How Chateau Montelena Won the Judgement of Paris with Bo Barrett

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:00:08]:
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are at an away game today up in the Napa Valley and visiting the famed and iconic Chateau Montelena. There's plenty to talk about. And we're here with. What do you call yourself?

Bo Barrett [00:00:19]:
President, Founder. I think the lead Sherpa. Lead Sherpa honcho.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:00:24]:
Yeah.

Bo Barrett [00:00:25]:
Head high honcho. No, I'm a CEO now and master winemaker. I don't do the day to day winemaking anymore. We have a young guy, super talented, who's doing that. The day to day winemaking.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:00:35]:
So here with Bo Barrett and. Boy, there's so much history between our families, really. Which sort of, not the least of which is our surfing career and just living and growing up. Palos Verdes. And your father. And my father tasting wine together and trying to learn together. So I want to kind of go back to that, you guys. When did you come to Palos Verdes as a family?

Bo Barrett [00:00:57]:
I went to kindergarten, so I was in first grade. I went to Lunada Bay. Went to kindergarten in Redondo. Right there at the beach. Like Torrance Beach. We lived in Villa Soledad. Right. Kind of near Rat Beach.

Bo Barrett [00:01:09]:
That across the highway there? Yes. And we moved when I was five.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:01:13]:
So you went to a lot of bay. I was in a lot of Bay, too, Mr. Zabrowski.

Bo Barrett [00:01:17]:
Yeah, well, then my parents incarcerated me at St. Lawrence.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:01:19]:
Oh, okay. So then, you know. But then you said you went to Bishop of Mott. Right?

Bo Barrett [00:01:24]:
I went to Bishop Montgomery. Bishop Montgomery. Montgomery for three years. And then I finished my last year. Right at PV High. Right, Right by our house.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:01:30]:
Okay, so that was the trouble, trying to find your graduation picture. Because I found your cousin, I guess.

Bo Barrett [00:01:35]:
Yeah, that's my cousin. He lived with us. His dad was in the Navy, and they both had. Both my dad's brother and my dad had five kids, and we got to trade. I lived with him in Turkey and in Spain, and my cousin lived with us. And not for the whole year, for like six months. Yeah, I saw the moon landing at the Officers Club in Ankara. My dad would trade.

Bo Barrett [00:01:53]:
My dad and his brother would trade kids. It was a pretty good deal.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:01:55]:
Yeah, that's pretty good. So why did you end up at pv? Highly. Your senior year, then, from Bishop Montgomery?

Bo Barrett [00:02:01]:
Well, we lived only a block away from the school. My parents had us going to Bishop Montgomery, and I wanted to go to PV the whole time. And there was an incident at Bishop Montgomery where my father finally believed that there was some beating going on. And my brother was assaulted by one of the. I Probably should say, but he got.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:02:18]:
Why, Was Kevin there too?

Bo Barrett [00:02:19]:
No, Kevin went to pvi. My parents died, so I just moved to my senior year. And it was great because I'd been at Bishop for three years, so I had lots of credits. So basically I went to school. Halftime. It was awesome. Yeah, I didn't go. I went from 10, 10 o' clock class that I went to lunch.

Bo Barrett [00:02:33]:
Then I had a 2 o' clock or till 2. So beautiful, I take it, art and stuff like that.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:02:39]:
That was. Well, I'm not gonna even say any years.

Bo Barrett [00:02:41]:
Yeah, well, I graduated in 70.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:02:42]:
72, right?

Bo Barrett [00:02:43]:
Yeah, 72. Yeah.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:02:44]:
So my sister was 74, I was 76, Kevin was 76. And then my brother was 70. And that's why I thought that picture was yours.

Bo Barrett [00:02:50]:
Yeah.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:02:51]:
So when did you start surfing?

Bo Barrett [00:02:52]:
Then we started surfing, basically. You know, it was all rat bees. Before they invented the leash, you know, I was down at Rat and before they had the leash and you know, remember the air mattresses? We had all that stuff. Of course. And junior lifeguards and all that kind of stuff up at Avenue C. Junior lifeguards up in Hermosa. And so that's how my mom and dad got rid of us. We had a pretty free range childhood.

Bo Barrett [00:03:15]:
You know, we had our bikes on Palos Verdes and remember how it was just, you know, a barley field when we were growing up?

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:03:20]:
It was Garbanzo Field.

