Make The Best That Represents New Zealand. Meet Josh Hammond of Tiraki WInes.

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For me, selling wine is the hardest part of the whole wine industry, in

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my opinion. So if we were going to take this on and create our own

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brand and therefore have to sell our own wines, I only wanted to

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be making the best wines that I possibly can and taking those into the

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market to represent ourselves and our family. Sit back and grab a

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glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in

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beautiful Southern California, about to have a conversation with Josh Hammond of

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Taraki Wines, all the way from New Zealand. Introductions in just a moment.

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Hey, have a listen to Robert Foy. Had him on the show last

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week. Incredible conversation about his career at

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Accolade in Australia, then to treasury, has

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opened offices all over the world for wine sales and now

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has become a complete unifile and looking for

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more work, actually, as he retired from Treasury. But really interesting conversation

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about that side of the business, but not while we're here. Here to have a

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conversation with Josh from Teraki Wines. He's the owner and winemaker of

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a New Zealand house. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Paul. Great to be here. I

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mean, what a schedule you were trying to keep. It's a busy. It's a busy

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trip. It's a. It's a big country you've got here, so. Yeah. Yes, it is

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pretty big. Yes. Compared to New Zealand, I think it would be. This is interesting

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for me, though, because the way the industry's been going

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and the way wine sales haven't been that great

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worldwide America is even worse. And you

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come out and you are doing what, you're having dinners, going

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to the wholesalers, pitching. Who are you talking to? Yeah. So meeting here

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with our importer, which is

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the first time we've. We've launched in. In America. So we've. We're only

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new over here and getting out there,

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going to restaurants, bars, meeting people, meeting the distributor,

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meeting the team that will be on the ground selling our wine. So you've been

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like. But you would have sounded like you're doing like one city a day. It's

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like. It's like pretty much, yeah. It's a quick trip. That's crazy. And so

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you've been in New Zealand selling Taraki wines already in your first

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time in America, which is kind of exciting to come because we are a huge

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marketplace. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We launched five years ago.

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We started into the Asian market first. One of our partners is based in

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Shanghai, so our first kind of focus was into China.

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And over the last five years, we've put a lot of focus into growth

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globally. So we're in 32 countries around the world now. But I

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didn't take long. No, we, we work hard. We work hard and we work

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fast. So, yeah, when do I start at Shanghai? I mean,

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obviously New Zealand, in Marlboro. And for the, for the

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listeners, Marlboro is the south of the north island.

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The north of the south island, and. Martinboro is south

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of the North Island. You're right. But why China?

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So I guess tear aqui came about. COVID was closing the

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borders around the world. Chris, one of the partners, was

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Shanghai. He wanted to get out of there. They were nailing the doors closed behind

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people, so it was a good time to leave. My brother and sister

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were both overseas. My sister was in Colorado, my brother in

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London. So everyone came back to New Zealand. I was already there and

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I guess there was a lot of time with not much to do. They were

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all out of work. And so over a few bottles of wine and a bit

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of brainstorming, we thought we all had pretty good expertise

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to. To join together and form a wine brand.

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I guess in the few years preceding that, I'd always thought that I wanted to

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launch my own brand and make my own wines. So it all kind of came

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together from there and we thought, well, you know, it's a competitive space. There's lots

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of New Zealand Marlborough producers. The wines are all around the world. Like,

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what's going to be our competitive edge? And so with Chris

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living in Shanghai for 10 years, being fluent in Mandarin, understanding

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the business world there, he worked with his wife in a Chinese business,

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we thought, well, that's really a good point of difference for us. A lot of

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New Zealand brands have gone to China and I guess had some

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initial success. They've sold some wine into China and then it's all kind of

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got lost. And they haven't had those repeat orders and continual

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sales. So we thought we saw a good chance for us to

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make a difference and sell some wine into China. And

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from our successes there, we've spread so initially to other

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parts of Asia and then into Europe, and now here we are in the

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U.S. can I. Hear what a Kiwi accent?

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A Mandarin. Kiwi accent sounds like? I

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couldn't do it any justice. I mean, that's just. That just sounds

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pretty. When he's pretty exotic in Mandarin, like, I mean,

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to me, he. He sounds like he could be Chinese. Wow. Yeah, he does

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a good job. Yeah. Interesting. Well, it's interesting because on the show recently,

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the Robert Foy who I just introduced, opened an office for. I think

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it was treasury in China and accolade as well.

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And then I just had a woman on the show, Emily Steckenbosch,

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and she is the LVMH representative,

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Ambassador Streckenborn of

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lvmh and fascinating part of the world, because

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I've always thought that China was always behind the curve

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of other Asian countries when it came to wine.

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So, like, when they first got introduced to wine many years ago, it was all

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Bordeaux, all first gross, all the best Napa. And they realized

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that's not the only place that you need to be. You can drink other things

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that are more economical and still be really good. And so that's

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maybe part of this. Yeah. 100. I think, you know, you think

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Sauvignon Blanc in particular maybe wouldn't work so well

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in China. You think of Chinese food, and in parts of China, it's quite

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spicy. So you'd think, how does that pair with wines?

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But actually, actually, the acidity in Sauvignon Blanc seems to work really well. I

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know that our Sauvignon in Shanghai is really popular with hot

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pots. So, yeah, I probably

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wouldn't have thought that we would have success there, but

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it's working, so it's great. The first question I had for Emily when she was

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on the show was, is your Chinese food in China really like

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the Chinese food we have here in America? She said, no, it has nothing

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to do with it. Well, that's interesting, because

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there's another movement to Singapore as well.

