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Ultimately, if you have a really good glass of, you know, Sauvignon Blanc or Chard

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or Pinot that we're making, I want that to

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draw the people in. You know, the messaging can be difficult. When we're

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tasting with the younger kind of the Instagram influencer

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types, it was great to see them go, like, maybe not be

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skeptical, but be friendly, but then just taste the wine. And then they're like,

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oh, okay, I get what you're trying to do. Sit back

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and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with

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Paul. Kate. Hey, welcome to

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Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today about to have a

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conversation with Jim McCabe of Barnarda's Winery. Introductions in just a minute.

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Yes, I am the guy that sold 17 million bottles direct to the

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consumer and tasted 100,000 wines along the way.

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And more importantly, I heard a hundred thousand stories. And that's what Wine Talks

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is about. Tell the stories about the wine trade, the backstory, what's going on behind

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what you see in the stores. That's why we're here Today with Jim McKay. Welcome

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to the show. Hey, Paul, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you

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taking the time. Well, this is. This is what I do, man. This is.

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I'll talk to anybody that listen to me. As my mom would say, you know,

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I was going to say when you came in this morning,

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you're a luthier, you make guitars. Yeah, it's kind of my. My

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side hobby is, you know, during co, I needed something to do because I

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couldn't go out and do the. The normal stuff. So always, ever since I was

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a little kid, I kind of wanted to build a guitar. And I finally said,

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you know, what, if not now, when? And that's kind of

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stuck with me. So when I'm not at the winery, you know, when they let

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me leave, I go home and go up to. I have a little. Little wood

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shop there. Let the shackles off you and. Yeah, when they. Yeah, when they take

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the shackle. No, I have one of those kind of like those collars for dogs.

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Yeah, it starts beeping if I get, you know, too far away. Yeah,

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yeah, yeah, yeah. So wait a minute. Where are you staying while you're here? So

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I'm staying at a place called Hotel Amarano. It's in. In

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Burbank. Yeah, A nice, nice little place near New War. Say, the.

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The most famous folk guitar shop here in Los Angeles is

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McCabes. Well, hey, Jonathan, I gotta go.

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Paul's been nice. Yeah, yeah.

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When I was Playing the banjo. Back in those days, I lived in the beach

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area and I drive up the coast to Santa Monica. It's right near the

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ocean of the Pico. And it's just the hoot. It's like a hoot

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nanny. You know, they would have these concerts in the back with the steel chairs,

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and I would go in there and I. When I played the banjo, I played

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a lot. And I could play, you know, I wasn't, you know,

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it wasn't skilled at it, but I could play it. And you

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go in there and you pick the banjo off the wall and just start picking

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a song, and then some guy will come in and grab a guitar and just

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start playing it. Yeah, that's neat. It's so fun. That's like that, that language

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between musicians. You know, you can play a few chords and then someone can hear

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that and jump in and. Yeah, and the Luther there, he was there

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forever in his long beard and. And he had this tuning fork

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up above here, and he pulled a string and then you tune the guitar. It

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was great. It was great. Yeah. So you should, if you have a chance, you

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really should check it out. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're

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talking about wine. But so Bernardus is in Carmel

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Valley, which is kind of interesting because, I mean, the Monterey Peninsula

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is great for wine, great for Chardonnays and Pinots and now, of course, some

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Bordeaux varietals. But you don't see a lot of Carmel

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Valley designated wines. How many winers are on there?

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No, it's a. It's a relatively small kind of wine community,

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I think in the general Carmel Valley area. We're probably the largest winery at

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about. We do 50 to 60,000 cases a year. So we're, you know, pretty good

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size, but. But not huge. You know, there's some other kind of

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smaller boutique wineries out there, a couple of new

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ones, too, which is always exciting to get some. Some younger folks in and

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opening wineries. So just in. Just in the kind of Carmel

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Valley area where we are, there's. There's

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four or five kind of smaller, smaller wineries. Is there a wine trail? Like,

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if I was visiting, like. Well, I told you we were up at the Concord

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Elegance a few years ago. Can you go. Just go

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visit wineries? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. There's a bunch of cool stuff to do in

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the Carmel kind of Carmel Valley area as far as wine and

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tourism. Yeah. Besides golf and, and the, the amazing cars you see,

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especially during car week. Yeah. Yeah, there's a. There's a bunch of tasting rooms in

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Carmel itself. If you've ever been to Carmel, it's this kind of cute

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little beach town. Really cute. Yeah, Cottages, some

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N. Was a couple great restaurants there. But, you know, there's

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also the wine presence there as well. And then if you drive kind

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of southwest, you get into Carmel Valley and

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there's some really great up and coming small wineries there that are doing

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cool stuff. Especially up on. There's like a

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little ridge above Carmel Valley and they're planting vineyards up there.

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There's an old Talbot vineyard there that's probably the first near

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planted. And they made some really great Chardonnays. Hans up there now.

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Hans Han's a bit south of there in. In the slh, but unfortunately

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they've. They've sold and closed. Han is

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Hans no more. You're kidding. No, no, they. They've been a

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stalwart in the area since I think, the plating, like the 70s.

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Yeah, like one of the first Bordeaux. Varietal types, which has never been a, you

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know, stronghold of. Yeah, you know, they were making, you know, they're a large

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production wire there. I think they're somewhere up around 800,000 cases,

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you know, comp 60,000. But, you know, they're making some good Pinos

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especially. They had some smaller production kind of vineyard dozen and stuff as well

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too, weren't they? Yep. Smith and Hook vineyard is where it started. Yeah,

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yeah, yeah. It's, you know,

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changing every. You know, everything's in flux, so. Well, I

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suppose we can talk, we can discuss that a little bit. This is. Industry, obviously,

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is going through a lot of changes and, you know, I can see that 50

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to 60,000 cases. Are you guys

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concerned about the marketplace right now or do you have a strong following

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of the Bernard wines? I mean, we looked at my database and the

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last time I tasted it was 23. So we've been around for a while, but.

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Yeah, yeah, we've been around for a while. You know, we're really

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focused on creating a quality product that, you know,

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ultimately tries to sell itself or ultimately cancel itself.

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You know, I've feel like if we focus on quality and then we

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turn it over to our excellent sales team and we're also looking to

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make inroads down south. We've always been a strong kind of regional brand, strong

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in the Monterey Peninsula. The folks that live around Monterey,

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Carmel area know Bernardus. No, that's for, you know, quality charts,

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Pinot and Bordeaux blend. But,

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you know, we are seeing this, as you know,

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the wine street in some ways is in a flux. But

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so we're looking to kind of

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strengthen and make sure what we're doing is, is top quality while also

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see if we can make inroads down south and kind of expand a little bit

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if there's, if there's a possibility to. So what do you think

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the. Do you ever follow this stuff like on LinkedIn

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or socially, like, people are in. The Gen Z's are out there, not the

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spare the Gen Z's. I mean, I raised three millennials. But,

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you know, there are, it seems to me

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our generation, or my generation is probably victim to it and, or part

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that does it, and that is you look backwards or you don't look. You don't

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look backwards. So you start either make the mistakes that the generation

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before you made, or you don't learn from the mistakes they made and you're just

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floundering a little bit. And the Gen Zs are all talking about, you know, wine

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has to be in a better position to attract us to taste. You

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taste wine. We don't care about this and we don't care about tasting notes

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like your father did. And the language needs to

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change. And I just. What is innovation and then

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innovation. Everybody's talking about innovation, but nobody's talking about any idea.

