little bit because it's my heritage. But I've been there and

287
00:17:46,076 --> 00:17:49,772
I've tasted a lot of wines. And here's this infant, infant industry. Even though

288
00:17:49,788 --> 00:17:53,196
it's been around 6000 years at least as we know

289
00:17:53,220 --> 00:17:56,850
of since the soviet rule, which

290
00:17:56,882 --> 00:18:00,338
was. I had this conversation last night with somebody

291
00:18:00,466 --> 00:18:03,906
that no progress was made in winemaking

292
00:18:04,010 --> 00:18:07,690
during the USSR. And so when countries

293
00:18:07,762 --> 00:18:10,674
like Armenia and Hungary and

294
00:18:10,834 --> 00:18:14,490
Croatia, not Croatia, but Lithuania,

295
00:18:14,562 --> 00:18:18,026
became free, really the industry started

296
00:18:18,090 --> 00:18:21,690
over all these techniques. There were no techniques

297
00:18:21,722 --> 00:18:24,946
and nobody really cared. And it was the old farmer who was just making grapes

298
00:18:24,970 --> 00:18:28,334
for brandy. And that's what they were doing. So they're really, really quite young.

299
00:18:28,714 --> 00:18:32,522
And prohibition here did the same thing, right? Yeah, that's true.

300
00:18:32,578 --> 00:18:36,234
Yeah. Pretty much prohibition. The same thing. We went to the prohibition museum in

301
00:18:36,274 --> 00:18:40,122
Savannah, Georgia last two weeks ago. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Sorry, I didn't

302
00:18:40,138 --> 00:18:43,586
mean to take you off topic. You know, actually knew stories that I. That I

303
00:18:43,610 --> 00:18:47,346
had not heard because I've read books on prohibition. You know,

304
00:18:47,450 --> 00:18:51,216
let's just touch on. It's really funny when people think that

305
00:18:51,290 --> 00:18:54,436
prohibition outlawed drinking. It did not outlaw drinking. It outlawed

306
00:18:54,460 --> 00:18:58,244
manufacturing for the purposes of retail sale and

307
00:18:58,364 --> 00:19:01,884
bars. You could make booze at home and you

308
00:19:01,924 --> 00:19:05,748
could wine and you could drink it. It wasn't illegal to drink.

309
00:19:05,796 --> 00:19:08,916
Everybody challenges me on that, but I know that's the case. Well, yeah. I mean,

310
00:19:08,940 --> 00:19:12,428
they were sending train loads full of grapes back

311
00:19:12,556 --> 00:19:15,304
east. And you talk to all these

312
00:19:16,404 --> 00:19:20,028
guys. They're like, oh, these italian guys. Yeah, my grandfather made wine in the

313
00:19:20,036 --> 00:19:23,816
bathtub and all that stuff. And it was legal. It was perfectly fine

314
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:27,684
to do that. It was actually a great trade, the truckloads of.

315
00:19:28,104 --> 00:19:31,032
And that's just a section. There's a chapter in one of the books I was

316
00:19:31,048 --> 00:19:34,760
reading. It was just about the perils of transporting grapes in

317
00:19:34,792 --> 00:19:38,624
train cars during parts of the year, you know, that

318
00:19:38,784 --> 00:19:42,416
destroyed. But we're getting back to what we're talking about. The

319
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:46,056
Armenians are challenged with the idea of oak, let's

320
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:49,800
say. I don't think their indigenous grape, Adoni, does well with oak.

321
00:19:49,832 --> 00:19:53,416
And I have confirmation, and I have agreement on many winemakers from that

322
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:56,524
area. But in the world of winemaking,

323
00:19:57,224 --> 00:20:00,856
you should put oak in it. And all the great cabernet from Napa have oak,

324
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:04,576
and all the great Bordeauxs have oak and burgundy, and so we gotta put

325
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:07,764
oak. And not everything does well with oak. And so it takes

326
00:20:08,464 --> 00:20:11,604
vintages and vintages, vintages and generations almost

327
00:20:11,984 --> 00:20:15,752
to land on where some of this stuff from where you're

328
00:20:15,768 --> 00:20:19,536
buying your grapes or from the vineyards, which wines and which grapes. I guess that's

329
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,090
your skill set requirement. How do you feel about where you're at with that?

330
00:20:23,202 --> 00:20:26,946
Oh, with oak? Yeah. With your training and the number

331
00:20:26,970 --> 00:20:30,814
of vintages you've done and how much you want to learn more and what,

332
00:20:31,114 --> 00:20:34,674
I. Mean, I think no matter how long you've been doing it, there's always

333
00:20:34,794 --> 00:20:38,562
something to learn. And I think if you're really dedicated to

334
00:20:38,578 --> 00:20:41,214
your craft, that you're always exploring

335
00:20:42,434 --> 00:20:46,106
new ideas. Those costly sometimes, like, you

336
00:20:46,130 --> 00:20:49,926
know, well, I'm gonna carbonic. I'm gonna macerate the grapes

337
00:20:49,950 --> 00:20:52,630
carbonically and see what happens all of a sudden. Oh, my God. That didn't work.

338
00:20:52,742 --> 00:20:56,318
Well, you gotta start small with anything. You've gotta be able

339
00:20:56,366 --> 00:21:00,070
to either say, okay, well, we're gonna bottle this

340
00:21:00,102 --> 00:21:03,314
50k slot of this one wacky thing,

341
00:21:04,534 --> 00:21:07,542
or be able to blend it away as a

342
00:21:07,558 --> 00:21:11,174
component and like, one of your other kind of

343
00:21:11,214 --> 00:21:14,786
bigger skus. My dad used to say back in the day, he says, you know,

344
00:21:14,810 --> 00:21:18,346
if they make a wine and it's not very good, you know, you may not

345
00:21:18,370 --> 00:21:20,498
want to put it in the bottle with your brand on it. So we're going

346
00:21:20,506 --> 00:21:24,186
to sell the juice, which we all know happens just for the listeners. I mean,

347
00:21:24,210 --> 00:21:27,994
like, it's a hard number to ascertain, but 85, 90%

348
00:21:28,034 --> 00:21:31,882
of wine is not bottled by the grower or made by

349
00:21:31,898 --> 00:21:35,322
the grower, it's bought and sold in bulk or bought and sold as grapes and

350
00:21:35,418 --> 00:21:39,050
maids, and that's just the way it is. And so sometimes it doesn't

351
00:21:39,082 --> 00:21:42,122
turn out and you put it in the bottle, blended with some other stuff and

352
00:21:42,138 --> 00:21:45,690
you kind of just move the volume around. That's.

