Did Dr. Jan Krupp Abandon Medicine for a Vineyard Gamble That Changed Napa Forever?

0:00 Being a doctor is satisfying in some ways, but in a lot of other ways, it's not so creative. And so I love the idea of planting a vineyard and hopefully succeeding in growing some of the world's best grapes. And it's just the challenge of it and the pleasure of creating wines that were really good and growing fruit that better and more famous winemakers really loved. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California, about to have a conversation with Dr. Jan Krupp up in the Napa Valley. Let me read what ChatGPT wrote when I asked it for 75 words on, uh, Dr. Krupp. And that would be, what makes someone trade a successful medical career for a mountain of volcanic rock everyone else considered worthless?

0:58 Dr. Jan Krupp did exactly that and transformed the unplantable corner of Napa Valley into Stagecoach Vineyards, one of California's most celebrated sources of wine grapes. Today, the physician turned vintner joins Wine Talks to reveal the risks, relentless work, family partnership, and fearless vision behind Krupp Brothers and the extraordinary gamble that helped reshape modern Napa Valley wine. How about that, huh? Welcome to the show. I like that a lot, Paul. I guess I should use ChatGPT more. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks very much for having me on the show. Like I mentioned, we're supposed to be up there right now. And just, I had to agree with my wife about not traveling, you know, 2 days after a large wedding in the family. And I suppose she was right.

1:45 Well, glad to hear that. Hopefully you'll be able to visit Napa in the near future. Well, we do, we do plan on coming up pretty soon. Because I really prefer, and for the most case, Proper, um, uh, podcasting, but it's really hard in, in the Napa Valley because I never know what environment I'm gonna get. So when I come up there with my microphones and the cameras, and then they put me in a little dark room, or they put it in a room next to the, you know, the processors, you have the air conditioners going on. And so this, this is more secure when we do something virtual, but then I also like to shake people's hands and stuff. But let's, Let's talk about what you've done. You've got a book coming out called Forging Eden, and it's about the transformation. It seems like it's a story of your career in the wine trade, or are we talking about just Stagecoach Vineyards? What's the book about?

2:38 Yeah, the book is about how I evolved from a physician with a successful practice into, as you said, creating one of Napa's most iconic vineyards. And then pursuing my hobby of making wine, buying a small winery, really being able to focus on that after I sold Stagecoach. For 17 years before I started planting vineyards, I was a home winemaker. One of my professors taught me how to make award-winning wine at, in medical school, and I continued with it and loved it so much I decided I need to do more of it. That's a, I didn't catch that part, the home winemaking part, which is certainly very popular. There's places you can buy home winemaking kit, uh, apparatus. And my brother-in-law, you know, my brother-in-law, he, in fact, it was his son that got married. Uh-huh. Um, was up in Napa years ago and they were planting saplings at Silver Oak and he pulled over and the guy gave him like 6 saplings and he propagated them here in Glendale, California.

3:40 And he's been dying to, uh, to taste what he's created. Uh-huh. I'm not sure I'm so excited about it, but he's— but what, so how did that happen? Was that because fermentation sciences when you were in medical school, and that was at Yale, correct? Or is that with Stanford? Well, that was where I was an undergraduate. When I was at Stanford, one of my professors was really good at teaching a good friend of mine and me how to, how to save people. We got to be friends and he said, you know, Jan, I can teach you and Keith how to make wine better than most of what you can buy. And so that was an offer I couldn't refuse. And for 17 years, my friends and I made wine. And the first few wines, we weren't, they really weren't better than what we could buy, but our wines got better and better. And I love doing it. I also always have had an orchard and a big vegetable garden.

4:34 And so it was nice to able to do more of both in Napa. It's kind of interesting because it is, I mean, it is science. Let me ask you this question then. It always fascinates me that there's that homegrown, not necessarily, I don't mean in your garage homegrown, but I mean this, the cellar, right? The cellar rat type progression through into professional winemaking. You, you don't need to go to UC Davis necessarily to understand winemaking and make good wine. You can learn it in your garage. That's true. You sure can. And there are many examples, as you know, Annette, of winemakers who never went to Davis or Fresno or Cornell and make really good wine.