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Like, they're not putting thing out there. Like, here's what innovation means. What

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would innovation mean at Bernardis? Would it be varietal differences,

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pruning differences? I think. Let me start

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with kind of your first kind of comment or question about

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how do we appeal to a younger audience. And yeah, it is. It is

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a kind of a shift in dynamic from kind of the traditional

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paper publications. You know, that's not something

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that, you know, younger people are that engaged with. So, like, how do you get

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that Spectator enthusiast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, things like that. So,

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like, you know, we're looking to do more of an online presence, you know, social

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media presence. We recently did a wine dinner where,

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you know, not only did we have kind of members of the traditional press corps,

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but, you know, invited some, some wine influencers there too, to

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get the word out to younger fol. And I think

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ultimately, like, you know, when you, when you include those people

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in, trying to get the word out, I think that's a really good place to

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be. You want to, first of all, have a good product, have a good glass

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of wine to share with them, and then, you know, be

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inclusive and listen to their ideas and what's appealing for

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them. Because ultimately, if you have a really good glass of, you know,

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Sauvignon Blanc or Chard or Pinot that we're making.

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I want that to draw the people in. The messaging can be

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difficult, but when we were

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tasting with the younger kind of the Instagram influencer

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types, it was great to see them go, maybe not be

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skeptical, but be friendly, but then just taste the wine. And then they're like,

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oh, okay, I get what you're trying to do. And then

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hopefully our enthusiasm for making the wine

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kind of translates to them and for them to get the word out about it.

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So you really haven't explained. Explain anything different than what my dad

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did in 1975 with this group here, which

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is hold a dinner and have people come and taste the

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wine. And if you stay the course of what you're trying to do and

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you're not playing around with flavorings and sugar content, you're just making an honest glass

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of wine, that eventually that message comes through.

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That's why I tell people, you got to stay this course, because nothing's different. Okay,

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maybe the marketing's different. We don't have Larry Tate from the

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Bewitch show doing advertising anymore. But you have

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influencers, and you have TikTok, and you have all those things. Those are just

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avenues 100, 100%.

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And like. Like, I work

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these events, sometimes we do pourings, and I realize that,

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you know, every time somebody has a good experience with, whether it's, you know, talking

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with me or with one of our wines, maybe, you know,

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they tell their friends or have a dinner and they have their wines, and it's

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this just kind of grassroots marketing, which is so important that,

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you know, I don't want to speak in, like, too.

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Too big a generalities or put two things in too big of a box, but,

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you know, focusing on that and. And while also, like, you know,

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appreciating what publications like the Enthusiast or the Spectator have done in

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the past and being appreciated that. But, you know,

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like you said, maybe. Maybe the. The. The oldest new again, and just

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having these dinners and having the word of mouth and, you know, using

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social media and. And using that to. To kind of bring people into the

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fold and show people that, like, yeah, we're creating just

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an honest glass of wine, you know, from. From vineyard to bottle,

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and hopefully that. That speaks for itself. And the team we have

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in place is passionate about the wines we make. And I think that kind of

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enthusiasm can translate to sales to get. Getting our

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name out there. So I think. I think that's

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accurate completely Accurate. And so I think there's a confusion

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between the methodologies of telling people, which is the

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influencers, and, and even that's going to change one day.

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I, I think personally, social networking, I'm not going to talk about this in too

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detail, but I did a lot of it when I was selling wine, you

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know, emails, all of it could eventually implode on

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itself as well. What's funny that I really get a kick out of, there's a

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couple of influencers that started out saying, we're going to

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demystify wine, which is like this, in my opinion, one of the dumbest

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things, because it's never true. You can't

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demystify it. It's an academic, intellectual subject that's been going on

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for thousands of years. And even today, in

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a recent French movie, he says it's the intellectual part of the

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meal. That's what it is. So to break it down and

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dumb it down is almost impossible. And the point I was making was some of

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these influencers that start out with that sort of, I don't know anything about wine.

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We'll just go to the market, we'll buy a bottle. And then now they're talking

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like a spectator, you know. Yeah, yeah.

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He was just. Two years ago, you're saying this is stupid. Now you're like saying

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the same thing that they're doing because this is the way the, this is what

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wine is. Well, that's like. So I had a

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kind of a weird way to get to the wine industry. And

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I feel like you're kind of. You just explained my journey a little bit. Like,

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I thought wine was pink. It came in a box. And your mom,

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you know, drank with their friends on Saturday. Saturday evenings. But

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big box. Big box. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, not, not the three liter

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box. Yeah, not the leader and a half box.

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No, just like, you know,

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it can be so many different things. But you were. Started that way, you.

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00:13:27,560 --> 00:13:31,400
Yeah, I just sort of started from. From nothing or, you know, no

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influence or not knowing anything about

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wine, really. And what did you want to do? I was,

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I was in graduate school to be a teacher. I was in graduate school for

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history at Sonoma State University, which was kind of my first. Like,

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oh, there's, you know, they have a wine business program here and we're

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surrounded by these beautiful vineyards and like, I feel like I'm, you

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know, I got transported into a Steinbeck novel. So it's just

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like this beautiful kind of marriage between the natural

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world and this wonderful product

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that, you know, Comes from. Comes from the ground.

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And, yeah, I just remember this. It was a 2006

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Pinot Noir from Ingrid's vineyard, Bernardus, and I drank it. I

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was just, what. What is this? It's like, it's not in, you know, it's not

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in a jug with the handle. Yeah, right. You know, it's not coming in the

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00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:26,800
bag. Sweet. It's not sweet. Yeah.

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It's. It's just this very, very different experience. And

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that was the first time when I was like, oh,

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I want to explore this. I want to, like, understand. I want to understand what

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this is and how this got from, you know, from

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the vineyards, these wonderful vineyards, to this bottle. And, like,

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this is just a totally different experience than I've ever had. That's interesting.

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Curiosity. But you were on. You were studying to be a teacher, which is in

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history particularly, is, you know, curiosity itself. Yeah.

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So applying that. If you're going, if you hadn't done

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this, you. You may be teaching history, but isn't so

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much of what you do in the vineyard and what you

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think about when you're processing a wine and when you're aging it, doing the

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things, kind of contingent upon history, isn't it part of

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the equation? It's. Well, it's interesting. It's like a connection

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that's, you know, connecting us back to

250
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our forefathers that, you know, we're putting smashed up grapes in a

251
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clay pot and hoping for the best. Yeah, right. No, that actually

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is one of my interest is like, historical winemaking and, you know, and

253
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what they did and how they. What they added to wines. But, yeah, there,

254
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there is that neat connection between what we're doing now and

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how it's, in a lot of ways serving the same purpose as it did,

256
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you know, 2,000 years ago. It's a way to

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bring people together. It's something to talk about. It's something new to experience.

258
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You know, is. Is this vintage of wine going to be something

259
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,640
superlative? Is it something we need to work on?

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I think that's a really, really exciting aspect of the wine industry

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too, is every year is a little different.

262
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Like, you know, if I open a bottle of Heineken today,

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tastes like a Heineken. If I get my time machine, go back 10 years

264
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:21,000
ago, open Heineken again. Heineken, future

265
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:24,840
Heineken. You're the first one to use that analogy, which I use

266
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all the time. And you use the same beer that I talk about.