353
00:21:45,802 --> 00:21:49,546
That's just the way the industry is, you know? Yeah. I mean, last year was

354
00:21:49,570 --> 00:21:53,258
a year where we had two of our growers that didn't sell all their grapes,

355
00:21:53,386 --> 00:21:57,130
and so we made

356
00:21:57,162 --> 00:22:00,850
a bunch of pinot noir and we're helping

357
00:22:00,882 --> 00:22:04,658
them sell it. Wow, that's great. Yeah, I mean, and it's going

358
00:22:04,666 --> 00:22:08,082
to make some really lovely wine for somebody. It's

359
00:22:08,098 --> 00:22:11,894
just we can't put it into our bottles, not because it's not good enough,

360
00:22:12,014 --> 00:22:15,354
but because we just don't have the ability to sell that much wine.

361
00:22:17,934 --> 00:22:21,390
One of the California agricultural agencies, I forgot which one, has

362
00:22:21,462 --> 00:22:25,230
recommended we pull out 50,000 vines of grapes

363
00:22:25,262 --> 00:22:28,830
because the glut and the change in consumerism and the reduction

364
00:22:28,862 --> 00:22:32,118
in volume, and we just need to plant

365
00:22:32,206 --> 00:22:35,764
pistachios and almonds and things like that. And I find that

366
00:22:35,844 --> 00:22:38,864
fascinating because I think also for the listeners,

367
00:22:40,164 --> 00:22:43,224
it's hard to get your arms around the fact that it's really an agricultural product

368
00:22:43,524 --> 00:22:47,140
and you don't have all the control in the world and it's based on

369
00:22:47,172 --> 00:22:50,972
demand and yields aren't always the same. And the

370
00:22:50,988 --> 00:22:54,236
boat turns slowly. Yeah, the boat turns slowly. That's the go. I like

371
00:22:54,260 --> 00:22:58,020
that. What were some of the headwinds that you, once you got into this

372
00:22:58,052 --> 00:23:01,790
industry, looked at this

373
00:23:01,822 --> 00:23:04,354
and he said, gee, I didn't expect this or,

374
00:23:05,214 --> 00:23:08,654
wow, that's unusual or anything that sort of

375
00:23:08,814 --> 00:23:12,614
stumped you, as they say, the marketing of wine. You're down

376
00:23:12,654 --> 00:23:16,422
here schlepping with your box, trying to sell some, get some people to

377
00:23:16,438 --> 00:23:19,806
taste the wines. Yeah, I

378
00:23:19,830 --> 00:23:23,550
think everyone's grappling right now, trying

379
00:23:23,582 --> 00:23:27,258
to figure out the market. Right. Things have

380
00:23:27,306 --> 00:23:30,954
changed. You know, I think, you know, when I came up in the

381
00:23:31,074 --> 00:23:34,610
early two thousands, there were no California producers, for the most part,

382
00:23:34,762 --> 00:23:38,562
trying to make european and inspired wines. I mean, there may

383
00:23:38,578 --> 00:23:42,242
have been a few people here and there, you know, Randall Graham's been,

384
00:23:42,298 --> 00:23:46,066
you know, kind of making interesting wines that are. Names

385
00:23:46,090 --> 00:23:49,722
them such. Yeah, yeah. And far from over the top,

386
00:23:49,778 --> 00:23:53,578
I think. But back, you know, now there's dozens

387
00:23:53,666 --> 00:23:56,654
and dozens of micro producers making

388
00:23:57,724 --> 00:24:01,132
wines under 14 or under 13, in a lot of cases,

389
00:24:01,268 --> 00:24:04,508
percent alcohol and acid driven and very little

390
00:24:04,556 --> 00:24:08,316
oak. And you've got

391
00:24:08,340 --> 00:24:11,292
a lot of options now. And you go and try to sell wine in San

392
00:24:11,308 --> 00:24:14,972
Francisco, and it's got to kind of achieve that style. That's

393
00:24:15,068 --> 00:24:18,772
the style of nearly every place you go in San

394
00:24:18,788 --> 00:24:22,584
Francisco wants that european style wine, which is wonderful

395
00:24:23,044 --> 00:24:26,830
as a drinker, but there's just a lot more competition. The. It's hard

396
00:24:26,862 --> 00:24:30,694
to find the points of differentiation and to find an angle

397
00:24:30,774 --> 00:24:34,398
and an entry point. And I think, just

398
00:24:34,486 --> 00:24:38,006
as it has always been, it ends up being about

399
00:24:38,110 --> 00:24:40,434
going out and meeting people. And

400
00:24:41,734 --> 00:24:45,518
it's a hand sell. Yeah, it's a hand sell, but it's like, you know,

401
00:24:45,606 --> 00:24:49,234
you've got to actually go out and meet people and make friends and

402
00:24:49,614 --> 00:24:53,262
tell the stories. And that's what it's really all about. I

403
00:24:53,278 --> 00:24:56,872
mean, when you talk about european style wines, and

404
00:24:57,048 --> 00:25:00,324
it wasn't that long ago, for instance, when we went to

405
00:25:00,624 --> 00:25:04,400
1989, I think it was the second year that the Pinot festival

406
00:25:04,432 --> 00:25:08,272
in Willama Valley was held. And they invited the Louis Jeddeaus and

407
00:25:08,288 --> 00:25:12,120
the Druins and all these folks to come and share, which is great

408
00:25:12,152 --> 00:25:15,576
about the industry. They do share their technology and their ideas.

409
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:19,376
But most of the wines of the Willama Valley at that time were. There's only

410
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,164
a few houses that were bigger. Bigger anyway.

411
00:25:23,504 --> 00:25:27,160
And the wines were okay. But it was a common

412
00:25:27,312 --> 00:25:31,136
thing to say, hey, this is very burgundian. And it was very common to

413
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,392
say, this is Bordeaux esque, and you don't hear it as much

414
00:25:34,448 --> 00:25:38,048
anymore. But now you're saying, well, we're trying to make wines of the european

415
00:25:38,096 --> 00:25:41,656
style, which I understand that because we don't have. Well, I'm sure they have them.

416
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:45,528
But coming through my doors here, we still try to get

417
00:25:45,576 --> 00:25:49,040
representative wines of the Provence or from Bordeaux or from wherever you're talking

418
00:25:49,072 --> 00:25:52,530
about. But do you talk like that behind the scenes? Well,

419
00:25:52,602 --> 00:25:56,266
so, I mean, just as a. To define you european in style, like,

420
00:25:56,330 --> 00:25:59,978
you know, I think that the reference point is

421
00:26:00,146 --> 00:26:03,978
basically those big, extracted, heavy wines that we

422
00:26:03,986 --> 00:26:07,754
were talking about dominating what, you know, traditionally

423
00:26:07,794 --> 00:26:11,594
we've thought of over the past 20 years as like a California wine. Right.