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A lot of bored delays are in Singapore now because these markets are opening up,

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and I wonder if that's a balance to some of the issues are going on

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in Europe. I don't know about the consumption in New Zealand. I haven't read about

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that lately, but certainly America, it's generally down.

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Yeah. Have you seen that as well? Yeah. I think there seems to be a

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movement globally to. To drink less, whether it's. Whether

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it's wine, beer, spirits. My understanding in the

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US is that white wines, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is still in

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growth. We're definitely all getting out here and

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trying to help that continue to happen. So on my flight out of

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Blenheim, there was three winemakers on the plane, two of us coming to the us,

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One going to Europe. So it's the time of year that we all get out

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here and do our best to sell the wine and keep the trend

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in the right direction. Well, I was saying before we got started that,

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you know, I taste well I used to taste wine every Tuesday here, as Emily

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would remember. And it would be a rather

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thermometer of what's going on in the industry. You know, what's coming to America,

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what's. What's being sold, what needs to move quickly because we have too much.

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And so you would see, particularly Australian wines ebb and flow. And

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New Zealand wines are a little more stable. You see them all the time. But

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I hadn't seen them lately, so it's interesting to see them again. I just tasted

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one two days ago. Yeah. Also, and so. And certainly it's that character of

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Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough is. Is well established in the

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palates of most Americans. But I think when it comes to the

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consumption side of this, I think it ebbs and flows.

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Right. I think that we go through periods at my dad's

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shop in that picture there, you know, we sold bottles and James wine coolers,

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we sold Matuse Lancers, Blue Nun leaf, raw milch. It

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just. It's just the way our industry is. But the core value

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of that proper glass of wine never changes.

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No. How can it change? Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right.

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So I'm thinking that it'll come back or it'll settle in a different

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place. But properly made wines will always

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have their human connection. I certainly

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hope so. And, yeah, for us at Tearaki, wine is

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about, you know, it's more than something to drink. It's about

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sharing our sense of place. You know, we want our wines to represent the

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vineyard that they come from, and we want them to be about

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connections with people and about evoking

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emotions and memories of things that you do together. We all

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love spending time outdoors in the mountains or the oceans around New Zealand.

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And when we're doing those things, whether it's, you know, a day on the beach

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with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or around a fire in a hut at the

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top of a mountain with a glass of Pinot. Great

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image right there. Exactly. And you don't actually have to have been to

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New Zealand and done that, but if you can think about that when you're drinking

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our wines and. And go, that's. That's what I want to do, then that's. That's

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what we're trying to achieve. I think that's got to be the. The

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criteria that makes this part of the human

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story, really. I mean, I. I always talk about this. If you were

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to pick, let's just say, five things that. That would express a

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culture in the world. Yeah. Land. If you have it, New Zealand has it

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language. If you have it, New Zealand has it

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food. And that's not always the case. Like we were in

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Sicily and I didn't find anything. There was no cultural food there. Really. There's

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some fried chickpeas about it and not disparaging it, but

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not always. There is cuisines as expressive, but wine is

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always part of that expression. If they have culture, a wine culture. I

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agree. You know, you can take this halfway around the world as you already have

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and plop it on the desk. And I know you're. We're from New Zealand. Yeah.

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How can that change? Yeah, I don't think it can. I

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hope it doesn't. So. Yeah. Plus you started a winery. You hope it

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doesn't. So, but you said earlier that you're working

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with your sister. How's that working out? Yeah, great. Yeah. So

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it's. My brother and sister and I all work together,

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perhaps. Fortunately, we're all in different parts of the world, so, you

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know, we communicate all the time. We probably talk a lot more than we would

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if we weren't in business together. And hey, like

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any family, we don't always agree on, on

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everything, but we, we all get along well. We always have.

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So it's great. I, I love it. That's great. Yeah.

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But I don't think I could do it. I don't think everybody can.

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But no, I'm fortunate that we all get along. And

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that's great. Yeah, well, it is, it

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generationally. It's another part of the wine trade

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that is fascinating that it has a generational.

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I certainly wouldn't have sold Wine of the Month club if it had, you know,

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traction. After 35 years, it was starting to get different. The

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business was totally different. But I can certainly see in the wine trade as the

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manufacturer, you know, there's, there's an opportunity for generational

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growth. Yeah, you're right. And I mean, New Zealand's got a very young wine history

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when you compare it to Europe and other parts of the world. My family,

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we've been farming the land for 150 years, but it's only been

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my father, so the previous generation that started planting vineyards, and then

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I'm the first generation to start making wine from the land. So

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we have that historical connection with the land, but the

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journey into the wine world is new. And yeah, who knows, hopefully

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one of my children or one of my siblings children might

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join the business in the years to come and we can continue. That on and

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maybe they'll make some money. Hopefully we can do

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that, too. What is the general

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gist of in the movement in New Zealand? Sustainability, Organic,

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biodynamic. Has it ever strayed from any of

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those places? In other words, some parts of the world it always

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was organic, like Burgundy. I think sustainability has

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always been big in New Zealand, and New Zealand has always held this image of

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being clean and green. And, you know, for me,

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I think it's important to do what you

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preach and. Yeah, so sustainability is

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a big part for us. We're the first

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B Corp certified wine brand in New Zealand. So for us,

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and when we formed the business, we wanted to create a company

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that was all about what our personal values were.

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And so, you know, we love being outside and in the environment. We want to

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be in a clean environment that is going to be there for

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generations to come. So looking after our land is a big part of what we

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do. Looking after our community, being part of our community, supporting other

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producers, other industries in our community is

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what we stand for. And so if we can incorporate that in our business

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and share that goal with other people, that helps other people do the same thing

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as well. I think there's a good movement with other New Zealand

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producers doing the same. We were the first to become B Corp certified. Now

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there's at least four or five others that have done the same. That's an accolade.