Bo Barrett [00:03:22]:
Yeah, Garbanzo's in barley. And we were just all over the place. And so my parents, to get rid of us all summer, they would just take us down, throw us out of the car at Rat Beach. And so we had the surf mats, you know, the air mattress ones, the big square four tube ones before they invented the boogie board. And then naturally, as soon as you're, you know, eight, ten, I was probably eighth grade. I got. For eighth grade graduation. My dad was an attorney.

Bo Barrett [00:03:45]:
I remember the Union bank building down there by the Delamino Mall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of their clients at the law firm was Greg Knoll.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:03:51]:
Really?

Bo Barrett [00:03:51]:
So for my eighth grade graduation, yeah, I got a Mickey Dora de Cat step deck surfboard. It was awesome.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:03:57]:
I buy his T shirts still, right.

Bo Barrett [00:04:00]:
So, yeah, so I went down to the factory and picked out a surfboard for my eighth grade graduates.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:04:03]:
That's a phenomenal gift. What a phenomenal gift.

Bo Barrett [00:04:06]:
Yeah, it was a really nice board. And it later got lost, you know, after I. Well, you remember how PV got pretty tribal and there was a bunch of tribes of Palos Verdes and that's when I decided to take up skiing because I really didn't want to get into the fighting part of the surf tribes.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:04:20]:
So.

Bo Barrett [00:04:21]:
So my dad had us skiing a lot too. And the first day the Snowbird tram was open, he had me and my brothers on it. And the second year Snowbird was open, I had a season pass because I had graduated from high school. So the snowbird opened. 71, 72 season. So 72, 3. So I went to Salt Lake and then to pay for that, that's how I got into winemaking. Cause I spent summer and spring, summer and fall here at the winery starting in 73.

Bo Barrett [00:04:47]:
So I'd work all the way till we were finished with harvest. Then I go back to Utah and ski all winter and kind of go to University of Utah. At that time I thought I was going to be an attorney also, you know, have a job in office. But once I got into the farming, I had no idea growing up in PV that I had the crazy Norwegian farmer Gene. I had no idea that I'd grow up to be.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:05:09]:
Especially after surfing.

Bo Barrett [00:05:10]:
Yeah, yeah. And as you know, my brother never did quit surfing. He went to UC Davis. See, I went to Fresno State, got out of there in 77, started making wine full time in those days. But my brother Kevin went to Davis. But once he figured out the agriculture, you know, winery is not as bad as a dairy, but the work never ever, ever ends. We have all the farming, we have all the winemaking, we have all the selling to do. So it's really a real full time occupation.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:05:39]:
I don't think the general public understands that. So I'm just gonna touch on one thing, the surf thing, and then we're gonna move on to, to when your dad decided with Ernie Hahn that they're gonna try and buy this thing, but just for Kevin's sake and Chris Trone alone. They used to throw rocks at me when I would walk up Hagerty's. So I'd be serving Hagerty's and I thought I was a kook a little bit and I had a leash. So they would just toss pebbles at me. That's the end of that. So my dad's store, I think my dad bought the liquor store in 1969 and was learning about wine. He was enthused by the idea that Eisenhower poured Krug Signature select at a not a state dinner, but a lunch.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:06:19]:
And he decided to turn that liquor store at Mallard Cove into a fine wine shop. And it took a few years. He came with a nap, a Few times. When did your dad decide that he thought that this was a good idea?

Bo Barrett [00:06:31]:
That is probably right around that 72 period when he was working at the law firm. And as his clients got more wealthy and as we got more successful, they started going out to dinner and he decided to learn about wine and really didn't think about putting the winery together. I think he met your dad before that just because he was taking a class up at the UCLA Extension. Class with Nate Cromen. You remember that name from LA Times. So, yeah, Nate Cromen had a class, UCLA Extension. And my dad learned about wine and so he started drinking wine right about that time. 72.

Bo Barrett [00:07:07]:
I was pretty like a junior senior in High School. 71. 72. He started having wine at the house. And that's really the first time. I remember it because all of their dinner parties and stuff, for me and my brothers being the bartenders, it was all Tom Collins and Seven and Seven. Yeah, they're usually BB styles.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:07:25]:
I probably delivered to your house.

Bo Barrett [00:07:26]:
Yeah, no question. And so they'd have these big parties and wine was certainly not a part of it. And I was well into high school before he started really coming home and opening a bottle of wine and sitting there and working on it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:07:39]:
But that would be. I was looking through our archives. We featured the 72 shard from Chateau Montalain in the club at Palace Frieze Wines and Spirits. And that was Grgich's first vintage here. So he must have. And I know that Ernie Hahn, which I think he was a regular my dad's store as well, where they decided they thought could invest in this thing, so. But wasn't that the first vintage? 73 was the winning vintage.