424
00:26:11,674 --> 00:26:15,370
And, you know, people either generally

425
00:26:15,402 --> 00:26:18,930
will like those bigger, richer wines or more restrained balance wines.

426
00:26:18,962 --> 00:26:22,346
And for the majority of the time, over the

427
00:26:22,370 --> 00:26:26,106
last 50 years, people that like those more restrained wines are gonna have to

428
00:26:26,130 --> 00:26:27,614
go to Europe to find those.

429
00:26:30,034 --> 00:26:33,786
And I think that there's

430
00:26:33,930 --> 00:26:37,490
blowback from a lot of people when you say

431
00:26:37,642 --> 00:26:39,414
burgundian or

432
00:26:40,834 --> 00:26:44,330
Bordeaux esque or whatever, because those are

433
00:26:44,362 --> 00:26:47,850
places. And of course, the EU is very protective

434
00:26:47,882 --> 00:26:51,730
of all of its place names. And so I understand

435
00:26:51,802 --> 00:26:55,490
that. And as a Chardonnay lover who has

436
00:26:55,522 --> 00:26:59,202
had many discussions with people about Chardonnay, when people

437
00:26:59,258 --> 00:27:02,834
say, oh, we make a lean, crisp style, and they say, it's like a chablis,

438
00:27:02,874 --> 00:27:06,682
I'm like, no, it is not. There's almost nothing

439
00:27:06,738 --> 00:27:10,362
like Chablis in the world. There's nothing like champagne in the world.

440
00:27:10,498 --> 00:27:14,330
And those are places that

441
00:27:14,362 --> 00:27:18,138
you can't. So I don't like evoking, necessarily a place name far

442
00:27:18,186 --> 00:27:21,866
away. Well, that was part of the

443
00:27:21,970 --> 00:27:25,722
culture in California wine, though. That's what you did. You would go to

444
00:27:25,738 --> 00:27:29,394
the tastings. I reflect

445
00:27:29,434 --> 00:27:32,730
on some of these great days of the early wine trade of

446
00:27:32,762 --> 00:27:36,410
California. I would go to a tasting, and Fess Parker would be there signing

447
00:27:36,442 --> 00:27:40,214
autographs with his Daniel Boone hat, but pouring off

448
00:27:42,354 --> 00:27:46,178
his wines. And then next booth would be Dicky Smothers pouring up

449
00:27:46,266 --> 00:27:49,938
his sonoma wines, and Pat Paulson, the famed comedian, pouring

450
00:27:49,986 --> 00:27:52,694
off refrigerator white.

451
00:27:53,434 --> 00:27:57,202
And those are the conversations you would have, and I'm glad we don't

452
00:27:57,218 --> 00:28:01,066
do that anymore. You're right. Those are places. And so we

453
00:28:01,090 --> 00:28:03,814
shouldn't be comparing our place to their place,

454
00:28:04,474 --> 00:28:08,242
because we aren't that place. Right. Well, yeah, I

455
00:28:08,258 --> 00:28:12,106
mean, I think, to your point, like you're talking about in the early days,

456
00:28:12,210 --> 00:28:15,922
we're still in the early days. Yeah, that's true. We're still trying to figure out.

457
00:28:15,978 --> 00:28:19,002
I mean, I think we've got a pretty good handle on, you know, where you

458
00:28:19,018 --> 00:28:21,690
can find good Pinot and where you can find good cab, where you can get

459
00:28:21,722 --> 00:28:25,506
great roan varieties. But I think, you know, when it

460
00:28:25,530 --> 00:28:29,306
comes down to it, we're still figuring everything out.

461
00:28:29,410 --> 00:28:32,810
And so I think that all of our wine traditions in this country,

462
00:28:33,002 --> 00:28:35,774
you know, the troops came home from World War Two

463
00:28:36,314 --> 00:28:39,914
and wanted wine all of a sudden. And so the wine industry

464
00:28:39,994 --> 00:28:43,650
was reborn. And so, you know, all that planting

465
00:28:43,722 --> 00:28:46,494
started in the sixties and seventies. Seventies. And

466
00:28:48,074 --> 00:28:51,442
so you have to have a place to give people

467
00:28:51,618 --> 00:28:55,450
context for the wines. My dad only bought vineyards in

468
00:28:55,482 --> 00:28:58,334
72 instead of starting a wine club.

469
00:29:00,554 --> 00:29:04,122
Because those are the guys that don't have to charge $90 a

470
00:29:04,138 --> 00:29:07,570
bottle. Yeah, because they paid for the land a long time ago. Sure.

471
00:29:07,642 --> 00:29:11,456
Yeah, yeah. But it is. California is

472
00:29:11,610 --> 00:29:15,084
in its infancy. I mean, it always will be compared to its

473
00:29:15,124 --> 00:29:18,660
counterparts in other parts of the world. It's interesting,

474
00:29:18,692 --> 00:29:22,396
too. They just got done with the master of wine program, the Institute

475
00:29:22,420 --> 00:29:26,004
of Masters of Wine, dropping the term

476
00:29:26,084 --> 00:29:29,892
old world from description

477
00:29:30,028 --> 00:29:33,676
and use during the academic pursuit

478
00:29:33,740 --> 00:29:37,028
of wine trade. And I think certainly the master of wine,

479
00:29:37,076 --> 00:29:40,450
psalm diploma. W said, are

480
00:29:40,482 --> 00:29:44,266
important academic accolades to earn depending on where

481
00:29:44,290 --> 00:29:48,114
you want to land in the wine business. But I just thought it

482
00:29:48,114 --> 00:29:51,938
was interesting that they dropped that nomenclature. Have

483
00:29:51,946 --> 00:29:54,254
you heard this? I haven't heard about it.

484
00:29:56,234 --> 00:29:59,578
I think there's a value to it, to using it.

485
00:29:59,626 --> 00:30:03,434
Yeah. Not only a style, but a

486
00:30:03,474 --> 00:30:06,004
location. Sure. I mean,

487
00:30:07,064 --> 00:30:10,800
I think it sounds like, oh, these are like wines from the. Old country

488
00:30:10,872 --> 00:30:14,648
or something. Right. I mean, I think that these

489
00:30:14,696 --> 00:30:18,496
days, that word just people know what it means

490
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,072
to a certain degree. And, like, what does it mean? Right. Like, why wouldn't you

491
00:30:22,088 --> 00:30:25,864
just talk about Europe when you're talking about, you know, wines? Or, like,

492
00:30:25,904 --> 00:30:29,272
why wouldn't you talk about a specific country? So, I mean, I can

493
00:30:29,328 --> 00:30:33,162
understand maybe why someone might kind of balk at

494
00:30:33,178 --> 00:30:36,494
that a little bit, but, I mean, that's certainly nothing that I would

495
00:30:37,114 --> 00:30:40,214
vote for pushing out. I've always argued that it

496
00:30:40,834 --> 00:30:44,414
not only deals with just defining, let's say,

497
00:30:45,074 --> 00:30:48,458
more modern regions like Argentina. Oh, yeah.