5:20 So I, yeah, we got better and better at making it in our garage, and each one of my friends was able to contribute something different. Some of 'em were really good at hauling barrels. The cardiologist was great at cleaning up our act. And after he did that, we would win best of shows pretty frequently. So it was, it was a really a, a good group of friends, a lot of fun. The wines got better and better, and eventually I wanted to do more of it than, than just in my garage. Well, you, you, you talk about in the synopsis of your book about this idea that the, medical profession was— I'm not gonna say it got boring. I'm gonna say that it seemed like you were not getting the fulfillment out of it that you had hoped, or that maybe you had, but was slipping and, you know, making a career change from something as stable as the medical field. Well, maybe not today, but, you know, those days. Of course. And, and moving into a really risky environment, was purchasing the vineyard The first thought, you, you, there wasn't a thought of necessarily creating the most iconic vineyard in, in the valley necessarily at that point. It was just to have something.

6:30 It, it was a, a set of small steps, Paul. You know, as you, we've talked about the home winemaking and the, the home orchard were the first step and wanting to do more of it. I started looking for property that I could plant. Love planting things that grow and produce fruit. And I found 41 acres high up on the mountain, high up on Atlas Peak in Napa. And that was an undiscovered area back in 1990. So part of what gave me the courage to make the full transition was that I had experimented on a small scale. I built a house there, planted 23 acres of grapes to start. And that was very successful. We were making money at it. Famous winemakers really wanted the grapes. We had a waiting list. Wow. So between that small success and dealing with a lot of rocks even there, and between being able to help and occasionally save patients that other doctors threw up their hands, needed help figuring it out, and just a sense of confidence that I probably gained from my parents, I figured I would tackle it. I wanted to do more than the 41. One day I saw a poster on a telephone pole for 750 acres and I thought, well, this is crazy.

7:50 That's a big jump. But— Wow. Yeah, it was. And that's just part of Stagecoach now. But I, you know, I started getting viticultural consultants to look at it. I enlisted my brother who's always been very successful to be a major partner. not only financially, but with really good ideas. I brought winemakers up to see if they'd want the grapes and explained what I was gonna do. And so it was a jump from 41 to 750, and we weren't gonna plant it all at once. We were just gonna plant 200. And it was a big, big step. You're right. A lot of banks turned me down to get a loan. Well, let's back the trolley up a little bit. You were seeking And I'll tell you an interesting concept because right here is my father.

8:42 This picture's from his painting, but it's a picture in 1975 in our wine shop. Wow. In Palos Verdes Estates. And one of the things that grew the Wine of the Month Club, which started there in 1972, was that he would visit, he would take a booth to a show and he would go to the legal shows and doctor shows and boat shows and gun shows. And there was a lot of interest when he went to the professional shows like the doctors and the dentists and whatever was going on. And I'm wondering if that lifestyle, because of the elevated social environment that doctors are in and dentists and in the legal profession, is it a lifestyle that you were seeking? This idea of, or just the idea of making wine was just interesting to you as your scientific curiosity. But sometimes it's just the idea that I get my own brand, I'm gonna have my big château, and I'm gonna act like a— Yeah.

9:39 No, that wasn't my motivation. I, you know, being a doctor is satisfying in some ways, but in a lot of other ways it's not so creative. And so I love the idea of planting a vineyard and hopefully succeeding in growing some of the world's best grapes, hopefully growing fruit that could make wines like Ridge-Monobello or Château Margaux. And it's just the challenge of it and the pleasure of of creating wines that were really good and growing fruit that better and more famous winemakers really loved. So just looking for another success and a new challenge. My medical practice at first was very challenging. I went to a community without many subspecialists, and so I often had to solve problems that in Glendale, an infectious disease doctor or an endocrinologist might solve. And eventually the community got more mature. But I guess I love challenges despite the stress of overcoming them. I do love the creativity of planting a vineyard. It's just from the ground up and hopefully producing world-class fruit. I like the creativity of making wine, and my scientific background helps with both. Did you know what that meant when you started this? What a— what— see if we can drill down to this definition, world's best grapes. Did that have meaning to you before you started this, or did the world's best grapes come around? It's kind of