Bo Barrett [00:08:03]:
Yeah, that's right. So they started in 72. So, yeah, they came up in 72. That was. You happened to graduate from high school. And I remember I came up with my dad at that time. He had Aztec, I think, base of

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:08:13]:
Torrance and flew up.

Bo Barrett [00:08:14]:
And so I was like his co pilot. And we came up. But yeah, they got into it at that time. There was a tax credit for investing in American agriculture. And so they looked at cattle, they looked at pomegranates, they looked at artichokes, all the California stuff. And they couldn't figure out what to. It was basically a whole dollar tax credit. It was a government policy that actually worked.

Bo Barrett [00:08:37]:
It created the California wine industry. So everything's here in California. The grapes are here, the people are here, but there's no money in the capital. The new barrels, the Stainless steel tanks, refrigeration. So the sleepy, somnolent nap wine industry needs an infusion of capital. And so when those 25 wineries all started in 1972, that was actually because of federal tax credit. And my dad, as a tax attorney, his job was to find a place to invest in American agriculture. Now they were setting up at the brown derby at the Pacific dining car or something.

Bo Barrett [00:09:09]:
And they're sitting there trying to. Well, you know, we don't know anything about cows. And cows get sick and die. And only Californians eat artichokes. And what the hell's an avocado? You know, so they're trying oranges, you know, so they're looking all that stuff. And they're sitting there at this dinner. And the way my dad would tell the story is they were sitting there drinking a bottle of Robert Mondavi. And this boink, the proverbial light bulb goes off.

Bo Barrett [00:09:29]:
And he goes, what about this stuff? So then he calls Cromen. And Cromen introduced him to a few guys up here. And he looked at a couple properties, found shout to Montelena. And it was. It was. It was a ghost winery.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:09:41]:
Yeah, it was empty. And it had been empty for quite a while.

Bo Barrett [00:09:44]:
Right. There was an apartment on this upper deck that York Frank, who put our lake in. But York Frank only owned 16 acres. So the property had been broken up over time. And the original family had the vineyard that the Tubbs daughter. Yeah, her name was Wilson. And so then the local businessman, Lee Passage, had put it together as a package. And we still have the ad from 1968, which they're trying to sell to Chateau.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:10:10]:
Wow.

Bo Barrett [00:10:10]:
And it does not mention winery. So corporate retreat, spa, hotel. It doesn't even say winery. That's how sleepy the Nap Valley was,

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:10:19]:
you know, waylaid by the prohibition. Was it making wine prior to that and then.

Bo Barrett [00:10:24]:
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was really big. We were the fourth biggest winery in Napa Valley in about 1896. So Alfred Tubbs, our founder, was very successful businessman. The winery was really quite strong and did really good. We could go down the history hall and the tasting room. We have all the pictures from the one side of the hall has the pre prohibition Alfred Tubbs history. And we're the second family to run it.

Bo Barrett [00:10:45]:
So. Yeah, no, the roof had collapsed in two places. There was a dirt floor down there.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:10:49]:
That's amazing.

Bo Barrett [00:10:50]:
So they had sold the brand. One of the best stories about it, how great the industry was. One of the best families in the business is the Trincaro's they own Sutter Home now. You know, they took a little different path than we did, but they had our trademark. They had. Chateau Montalena had been sold. Because when they had the foreclosure sale of Chateau Montelena, the trademarks got bought by a guy. It's down where Freemark Abbey is now.

Bo Barrett [00:11:14]:
Yeah. And it was called, believe it or not, Martini Winery or Martinelli or something like that. Some Italian guy. So he had to shout to Montaland trademarks as Trincaro's, Bob Trinchero gave it back to Lee Passage for nothing, for free. Wow. That's just because we were getting started again. Yeah, it was really good. Still good friends.

Bo Barrett [00:11:30]:
Yeah, no, everybody was.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:11:31]:
It was a different environment.