498
00:30:48,586 --> 00:30:52,282
California, Australia, New Zealand,

499
00:30:52,378 --> 00:30:56,050
versus the historic vintages. Regions

500
00:30:56,082 --> 00:30:59,214
like Burgundy and Bordeaux in the 12th century, 11th century.

501
00:30:59,984 --> 00:31:03,704
And look, you've got to think and look at your

502
00:31:03,744 --> 00:31:06,608
career already that everything you do

503
00:31:06,736 --> 00:31:10,160
becomes influenced in the bottle

504
00:31:10,192 --> 00:31:14,000
eventually. In other words, if I've got a vineyard that was being

505
00:31:14,032 --> 00:31:17,040
farmed by Charlemagne in

506
00:31:17,072 --> 00:31:20,816
Burgundy, that these lessons have rolled forward,

507
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,244
maybe they get truncated and diluted, but eventually

508
00:31:25,044 --> 00:31:28,724
they become part of the terroir. Right. The knowledge

509
00:31:28,764 --> 00:31:32,188
base becomes part of the terroir. And I think that's fascinating about wine.

510
00:31:32,356 --> 00:31:34,744
No other product in the world has that

511
00:31:36,164 --> 00:31:39,264
ability. I mean, maybe like

512
00:31:39,804 --> 00:31:43,276
en modena or, you know, and reggiano,

513
00:31:43,460 --> 00:31:47,244
they might disagree with that. I mean, but that's. Yeah,

514
00:31:47,284 --> 00:31:51,104
that is like, you know, the centuries and centuries of tradition.

515
00:31:51,964 --> 00:31:55,694
You know, that's a beautiful story, for one,

516
00:31:56,714 --> 00:31:59,414
and it's really special. And so I think

517
00:32:00,034 --> 00:32:03,586
tradition is a really beautiful part of wine.

518
00:32:03,650 --> 00:32:07,402
And I think that, back to when you're talking about, are

519
00:32:07,418 --> 00:32:11,002
you trying to make wines that express. Express a

520
00:32:11,018 --> 00:32:14,722
place? I think that's what, at

521
00:32:14,738 --> 00:32:17,894
the top level of winemaking that you're trying to do is

522
00:32:18,754 --> 00:32:22,448
you've got grapes grown on a piece of land that are turned into

523
00:32:22,496 --> 00:32:26,328
wine, and then your job is to basically make sure

524
00:32:26,376 --> 00:32:29,776
that you make the wine taste delicious, but

525
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,200
also manage not to stomp and

526
00:32:33,232 --> 00:32:36,976
muddle the message from, you know, from the

527
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,272
point where you've harvested the grapes to the point where people are drinking it. One

528
00:32:40,288 --> 00:32:43,448
of the greatest expressions of that was from a young woman who's making wine in

529
00:32:43,456 --> 00:32:47,160
Armenia her name is Julia de Guilla, and she runs a pretty

530
00:32:47,192 --> 00:32:50,172
large winery, and she runs one in Argentina for the same owner.

531
00:32:50,328 --> 00:32:54,036
And she goes, what other product can you carry halfway across the

532
00:32:54,060 --> 00:32:56,780
world? Plop on the table and say, this is when we were, and this is

533
00:32:56,812 --> 00:33:00,452
who we are. And I go, that's a fascinating expression that people do

534
00:33:00,468 --> 00:33:04,236
that I have this, again, going back to my romantic view of wine,

535
00:33:04,420 --> 00:33:08,132
that when somebody tastes

536
00:33:08,188 --> 00:33:11,824
a wine like that, that's true to its origins.

537
00:33:12,164 --> 00:33:15,932
Bad vintage are good. They were talking about the bad vintages of Bordeaux at a

538
00:33:15,948 --> 00:33:19,676
tasting the other day, and I'm like, yeah, but so you express what

539
00:33:19,700 --> 00:33:22,824
you got. It may not be as pleasant as the

540
00:33:23,324 --> 00:33:26,812
1990 Bordeaux, but you

541
00:33:26,868 --> 00:33:30,636
express that vintage. And so if I taste green or I

542
00:33:30,660 --> 00:33:34,452
taste whatever I taste in this wine is because you express

543
00:33:34,508 --> 00:33:38,116
that vintage. I think that's really important, maybe a little too romantic,

544
00:33:38,260 --> 00:33:41,956
but I always feel like, and it happens all the time

545
00:33:41,980 --> 00:33:44,886
with my friends at dinner, if I bring out a wine that I just think

546
00:33:44,910 --> 00:33:48,510
it's fascinating and they don't know why it's

547
00:33:48,542 --> 00:33:51,982
really good. Yeah. You know, they just go, this is really good. They don't have

548
00:33:51,998 --> 00:33:55,674
to know why. Right? But I think that happens to people

549
00:33:57,054 --> 00:34:00,406
at a proper vintage, at a not proper. A proper wine,

550
00:34:00,510 --> 00:34:04,086
properly made wine, an honestly made wine, let's put it that way, that you

551
00:34:04,110 --> 00:34:07,502
didn't put sugar in it, you didn't throw acid into it, you didn't change the

552
00:34:07,518 --> 00:34:11,360
color with mega purple, whatever that stuff is. You just made the wine,

553
00:34:11,542 --> 00:34:15,260
and that's expressed. And somebody goes, hmm, I'm

554
00:34:15,292 --> 00:34:18,892
starting to get this now. You don't have to understand the soil, the schist, and

555
00:34:18,908 --> 00:34:22,384
all of the crap in there, right? I mean, well, I mean,

556
00:34:23,644 --> 00:34:27,340
for the average wine drinker. No, I mean, that's the thing with wine,

557
00:34:27,372 --> 00:34:31,116
is the layers are there if you want them, and they're not if you don't.