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Congratulations. Thank you. Not inexpensive. It costs money to do all those things

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and make sure. So it adds to the price of the wines, but

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it does. I don't think there's much product in the world that probably isn't a

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product in the world as attuned to sustainability

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and giving back to the environment that wine would be. If

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you think about it right, it's. Like, yeah, I think it comes, you know, if

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you're a vineyard owner and you spend

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time outside and in your vineyard, then I think naturally you want to look

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after that soil so that you can keep producing what you're

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growing. And yeah, you have that connection with the land. Because in America, we've

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ruined it all. All of our wheat field, all over, that's all

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full of crap. And so we have to now go backwards and figure that out.

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Which is interesting to me that we're going back to what it was

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anyway. Like, we screwed it up. And now, like, oh, hey, we screwed it up.

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We have to go back and do it right. I guess at least. At least

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there's a learning to be had there. And a lot of things do go full

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circle. And, you know, if you go back a generation

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or two and the introduction to synthetic fertilizers and

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herbicides and pesticides and all of that. And all of a sudden the production of

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anything could, could boom. And the ability

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to grow food or to grow grapes became easier.

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Now, since then, we've seen some, some downsides to farming that

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way. And so we've gone, okay, maybe some of the things we were doing before

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the invention of these were actually better. Maybe it's good to

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keep cover crops in your vineyard that naturally enhance biodiversity,

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bring in beneficial insects, help with soil health.

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And, and so we, we implement those practices again. And

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yeah, we've taken that learning, continue it on. There was an argument at some

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point that, that you couldn't produce. Of course,

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with wine, the yield of the grape, like any

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agricultural product, matters as far as the quality of the product.

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But there was a, an argument at some point where

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organic, bad, dynamic, sustainable farming couldn't produce enough.

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And I don't think that's accurate. Yeah, I think it, it

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depends on a number of other factors as well. I think for me, if

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you're farming organically, particularly with

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viticulture, you need to spend a lot of time in the vineyard and you need

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to take care of what you're doing. You can't be hands off.

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Some people think, oh, it's organic, so you don't do anything. It's organic, so you

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actually do twice. You have to do more. I know, yeah. And I

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think if you're willing to work hard, then the yields are sustainable.

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They might not be as high as if you're using a whole lot of synthetic

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fertilizers. But I think the quality of the wines, the quality of the grapes that

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you're growing is going to be so much better that, sure,

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if you have to sell your wine for slightly higher, the quality is there. And

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there's enough people in the world that want quality wine that we can, we can

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cater to them. And I think that's where it's headed. You know, I

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don't think in general, when you hear the news of consumption down and there's got

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white claw and all this junk that people are drinking and this eventually fades

265
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away, as well as other movements

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with food, low elk, non alk. You know, all those

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things have their position. What cracks me up is that non

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alk. I was selling non alk wines in that shop when

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I was a teenager. Really? They're not new. Okay. They've been around for a long

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time. Yeah. And they haven't changed that much. They're still undrinkable

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yeah, I'm not, anyway, Right. But this,

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I think as a winery, since you're younger,

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you have to plan out, right? You have to think five, seven years down the

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road, maybe even more, and then all of a sudden, consumption changes or there's some

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kind of whimsical move in the marketplace, and now you have to adjust.

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And, you know, some people get caught with too many grapes and

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just more wine on the marketplace, they sell it off

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for something else, ends up in a bottle somewhere else. And I was reading Yesterday

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in a 1980 magazine on wine about fraud.

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You know, they were bringing in wines from France and mislabeling it in America.

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You know, so you got that going on, too.

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You're only making two wines right now. Two into the U.S. we

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make Chardonnay as well. We just can't bring it into the US at the moment.

284
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And that was what you always farmed, those three varietals?

285
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That's correct, yeah. For me, it's important to be making wines from the fruit that

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we're growing ourselves. That gives us control over the quality. So it's also

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what I think Marlborough can do best. Sauvignon Blanc, for sure.

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And everyone knows that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, we can grow exceptional

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grapes as well. So. So you have to choose

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what side of this equation you're going to be on. Are you going to be

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on the fine wine side, which you obviously have? There's an argument I

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make regularly because you. You kind of can't do both.

293
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You kind of. Unless you're this huge corporation and you have

294
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many diverse branches, you have

295
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to decide that you're going to make fine wine, you're not going to mess around

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with cans, funny bottles,

297
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low alk, non alk, all these different variations. But you

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guys have chosen to take on this side of the fence.

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I think there's been. I think there's been plenty of examples of businesses

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that have tried to cover it all in the past out of Marlboro and across

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the world, and we've seen that not really work out. In my experience,

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it's very hard to do the high end and do the entry level and

303
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everything in between, because all of a sudden, people know you for that entry level,

304
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and then they don't care about your high end. For me, you

305
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know, selling wine is the hardest part of the whole wine industry, in my opinion.

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And so if we were going to take this on and create our own

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brand and therefore have to sell our own wines, I

308
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only wanted to be making the best wines. That I possibly can, and taking

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those into the market to represent ourselves and our family. So,

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yeah, there was no question in my mind at all, ever that this is the

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direction we were going to take. And I'm sure there's a place for

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Noelk wines and everything in between, but,

313
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yeah, that's just not the field we want to play in, I think. And I

314
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hope there's enough people in the world that want to continue drinking fine wine. So.

315
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Somebody said it's thousands of years old already.