Bo Barrett [00:11:33]:
It was. There's still. It's not. Not as clicky as PV was. You know, all the farmer dudes, you know, me, Larry Turley, Randy Dunn, all the. The farmer guys. And then there's, you know, the cravat wearing, you know, groovies.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:11:44]:
Well, Karen Kren says hi. We spoke with her this morning on the podcast. And my dad, when he was driving, when he first started trying to learn about wine, about that time when your father and my father were tasting together, he came up here and stopped at Sutter Home. And Bob was behind the counter. There was nobody else in the tasting room. He's like, you know, I just made this stuff. I don't know what to do with it. Sound like you know what you're talking about.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:12:04]:
Maybe you ought to taste it for me. And it was, you know, what became White Zinfandel. And of course, now this sprawling chateau for Trinchero.

Bo Barrett [00:12:11]:
I don't know if it's your dad or not, but my dad. So that was when the famous 66 Mouton, or what's the most famous wine in the world? Cheval Blanc. So he comes home and him and his buddy split a sex. They split a case. Right. They probably got it from your dad. And about a year later, he carried those things. The guy calls my dad up and goes, hey, man, did you see the price on that Cheval Blanc? It's like tripled in price.

Bo Barrett [00:12:35]:
And my dad just come up. He had already finished it off.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:12:38]:
He had drug already. Actually. What's funny in the movie Sideways where he complains about Merlot and that whole story, but then at the end of the movie, he's tasting Cheval Blanc. He takes that 62 and pours it at the diner, which is 100 merlot.

Bo Barrett [00:12:50]:
Right.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:12:50]:
And so the higher irony of the movie is like, you know, who. Who cares? Well, so Nate Croman, I know that he came down to the Leslie Devante tastings and sat with your dad or my dad. And when they tasted through a whole bunch of different things, Nate was quite a popular guide to help move the needle in wine education.

Bo Barrett [00:13:08]:
Yeah. So when you're Davissant, so, you know, pre Paris tasting, the wines are actually selling quite well because the support from California wines from California was actually quite good. And, you know, my mom and dad, they traveled around and their friends in SoCal and San Francisco, of course, every winery ever built after Prohibition, like Martini, was the first one built in, like, 39 that had a tasting room. So, you know, from the Bay Area, the knowledge that fine wines were being made in Napa Valley was pretty good. So our support, you know, pre Paris tasting was in the rest of the country, where you couldn't sell wine, only good wine. You know, Boston, New York, dc, All that kind of stuff where we couldn't make market inroads. But California was always good support. Yeah, no, California, for example, the 73 won the Paris tasting in 76.

Bo Barrett [00:13:57]:
We were long out, and we were actually going to raise the price, like a dollar a bottle to seven bucks.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:14:01]:
Well, we were at, what, $6.49 back then? And you're really, like, sucking a drive. I still have. I still have the liquor store dividers where you. I had to go through it. So we brought a bottle of wine to the counter. I'd look for Chef de Monte Riesling. You know, it was $5.49, or whatever was the price. It's like, look at the prices.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:14:17]:
And you can't believe it, right?

Bo Barrett [00:14:18]:
Yeah.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:14:18]:
So I'm going to say one thing about. About that. That part. Your dad came in and he's like, I just lost my train of thought. What do you. Oh, he said, he goes, paul, to my father, I need you to carry these things for me. I'm tired of the Palos Verde socialites coming and asking me for donations all the time. So I just want to point them to your store and let them come in and buy it.

Bo Barrett [00:14:40]:
So that's.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:14:40]:
That's why we had all the wines. It was smart on your dad's part. So the judgment of Paris, I want to talk about that because it's such an amazing story, and it's such. I've had Stephen Sperrier on the show. I've had George Tabor on the show, Violet Girgich, your dad. You know, this is kind of interesting, because that era of wine, it was about the passion, it was about the idea. In this case, it's about the investment tax credit. But it was a different world for wine then.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:15:05]:
It was approachable, price wise. You could try and make some money at it. You did it because you wanted to do it. You didn't come up here because you made a billion dollars and then you're going to, you know, buy a chateau and become this hotshot. You did it because you wanted to. And then your dad sought after, you know, the preeminent or uprising winemaker, Mike Girgich, which is a fascinating story on its own.

Bo Barrett [00:15:26]:
Right. Well, my dad, you know, being he was in the Navy, so he understand professionalism a lot. You know, he's in submarines. So to get pros and you know, he really. The first guy I got was our vineyard manager. His name was John Rolari. And this guy, he retired from another place. He was probably 68, 66, older than I am now when he took the job here to develop Maddalena's vineyard.