558
00:34:31,180 --> 00:34:34,420
You can turn that off. I mean, it's hard for when you're in the business

559
00:34:34,492 --> 00:34:37,892
to turn it off. It took me a long time to be able to go

560
00:34:37,908 --> 00:34:41,380
to a party at someone's house and drink a cheap, you know, kind of

561
00:34:41,492 --> 00:34:44,892
plain glass of wine. I poured a popular wine last night at the

562
00:34:44,908 --> 00:34:48,184
funeral, and I went to my car

563
00:34:48,724 --> 00:34:52,572
and brought something in that I had brought just in case. And I

564
00:34:52,588 --> 00:34:56,276
know the wine well that I served, and everybody loved it. I

565
00:34:56,300 --> 00:35:00,092
couldn't drink it. Yeah, I mean, that's the scary

566
00:35:00,148 --> 00:35:03,564
part. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when it comes to vintages,

567
00:35:03,644 --> 00:35:07,140
though, you know, I think, like, the way that we define vintages

568
00:35:07,212 --> 00:35:10,932
is difficult. You know, the people selling the

569
00:35:10,948 --> 00:35:14,024
wine and the people in the press

570
00:35:14,764 --> 00:35:18,460
basically just want something that's juicy and

571
00:35:18,532 --> 00:35:22,212
ripe and fun, you know, right out of the gate.

572
00:35:22,268 --> 00:35:26,116
Right? And so, you know, these cooler vintage wines, you know,

573
00:35:26,260 --> 00:35:30,100
you know, if you look at 2011, you know, Kapa Cabernet right now.

574
00:35:30,172 --> 00:35:33,924
Right. You know, they're gorgeous, right? You know, so those are just wines that you

575
00:35:33,964 --> 00:35:37,700
put away in the cellar and take your time on. And I understand that

576
00:35:37,732 --> 00:35:41,548
because when you're going out pouring wine for people, you know, you're not going

577
00:35:41,556 --> 00:35:45,284
to tell the person at the restaurant, like, oh, here, buy this wine from

578
00:35:45,324 --> 00:35:49,076
me now, and then keep it in

579
00:35:49,100 --> 00:35:52,556
your wine cellar for ten years. I mean, I know there

580
00:35:52,580 --> 00:35:56,284
are wonderful, amazing restaurants that do things like that,

581
00:35:56,444 --> 00:36:00,188
or maybe a distributor will hold back a little bit and

582
00:36:00,236 --> 00:36:03,644
try again in a few years, but that's just not the model that

583
00:36:03,764 --> 00:36:07,500
98% of people are operating on. I would imagine that's true.

584
00:36:07,532 --> 00:36:10,704
And most the argument, I think it's 48 hours.

585
00:36:11,334 --> 00:36:14,694
Like, 80% of the wine bought at the store is open in 48 hours. Right?

586
00:36:14,774 --> 00:36:17,750
So, I guess. And I guess that goes back to this consumerism thing. I mean,

587
00:36:17,782 --> 00:36:21,574
even Madame Clicquot was brilliant at figuring out the consumerism

588
00:36:21,614 --> 00:36:25,270
of the Russians and the English to get wines to them that they

589
00:36:25,302 --> 00:36:29,046
liked. And they were different. There were different cuvets that went to different countries.

590
00:36:29,150 --> 00:36:32,766
And I guess it's always been driven by consumers. Which leads me to this

591
00:36:32,790 --> 00:36:34,714
question, why the hell are you making Zinfandel?

592
00:36:36,574 --> 00:36:39,902
Well, yeah, so the fairy ring Zinfandel

593
00:36:39,998 --> 00:36:43,588
is, um, my own little 90 case, uh,

594
00:36:43,676 --> 00:36:47,500
project. And so my, um, two

595
00:36:47,532 --> 00:36:50,772
other jobs that I have, I wouldn't call the fairy ring a job as. As

596
00:36:50,868 --> 00:36:54,596
so much as an obligation. Right. Uh, but the, uh, Brooks

597
00:36:54,620 --> 00:36:58,172
note, the winery in Petaluma that I work for, and Toybox, who is a

598
00:36:58,188 --> 00:37:01,940
client of mine, we get all of the cab and cab

599
00:37:01,972 --> 00:37:05,692
franc out of a small vineyard in Calistoga. And so,

600
00:37:05,828 --> 00:37:09,610
um, toy box, before this, was making wine out of Pope Valley.

601
00:37:09,642 --> 00:37:12,534
But in 2020, the Cadden family

602
00:37:13,354 --> 00:37:16,770
vineyard that we sourced from actually caught on fire in

603
00:37:16,802 --> 00:37:20,090
2020. Yeah. So we kind of had to

604
00:37:20,202 --> 00:37:23,834
shift our production in 2021.

605
00:37:23,914 --> 00:37:27,130
I was working in a place called Joseph Sellers in Calistoga,

606
00:37:27,282 --> 00:37:30,882
and one of our clients there was Heidi

607
00:37:30,898 --> 00:37:34,682
Barrett. So we worked on the La Sirena and Lambourne family and

608
00:37:34,818 --> 00:37:38,348
Barrett. And Barrett wine. So that was a great experience. But the vineyard

609
00:37:38,396 --> 00:37:41,804
manager for Joseph Sellers was a guy named Gerardo,

610
00:37:41,884 --> 00:37:45,100
and I just asked him, hey, I'm looking for a little

611
00:37:45,132 --> 00:37:48,264
cabernet, you know, of anything. He says,

612
00:37:48,764 --> 00:37:52,476
I think I can help you. Meet me at this address, you

613
00:37:52,500 --> 00:37:56,220
know, this afternoon. And so I went and met this guy

614
00:37:56,252 --> 00:37:59,868
named Jack Smith, who's got this tiny vineyard called Marcy's Vineyard

615
00:37:59,996 --> 00:38:03,788
in his backyard across the Napa river

616
00:38:03,836 --> 00:38:07,330
from the fairgrounds in Calistoga. And

617
00:38:07,522 --> 00:38:11,094
we went down, he's got this shipping container kind of

618
00:38:11,874 --> 00:38:15,530
three quarters of the way buried into the bank of

619
00:38:15,562 --> 00:38:19,154
the Napa river there. And we went down there and tasting

620
00:38:19,194 --> 00:38:22,762
barrels. Wow, how cool that they had kind of just made

621
00:38:22,818 --> 00:38:26,242
there on site with no forklifts or anything,

622
00:38:26,298 --> 00:38:30,002
just all by hand. And so

623
00:38:30,138 --> 00:38:33,692
toy box and Brooks note split all of the

624
00:38:33,748 --> 00:38:37,524
Bordeaux varieties out of the vineyard. And Gerardo then said, well,

625
00:38:37,604 --> 00:38:40,916
you guys want the zinn, too. There's, like five rows of Zen.

626
00:38:41,100 --> 00:38:44,572
Wow. And I said, no, neither of my guys wants the Zen. He's like, well,

627
00:38:44,588 --> 00:38:48,212
what about you? I said, I don't have any money, you know? He said, well,

628
00:38:48,268 --> 00:38:52,084
let's work something out. And so I ended up trading 15

629
00:38:52,164 --> 00:38:55,996
cases of wine for my first ton of grapes. Wow. Congratulations. That's great. That's

630
00:38:56,020 --> 00:38:59,254
what I loved about the really wine business. There's a lot of bars going on.