11:12 like the movie Elf, you know, yeah, world's best coffee, and everybody, you know, what, what, but what does that mean? I, I guess, um, what it meant to me, Paul, is that when I was, um, when I did my military service for 2 years in Phoenix, I worked in the Public Health Service there, And so I had a lot of extra time to cook with my friends and have, have pair wines, French wine and American wine at each dinner once a month. I also was graced by the drive-up wine shop where the guy got really wonderful wines like Château Margaux and Mouton. And for some reason they were pretty cheap. I learned later that he didn't pay his taxes and ended up in jail. I guess that was one of the reasons. Love that. But I, I really loved what I was trying from him. And I guess I've got a pretty good palate and I can tell the difference whether it's a ripe peach or, you know, a, a crummy peach. And I also applied that to wines. I just like excellence and I like great stuff. And I guess I, I tasted it there and I thought, I'd like to do this someday. But when, when was that? approximately?

12:29 Wow. Long time ago. That was in the early '70s. And then after that, I went back to Stanford and that professor taught me how to make wine. And for years, we just tried to make better and better wine and wine that you could really enjoy drinking and that would win awards. And when I started out to plant a vineyard, I talked to some of my friends who had vineyards that produced really great fruit. And I said, I'd really love to do this. I'd really love a backyard vineyard and my medical practice. I thought I'd have both when I bought the 41 acres, and the vineyard kind of got away from me, as you know. You know, we were, uh, I was asked to appraise a, um, a cellar not too long ago down the street from here in Arcadia. And I went into the cellar and unfortunately it was, uh, just completely mismanaged. There was no air conditioning. The provenance of all these wines was terrible. The labels were moldy. And so I told the family, I said, Uh, just, you know, open a bottle and drink it in your father's memory. And if it's no good, open another one because there's no chance of selling it. But, but they had, he had collected so long ago that he had a bottle of Petrus that he bought from Trader Joe's that had a sticker of $19.95 on it. Wow. So I don't know if it was any good or I'm sure it was no good at all. No good. Whatever. So this, You know, there's, there's this jumping off point like Jim Barrett from Château

14:02 Montelena. He, when they won the Judgment of Paris in 1976, he didn't leave his law practice until 1983 or '86 or something like, well, 8 to 10 years later. When did you decide, well, maybe I need to focus full-time on this? After you bought the 750? Yeah. After I bought the 750 and we had a, a list of really good wineries buying the grapes, and we were starting to develop a waiting list of wineries. And we, you know, it looks like it was going to be a really profitable venture. And I got really busy with that. I loved working on up on the mountain with my crew and checking for grapevine diseases and brainstorming with them what row direction to plant the grapes and what varietal to plant in which area and talking to consultants and winemakers trying to get it right. And it was just kind of all-engrossing. It became the center of my life.

15:02 And once it really started going and making some money, I figured I'd rather do this full-time. Are you married? I am married. And was she— were you towing her along or was she pushing back? What was going on in that relationship? That's a good question. Well, look, Well, I'd only go through the same thing myself, so what the hell? Okay. So my first wife, I was towing her along and she thought this would be a great opportunity. And we sold our house in Orinda and built a house in Napa and planted the vineyard. And after about 4 or 5 years of that, she said, you know, I really don't like this.

15:47 I'd like to move with you to San Francisco or Piedmont. And if you don't want to move, I'll probably file for divorce. Wow. And, you know, I think the marriage wasn't so solid in other respects, Paul, to be honest. So I said, well, I thought about it a long time. And I said, well, if you want to file, go ahead. I really have found my roots here. And I'm not moving to a city. No pun intended about the roots. So, wow, that's a What a serious thing. I don't usually talk about those kinds of things on the podcast, but that's so important to a decision you had to make because maybe you would've made a different decision. You wouldn't have experienced this amazing growth and the lifestyle of the Napa Valley. Yeah, it was a critical decision.

16:39 And if the marriage were perfect in every other respect or really good, I might have gone with her back to an urban environment. But it was just a good time to, to split up and to focus on grapevines. And at that point, the wine, the 750 had been purchased and you had planted it. Had you produced grapes yet? What at that point? Yeah, at that point when she gave me that ultimatum, I had just found the 750 and I was really loving the 41 acres. So it was kind of a dream. I didn't know that I could find partners with money and banks and customers, but it was a dream that really grabbed hold of me. And I— so she left. The divorce was unpleasant. And about 3 years after I started Stagecoach, I just didn't want to go down the mountain anymore to my medical practice. I said, this is wonderful being up here. in the open air with all these grapes.