316
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Kind of hard to upset that apple cart at this point in the game to

317
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change it that much. Exactly. And I think, you know,

318
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sometimes you get asked, marlborough Sauvignon, is it just a fad? You know,

319
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what are you going to do? There's. There's lots of Sauvignon Blanc planted in Marlboro.

320
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What are you going to do when people stop drinking Sauvignon Blanche? And you go,

321
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but in Burgundy, they've been making Chardonnay and Pinot for

322
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hundreds of years. And, you know, everyone still drinks. Well, not

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everyone anymore because they're so expensive. But those wines are still being

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produced. So I hope. And as long as the quality stays there,

325
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then there's no reason why Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc shouldn't stay as

326
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a wine. Yeah. I mean, certainly the flagship of

327
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the area when it comes to America. You know what comes to America? I've never

328
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heard that comment made before, and I would think the

329
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opposite. Sancerre has become extraordinarily popular when you couldn't sell

330
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to save your life 10 years ago. Yeah. Okay. So. And that's just sort of

331
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part of the consumerism of it all. I did have the

332
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chance the first time, and it's never happened before or since, to

333
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taste a wine. The other day that was a Pinot Noir from the

334
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central coast here in California. Same

335
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vineyard, and then that same wine made

336
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non elk. Okay. Side by side.

337
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Absolutely no relationship. You cannot tell

338
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that this came from. Had anything to do with the terroir or the

339
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source of the grapes or anything. Nothing. It was terrible. Yeah. How has

340
00:21:02,140 --> 00:21:05,380
the reception been with Taraki? Amazing.

341
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It's been, you know, when you get out into the market with

342
00:21:10,020 --> 00:21:12,420
the. Your own ones, and

343
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it's great to get feedback from people. You're with

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consumers, you're with the people that actually drink your wines. And so it's always

345
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exciting to get that feedback. And,

346
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yeah, since we've been over here in the US the reception has been

347
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awesome. So gives us a lot of confidence to keep doing what we're doing.

348
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,760
You do need that positive feedback, don't you? It's important. Yeah.

349
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:40,630
You're doing dinners, pairings, meeting with

350
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salesforces. Emily's driving around all over la. She

351
00:21:44,310 --> 00:21:48,110
is? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, my bad. It's good work if you can get it

352
00:21:48,110 --> 00:21:51,910
right. I think so. It's a. It's a lot of fun. You know, we

353
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get to eat in a lot of great places. The wine industry is

354
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full of people that enjoy drinking wine, enjoy talking,

355
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enjoy having a good time. So it's a great community of people to

356
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be around, and I think you find that all around the world.

357
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So how do we teach? This might be a difficult question and

358
00:22:10,010 --> 00:22:13,610
unanswerable. How do we teach someone who's not come to the table yet

359
00:22:14,410 --> 00:22:18,250
how that feels, how that lifestyle is? Yeah, it's a

360
00:22:18,250 --> 00:22:21,690
good question. What we're doing today, like you're being here. Yeah.

361
00:22:22,170 --> 00:22:25,850
Yeah. I think podcasts like a great

362
00:22:25,850 --> 00:22:29,610
way of getting a message across. If you go

363
00:22:29,610 --> 00:22:33,460
back five, 10 years, podcasts, at least in

364
00:22:33,460 --> 00:22:37,100
my experience, weren't people didn't listen to them. That wasn't a big thing. But now

365
00:22:37,100 --> 00:22:40,900
everybody listens to podcasts and it's a great source of information.

366
00:22:41,220 --> 00:22:43,620
So. Yeah. Being on. On your show,

367
00:22:46,900 --> 00:22:50,660
educate a new consumer. Well, it was, you know, I

368
00:22:50,660 --> 00:22:54,380
didn't. You didn't have to go that direction. That's fine. The reason I brought up

369
00:22:54,380 --> 00:22:58,230
is this. This patch here is from 1975. My dad would. Could have been

370
00:22:58,230 --> 00:23:01,790
wearing it in that picture. There's a group called Les Ami Devant. If you

371
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had a wine shop in America, you could have a chapter 150

372
00:23:05,590 --> 00:23:09,350
chapters eventually in America. Wow. In fact, the

373
00:23:09,350 --> 00:23:12,990
me. The magazine I was reading last night was from this chat from this

374
00:23:12,990 --> 00:23:16,510
group, and that was a wine enthusiast group of

375
00:23:16,510 --> 00:23:19,910
consumers. Yeah. And so my dad would call up, you know, a local

376
00:23:19,910 --> 00:23:23,470
winemaker or a local wine critic. They'd have dinner.

377
00:23:23,870 --> 00:23:27,390
The women, you know, would get dressed up. The men were sometimes they were tuxedos

378
00:23:27,630 --> 00:23:30,030
and made a whole deal out of this.

379
00:23:31,790 --> 00:23:35,510
But that's. That kind of thing is being accused of being the

380
00:23:35,510 --> 00:23:39,230
aristocracy and the snobbery of wine. And so

381
00:23:39,870 --> 00:23:43,590
the contemporary conversation or chatter is we need to change the

382
00:23:43,590 --> 00:23:47,310
language of wine, which makes no sense to me, because

383
00:23:47,310 --> 00:23:49,950
if you change the language, then the other person's not going to understand what the

384
00:23:49,950 --> 00:23:53,630
language is. Right. The language my dad used to describe wine, to talk about

385
00:23:53,630 --> 00:23:57,270
wine, is different than what I. And he wouldn't understand part of

386
00:23:57,270 --> 00:24:00,030
it. So if we change this, it's going to be the same Evolution.

387
00:24:00,910 --> 00:24:04,230
But is there a way to break down the

388
00:24:04,230 --> 00:24:07,990
aristocracy of it, if there still is aristocracy to

389
00:24:07,990 --> 00:24:11,070
it? Yeah. I mean, why can't we speak two languages?