631
00:38:59,334 --> 00:39:02,862
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like we've all got, you

632
00:39:02,878 --> 00:39:06,358
know, one person's problem is another person's solution. Right.

633
00:39:06,486 --> 00:39:09,974
And, you know, so long as you're dealing with

634
00:39:10,014 --> 00:39:13,766
quality stuff, like, there's no real problems. Yeah. They'd rather see it made

635
00:39:13,790 --> 00:39:17,134
into wine and make a deal on it than get it. Let it hang there

636
00:39:17,174 --> 00:39:20,790
forever. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, the Zinfandel

637
00:39:20,822 --> 00:39:24,126
just kind of landed in my lap, and I. And, you know, I've been at

638
00:39:24,150 --> 00:39:27,872
this for a little while now, and, you know, every winemaker wants to kind

639
00:39:27,888 --> 00:39:31,712
of have their own sort of project. And so I just felt like

640
00:39:31,728 --> 00:39:32,444
it was.

641
00:39:35,624 --> 00:39:39,208
I felt like it was nudging me in a direction. And that's great.

642
00:39:39,336 --> 00:39:42,872
You know, it's like when you're thinking about having kids, you're never

643
00:39:42,928 --> 00:39:46,712
really ready. Right. And so I

644
00:39:46,728 --> 00:39:50,416
just figured it was a good thing just to get started and

645
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,444
working on it. Isn't it a great versatile grape? Yes.

646
00:39:56,044 --> 00:39:59,620
Can produce port style wines. It can produce white Zinfandel and can

647
00:39:59,652 --> 00:40:03,464
produce, you know, structured, acidic wines and has great.

648
00:40:03,844 --> 00:40:07,676
It has a capability to absorb terroir as well. Yeah.

649
00:40:07,740 --> 00:40:11,196
You can tell when one is from Lodi or one's from Napa. So that's. Yeah,

650
00:40:11,260 --> 00:40:15,020
I think that's great. So you have 90 cases, which, you know, certainly

651
00:40:15,052 --> 00:40:18,836
you're not going to retire making and selling 90 cases. You have

652
00:40:18,860 --> 00:40:22,524
ambition to grow that brand into. I'm

653
00:40:22,564 --> 00:40:26,212
taking it slow right now. I've got two other jobs

654
00:40:26,268 --> 00:40:29,304
that I'm working on, and I got a seven year old daughter

655
00:40:29,844 --> 00:40:32,860
that I really enjoy spending time with.

656
00:40:33,012 --> 00:40:35,344
Yeah. And so

657
00:40:37,004 --> 00:40:40,796
I'm taking it nice and slow. I don't want to rack

658
00:40:40,820 --> 00:40:44,388
up a bunch of debt and then not have time to go out and sell

659
00:40:44,436 --> 00:40:48,012
something. So right now, it's at a fun level right now

660
00:40:48,148 --> 00:40:51,068
where I can go out and work on selling it if I need to. I

661
00:40:51,076 --> 00:40:54,544
can share it with friends. I can donate it to my daughter's school for

662
00:40:54,844 --> 00:40:58,144
dinners and things like that. And you get

663
00:40:58,964 --> 00:41:02,556
a little more experience every time you do it, right? Yeah. A little more understanding,

664
00:41:02,580 --> 00:41:06,316
a little more. Yeah. And so with

665
00:41:06,340 --> 00:41:09,820
Zinfandel, I'm definitely

666
00:41:09,972 --> 00:41:13,380
into making a more kind of restrained style.

667
00:41:13,532 --> 00:41:16,424
And I have no dogma about

668
00:41:17,084 --> 00:41:20,300
when I'm in a picket and what the alcohol needs to be or anything like

669
00:41:20,332 --> 00:41:24,042
that. Just gotta taste delicious. It's gotta have no residual sugar in

670
00:41:24,058 --> 00:41:27,722
it. It can't taste like a box of

671
00:41:27,738 --> 00:41:31,290
raisins. That's tough. And so

672
00:41:31,482 --> 00:41:35,254
I think, so far, what I've been able to do with it is make

673
00:41:37,834 --> 00:41:41,014
a medium bodied,

674
00:41:43,114 --> 00:41:46,866
acid driven Zinfandel that's got beautiful

675
00:41:47,050 --> 00:41:50,874
kind of layers in it of various fruits. I blended

676
00:41:50,914 --> 00:41:54,738
a little petite syrah into the 22 vintage, which kind of gave it a

677
00:41:54,746 --> 00:41:58,570
little bit of depth and darker fruit flavors and things like

678
00:41:58,602 --> 00:42:02,170
that. But the vineyard wants to do this

679
00:42:02,242 --> 00:42:06,026
really beautiful, floral, peachy, hibiscus

680
00:42:06,090 --> 00:42:07,614
kind of thing. So.

681
00:42:09,914 --> 00:42:13,662
The notes that the zimpandel provides naturally are just gorgeous. But I

682
00:42:13,678 --> 00:42:16,582
do like that petite syrah in there, just to give it a little bit more

683
00:42:16,638 --> 00:42:20,222
of the low end. A little bit more dark fruit, little acid. Yeah, a little

684
00:42:20,238 --> 00:42:23,686
more. Well, therein lies the thing. I want to tell you a quick story, because

685
00:42:23,710 --> 00:42:27,406
I went up to. I went to the African association of

686
00:42:27,430 --> 00:42:31,022
African American Vendors, and they had a tasting two Sundays

687
00:42:31,038 --> 00:42:34,470
ago at the copia, the CIA

688
00:42:34,542 --> 00:42:38,094
copia by oxbow, and I tasted about 75

689
00:42:38,134 --> 00:42:41,234
wines, all of african american

690
00:42:41,354 --> 00:42:44,970
descent, which is a growing issue in the

691
00:42:45,002 --> 00:42:48,054
industry. BIPOC women in the trade

692
00:42:48,554 --> 00:42:51,586
trying to get past the

693
00:42:51,610 --> 00:42:55,178
aristocracy. I've never thought there was a

694
00:42:55,306 --> 00:42:58,654
deliberate, exclusionary part of the wine trade.

695
00:42:59,034 --> 00:43:02,690
It's just an intimidating industry. But for

696
00:43:02,722 --> 00:43:06,570
oddball stuff that we, you know, and not that Zinz oddball,

697
00:43:06,642 --> 00:43:10,374
because it's obviously mainstream, and it was very popular in the seventies,

698
00:43:10,834 --> 00:43:14,346
but it's, you know, it's. It's a tougher sell in a market where it's congested

699
00:43:14,370 --> 00:43:18,014
with Cabernet and Pinot things. A woman was making

700
00:43:18,754 --> 00:43:22,454
a canned method champagne. Champagne.