267
00:16:30,340 --> 00:16:33,860
Yeah, no, it's. It's an analogy that I like to use. It helps

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00:16:33,860 --> 00:16:37,580
explain to people, like, well, why sometimes I ask, well, I had, you

269
00:16:37,580 --> 00:16:41,300
know, you know, a 2020 Chardonnay, and I had the

270
00:16:41,300 --> 00:16:44,300
22. And it's different. Like, why. You know, it tastes different to me. Why is

271
00:16:44,300 --> 00:16:48,060
it different? And it's. Because it's an agricultural product. It's.

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It's. You know, we're not going in there, especially at our winery,

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and, and trying to.

274
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We're not trying to hide anything. You know, we're trying to take the.

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The. The grapes from the vineyard and shepherd them to the

276
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bottle with kind of minimal intervention. You know, obviously, we'll step

277
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in if something, you know, if something's not up to. To our

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quality standard or we'll try to feature something that, you know,

279
00:17:14,670 --> 00:17:17,390
because of the year, it's tasting really, really good.

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But there is that. That kind of variance you

281
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get from year to year. That's exciting. It's always,

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you know, one year we might be dealing with, like, a reduction in the

283
00:17:30,210 --> 00:17:34,010
winery. The next year you may be dealing with, like,

284
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you're fighting oxidation for whatever reason, even though you're treating

285
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it very, very similar. Like, you know, your winemaking protocols are

286
00:17:42,010 --> 00:17:44,250
saying, your sanitization protocols are similar.

287
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What happens in the vineyard is so contingent for,

288
00:17:49,690 --> 00:17:53,480
you know, the quality of wine that year. It's.

289
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That's one of the things that kind of keeps you excited about being

290
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in the industry is just that. That difference. You know,

291
00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:05,240
you're doing a similar job, but you're dealing with.

292
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:10,720
Yeah, yeah. And how can we. And that's the other challenge is how can we

293
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make the absolute best bottle of wine? How can we

294
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create the kind of, the. The purest expression of what's happening in the vineyards and

295
00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:22,680
get that to the consumer? And I think that you just answered a question,

296
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:26,460
to rephrase it, the purest expression of.

297
00:18:26,460 --> 00:18:30,180
Of what that vintage and that all. All the things

298
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that led to that vin vintage are. And I say it this way, and

299
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I had a French wine maker here, go, I'm going to start using that, which

300
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is, there's really no bad vintages. Because

301
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if a wine is made honestly to reflect by

302
00:18:45,700 --> 00:18:49,220
definition of time and place, and if that

303
00:18:49,870 --> 00:18:53,230
conditions that year weren't as good as the year before, yes, the wine will be

304
00:18:53,230 --> 00:18:56,910
different, but if it's expressive of that time and place, it's a success,

305
00:18:57,950 --> 00:19:01,270
because you haven't played with it. And I think the comment you make about Heineken,

306
00:19:01,270 --> 00:19:04,590
which I say about Jack Daniels and Jim Beam as well, which is, this is

307
00:19:04,590 --> 00:19:08,230
the master distiller's job or the brewmaster's

308
00:19:08,230 --> 00:19:11,950
job to make sure it does taste the same year to year. And they're dealing

309
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with variables, too. But their idea is like, I drink Heineken because it tastes like

310
00:19:15,590 --> 00:19:19,310
Heineken, and I drink Jack Daniels because I get a buzz. Not good because

311
00:19:20,030 --> 00:19:23,770
it tastes like Jack Daniel. But wine is not to do that. Unless

312
00:19:23,770 --> 00:19:27,450
you're talking about jug wines from the 70s, like gall. You

313
00:19:27,450 --> 00:19:31,250
know, they're using all kind of ameliorators to create a

314
00:19:31,250 --> 00:19:34,730
standard product. So I think,

315
00:19:34,890 --> 00:19:38,570
kind of. To piggyback on your comment there, like, 2020 was a really

316
00:19:38,730 --> 00:19:42,450
challenging, interesting year for us because we had big fires. Kind of in the.

317
00:19:42,450 --> 00:19:46,290
In the. In the Big Sur Mountains and in Carmel Valley that

318
00:19:46,290 --> 00:19:49,760
went over into the vineyards. Was it ash and smoke?

319
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:53,240
Taint ash and smoke? We actually didn't pick reds that year because

320
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:57,560
the kind of. There's these molecules that are in wines that

321
00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:01,520
express themselves as, like, taste smoky in the wine. And red

322
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,280
wines are particularly susceptible to that. Wasn't there something in 2005

323
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,960
as well or around that time? Because there was a lot of smoke tank. Yep.

324
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,800
Yeah. Yeah, you'll see that. I remember I was

325
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,240
trying. It was from another. Was it 2000,

326
00:20:17,360 --> 00:20:20,960
maybe in 2009, like, of this merlot from 2009. It was a fire

327
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:24,680
year. Yeah. And you would taste it, and initially you'd be like, okay, it's like

328
00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:28,360
a nice Merlot. And then the finish, it was like. I think someone,

329
00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:31,520
like, put a cigarette butt in the bottle of wine. It was wild. We might

330
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:33,840
have had the same wine because it was a Merlot, too, that I remember. I

331
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:37,680
can't remember exactly, but I remember it was early 2000s, and I.

332
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:41,400
And that it kept. The funny thing is it kept coming around and the price

333
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:44,480
kept coming down. Yeah. So it came to me at 120 a case, and it

334
00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,110
came to me 100. And it came to me, and it was like three bucks

335
00:20:47,110 --> 00:20:50,830
a bottle, and you can have them. Like, it still tastes the same. Yeah. Yeah.

336
00:20:50,830 --> 00:20:54,190
Even if it's $3. So the other.

337
00:20:54,510 --> 00:20:58,110
The other day, I was at a tasting. I brought this up on a show

338
00:20:58,110 --> 00:21:01,910
before, but I was at a. After all these wines I've

339
00:21:01,910 --> 00:21:05,630
tasted and. And sorting them out and trying to find the best

340
00:21:05,630 --> 00:21:09,430
values and tasting. My dad taught me taste the ones that don't

341
00:21:09,430 --> 00:21:12,590
even smell right because that's how you're going to learn the flaws, all that stuff.

342
00:21:13,780 --> 00:21:16,420
But I put my nose in a glass of barsack the other day at a

343
00:21:16,420 --> 00:21:19,780
Bordeaux tasting, and I've it completely.

344
00:21:21,700 --> 00:21:25,420
My emotion level went through the roof. And

345
00:21:25,420 --> 00:21:29,260
I'm wondering if that's kind of your ambition is

346
00:21:29,260 --> 00:21:33,100
like, somebody smells that glass or tastes that wine

347
00:21:33,100 --> 00:21:36,820
and kind of takes a breath. Like, wow, There's.

348
00:21:37,700 --> 00:21:41,100
We make a pinot from Rosella's vineyard in the St. Lucia

349
00:21:41,100 --> 00:21:44,740
Highlands. And when. When it's on,

350
00:21:44,740 --> 00:21:48,500
it has this really kind of like a rose

351
00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:52,300
petal aroma to it, and it's just this. This beautiful aroma.

352
00:21:52,300 --> 00:21:54,380
And, like, there's times where I don't even want to drink it because it just

353
00:21:54,380 --> 00:21:57,620
smells so good. Yeah, right. And. Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping that, like,

354
00:21:58,020 --> 00:22:01,860
someone gets that bottle of wine and. And has that, you know, that kind of

355
00:22:01,860 --> 00:22:05,660
shared experience for what we're trying to do, and they can smell it and,

356
00:22:05,660 --> 00:22:09,340
like, appreciate, like, the work that goes into the vineyard and then, you

357
00:22:09,340 --> 00:22:12,580
know, getting it all the way to bottle. But, man, there's. There'.