390
00:24:11,950 --> 00:24:15,790
We can appeal to a broader audience and. Yeah, I think that's a good point.

391
00:24:16,750 --> 00:24:20,550
I mean, we definitely want our ones to be approachable. We don't want to

392
00:24:20,550 --> 00:24:23,770
seem like we are up here and that

393
00:24:24,490 --> 00:24:27,450
unless you're up here with us, then you can't be touching our wines.

394
00:24:28,410 --> 00:24:32,090
And so I think some of the language that you use and how you. You

395
00:24:32,090 --> 00:24:34,970
speak about wine, how you share wines with your friends,

396
00:24:35,850 --> 00:24:39,370
is important on breaking those barriers down and making it

397
00:24:40,010 --> 00:24:43,530
more approachable to a broader audience, for sure. So I wonder if

398
00:24:43,530 --> 00:24:47,370
that's, you know, the supermarket wines here, they're sugared up. I

399
00:24:47,370 --> 00:24:51,050
mean, it's a very necessary part of our industry. When my dad was

400
00:24:51,050 --> 00:24:54,450
around, it was white zinfandel from Sutter Home, which started at that point in

401
00:24:54,450 --> 00:24:58,010
1974. And that brought people to the table that were maybe drinking

402
00:24:58,010 --> 00:25:01,770
scotch or beer before that. The point I'm making

403
00:25:01,770 --> 00:25:05,570
is that was 50 years ago, right? Yeah. It's still

404
00:25:05,570 --> 00:25:08,530
the same conversation. Okay. It's a very slow

405
00:25:09,330 --> 00:25:13,010
dynamic, but I. I believe every generation

406
00:25:13,940 --> 00:25:17,060
eventually has that glass of wine

407
00:25:17,540 --> 00:25:21,140
that brings them into the fold. You don't have to be, you know

408
00:25:21,140 --> 00:25:24,580
this, a critic. You don't have to have the language. You don't have to find

409
00:25:24,580 --> 00:25:28,340
chocolate or cocoa or. Or green apples in your wine. Yeah.

410
00:25:28,660 --> 00:25:31,940
You just have to be inspired by it

411
00:25:32,500 --> 00:25:35,980
either by the story, by what's in the. What's in your glass. And I don't

412
00:25:35,980 --> 00:25:39,700
know if that's. I know that changes. Yeah. I don't. I don't know either, to

413
00:25:39,700 --> 00:25:43,140
be honest. Maybe it's something that. That comes with a certain level of

414
00:25:43,140 --> 00:25:46,960
maturity or that' or. Yeah,

415
00:25:47,360 --> 00:25:51,120
I'd like to think that at a younger age

416
00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:54,920
you can discover that. And. Yeah, maybe some of that comes

417
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,720
around. Education with alcohol, there

418
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:02,480
seems to be a push away from consuming any alcohol at all at the moment.

419
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,920
It's bad for you. Maybe that education needs to be more.

420
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,640
It's okay to have a glass of wine with dinner. It's not about going out

421
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,440
and getting smashed. Isn't that funny? Because that book right there, the French

422
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,200
Paradox, would argue the opposite. Right. That a

423
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,920
glass of wine is. It's got benefits to you, health wise. Yeah.

424
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,680
Yeah. I had a woman on the show and she put it

425
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,760
the best I've ever heard. I said,

426
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:32,560
you are attracting a generation of drinkers. Subordinate.

427
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:34,240
She's a Bordeaux house and a Napa house.

428
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,440
I said, do you think that. That people are coming around to

429
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,320
the expression of what's in this bottle? And she said, yes, because

430
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:45,760
it's welcome to civilization.

431
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:51,560
Isn't that great? I like it. Yeah. Isn't that great? Yeah, it's a. And then

432
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:55,200
there's a movie out, a French movie out now where the story is, I think,

433
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,040
about one of the first female chefs in France, you know, goes

434
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:02,480
back to the 1800s. And the gentleman of the house says,

435
00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:07,100
wine is the intellectual part of the meal, because

436
00:27:07,100 --> 00:27:10,820
doesn't it create interesting conversation? 100%.

437
00:27:10,900 --> 00:27:14,340
I mean, when you're with friends that don't generally are necessarily wine people,

438
00:27:15,460 --> 00:27:19,180
does the conversation come about. I don't have any friends that don't drink

439
00:27:19,180 --> 00:27:22,980
wine. That's a good point.

440
00:27:23,620 --> 00:27:26,980
So when you're with your friends who drink wine, do they.

441
00:27:27,460 --> 00:27:29,700
I mean, isn't the conversation about that.

442
00:27:31,220 --> 00:27:34,660
I mean, when I'm with friends that particularly work in the wine industry, there's a

443
00:27:34,660 --> 00:27:38,460
lot of conversation around wine. But I guess, yeah, friends that aren't in the

444
00:27:38,460 --> 00:27:42,060
wine industry that enjoy drinking wine. There's. There's often

445
00:27:42,060 --> 00:27:45,900
conversations about the wine, or at least with the wine and the food together and

446
00:27:45,900 --> 00:27:49,740
how that that pairs. And yeah, I think after a

447
00:27:49,740 --> 00:27:53,220
couple of glasses of wine, that's when you find the best conversation start. Yeah, that's

448
00:27:53,220 --> 00:27:56,900
right. There used to be a wine brand called First

449
00:27:56,900 --> 00:28:00,660
Bottle, Second Bottle, Third Bottle. And the first bottle was a little better

450
00:28:00,660 --> 00:28:03,300
than the second bottle, the second bottle a little better than Third Bottle, because it

451
00:28:03,300 --> 00:28:04,420
didn't matter at that point. Y.