701
00:43:22,994 --> 00:43:26,522
Wow. And so your first question is, as I was standing there was like, how

702
00:43:26,538 --> 00:43:29,374
do you disgorge it? She goes, we don't.

703
00:43:30,134 --> 00:43:32,954
Hmm. So now. Yeah, see, that's it.

704
00:43:34,214 --> 00:43:37,838
So, you know, the rose actually

705
00:43:37,886 --> 00:43:41,702
was pretty palatable wine. It was pretty interesting. But, you know,

706
00:43:41,718 --> 00:43:45,422
you've got this yeast thing going on in there, this spent yeast cells in

707
00:43:45,438 --> 00:43:49,238
this can. Yeah. And I was thinking, you know, how they, you know, they have

708
00:43:49,246 --> 00:43:52,526
the SWOT analysis, you know, you go heavy light or whatever, how they figured out,

709
00:43:52,550 --> 00:43:56,366
like, light beer was a. Was a potential marketplace, and

710
00:43:56,390 --> 00:43:59,972
you plug the holes. So where she saw

711
00:44:00,148 --> 00:44:03,860
cans and then method champagne wa. Was this empty

712
00:44:03,932 --> 00:44:07,708
space, but felt like that there was a marketplace for it.

713
00:44:07,876 --> 00:44:10,756
I'm trying to figure that one out, because so much of what we do is

714
00:44:10,820 --> 00:44:14,588
marketing, branding, and. Yeah, I think your strategy for your zin

715
00:44:14,636 --> 00:44:18,340
to grow slow and get some traction and see if it

716
00:44:18,492 --> 00:44:21,516
gets a hold, because building a brand on the wine business is almost, you know,

717
00:44:21,580 --> 00:44:25,084
virtually impossible. Yeah, well, there's only five rows in this vineyard,

718
00:44:25,124 --> 00:44:28,868
so that's how you're gonna grow, right? Yeah, I mean, you know,

719
00:44:29,036 --> 00:44:32,332
there are some. I mean, you know, I live in Santa Rosa,

720
00:44:32,468 --> 00:44:35,980
and, you know, Napa's got great zen, for sure.

721
00:44:36,172 --> 00:44:39,844
You know, folks like Biale and, you know, once in

722
00:44:39,884 --> 00:44:43,412
future, you know, Ridge. Yeah.

723
00:44:43,548 --> 00:44:47,196
And Montellaina has been making a great zen for years

724
00:44:47,220 --> 00:44:50,532
and years. And then you go over to Sonoma county and, yeah, you've got, you

725
00:44:50,548 --> 00:44:54,116
know, Sonoma Valley, which has all those wonderful field blends, and

726
00:44:54,220 --> 00:44:57,700
litten springs, as you mentioned, ridge, you know, dry Creek Valley's just

727
00:44:57,732 --> 00:45:01,304
got. I worked very good for. Yeah, I worked for Moritz and family

728
00:45:01,724 --> 00:45:05,436
out there for about a year, and they're

729
00:45:05,460 --> 00:45:08,996
making great zin. So there's a lot of opportunities and plenty of vineyards up

730
00:45:09,020 --> 00:45:12,700
there, even in the russian river, there's some really great old gnarly

731
00:45:12,852 --> 00:45:16,544
zin vineyards out there. So I think there's opportunity, but I think

732
00:45:17,924 --> 00:45:21,500
I want to try making a couple other things as well. And it's kind of

733
00:45:21,532 --> 00:45:25,372
nice to have a California classic if you've got to pick

734
00:45:25,428 --> 00:45:29,112
one wine to show somebody from another country. What is

735
00:45:29,128 --> 00:45:32,840
California wine? I mean, this is the true, unique kind

736
00:45:32,872 --> 00:45:36,464
of wine of the area. Well, before

737
00:45:36,544 --> 00:45:40,296
DNA testing of grapes, it was possibly

738
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:44,184
considered an indigenous Vitis vinifera

739
00:45:44,224 --> 00:45:47,360
grape. For California, but it's later. It's been disproven that. Maybe even for

740
00:45:47,392 --> 00:45:51,000
Persia, but that's a good point. It would be

741
00:45:51,032 --> 00:45:54,240
something that we would call Hazarathi. Brought it in 18. Whatever.

742
00:45:54,352 --> 00:45:58,186
Yeah. You know, that's where we hang our laurels. You know, there's

743
00:45:58,210 --> 00:46:01,746
a guy in Missouri. You should listen to the podcast. Jerry

744
00:46:01,770 --> 00:46:05,574
Eisterhold, he was on the show a few weeks ago, who's

745
00:46:05,874 --> 00:46:08,974
done this amazing research and found these

746
00:46:09,714 --> 00:46:13,386
Lambrusca grapes that made all of the wines

747
00:46:13,450 --> 00:46:17,226
before prohibition that were american. Cause

748
00:46:17,250 --> 00:46:20,754
that part of the world, at least part of the country, was very prolific wine.

749
00:46:20,834 --> 00:46:24,298
Louisiana, Ohio, you know, Michigan, all those places. The first Ava

750
00:46:24,346 --> 00:46:28,148
is in Missouri, right? Yeah, right. He's

751
00:46:28,276 --> 00:46:31,788
propagated like a dozen, maybe even more of these

752
00:46:31,836 --> 00:46:35,436
grapes, and he's already abandoned four of them going. I don't know how you make

753
00:46:35,460 --> 00:46:39,060
wine out of this, because it's just not working. But

754
00:46:39,252 --> 00:46:43,012
the Smithsonian wrote about him, and I got the Smithsonian

755
00:46:43,068 --> 00:46:46,820
four pack. It just got delivered last week. Of wines. Of grapes you

756
00:46:46,852 --> 00:46:50,184
and I have never heard of in our lives. And I'm not sure

757
00:46:50,884 --> 00:46:54,660
if I invite friends over to taste them with me or not.