17:48 A lot of great customers, great workforce, good consultants. It was, for me, it was paradise, Paul. You know, that's, that's an interesting perspective. And I, I'm sure it was much different then than it is today. And, you know, certainly parts of Napa Valley are criticized for wealthy Los Angelians coming up and thinking they wanna be part of this lifestyle and realizing that, you know, building a big château isn't the end of the world. And by the way, you have to sell this stuff once you make it. And this is not so easy. Right. And so, but here's a real organic approach to it. You know, you started small, you wanted to see how it went. You, you kind of bucked the system in the first place by even thinking that you could plant grapes in that environment. And I have a slug full of Atlas Peak wines in my in my cellar now that I bought during COVID that I just adore because of the terroir and the complexity of the wines. But you did it organically. You did it because you loved it, not because you thought this would be the most lucrative thing you ever pulled off, right? No. You weren't even sure of that probably at the point. No, you're right. I wasn't even sure it would succeed, especially with that first vineyard. And that's why I kept the medical practice for I started planting that first vineyard in '91, bought it in '90, and I didn't leave my medical practice completely until 1998. So, so did you see— have you seen even that short time, because I'll call that

19:22 short time, the vineyards in Napa have been around 100 years, but did you— have you seen a commercial transition of winemaking and the approach to hospitality evolve in, in Napa Valley? 'Cause right now it's kind of tough. It is kind of tough. I think, um, for a long time, as, as you know, uh, overseas wineries were buying places and, um, it was growing, it was getting kind of commercial. Um, and now it's gotten tough for a lot of people and, and people are selling and, and don't wanna be here anymore, at least some of 'em. I wonder, I wonder why that is, because I think, I think the Napa Valley, you know, the flag wavers of the early days, the Mondavis and the Christian Brothers and the Martinis.

20:16 And I just, I just had another thought that you are right. There are some foreign investors coming in, wineries, the French have bought up some stuff. Right, right. But the one that rings a bell, the Cathiards, you know, the Florence Cathiard and Château Smith Haut-Lavigne, I think they're more, more like you when they started in Bordeaux. they had the same sort of vision and dream and organic love of it. And that's why they came to Napa Valley. But I don't think that's always the case. And to get to this point, which is work, we come up all the time and it's gotten— it doesn't seem like the cost of the tasting rooms has been reflective in this decrease in tourism. The cost of the hotels don't seem to be going down. It just seems like— just less people are coming and tasting room traffic is lower and there's just no anticipation of, of trying to change that. Is it, what do you guys, is there conversation in the back room? There are conversations. A lot of my colleagues in the wine industry do think the hotels are too pricey. Some of us are reducing our fees for tasting. We have at our winery, made a substantial reduction. And there is some of that going on, which is good. I think, Paul, that is part of the problem. The other part of the problem, I think, as you know, is that health recommendations have changed. Mm-hmm. Young people are drinking less wine than they used to. So I think there are a lot of

21:49 factors, but, but Napa did get kind of commercial and too pricey for many, many people. And— It just, I, well, one of the, here's the conversation I had with, with one of the vintners, the younger side, but they have built, again, went to the Valley not to seek fame and fortune, but to seek a lifestyle. And their tasting room manager told me this and see if it jives, that the hotels have decided almost, you know, decisively to live with a 30% occupancy, keep the prices high, live with a more skeleton crew, maybe less full-timers, so you pay less in wages and all the rest of it, and live at that level than to lower the prices, increase occupancy, and run that one, run with a full staff. And what that does eventually, if less people come, then there's less tasting room traffic. There's less dollars to go around. Restaurants. I mean, some of the restaurants in Yountville closed. Right.

22:57 And even JCB, you know, walk from that Atelier there, the tasting, the tasting room we had. So I just find it, and I find personally, I think these are just adjustments. Where's wine gonna go? It's been around for how many years? It's gonna stay around, don't you think, Paul? 6,000-something years. But, and I think that's rooted in what you're doing. Thank you. And that is producing an honest glass of wine that I think regardless of the neo-prohibitionists and the packaging changes and all the things that go into, you know, modern marketing, never changes. What you're doing never changes. I agree.