358
00:22:14,540 --> 00:22:18,140
Fulfilling and it. And it

359
00:22:18,140 --> 00:22:21,700
feels really good to. To open a finished bottle wine and to

360
00:22:21,700 --> 00:22:25,260
realize, like, you know, we. We got it. We got it. You know, the

361
00:22:25,260 --> 00:22:29,060
grapes came in, and we were able to shepherd over, you know, the course

362
00:22:29,060 --> 00:22:32,580
of the year, really. And it goes through a lot of different kind of

363
00:22:32,580 --> 00:22:36,380
iterations. Like, that's kind of funny. Some days, I'll come in, I'll

364
00:22:36,380 --> 00:22:39,820
be doing barrel tasting. We do like, a.

365
00:22:40,150 --> 00:22:43,710
My assistant, Wyoming, and I go through and do barrel tastings weekly to make sure

366
00:22:43,710 --> 00:22:47,110
we're keeping up with everything and the wines are in a good place. And sometimes

367
00:22:47,110 --> 00:22:48,870
I'll come in, I'll try and be like, man,

368
00:22:50,710 --> 00:22:54,230
they're gonna back up the Brinks truck. I'm gonna be like, the best

369
00:22:54,230 --> 00:22:57,910
winemaker. You know, pictures on the magazines. And other days,

370
00:22:57,910 --> 00:23:01,430
I'll come in and I'll take someone's like, I gotta get my resume together.

371
00:23:01,910 --> 00:23:05,470
Yeah, trouble here. But that's

372
00:23:05,470 --> 00:23:08,950
funny. Yeah, it's just like that, you know, that. That

373
00:23:08,950 --> 00:23:12,750
natural fluctuation that happens during the year, as the wine ages, too, is.

374
00:23:12,750 --> 00:23:16,310
That reflection of what we just talked about, which is like, you're really kind of

375
00:23:16,310 --> 00:23:19,710
out of control. I mean, if you haven't made any serious mistakes, like not clean

376
00:23:19,710 --> 00:23:23,310
the barrels properly, that. That part of the process is

377
00:23:23,310 --> 00:23:26,990
really out of your control. It's. The natural process is

378
00:23:26,990 --> 00:23:29,990
taking over, and you don't know. Yeah, no, as. You know, as long as.

379
00:23:30,630 --> 00:23:32,950
As long as we don't get in the way of it. So, you know, we

380
00:23:32,950 --> 00:23:36,590
have to be really careful that. Yeah, we, you know, make sure the

381
00:23:36,590 --> 00:23:40,430
winery is clean, the tools we're using are clean. You know, we use ozone

382
00:23:40,430 --> 00:23:43,830
to sanitize all our hoses. You know, you don't want to accidentally

383
00:23:43,830 --> 00:23:47,430
introduce any bacteria, spoilage use into those barrels.

384
00:23:47,750 --> 00:23:51,390
Make sure the barrels are clean. You know, if we're taking all those steps to

385
00:23:51,390 --> 00:23:55,110
make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to do, the wine

386
00:23:55,110 --> 00:23:58,950
still goes through ups and downs. It tastes so much different from

387
00:23:58,950 --> 00:24:02,710
just that young pressed pinot. And then it goes to barrel and

388
00:24:02,710 --> 00:24:05,910
it starts going through malolactic, the, you know, malactic

389
00:24:05,990 --> 00:24:09,610
transition. And it starts picking up some, a little bit of oak

390
00:24:09,610 --> 00:24:13,290
influence. And you can get some, like, if you're tasting it

391
00:24:13,290 --> 00:24:16,970
during, during ML, you'll get some, like, little odd

392
00:24:16,970 --> 00:24:20,690
flavors. You get some, like, sulfide things going on. There's just weird flavoring.

393
00:24:20,690 --> 00:24:24,370
Like, start worrying. It's just like, no, no, you have, you have to wait. It's

394
00:24:24,370 --> 00:24:28,090
like baking that souffle in the oven. You can't, you can't open that up. Yeah,

395
00:24:28,090 --> 00:24:31,850
don't open that oven up. Yeah, just. You gotta wait. You have to be

396
00:24:31,850 --> 00:24:35,130
patient. At the same time, you know, you have to do our due diligence and

397
00:24:35,130 --> 00:24:37,410
make sure we're not forgetting anything important.

398
00:24:38,830 --> 00:24:42,510
Like keeping the wines topped up is really important. Keeping things clean is

399
00:24:42,510 --> 00:24:46,350
really important. You know, checking the chemistry and making

400
00:24:46,350 --> 00:24:50,150
sure the numbers aren't getting out of whack at all is really

401
00:24:50,150 --> 00:24:53,950
important. That being said, you know,

402
00:24:53,950 --> 00:24:57,350
if we're, we're taking all those steps and we're trying to just do

403
00:24:57,350 --> 00:25:00,950
minimal soft interventions on the wine just to kind of guide it

404
00:25:00,950 --> 00:25:04,590
from primary through malolactic, and then, you know,

405
00:25:04,590 --> 00:25:08,060
nine months of aging in oak and then getting ready to bottle it. Is that

406
00:25:08,060 --> 00:25:11,860
something new? You've been there since 2006, I think. You said, or

407
00:25:11,860 --> 00:25:15,460
2009. 2009, yeah, 2009. So you're talking, you know, 16

408
00:25:15,540 --> 00:25:19,140
years. And that's a, you know, because it's a once a year thing,

409
00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:21,860
it's a very slow industry. I think another part of

410
00:25:22,820 --> 00:25:26,580
the younger generations don't understand is that, you know, those to react in the

411
00:25:26,580 --> 00:25:30,260
wine industry is

412
00:25:30,340 --> 00:25:34,040
very slow. The marketing wise is certainly you can make, make instant

413
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,880
changes, but the actual production and practicality of wine is a

414
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,080
very slow process. So to your point, if you're gonna plant a new vineyard, you

415
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:44,880
don't really know what you have until four, three, four, five

416
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,720
years later. You know, you can make sure

417
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:53,640
you pick a good site. Your road direction's good, your clone

418
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:57,040
selection is good, your farming's good. But, like, how will those

419
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,600
grapes react to all those things and you have a

420
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,160
pretty large fiscal investment into

421
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,700
planting those vi. And then you really don't know. Like

422
00:26:08,100 --> 00:26:11,580
you can, you know, do all the work, but you won't know until, you know,

423
00:26:11,580 --> 00:26:14,940
and then another year of the winemaking. So I mean, I sold my 60 acres

424
00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:17,620
of land in Paso Rolla's when I found out how much I cost to plan

425
00:26:17,620 --> 00:26:21,300
it. Yeah, yeah. Because they wouldn't let me build a houseless. I did plan it.