758
00:46:54,772 --> 00:46:58,460
Well, yeah. It's got to be the right friends. To figure this

759
00:46:58,492 --> 00:47:02,260
out. So we're almost at. We're already at 47 minutes,

760
00:47:02,292 --> 00:47:05,172
which is unbelievable. But I did want to touch, you know, you. You have an

761
00:47:05,228 --> 00:47:09,004
interesting history with some of these winers, with Joseph Sellers, you

762
00:47:09,004 --> 00:47:11,860
know, Barrett. And Barrett. I know Bo Barrett. I mean, I went to school with

763
00:47:11,892 --> 00:47:15,548
his brother Kevin, but Claire Bowen and

764
00:47:15,556 --> 00:47:19,084
Churchill, I mean, that's what a fascinating group. And they make dry

765
00:47:19,124 --> 00:47:22,660
riesling, and one of my first wines I ever bought as

766
00:47:22,692 --> 00:47:26,442
a. In the wine club and always a go to when I

767
00:47:26,458 --> 00:47:30,106
needed something because the wines are such quality. What'd you do there? I worked my

768
00:47:30,130 --> 00:47:33,970
first harvest there. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So I was going to Cal Poly slow,

769
00:47:34,122 --> 00:47:37,602
and at the time, I just

770
00:47:37,658 --> 00:47:41,410
really was interested in making stuff that was different. And so

771
00:47:41,602 --> 00:47:45,402
they make some nice pinots, and Edna Valley is a great terroir for

772
00:47:45,418 --> 00:47:48,858
Pinot Noir. And, yeah, I was really

773
00:47:48,906 --> 00:47:52,380
interested in just, you know, making. So glad they're still

774
00:47:52,412 --> 00:47:55,628
around. Yeah. Yeah. Clay and Frederica are wonderful

775
00:47:55,676 --> 00:47:59,044
folks. I still think about every harvest

776
00:47:59,124 --> 00:48:02,788
that Frederica would come down with, you know, these

777
00:48:02,876 --> 00:48:06,068
beautiful sandwiches that were homemade and wrapped in wax

778
00:48:06,116 --> 00:48:08,744
paper and all that stuff. And

779
00:48:09,844 --> 00:48:13,404
my friend Kyle, who's got his own brand called Minus Tide

780
00:48:13,484 --> 00:48:16,184
with my friend Brad and Miriam,

781
00:48:17,434 --> 00:48:20,914
he was the other intern there with me and Kobe

782
00:48:20,954 --> 00:48:24,650
Parker Garcia was the winemaker he's got a brand called El

783
00:48:24,682 --> 00:48:28,414
Lugar out of San Luis Obispo as well. So

784
00:48:29,074 --> 00:48:32,578
I have a lot of great memories from that first harvest. I think most people

785
00:48:32,626 --> 00:48:36,410
do, if they landed at a decent place, have a lot of

786
00:48:36,442 --> 00:48:40,018
memories from their first harvest, and those were all great folks.

787
00:48:40,066 --> 00:48:43,854
And think back on that, there's a. Lot of loyalty in this industry.

788
00:48:44,474 --> 00:48:47,906
Not on the selling side. From the distributor standpoint, there's no

789
00:48:47,930 --> 00:48:51,262
loyalty, but from the. The authenticity of the

790
00:48:51,278 --> 00:48:54,870
winemaker and the winery. And so, like I said earlier, you know, my

791
00:48:54,902 --> 00:48:58,582
dad did some clair Bone and Churchill. I did a few. And

792
00:48:58,638 --> 00:49:02,382
whenever my back was against the wall to find something domestic that I thought would

793
00:49:02,398 --> 00:49:06,038
be interesting to show the club, I reached out to him. Yeah. And they always

794
00:49:06,086 --> 00:49:09,766
appreciated it. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. They always just thought, you know, thanks for calling.

795
00:49:09,830 --> 00:49:13,630
Maybe it was 24 months between or three years even before I would contact

796
00:49:13,702 --> 00:49:17,502
them, but they always had something, and they're always a

797
00:49:17,518 --> 00:49:20,910
little bit different than the other guys. You know, I always really appreciated that

798
00:49:20,942 --> 00:49:24,754
relationship. So, you know, we have a. We could talk again.

799
00:49:25,334 --> 00:49:28,606
I have to move on today. It's been a

800
00:49:28,630 --> 00:49:32,382
fascinating journey in your career. Yeah.

801
00:49:32,438 --> 00:49:35,206
And I wish you all the great luck. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. This

802
00:49:35,230 --> 00:49:39,014
industry brings to the table because it's fascinating and it's

803
00:49:39,054 --> 00:49:41,474
fun, and it's. I think

804
00:49:42,454 --> 00:49:46,206
Hinman, he was the winemaker at Yao

805
00:49:46,230 --> 00:49:50,022
Ming's place for a while, and he said, I meet amazing people,

806
00:49:50,118 --> 00:49:53,822
go to amazing places, drink amazing wine, eat amazing food. I may

807
00:49:53,838 --> 00:49:57,494
not make a lot of money, but you know what? It's not bad.

808
00:49:57,614 --> 00:50:01,438
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a fun industry to be in,

809
00:50:01,486 --> 00:50:04,950
and you work hard and there are

810
00:50:04,982 --> 00:50:08,806
challenges, but being around people that kind of love

811
00:50:08,830 --> 00:50:12,374
what they're doing and have a shared passion is always

812
00:50:12,414 --> 00:50:16,046
great. What's next? Today I'm headed down to the

813
00:50:16,070 --> 00:50:19,878
wine country in Long beach. My old. I was the domestic buyer at

814
00:50:19,886 --> 00:50:23,662
the wine, Randy Kemner. Yeah. So I worked with them for

815
00:50:23,678 --> 00:50:27,470
a year, and that's actually where I came up in my

816
00:50:27,502 --> 00:50:31,286
journey in wine, was learning about european wines by going to

817
00:50:31,310 --> 00:50:34,838
tastings there with Samantha, the champagne buyer, and GM

818
00:50:34,886 --> 00:50:38,390
there. And they've always been

819
00:50:38,542 --> 00:50:41,926
great to me. And it's always fun to go back and visit and pour the

820
00:50:41,950 --> 00:50:45,516
wines now that I'm out making wine. That's great. He's a great guy. Been doing

821
00:50:45,540 --> 00:50:49,164
this for a long time. Yeah. And talk about passion. You know, those folks are

822
00:50:49,204 --> 00:50:52,860
really passionate. And, you know, if you love champagne, if you love rose.

823
00:50:52,932 --> 00:50:56,356
That's definitely a place you gotta visit. I was

824
00:50:56,420 --> 00:50:59,624
fascinated to watch him because he was in the wholesale trade for a while and,

825
00:51:00,284 --> 00:51:03,548
you know, opening a store, brutal hours.

826
00:51:03,636 --> 00:51:07,036
Retail is retail. You know, he can't change that. And

827
00:51:07,140 --> 00:51:10,890
he's successful at it. And that's pretty unusual these days. So

828
00:51:11,002 --> 00:51:13,934
say hi to them for me. Will do. Cheers. Cheers.

829
00:51:22,834 --> 00:51:26,170
Thank you for listening to wine talks with Paul, Callum, Cary. And don't forget to

830
00:51:26,202 --> 00:51:29,354
subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way.

831
00:51:29,514 --> 00:51:32,834
Folks, have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.