23:38 I agree with you. Yeah. I think every— go ahead. There'll always be a demand for that type of wine. And I think it's unfortunate that the hotels are kind of shooting themselves and the rest of us in the feet. You know, it just seems to me that even the Gen Zers, the millennials, I mean, I raised 3 millennials. They love wine, maybe because of my trade, but I, it occurred to me the other night when we had dinner, And I brought some Grand Cru Burgundy and some classified growth Bordeaux to a dinner that my guests didn't know what they were. Wine novices, as it were. And they both, you know, the whole table just said, wow, this is really good. Uh-huh. And don't you think that that recognition is gonna be across all generations and all peoples that once they get that complex wine that feels like Atlas Peak, for instance?

24:35 Yeah, I do, Paul. I think that having wine like that is an epiphany and turns people on to wine. And I think the younger generation will come around. And I think there's controversy about the health effects. There's some positive effects and some benefits. And even a longitudinal study from Britain seemed to show that mild wine drinkers and even moderate wine drinkers had kind of more benefits than risks. So I do think a lot of this is a cycle and it will turn back positive. Well, you're an MD. What was your specialty? Internal medicine.

25:15 Well, then we should be discussing the Mediterranean lifestyle and the tannic, the quercetin and the other things, the resveratrol that What is your medical opinion of, of the, let's say, the Mediterranean lifestyle? Yeah, I think the Mediterranean lifestyle is a real benefit. I think it's beneficial to reduce the heart disease. It contributes to longevity. I think wine, when not drunk to excess, has a lot of positive health benefits because of some of the chemicals you mentioned. Also because of stress reduction and socialization. I think there are a lot of positives to a good bottle of wine. I guess what I read once, it was talking about, and since I have you on this call, we're gonna finish with, I've got this book I'm gonna bring off camera. It's written by an MD in France in the '70s about the curative properties of a glass of wine. So we'll have some fun with that at the end of this. But would you have ever told a patient you should have a glass of wine or 2 a night? I have on occasion, you know, patients that were really stressed out and tough jobs. And sometimes I've told them, you know, maybe a glass of wine at dinner will help relax you. Maybe you want to meditate afterwards.

26:42 I think wine is really helpful to to reducing stress levels. And then you didn't take them into the side room where you had your wholesaler and all the bottles were priced, and just in case you want to take a, a bottle out the door while you're at it. Yeah. What your, your winemaking philosophy today with the Krupp Brothers, uh, because when you owned Stagecoach, you didn't, um, you didn't manufacture wine at that point, correct? Not at the beginning. Um, Started Stagecoach in '95. My brother and I decided to make a little bit of wine in '99, and that's grown. And when we sold Stagecoach in '17, we bought our own small winery, which helped us really fine-tune our winemaking equipment and process.

27:29 And, and are making more wine now than we used to. I noticed you have quite a variety of, a variety of varietals. How about that? that, I don't know, I, I'm not sure I would've equated them with, with Atlas Peak, but how is that working with this? You have Sauvignon Blanc, you have a rosé, you've got some Bordeaux blends, you've got your Cabernet. So it's really interesting to see of so many varietals being made there and that how well they might do in Atlas Peak. Yeah, I guess, Paul, I had the luxury of having this huge property. It stretched from Pritchard Hill to Atlas Peak and a bunch in between. So there are different microclimates, different aspects, some south-facing, some north-facing, some at the bottom of hills that were cooler where Sauvignon Blanc thrived. So I guess I was spoiled by being able to choose from all these varietals and some of the ones like Syrah. Michel Chapoutier encouraged me to plant it, and I never would've planted Syrah if he didn't encourage me and then later give my son an internship.