452
00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:10,800
About your farming practices, what you're doing here that you're trying to

453
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,560
pull out of this. Yeah, we really want our wines to evoke a

454
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,840
sense of place, as I mentioned before. So it's all about

455
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,080
growing good quality grapes and then allowing that to speak through

456
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,960
our farming practices. So we are as sustainable

457
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,640
as we can be. We use cover cropping in the vineyards

458
00:28:31,120 --> 00:28:34,960
throughout the year, so using different plant species to help with that

459
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,470
soil health and bring in beneficial insects. We keep sheep in the

460
00:28:38,470 --> 00:28:40,990
vineyard through the winter months, which helps graze the grass

461
00:28:42,190 --> 00:28:45,990
and is good for biodiversity as well. The Pinot

462
00:28:45,990 --> 00:28:49,470
Noir is organically farmed, so no use of

463
00:28:49,870 --> 00:28:53,429
herbicides or pesticides. And the

464
00:28:53,429 --> 00:28:57,190
Sauvignon Blanc, we're heading in that direction as well. It's just a staged approach

465
00:28:57,190 --> 00:29:00,790
at the moment, but I think all of those practices really

466
00:29:00,790 --> 00:29:04,430
help your site speak through in the wine and.

467
00:29:05,410 --> 00:29:08,810
Yeah. Move away from producing a wine that year on year. It looks exactly the

468
00:29:08,810 --> 00:29:12,610
same, because no two years are the same. That's what makes winemaking

469
00:29:12,610 --> 00:29:16,370
fun. Every year you've got a new challenge, and you work with that challenge

470
00:29:16,370 --> 00:29:19,650
to ensure that you're making the best quality wines. But that doesn't mean the wine's

471
00:29:19,650 --> 00:29:23,330
going to be exactly the same every year. So that's an interesting problem.

472
00:29:23,330 --> 00:29:25,330
Right. Big brands.

473
00:29:27,170 --> 00:29:30,530
I mean, we drink Jack Daniels because it tastes like Jack Daniels, and we drink.

474
00:29:30,530 --> 00:29:33,610
But I think they drink Apothec Red or Josh because it tastes like that. And

475
00:29:33,610 --> 00:29:37,290
they're going to do what they have to do to make it. Yeah. Similar each

476
00:29:37,290 --> 00:29:40,290
year. And here you are trying to express that vintage.

477
00:29:41,090 --> 00:29:44,890
And I have this thought, which is, if that's

478
00:29:44,890 --> 00:29:48,170
the case, there are no. There are no bad vintages. If, if the

479
00:29:48,170 --> 00:29:51,890
wine's job is to express the terroir,

480
00:29:52,370 --> 00:29:55,250
the winemaking philosophy at that year, at that time,

481
00:29:56,370 --> 00:30:00,170
it'll be different than the year before, the year after. But there can't be

482
00:30:00,170 --> 00:30:02,800
a bad vintage because it's true to its definition.

483
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:07,800
I hope you're correct. In our short history

484
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,440
to date, we've been fortunate to have a number of very

485
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,160
good vintages. I mean, a challenge

486
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,560
with, you know, the timing around picking your fruit is always.

487
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:22,440
Is there rain in the forecast? As we get

488
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,080
closer and closer to harvest, you're looking at like, three different weather forecasts

489
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,890
every day. I love this time of year because I don't care what the weather's

490
00:30:29,890 --> 00:30:33,530
doing. So, yeah, it's a challenge to

491
00:30:33,690 --> 00:30:37,130
avoid the rain. Make sure you're pressure right now. No pressure. Exactly.

492
00:30:37,610 --> 00:30:41,450
Make sure you're picking the best quality fruit and that it's at

493
00:30:41,450 --> 00:30:45,210
the ripeness level you want, but that it's clean and it's going

494
00:30:45,210 --> 00:30:48,530
to make good wine. So sometimes you have to pick earlier to avoid that rain.

495
00:30:48,530 --> 00:30:51,290
Sometimes you can leave it out for longer, I think.

496
00:30:52,980 --> 00:30:56,660
Yeah, I'd like to think there's. There's no bad vintage, but there. There will be

497
00:30:56,660 --> 00:31:00,500
some years where the wines stand out more than other years. But you've

498
00:31:00,500 --> 00:31:04,100
been farming, your family's been farming for, you said 150 years? Yes. Yeah.

499
00:31:05,220 --> 00:31:08,980
Do you think that that history rolled

500
00:31:08,980 --> 00:31:11,940
for you? I don't know how many grandfathers that would be for you, but.

501
00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:16,900
Three. Three. I'm the fifth generation, so

502
00:31:16,980 --> 00:31:20,690
my father and then three generations. So sitting at the dinner

503
00:31:20,690 --> 00:31:24,010
table now, you weren't making wine, but still you were farming. You were

504
00:31:24,250 --> 00:31:28,050
producing the best grapes you can produce, so that the wines that came from

505
00:31:28,050 --> 00:31:31,370
those grapes were the best. Yeah, I guess. I guess my father was the first

506
00:31:31,370 --> 00:31:35,130
to plant grapes. So 30 years of vines. Before that, sheep. Oh, sheep.

507
00:31:35,850 --> 00:31:39,610
So you think, I mean, obviously, at least in my opinion, the,

508
00:31:40,570 --> 00:31:43,770
those histories your father's 30 years has rolled forward to you.