426
00:26:21,300 --> 00:26:24,980
And the planet was way more than. Our house irrigation

427
00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:28,740
and then water regulations and labor. Yeah, it's,

428
00:26:29,140 --> 00:26:32,960
it's like you said, it's a slow industry. You know, there's a

429
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,560
woman in, in Texas and I bring this up. My daughter just

430
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,440
is being moved from a little town called Potsdam, New York to a

431
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,200
little town called Paris, Texas. Not too far from Paris, Texas is another

432
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,920
town called Shankoville. Shankerville is the found is one

433
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:51,760
of the first free cities in America

434
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,560
post Civil War. And this woman,

435
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,320
her name is Stephanie Franklin, has decided because her grandfather was

436
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,040
a Shankel and their family founded this town that she was going to

437
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,760
go put a winery there. Okay. There's no grapes

438
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:10,560
anywhere nearby. It's not part of the Texas, you know, Lubbock Wine Trail

439
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,400
has nothing to do with it. You're talking about, you know, you don't know

440
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,080
what you're going to get. I mean, here's a completely

441
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,800
blank slate. And so she started with, you know, a

442
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,960
nurseryman to come out and just sort of. And they end up with, with pretty

443
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,400
bizarre varietals that based on the soil content,

444
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,960
microbiology and everything, you know, like tannat and some other unusual

445
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,320
varietals that might grow there. And I thought, wow, what a,

446
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,680
what a risk. Yeah. I mean there's nothing that

447
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,240
points to the chance she'll have success except for her pure

448
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,080
perseverance. But that I, I, I think that's exciting too is

449
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,630
I've been reading about like non traditional

450
00:27:52,190 --> 00:27:55,710
wine growing regions and how those are popping up around the country.

451
00:27:56,910 --> 00:28:00,510
So I'm from Massachusetts originally, went to

452
00:28:00,510 --> 00:28:04,350
UMass Amherst. It's pioneer Valley. They grew tobacco there

453
00:28:04,350 --> 00:28:07,710
for a long time. Really? Yeah. And there's these little

454
00:28:07,710 --> 00:28:10,830
wineries popping up and they're, they're using

455
00:28:11,710 --> 00:28:15,150
either kind of hybridized

456
00:28:15,550 --> 00:28:18,930
native and French varietals. They're

457
00:28:18,930 --> 00:28:22,250
experimenting with growing like Chardonnay and I think

458
00:28:22,250 --> 00:28:26,090
Malbec there and then some, some native, some native grapes

459
00:28:26,090 --> 00:28:29,650
as well, which I don't remember the, the proper

460
00:28:29,650 --> 00:28:33,450
names for them. But it was really interesting seeing these people like

461
00:28:33,610 --> 00:28:37,370
yeah, they're experimenting with this stuff and it's, it's pretty

462
00:28:37,370 --> 00:28:40,530
inspiring to see. Like, you know, like, think

463
00:28:40,530 --> 00:28:44,130
California on the east coast. You think the Finger Lakes, they're doing some stuff in

464
00:28:44,130 --> 00:28:47,950
like North Carolina. But then like, I don't know, this

465
00:28:47,950 --> 00:28:50,630
like random valley in Massachusetts. Yeah, you wonder what then.

466
00:28:52,630 --> 00:28:55,110
I think it's, I think it's very good and I think that

467
00:28:56,310 --> 00:29:00,110
maybe it's not so good for the traditional regions. So in

468
00:29:00,110 --> 00:29:02,830
other words, if there's only so many wine drinkers in the world or at least

469
00:29:02,830 --> 00:29:06,470
in Massachusetts, and they start leaning towards some of their home grown stuff

470
00:29:06,710 --> 00:29:09,430
that, you know, the big houses are, the bigger brands

471
00:29:10,310 --> 00:29:13,510
or districts may, you know, may or may not see a difference, but

472
00:29:13,910 --> 00:29:17,640
it's kind of interesting. That's adding to the mix of, of diluting

473
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,760
what to do and it's a rather organic dilution. In other words, if I'm

474
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:25,560
in Massachusetts, I think maybe I'll try some of this Massachusetts

475
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,360
wine or virgin Virginia wine or whatever. I mean, I think I

476
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,200
did one Virginia wine in 35 years. Now there's a, there's a lot you

477
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,600
know as well as Long island. But there's a guy in

478
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,800
Kansas City, Missouri, and you. His name, the winer is called

479
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,600
Terravox. I read about him in the Smithsonian magazine. I had him on

480
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:48,120
the show. His name was Ice Old. We were talking about this woman in

481
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,960
Shankoville and we're talking about some new varieties. For

482
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,680
instance, in Massachusetts, this guy found a book from the

483
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:59,480
1800s and you know, that part of the country really

484
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,880
was the hotbed of winemaking. I mean, LA

485
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:05,600
certainly was too in the late 1700s. But

486
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:11,240
before prohibition, when Prohibition came, they tore up all those

487
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,770
vineyards. And when Prohibition was over, the government went back to the, to that part

488
00:30:14,770 --> 00:30:18,050
of the country to replant muscadine and all these different

489
00:30:18,050 --> 00:30:21,450
varietals and, and none of them are Vintis vinifera. They're all

490
00:30:21,530 --> 00:30:25,370
Venus, Lambrusco, stuff like that. Well, this guy, only

491
00:30:25,370 --> 00:30:28,970
to say, this guy, I was fascinated by him because he

492
00:30:28,970 --> 00:30:32,650
took these 14 varietals that were supposedly ancient

493
00:30:32,650 --> 00:30:35,610
American varietals and planted them in

494
00:30:35,850 --> 00:30:39,250
Missouri in the mountains of, outside of

495
00:30:39,250 --> 00:30:42,650
Kansas City. So he has

496
00:30:43,050 --> 00:30:46,730
no historical data to work with. Like on Lisa, if you have Cabernet or Malbec

497
00:30:46,730 --> 00:30:49,770
or something, you understand the grape and there's all kinds of tomes written about it.

498
00:30:50,010 --> 00:30:53,650
You have no history of the soil or the weather or anything to work

499
00:30:53,650 --> 00:30:57,450
with. And you've got all these iterations of 14 different

500
00:30:57,450 --> 00:31:01,130
grapes. To try to make work. And I thought, wow, what an

501
00:31:01,610 --> 00:31:05,370
infinite number of variables that just be so hard to do. And

502
00:31:05,690 --> 00:31:09,260
he also said, I've already scrapped four of these varieties. I

503
00:31:09,260 --> 00:31:12,740
cannot get them to make wine that you can drink.

504
00:31:13,700 --> 00:31:17,500
I don't know. I think that's exciting. Cool. I think it's

505
00:31:17,500 --> 00:31:20,860
inspirational that it's kind of what we're talking about. It's this

506
00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:24,220
historical thing that people have been making wine for thousands of years, and we're still

507
00:31:24,220 --> 00:31:26,100
trying to figure it out. We're trying to try to figure it out. That's a

508
00:31:26,100 --> 00:31:29,940
good point. Yeah. Every time I think I know what

509
00:31:29,940 --> 00:31:33,620
I'm doing at the winery, something comes up, and I'm like, it's just

510
00:31:35,670 --> 00:31:39,270
the. The more answers you get, the more questions you have, you know, it's like.

511
00:31:39,830 --> 00:31:43,390
Have been changes fundamentally on how the winery looks at

512
00:31:43,390 --> 00:31:46,710
winemaking from 2009. Yeah. You know what?

513
00:31:47,670 --> 00:31:51,030
So our. Our old winemaker, Dean Decors, who was

514
00:31:51,430 --> 00:31:55,150
my mentor and was kind enough to take me under his wing and kind

515
00:31:55,150 --> 00:31:58,870
of teach me his methods of winemaking

516
00:32:01,850 --> 00:32:05,650
slowly over the years, like you said, it's a slow industry. We have a

517
00:32:05,650 --> 00:32:09,490
good architecture in place for our wine program, but we're always looking to make

518
00:32:09,490 --> 00:32:13,250
improvements. And. But we do that slowly. We don't

519
00:32:13,250 --> 00:32:17,090
want to make, like, a wholesale change, like, to our Chardonnay or. Okay,

520
00:32:17,090 --> 00:32:20,890
all of a sudden we're doing 100 stainless ferment and no

521
00:32:20,890 --> 00:32:24,290
ML. You know, we would. We don't want to, like, you know, there's people that

522
00:32:24,290 --> 00:32:27,830
like our style of wines. But. But if we can, maybe we can make it

523
00:32:27,830 --> 00:32:31,470
half a percent better. Yeah. Okay. You know, and

524
00:32:31,470 --> 00:32:34,590
that, you know, that adds up over the years. You know what? You don't.