28:44 I mean, of course he's gonna suggest Syrah. I mean, come on. Yeah. Yeah. He brought 12 of his wines to my house and we tasted a bunch of mine and some of my customers. And when he got done, he said, you know, the Cabernets and Merlots you're producing in your custom are really great, but if you just save some rocky ground for Syrah, he says, it would be even better. Wow. And I felt like kicking him out, but, you know, he was a world expert and I was just beginning. And I was glad I listened to him because I think the Syrah does particularly well at Stagecoach. But You know, Paul, to your point, not in all of Stagecoach. There are areas where it could be mediocre, but on south-facing rocky slopes, it's just wonderful. Hmm. I can't get my wife to drink Syrah, and I've thrown all kinds at her and barely sneak them by. And she usually looks at me and goes, this is Syrah, isn't it? I'm like, yeah. She can tell, huh?

29:47 You got me. Well, her palate— I think her palate's better than mine, even though she was the accountant at the Wine of the Month Club and I was the buyer. Tell me about Forging Eden, this, uh, the reason why you wanted to tell the story. You know, I, I just feel like it's a story of, um, perseverance, hard work, luck, and, um, family support. I couldn't have done it without my brother. I wanted to dedicate it to him and, and include a lot of episodes where he was key in making this work. But I also wanted to kind of popularize the wines from Atlas Peak and Stagecoach as part of Pritchard Hill.

30:30 They're already popular, but just kind of put my mark down on what I created and how I did it. And hopefully it'd be an inspiration to other people. When people come to the winery and they ask me questions and I tell them about different aspects that are in the book way before the book even. All of a sudden they say, well, we'd like to do this. Can you give us some tips on how we can plant a vineyard and start a small winery? So I think it is inspirational to other people. It clearly is. But that inspiration doesn't just come from, you know, tasting wine. It comes— you're right, it comes from hearing the story. But that story has to come from the heart. I mean, it has to come from the perseverance, the passion, the pursuit. It's impossible, I think, in this industry not to have those qualities built in before you try to do this because the headwinds are great and the margins are lousy. And, you know, the— You're right.

31:36 It's just not there. But this is what's interesting to me when I got this notice from your PR agency, which was— I've tasted 100,000 wines in my career. I tasted every Tuesday for 35 years. It was purely to make sure that I delivered to my customers the best I could find. Wow. I heard 100,000 stories along the way. I had never heard your story before. And it seems like there must be more of these, but here you are all these years in this genera— in producing wines and producing a vineyard that's now iconic. And I had not heard your name. And that's why you had to come on the show because are there— well, I'm not sure how to phrase this question. Is it you were just working, doing your job and PR was not part of the thing? You just, you already had internal PR because winemakers were seeking your grapes. It was a low profile kind of person you are. What, why hadn't I heard of you before? Yeah, I'm not sure why. I think one reason, Paul, is people who have mainly vineyards aren't famous, you know? And I kind of felt like, well, I'm producing all these great grapes that wonderful winemakers love, and they're the heart of some of their best wines in Napa. But yet it's hard for the vineyard to get a lot of credit. Mm-hmm. So that's one of the reasons I bought the small winery. I You know, just to have more vineyard designates. It's one of the reasons we made our own

33:07 wine brand. So to give credit to the vineyard. And I think that's, that's the other motivation for the book, you know, not a, I mean, like you say, why hadn't you heard of it? You really like Atlas Peak wines. I bet you like Pritchard Hill wines too. Yeah. But why hadn't you heard of this huge vineyard that covers both of those terroirs? So I think that was another motivation for me doing this book. It's interesting to me, and I've had, like, Mike Salacci has been on the show from Opus, and we discussed this idea that maybe one day Highway 29 becomes the break cutting the east and west side of the valley in half. And so you double the Appalachians because there's East Rutherford and West Rutherford or whatever.

33:54 That notwithstanding, the point I'm making is, does it gonna take that many more years for Napa to be recognized by appellation? I, I, we understand it, but certainly the general wine drinking public that understands Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion and, and Pauillac versus Saint-Julien, et cetera, or Burgundy, even in a more granular fashion. that Napa gets that same sort of recognition that, that appellation drives these characters. Yeah, I think, Paul, you make an excellent point. I do run into people who prefer Oakville wines or Howell Mountain wines or Atlas Peak wines or Stag Lake wines.