509
00:31:45,620 --> 00:31:49,180
Maybe it's just conversation at dinner time. Maybe it's walking the vineyard, maybe

510
00:31:49,180 --> 00:31:52,940
it's, you know, looking over a barrel. Who knows? But there are

511
00:31:52,940 --> 00:31:56,700
stories to be told between you and your father just to get where

512
00:31:56,700 --> 00:32:00,180
you're at today, which I think is part of the terroir, which I think no

513
00:32:00,180 --> 00:32:03,060
one would argue with that. How long do you think it takes

514
00:32:04,100 --> 00:32:07,780
for you to really understand not a

515
00:32:07,780 --> 00:32:11,540
vintage, but what's out there in your vineyard? I think you never stop

516
00:32:11,540 --> 00:32:14,950
learning. You never stop learning. Yeah, there's, there's

517
00:32:14,950 --> 00:32:18,670
obviously big learnings to be had in your first few years.

518
00:32:18,670 --> 00:32:21,670
And, and for sure we're walking the vines with my father

519
00:32:22,390 --> 00:32:25,830
talking around the dinner table. You know, I might be

520
00:32:25,830 --> 00:32:29,430
experiencing something for the first time, but he's like, Ah, 10 years ago we had

521
00:32:29,430 --> 00:32:33,070
a really similar vintage. And I tried this. It didn't work. I

522
00:32:33,070 --> 00:32:36,910
tried that. It did work. So, yeah, those, those learnings around the dinner table are

523
00:32:36,910 --> 00:32:40,540
super important in terms of carrying it through into the

524
00:32:40,540 --> 00:32:44,260
winemaking. It's. Yeah, that's what I love about it.

525
00:32:44,340 --> 00:32:47,940
Every year you're learning, everything is always slightly different. And

526
00:32:48,180 --> 00:32:51,380
hopefully I will be able to take my learnings and pass those on to the

527
00:32:51,380 --> 00:32:55,139
next generation as well. I can't think of any other product

528
00:32:55,300 --> 00:32:58,420
I've tried this many times. It's certainly not a widget or a microphone or

529
00:32:58,900 --> 00:33:02,580
couch or anything like that that happens to. But

530
00:33:02,580 --> 00:33:06,300
even in regular agriculture, somebody brought up the other day

531
00:33:06,300 --> 00:33:10,100
in a, in a conversation, which is, wine is almost a

532
00:33:10,100 --> 00:33:13,780
value add product to the world of agriculture. In other words, you, you can't take

533
00:33:13,780 --> 00:33:17,460
a tomato and elevate it to a bottle of wine

534
00:33:17,460 --> 00:33:20,060
or anything else. Right. Pasta sauce,

535
00:33:21,020 --> 00:33:24,740
which doesn't really command much more money. Right. But you can take a

536
00:33:24,740 --> 00:33:28,540
grape and buy the ton and elevate the value

537
00:33:28,540 --> 00:33:31,780
of that grape based on the quality of the wine that comes out of it.

538
00:33:31,780 --> 00:33:35,450
And what you get for that bottle of wine, that's a really phenomenal thing

539
00:33:35,450 --> 00:33:39,210
when I think about that. That's the only agriculture product that can

540
00:33:39,210 --> 00:33:42,890
do that. Yeah, I agree. I think that's what makes wine

541
00:33:42,890 --> 00:33:46,650
amazing. And that's, I hope, why we'll continue to see wine

542
00:33:46,650 --> 00:33:50,450
consumed for hundreds of years as long as civilization,

543
00:33:50,450 --> 00:33:54,050
because exactly as you say it is. What else can you take

544
00:33:54,050 --> 00:33:57,650
as a grape and turn it into something that can be so many other

545
00:33:57,650 --> 00:34:01,370
things that can evoke emotion and do all the things that

546
00:34:01,370 --> 00:34:04,860
wine can do. You know, I could give you a

547
00:34:04,860 --> 00:34:08,420
tomato from New Zealand and a tomato from Italy, and

548
00:34:08,500 --> 00:34:12,100
you can tell me that the tomato from Italy is a million times better. But

549
00:34:12,500 --> 00:34:15,140
as you say, you might not pay a lot more for it. You might make

550
00:34:15,140 --> 00:34:18,700
a better pasta dish, but it's not the same, is it? You say

551
00:34:18,700 --> 00:34:19,940
tomato, I say tomato.

552
00:34:23,620 --> 00:34:26,900
So what's the end goal here? Maybe there's no end goal. Maybe it's just.

553
00:34:27,220 --> 00:34:30,810
Yeah, at this stage, there's no end goal. We

554
00:34:30,810 --> 00:34:34,610
want to share our wine with the world. We're very early on in that

555
00:34:34,610 --> 00:34:38,130
journey. I want to make sure that we're always producing the best wines that we

556
00:34:38,130 --> 00:34:41,530
can and that they can be enjoyed by people everywhere.

557
00:34:42,250 --> 00:34:45,370
Are you a big food pairing guy?

558
00:34:45,770 --> 00:34:49,610
It's not a loaded question. I love cooking, and I think

559
00:34:49,610 --> 00:34:53,130
that's natural. If you enjoy flavors and tastes,

560
00:34:53,690 --> 00:34:57,050
then working with food and working with wine, they definitely go hand in hand.

561
00:34:57,790 --> 00:35:01,070
So I enjoy matching wine and food together.

562
00:35:01,390 --> 00:35:04,750
It's like that old joke. I. I'm. I cook with wine. Sometimes I put it

563
00:35:04,750 --> 00:35:08,590
in the food. That's it. I mean, we're big at our

564
00:35:08,590 --> 00:35:11,550
house. We do the same. I pour a glass of wine, we start to cook.