525
00:32:35,710 --> 00:32:39,390
Well, let's make a more dramatic example going from. And

526
00:32:39,390 --> 00:32:42,470
this. You said that one of your wines, when you tasted the Chardonnay, was a

527
00:32:42,470 --> 00:32:46,270
sort of a Gundian, a style which I haven't heard a lot lately. You know,

528
00:32:46,270 --> 00:32:49,950
in the 80s, we would say that it's very Begundian, very borderless, but it's.

529
00:32:49,950 --> 00:32:53,430
It's less analogy now and more about, you know, Carmel

530
00:32:53,430 --> 00:32:57,210
Valley. And I thought that was an interesting comment because it was very Burgundian

531
00:32:57,210 --> 00:32:59,530
in his character. I thought it was really good. But,

532
00:33:01,610 --> 00:33:05,290
you know, the Burgundians, for instance, they never use

533
00:33:05,290 --> 00:33:08,170
pesticides. It was always natural. You know, it wasn't until

534
00:33:08,810 --> 00:33:12,090
the, you know, the 50s or the 40s that we started doing this.

535
00:33:12,410 --> 00:33:16,170
And so I always. And I. I always annoyed me when I. People would say,

536
00:33:16,170 --> 00:33:19,770
this is Natural. This is organic. Well, it really was. Why are we patting

537
00:33:19,770 --> 00:33:23,290
ourselves on the back to go backwards when it always was organic?

538
00:33:23,370 --> 00:33:25,970
But, and so only leading to this, if,

539
00:33:27,090 --> 00:33:30,690
if you haven't changed much there, then you're not, you didn't go from

540
00:33:30,690 --> 00:33:34,490
adding, you know, mega red or mega purple that stuff is called, to not using

541
00:33:34,490 --> 00:33:38,210
it kind of thing. It's always been this sort of

542
00:33:38,210 --> 00:33:41,410
organic approach anyway to the idea of this

543
00:33:41,970 --> 00:33:45,570
grassroots approach. More like. Yeah, I think of us as like a

544
00:33:45,650 --> 00:33:49,450
big boutique winery essentially. You know,

545
00:33:49,450 --> 00:33:52,970
we have many, many barrels of Pinot and Chardonnay

546
00:33:52,970 --> 00:33:56,740
primarily, but each barrel is tended the same,

547
00:33:56,740 --> 00:34:00,540
the same way. You know, we have a good, we have a

548
00:34:00,540 --> 00:34:04,380
good barrel program in place. We, yeah,

549
00:34:04,380 --> 00:34:07,580
we have, we, we kind of have a good kind of program

550
00:34:07,660 --> 00:34:11,380
architecture that, that we can build off there, good kind

551
00:34:11,380 --> 00:34:14,460
of methodology. We've been working with the same vineyards for

552
00:34:15,180 --> 00:34:18,900
25 to 30 years in some cases. So having that those

553
00:34:18,900 --> 00:34:22,600
relationships with the growers too is really, really important. So,

554
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:26,600
like, I know, okay, I, you know, it's,

555
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,160
it's August 15th. I need to go out to

556
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,960
Rosella's Vineyard, so Brian's Vineyard, Gary's

557
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,480
Vineyard, and just start charting the progress of,

558
00:34:37,720 --> 00:34:41,560
of the season and having

559
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,280
those kind of long lasting relationships with growers.

560
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:49,080
You get comfortable with their styles and they get comfortable with your wine style.

561
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,520
They say, hey, Jim, we're, you know, we're getting a heat wave in.

562
00:34:53,240 --> 00:34:55,720
We're going, we're going to be going from like 23 and a half bricks to

563
00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:00,080
we got to watch out. We should, we should pick now. And having that

564
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,840
trust relationship with, with those folks. None of this is

565
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,520
estate. The, the marina swine. You tried the,

566
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,200
the border style. That's the state. Yeah. So for the listeners, you know,

567
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,960
we're talking about estate bottling, meaning the grapes are

568
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,800
grown and managed by the winery. But you

569
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,090
also have contracts or relationships with growers, which is

570
00:35:22,330 --> 00:35:26,050
interesting because a lot of, a lot of growers never ever make wine

571
00:35:26,050 --> 00:35:28,570
from their grapes. And then some feel like, oh, I'm going to take advantage of

572
00:35:28,570 --> 00:35:32,010
this and try to get into the wine making business. And they realize at that

573
00:35:32,010 --> 00:35:35,290
point, now we're into brand building, it becomes business and it's kind of a

574
00:35:35,690 --> 00:35:39,370
different animal. But from your standpoint as the

575
00:35:39,370 --> 00:35:42,490
winemaker, that relationship is really important to

576
00:35:43,050 --> 00:35:46,890
guide what you want the grapes to come out of, how we're going to canopy

577
00:35:46,890 --> 00:35:49,290
the grapes, how we're going to shade them from sun, how we're going to

578
00:35:50,550 --> 00:35:53,950
irrigate them, how we're going to do all the things we knew to maximize that.

579
00:35:53,950 --> 00:35:57,190
And that's the slow part of wine because you only get one shot a year

580
00:35:57,670 --> 00:36:01,070
to make those small changes to see how it's going to affect it. If I

581
00:36:01,070 --> 00:36:04,710
can hit that point, that picking point

582
00:36:05,590 --> 00:36:09,070
where kind of the acids and the sugars are at that

583
00:36:09,070 --> 00:36:12,910
crossroads where we're not having to really adjust the wine

584
00:36:12,910 --> 00:36:15,670
ph or adjust the sugar level in the wine,

585
00:36:16,550 --> 00:36:20,330
that's really like, like one of my main goals. So like the grape is

586
00:36:20,330 --> 00:36:23,130
physiologically right, it's tasting good,

587
00:36:23,930 --> 00:36:26,730
it's, it's ready to be picked and it's ready for

588
00:36:27,530 --> 00:36:31,330
our style of wines. You know, one of the things

589
00:36:31,330 --> 00:36:33,450
I'll do is, for instance, if we're

590
00:36:35,130 --> 00:36:38,850
like our, our ESL Pinot, which, which you tried,

591
00:36:38,850 --> 00:36:42,330
you know, we get, we get five or six picks from one

592
00:36:42,330 --> 00:36:46,050
vineyard, about 19, 18 to 19 tons each. Well,

593
00:36:46,050 --> 00:36:49,610
I might want to pick a little on the earlier side for the first ones

594
00:36:49,610 --> 00:36:52,650
because it's going to be kind of a little bit more fruit forward, a little

595
00:36:52,650 --> 00:36:56,130
bit more acidic. But let the later picks, you know, let those

596
00:36:56,290 --> 00:36:59,810
get not over ripened, but you want to have more of those riper,

597
00:37:00,210 --> 00:37:03,810
like that baked fruit, you get like some, some more intense

598
00:37:03,810 --> 00:37:07,650
color off of those ones. And ideally, if, if you can find

599
00:37:07,650 --> 00:37:11,360
kind of the right picking dates and then blend

600
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:15,040
them together, ultimately you add up with something that's hopefully a little bit more

601
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,280
than its part. So you have this like really pretty fruit forward wine that also

602
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,920
has some body. And that's, you know, part of the fun as well is

603
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,240
the, the blending aspect of winemaking. That reminded me of

604
00:37:25,720 --> 00:37:29,320
stocking those shelves right there in that picture. And

605
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:33,080
you know, the Frenchman blending, you know, the

606
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:36,960
early, early drinking approachable grape

607
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,550
like Merlot, with a longer, you know, tenured wine like,

608
00:37:40,620 --> 00:37:44,460
like Cabernet to create, like you said, a hole that's greater than the

609
00:37:44,460 --> 00:37:48,260
sum of its parts. But it took California a little while

610
00:37:48,260 --> 00:37:50,940
to figure that out. And one of the wines I used to put on the

611
00:37:50,940 --> 00:37:54,140
shelf, it used to say 100% cabernet.