34:39 So there are some wine connoisseurs that do understand the difference between those terroirs. Carneros is an extreme example. But you're right, it hasn't really hit the popular press like the regions in Bordeaux and Burgundy have, or in Italy. I'm not sure why that is. Napa's a lot younger than those places. You know, when was the Grand Cru Classé? Was that 1855 or something? Correct. Yeah. For the Left Bank. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think time certainly has something to do with it. My dad used to sort of, he wouldn't complain, but he would sort of point out, he was a Francophile. He spoke French.

35:26 Wow. His early days as a Cairo— he's from Cairo as an immigrant. But he always thought that the French were very good at romancing what they are. But I think it's more than that. And I always envy, and I've said this before on the show, that I've always envied the Old World of Europe where they protect their butter, they protect their cheese, they protect their wine in appellations and controlling that. But the flip side, the French and the Italians love America because it's a free world and you can do whatever you want. You don't have to grow Cabernet and Merlot and Cabernet Franc in one district. You can grow whatever you want. So it's kind of like the grass is greener for everybody. But I, I think time has a lot to do with that, that specialization. And do you think maybe that this idea that seems to be breaking up a little bit now, but that Napa Valley opulent extracted fruit-forward wine that made, that became so popular in many brands, won't throw anybody under the bus. I think that's sort of breaking down a little bit. Do you see that or do you still feel that? I do see that. You know, I, I went, I don't own Stagecoach anymore, but I went to a Stagecoach tasting where a lot of the wineries brought their wines and they did talk about lower alcohol wines and different varietals and the popularity of red blends.

36:48 And I think for a while, Paul, people were chasing Cabernet all over Napa and there might be an area where Cabernet doesn't belong. Sauvignon Blanc would be okay. But people planted Cabernet anyway. So I think that that's— Napa needs to break up the terroirs and plant what's best for each terroir. And again, that was my luxury at Stagecoach. The property there is now 1,300 acres. Wow. And you could just pick and choose. It's not all planted, but you'd pick and choose whether you wanted to plant grapes on Pritchard Hill or Atlas Peak or down, down in a hole that was cold and, and really fine-tune it. I think Napa needs to do more of that, and maybe this down cycle will promote that. I, I am seeing some changes in the winemakers and winery owners, so hopefully that's coming.

37:46 You know, the, the— there's all over the press when you sold, uh, the winery in 2000, the vineyard in 2017, that we're not— we just, we agreed not to talk numbers. You sold to one of the great largest landowners in the world of— I mean, I'm talking about the world of grape owners. And I had a friend's family that sold a very large appliance firm to a very large American corporate America. Uh-huh. And they got a very large number. That number right now would be probably an 8th at today's value. In other words, if they had waited until today, they would have gotten an 8th of the value that they got 25 years ago.

38:29 And you sold about 9 years ago. Do you think in today's environment that you would have resulted in the same sort of cash value of the property? No, not at all. I was very lucky, Paul. I really never wanted to sell Stagecoach. I thought I would die farming that. So you felt like you were dying when you were farming it? Yeah. With the red dirt when I was first creating it. Yeah. But I was lucky. You know, Dave Finney came to me. He had sold Orin Swift to Gallo. It worked out really well for him. He was still kind of guiding Orin Swift and, and helping with the marketing. He had sold The Prisoner before that. And he, he came and invited me to lunch, and he was my biggest customer by tons of grapes back then. By cash value, it was Caymus because Caymus was just buying Cabernet. But anyway, Dave invited me to lunch with an investment banker and he said how good, how well the sale to Gallo had worked out for him and it just changed his life. And so I considered it. I knew my brother, I couldn't have done this without Bart, and even my other brother Fred helped a lot. I knew he would like, to sell it. Never twisted my arm, but I knew he thought it was time to kind of put estate plans in order and stuff. So that was one of my motivations. The reason I brought that up too is because Gallo is, you know, prolific in the industry and they certainly have, I've sold a lot of their wines. They're good wines. And my dad sold a

40:01 lot of their cheap wines in the wine shop. So, but they just bought a brand from a young lady who had not been in the wine business for more than a few years. And, and she was sort of a Gen Z proponent, or she was a Gen Zer herself. And she created a brand that, that I guess is attractive to Gen Zers. It was really interesting to me. One of the features of the wine, A, it was a crown cap, which I thought was weird, but 2, you could peel off the label. Right. And write on the back of it, you know, who you were with, you know, what the ex— And it, with the experience, I'm like, I tell myself, and I'm not criticizing her because she was bought by Gallo and what a great business transaction. But my dad used to do that.