565
00:35:12,110 --> 00:35:15,870
I have mixed emotions about why foods

566
00:35:15,870 --> 00:35:19,470
pair together and what doesn't. And really, if it's a science or just an art

567
00:35:19,470 --> 00:35:23,320
or it's just a crapshoot. Yeah, right. I mean, certainly we

568
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,080
know all the Sauvignon Blanc from Marlboro goes well with certain shellfish

569
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,680
and seafoods and oysters and stuff like that. And it would be hard to drink

570
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,920
with something else, you know, with a giant steak.

571
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,680
People do it because they like it,

572
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,080
right? I mean, yeah, I think there's some science to it for sure. And

573
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,000
say the natural acidity in Sauvignon Blanc is always going to pair

574
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,360
nicely with. With seafoods and things like that. But

575
00:35:50,260 --> 00:35:53,740
then once you move past the science, you go to personal. Personal

576
00:35:53,740 --> 00:35:57,460
preference. And if your personal preference is Sauvignon Blanc and steak,

577
00:35:57,460 --> 00:36:01,060
I'm not going to stop you. Yeah, exactly. Should have had a last night.

578
00:36:01,780 --> 00:36:05,540
Tell me about the next experiment in the vineyard. Are you working

579
00:36:05,540 --> 00:36:08,980
on trellising? Are you working with varietals?

580
00:36:09,780 --> 00:36:13,580
We've started making a small amount of traditional method sparkling wine,

581
00:36:13,580 --> 00:36:16,980
so working with our Chardonnay and Pinot to produce some sparkling wine.

582
00:36:17,380 --> 00:36:20,760
There's some great examples out of Marlborough of. Of sparkling wine.

583
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,680
So. Yeah, and I love drinking champagne. So

584
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,440
That's a great goal to kind of work towards and something

585
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,280
that I enjoy to make as well. We grow a little bit

586
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,120
of Syrah, so that's another variety that's fun to work with.

587
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,960
It's, I would say marginal in Marlborough in terms of.

588
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:44,040
Yeah, so there's a few producers. It's not huge. The climate

589
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,160
is only marginally warm enough to ripen Syrah. So in a warm

590
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,520
summer we can get it there. So it's fun to work with something

591
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,000
challenging like that, that has great structure. Because,

592
00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:58,800
because of that reason, you're not getting that blueberry and all that

593
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,400
gaminess. You're getting probably a nice structured, acidic backbone.

594
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,920
Syrah. Yes. Yeah, you're right. And yeah, it's a very

595
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,640
elegant style, at least in my experience. It's not,

596
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,740
you know, that, that black pepper, white pepper is not overpowering. It's, it's

597
00:37:13,740 --> 00:37:17,590
the present but balanced. Yeah. A nice,

598
00:37:17,590 --> 00:37:21,310
elegant style of Syrah. Wow, that's great. Sparkling

599
00:37:21,310 --> 00:37:25,070
wine. You know, it's, there's a champagne issue. You know, of

600
00:37:25,070 --> 00:37:28,670
course it's very expensive. I just had an Armenian champagne

601
00:37:28,830 --> 00:37:32,430
two nights ago. But there is a, there is a movement towards

602
00:37:32,910 --> 00:37:36,110
not just celebration, like it's part of

603
00:37:36,670 --> 00:37:40,160
the regimen. Like put in your cellar, feel like glass

604
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,960
champagne. You pour champagne at the house doesn't have to be as

605
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,240
anniversary or birthday. You just drink it. And so

606
00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:52,080
how's that project going? It's, it's early stages. There's nothing in bottle

607
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,800
yet, so the wines are still aging and barrel and tank and we'll put a

608
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,480
blend together later this year. So I mean, that's the challenge

609
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:03,160
with making that traditional style of sparkling wine, is it? It takes such a

610
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,600
long time before you actually have something that you can taste. And,

611
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,240
and then you're like, ah, four years ago I should have done something a little

612
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:13,640
bit different. Right. And now I've got to make that change and then wait that

613
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:17,200
time for it to follow through. So, yeah, that's a, it's a

614
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:21,000
completely new challenge compared to making still wines where

615
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,800
you're seeing the end result a lot sooner. But

616
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,880
I think that's, that's, that's fun. The challenges. Are you making

617
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,000
Method Chapel? Yes. Yeah. Traditional.

618
00:38:32,460 --> 00:38:36,300
I think it's great. Unfortunately, I taught my son in law about

619
00:38:36,300 --> 00:38:39,740
Champagne and now my depletion is much quicker than,

620
00:38:39,980 --> 00:38:43,820
than I expected it. In fact, we were just in

621
00:38:44,140 --> 00:38:47,860
champagne a few weeks ago and when it's not Tangier, it was really

622
00:38:47,860 --> 00:38:51,540
quite spectacular. Well, this has been a fabulous conversation. I'm

623
00:38:51,540 --> 00:38:54,460
so glad you had a chance to stop by. And. Yeah, thank you, Paul. Your

624
00:38:54,460 --> 00:38:58,180
travels throughout America, I hope they're successful and they continue

625
00:38:58,180 --> 00:39:01,870
to be. It sounds like they are. Thank you. And. And we need to

626
00:39:01,870 --> 00:39:05,190
keep pouring for people to

627
00:39:05,990 --> 00:39:09,190
strike that nerve that one time. You may never know

628
00:39:09,990 --> 00:39:12,590
in the rest of your career whether how you got to that person, but that

629
00:39:12,590 --> 00:39:16,390
person, you change that person's perspective. I agree. And that's a noble

630
00:39:16,870 --> 00:39:20,670
pursuit. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers, Paul. Thanks.

631
00:39:20,670 --> 00:39:21,110
Take care.