612
00:37:55,020 --> 00:37:58,100
They were so proud of that, you know, that it was 100%. We're not diluting

613
00:37:58,100 --> 00:38:01,820
with anything. And then I read about the

614
00:38:01,820 --> 00:38:05,540
Bordelaise at some point that they

615
00:38:05,540 --> 00:38:08,580
would put all kinds of stuff and they sometimes put wines from Tunisia in.

616
00:38:09,580 --> 00:38:13,420
Didn't really matter. It wasn't a consumer issue. And I thought, well,

617
00:38:13,420 --> 00:38:16,500
what a difference in consumerism. The consumer was like, hey, as long as I like

618
00:38:16,500 --> 00:38:20,180
it, it tastes good. Lands in England. Yeah. Palatable,

619
00:38:20,180 --> 00:38:23,780
sure. You Know, we're okay with it. But, man, today, you know,

620
00:38:24,340 --> 00:38:28,180
just labeling alone requires, you know, exposure to a lot of

621
00:38:28,180 --> 00:38:31,460
stuff. I think that's kind of interesting. So what's new? What's coming up for

622
00:38:32,660 --> 00:38:36,460
Barnardists and the experiment with grapes. Experimenting

623
00:38:36,460 --> 00:38:39,580
with other vineyards. Yeah. So

624
00:38:40,060 --> 00:38:43,100
you have some screw caps. We have some screw caps.

625
00:38:43,900 --> 00:38:47,660
You know, we found. We used to do all. All corkable products. We found that

626
00:38:47,740 --> 00:38:51,020
people like the screw caps. I love them. Because

627
00:38:51,100 --> 00:38:54,220
tasting 65 wines. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

628
00:38:54,300 --> 00:38:58,060
exactly. But, you know, you might. Well, some people

629
00:38:58,060 --> 00:39:00,460
might want to only have a glass or two of wine and put it in

630
00:39:00,460 --> 00:39:04,140
the fridge and drink it. The. Actually, I. I don't know what that's like.

631
00:39:04,140 --> 00:39:07,940
Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that's like. But. No, we found. You found.

632
00:39:07,940 --> 00:39:11,760
That's good. You know, we like to stick with the cor, especially for something like

633
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,400
the marine that you tried. You know, if you're going to lay down

634
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,760
and have it cellared, it seems to

635
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:23,440
especially like, you know, there is that interaction between the environment through

636
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,240
the cork to the wine, which helps it age so that

637
00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:30,600
marinas can. You can lay that down for 10, 15 years and it'll still be

638
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,560
drinking good. And I think that's important, having that, you know,

639
00:39:36,070 --> 00:39:39,190
that interaction with the environment for those wines. I wonder if that.

640
00:39:41,430 --> 00:39:45,070
I think the screw capital first came on. Well, even synthetic works,

641
00:39:45,070 --> 00:39:48,870
too. A little bit of a shock. I mean, you can't

642
00:39:48,870 --> 00:39:52,110
even find a New Zealand wine in a cork finish anymore, so that didn't affect

643
00:39:52,110 --> 00:39:55,910
their market marketability. But there's still some romantic component to.

644
00:39:56,310 --> 00:39:59,830
And traditional component to it to a cork. And I don't know.

645
00:40:00,310 --> 00:40:04,140
I don't know where that goes, you know, whether generationally it.

646
00:40:04,140 --> 00:40:07,740
It gets it. It dilutes even more. And so that

647
00:40:07,740 --> 00:40:11,060
screw caps here are more pertinent or this

648
00:40:11,460 --> 00:40:15,220
romantic traditionalism continues. There's something really satisfying about,

649
00:40:15,220 --> 00:40:18,539
you know, when you're pulling a cork and that you hear that pop and it

650
00:40:18,539 --> 00:40:22,060
comes out, and it's like, you know, a little bit more exciting than just

651
00:40:22,060 --> 00:40:25,540
twisting the. You know, there was a guy. There's a kid that called me. He

652
00:40:25,540 --> 00:40:29,220
was an intern somewhere, and he was. They're creating a cannabis drink,

653
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,640
you know, CBD drink. And he was asking me about sources for corks and

654
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,320
bottles. And I said, why? He goes, because we want. In this beverage,

655
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,640
we want them to have that same romantic uncorking experience

656
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,320
with a drink. I said, well, how does it taste? He goes, it tastes like

657
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,920
that sounds good. Let's work on that part first. Yeah. Isn't that what's in the

658
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,720
bottle important? Right. It's like I've started a band. Here's our album cover. Yeah.

659
00:40:56,720 --> 00:41:00,460
With no songs. The music's. Yeah, the music's terrible. Yeah. You know,

660
00:41:00,460 --> 00:41:03,980
I. My premise on the show these days is

661
00:41:06,060 --> 00:41:09,900
less about what's in the bottle, which is. Which. Which would presume,

662
00:41:10,220 --> 00:41:13,700
now they think about it, that what's in the bottle is proper. Right. Honest.

663
00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:16,620
Yeah. Made properly, this. Forget all the other stuff you see at the market,

664
00:41:17,820 --> 00:41:21,260
honest wine, but more about why it's in the

665
00:41:21,260 --> 00:41:24,900
bottle. Why do you do this? What. What is this

666
00:41:24,970 --> 00:41:28,650
is. What is it that. Why does Bernardis exist in the first place?

667
00:41:30,250 --> 00:41:33,770
I'll get a little into the history of the winery and then I'll

668
00:41:34,570 --> 00:41:38,010
maybe talk a little bit about myself. So the

669
00:41:38,650 --> 00:41:42,250
winery was founded in about 1990.

670
00:41:42,490 --> 00:41:46,170
This guy, Ben Pon, he's from the Netherlands.

671
00:41:49,130 --> 00:41:52,650
Really interesting guy. The Pond family

672
00:41:54,450 --> 00:41:57,970
started business in the Netherlands and then eventually

673
00:41:58,050 --> 00:42:01,490
won the rights for the. To export the Volkswagen Group.

674
00:42:02,370 --> 00:42:06,050
Oh, wow. To. To North America and South America. That's a reasonably

675
00:42:06,050 --> 00:42:09,810
large account. Yeah. It turned out to be a pretty fortuitous and good business

676
00:42:09,810 --> 00:42:13,330
decision. And so

677
00:42:14,850 --> 00:42:18,370
Mr. Mr. Pond's dad is. Was actually one of the people that

678
00:42:18,370 --> 00:42:22,130
helped designed the first VW bus. It was cool. If

679
00:42:22,130 --> 00:42:25,530
you go to the Rijksmuseum in. In. In the Netherlands, in

680
00:42:25,530 --> 00:42:29,170
Amsterdam. Yeah. There's like this little drawing. Iconic. Yeah. Of.