40:47 We used to have this big piece of, we sold them in the store, this big giant piece of tape, big square tape thing. Uh-huh. And then you'd put it on a label and you'd peel it off. And then you'd put it in a little cellar book and you'd write down whatever you wanted to write down, whether you drank it with friends or whether you, you know, what your, what your notes were about the wine. And it's a repackaging of something that's already been around forever, you know? Yeah. But she was smart in doing it that way. But, but that just triggered a thought. I keep reading about this generation, millennials too, and maybe the ones after, Gen Zers, being more experiential. And this patch here, which is Les Amis du Vent, this is from the '70s, was exactly that. It was for the public to be part of a group that wanted to experience wine.

41:40 And I guess history just repeats itself, right? It does. It does. You and your dad had the tape idea and now Gallo thought it was worthwhile. History does repeat itself. Because what are you gonna do in the wine trade that's new? You know, it's like— Right. Though the other day I read about, and I've had many people on this couch behind me that have the latest packaging idea, you know, the cans. One woman suggested Lafite Rothschild would be in a can. And then I just read the other day that somebody's introducing wine in a pouch, like a kid's baby pouch. And I'm like, how is that an experience? Yeah. To squeeze up Cabernet? I don't get it.

42:22 Not for me or you, huh? No. Because you're a vineyard owner and because you're an MD, This is— I usually don't do it for domestic interviews because all the varietals that are suggestive of this ailing, the body ailing, are French. So I'll give you— what I do is I give you a human ailment, which you'll obviously be familiar with. And then Dr. Murray, who wrote this book called Wine Is the Best Medicine, this is from the '70s. Oh. And his curative wine for that ailment. And by the way, regardless of who I talk to, it's still, I'll give you 3 choices and the going rate is 33% right.

43:06 So. Ah! But, and then, but more importantly is really like the Master of Wine test. Why did we choose that answer? Right? Like, explain it. And he gives an answer. So let's go with, Let's go with bronchitis. Since you're an internal medicine guy, would you have a Graves, a Burgundy, or a young Beaujolais to cure or to help with the symptomatic relief of bronchitis? And why? Maybe a young Beaujolais. Okay. And why would that be? Just a, a lighter approach, something that's not gonna make the bronchitis Worse. And something you probably won't drink that much of. And what would the dose be? Ah, the dose would be 6 ounces. 6 ounces.

44:05 My father would've done it. My father was a pharmacist by trade, by the way. And he probably would've done it in drams, right? So that's pretty good. Well, I apologize, but it's Burgundy. It's Burgundy. Though, you know, that's pretty close, right? Beaujolais, just south. Pretty close. Yeah. Just south of Burgundy there. And he suggests that it's because of the phosphorus. But he wants you to warm it up, which is kind of interesting. That is interesting. Does he say to what temperature, Paul? He says 140 degrees. Wow. Warm, warm Burgundy, huh? He says these maladies, especially the last 2, can be accompanied by lassitude, cardiac weakness, and kidney malfunction, particularly when the now so popular antibiotics are used. So it sounds like he's trying to supplement the antibiotic. All right, well, and his suggestion is It doesn't say here. Oh, 3 coffee cupfuls per day. Huh.

45:17 There you have it. Okay, I'll remember that next time on the webcast. Have you ever, have you ever had Burgundy at that temperature, Paul? Or anyone? Only if, only if the cellar air conditioner broke. No, I don't think I've ever, you know, wine, of course, when you have warm wine, it, you know, it kills all the flavor. Right. I agree. That's so interesting. Anyway, such an honor to have you on the show and a pleasure to hear the story. And I hope when we come up, we can sit and have a glass of wine and share some more. I look forward to that, Paul. Thank you very much for having me on the show. I've loved the interview. Thank you. And look, look forward to the book coming out. When's it, when's it release? October 27th. Oh, so we got a little ways to wait. Okay. Um, very good. Well, again, thank you for the time and, uh, and have a great day today and we'll look forward to meeting in person. Sounds, sounds perfect, Paul. Enjoy your day too. Cheers.

46:12 Cheers.