681
00:42:29,330 --> 00:42:32,930
Of this idea for a transport vehicle. Yeah. It ended up being the.

682
00:42:33,010 --> 00:42:36,810
The VW bus. But I got Mr. Pond

683
00:42:36,810 --> 00:42:40,210
an introduction into car racing, and he raced for Porsche in the

684
00:42:40,210 --> 00:42:43,650
60s, actually won his class at Le Mans in 68, I believe.

685
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,560
So that's one of the things that brought him to the. The Carmel Valley area

686
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,080
is we have this great Laguna Seca

687
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,560
racetrack there, and they have these really, really cool

688
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,880
historical races. You can go there and see, like, a 1920s Bentley.

689
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:03,680
Yeah. Like, roar down the track 100 miles an hour. It looks. It's really cool.

690
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:07,200
Yeah, it's really cool. So that kind of brought in the area. You know, it's

691
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,930
great. Great golf there, too, which is also white. And

692
00:43:10,930 --> 00:43:14,690
then there's. When he was there, he noticed there's, like,

693
00:43:14,690 --> 00:43:18,530
these small local wineries. Darnie is an old one that had a

694
00:43:18,530 --> 00:43:22,330
good reputation making these cabs. They're kind of interesting, really

695
00:43:22,330 --> 00:43:26,050
tannic, made to be laid down for a long time. And he

696
00:43:26,050 --> 00:43:29,530
got into that and he said, you know what? I want to try that out.

697
00:43:31,050 --> 00:43:34,250
So they purchased an older winery,

698
00:43:35,610 --> 00:43:39,290
kind of rehabbed it, redesigned it, and planted some cab

699
00:43:39,290 --> 00:43:42,950
in merlot out in Carmel Valley. While they were waiting for Cabin

700
00:43:42,950 --> 00:43:46,790
Merlot, they started making a little Pinot and Chardonnay. And you know what? The Pinot

701
00:43:46,790 --> 00:43:50,590
and chard that comes from the Santa Highlands is. Is awesome. And this

702
00:43:50,590 --> 00:43:53,910
was, you know, this is in the. The early to mid-90s when

703
00:43:54,790 --> 00:43:58,270
that area wasn't as well known. You know, people were first doing some first

704
00:43:58,270 --> 00:44:02,070
plantings there. So Bernard, you know,

705
00:44:02,070 --> 00:44:05,350
was able to get in and start these relationships relatively early.

706
00:44:06,550 --> 00:44:09,670
And it's just kind of. It's kind of grown from there. And

707
00:44:10,340 --> 00:44:13,820
so he got into it because, you know, it's not an

708
00:44:13,820 --> 00:44:16,500
unusual story. You make a lot of money, and I want to have a brand

709
00:44:16,500 --> 00:44:20,180
and then just, you know. But he's survived. It looks like that part

710
00:44:20,180 --> 00:44:23,780
of the wine trade where it's more than

711
00:44:23,780 --> 00:44:27,500
now than just this passion that started as like, yeah, I

712
00:44:27,500 --> 00:44:31,180
should have my own wine brand. Now it's like a real passionate project to

713
00:44:31,180 --> 00:44:35,020
produce. He can. And so then. Yeah, yeah, no, no, you're. You're.

714
00:44:35,020 --> 00:44:38,650
You're right on that. And that's kind of exactly what happened is, you know,

715
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,280
he got more into it as he learned more about wines.

716
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,560
He worked with the winemakers there over the years and,

717
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,200
you know, creating a really nice Sauvignon Blanc. He

718
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:55,080
really enjoyed Sauvignon Blanc. We found a farmer

719
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,840
that had some Sauvignon Blanc and create a relationship with him, and

720
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,600
he planted a bunch of SB for us and the

721
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,880
area. It's kind of more along the Salinas

722
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,720
Riverbed in the Royal Seco area. It just turns out to be this

723
00:45:09,720 --> 00:45:13,420
really nice spot for growing just fruit forward S.B.

724
00:45:13,900 --> 00:45:17,740
Yeah. Very expressive. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's one of my favorite wines

725
00:45:17,740 --> 00:45:21,300
to make too, is. Is SB it's really

726
00:45:21,300 --> 00:45:25,140
enjoyable. The price point is good and, you know,

727
00:45:25,140 --> 00:45:28,420
just having a. Having a cold glass of sp on on the summer days, you

728
00:45:28,420 --> 00:45:31,980
know, can't. Can't beat that, really. It's kind of funny, we don't

729
00:45:31,980 --> 00:45:35,660
drink much white wine at our house. But when I sold the company in

730
00:45:35,660 --> 00:45:38,590
2023, the buyers only bought

731
00:45:39,550 --> 00:45:43,390
what was sellable through the club, which were wines that averaged

732
00:45:43,630 --> 00:45:47,430
$20 retail. And I had collected. I

733
00:45:47,430 --> 00:45:51,270
wasn't really a collector. My dad, I said, you got 30,000. You

734
00:45:51,270 --> 00:45:54,310
know, you had 3,000 cases of wine in your warehouse. Why are you going to

735
00:45:54,310 --> 00:45:58,070
buy one to collect it? So. But during COVID was

736
00:45:58,070 --> 00:46:01,630
very. It was very lucrative for that in selling. Whatever

737
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,160
you told them buy, they would buy. And so Then I ended up with almost

738
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,640
3,000 bottles of a lot of pretty important stuff

739
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,880
that was selling until the day Covid was over. And then it stopped selling.

740
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,159
Yeah, I know. So I ended up with this great seller which

741
00:46:18,159 --> 00:46:21,200
I had to go home. I never had a seller at home. I didn't even

742
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:24,520
have a little refrigerator. It was always here. And so I, I

743
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:28,680
built a 800 bottle seller and now that's depleting

744
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,790
much faster than expected because my son in law and my daughter with us

745
00:46:32,420 --> 00:46:36,260
after the fires that didn't lose their house, but they, they were displaced

746
00:46:36,260 --> 00:46:39,700
for a little bit. So my depletion rate's much higher. Yeah,

747
00:46:40,580 --> 00:46:44,300
a couple more mouths to. Well, we're out of time

748
00:46:44,300 --> 00:46:47,939
already, if you can believe it. So your first podcast. Hey, it was very

749
00:46:47,939 --> 00:46:51,780
good and you, you, you answered the questions, you survived

750
00:46:51,780 --> 00:46:55,180
it all and now you're a pro. Good. Yeah, I'm glad.

751
00:46:55,180 --> 00:46:58,340
Hopefully the editor won't charge you too much for this one.

752
00:46:59,060 --> 00:47:02,900
Paul. I appreciate the time and it's nice talking to you. Good luck.

753
00:47:02,900 --> 00:47:06,720
Good L. A trip down here. You here for a couple days or. Yeah, I'm

754
00:47:06,720 --> 00:47:09,120
here till Thursday morning. Wine dinners or anything?

755
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,640
Dinner last night and then today I'm with. With

756
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:18,160
Jonathan from, From Southern. Yep. And then

757
00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:22,080
tomorrow, I, I think tomorrow we're going to do some on premise

758
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,590
stuff, so. Yeah. Yeah, great. Good luck with that. Cool. All right, thank you, Paul.