Bo Barrett [00:15:47]:
And he had plowed with a mule from Madame Depens at bv. So, you know, he was an old dude and he was, he was like a grandpa to me. And he's the one who got me into farming and the work ethic and the love of the land. And if you think about in the early 70s like that, there was some of the hippie stuff of Back to the land had rubbed off on everybody, I think it certainly did on me, you know, being a high schooler and, you know, listening to Grateful Dead and all that kind of stuff. Like, yeah, back to land going up the country. So it wasn't that hard. Yeah, exactly. So but what he did was that realizing he had no farming experience.

Bo Barrett [00:16:22]:
Remember he's from Chicago and then from Burbank, Louisiana, Navy, you know, tennis player, attorney, really good at. So he put the team together. So that's how he got, you know, Mike Girgich as the winemaker and the vineyard manager, John Relari. And that's how the, you know, he just tried to put together a top notch team, hire the best people he could, and then just kind of be the philosopher king. And he was a really good owner in that way because actually, you know, after 82, when I became his winemaker, he really did stay at he. If you're a good pro and you knew your stuff and you worked hard, he would generally basically stay out of everybody's way. And I with Mike Girgich was a difficult guy to work with. John o' Leary on the other Hand was just, you know, just amazing, guy.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:17:06]:
It was kind of like the perfect storm, though, because Mike was looking for a place to go. He'd already kind of spent his time at Mondavi and Andrew Chelicev at bv. And so he was in a prime position to start something from scratch. Your dad was looking for somebody with his character and his skill set. So. Joanne Dupuis.

Bo Barrett [00:17:25]:
Yeah.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:17:27]:
I tell my dad this story the other day. My dad's 92 now. And I said, you know, dad, there's this woman, Joanne Dupuis. And she was responsible for helping, you know, Patricia Gallagher get these wines from. And maybe I jump forward. We'll talk about the Judgment of Paris now. But Patricia Gallagher had come into my dad's store and had announced that she was visiting her sister and that she was working Academie de Vin. And she was, you know.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:17:51]:
And that's apparently when Steven Spurrier said, hey, I need you to go up to Napa and try and figure out how we're gonna get these wines here. And then your father was going on a trip to Bordeaux, I think.

Bo Barrett [00:18:01]:
Right? Yeah. Joanne. Okay, if you circle back. So, Andre. So Joann Delee puts the trip together because there's Jim and Laura Barrett, Jack and Jamie Davies, John and Janet Tref. All these new, young, beautiful people are coming to the Napa Valley. This is really early on. Seriously.

Bo Barrett [00:18:16]:
And so Tellich. So Joanne, you know her, she's just the nicest person ever. So she gets Andre Telechev to lead this group. And Liz and Louis Martini go. And I didn't know that.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:18:29]:
Wow.

Bo Barrett [00:18:29]:
Yeah. So Liz and Louis went, and a bunch of people. So you have the established Napa Valley old guard, extremely welcoming, like, taking him on tour of Bordeaux, of how we're gonna make Napa Valley great again, you know? And so, yeah, so that's the deal. So all those names go. And it was really fun, you know, for me. I was just my dad's driver at the time. And so when they were having the slideshow, it was pretty funny because, you know, everybody smoked in those days. So I go out and I'm watching these guys, and one of the Mondavi boys, I think it was Peter, they stayed out of the business.

Bo Barrett [00:19:01]:
He was a salmon fisher. They got this giant grill with these salmon on there. That's the first time, you know, coming from Southern California, we don't have the salmon. Once you're in Norco, where was that?

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:19:09]:
Here?

Bo Barrett [00:19:09]:
No, it's at Monte Rosso.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:19:10]:
Oh, okay.

Bo Barrett [00:19:11]:
So it's up in the martinis. Place. And so. But yeah, so that's how that trip came together. So the American tour group of the young new couples and some of the established old guard are all, you know, heading on that trip to Europe that Joanne put together.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:19:24]:
Was it really tennis and wine? Is that what the thing was?

Bo Barrett [00:19:28]:
I can't answer the tennis part, but I believe it was.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:19:30]:
Yeah. So he's. So now. Okay, so I kind of jumped ahead because the idea of the judgment of Paris, which we don't need to talk about because Stephen did, but here's this idea that they're going to taste off. Between the Bordeaux and the cabs from Napa, they're going to taste off the white burgundies to the California shards. And, you know, Spurrier says it wasn't going to be a taste off. It was really just going to be a tasting of the California wines. But I decided to make it a contest at last minute, and the judges approved it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:19:57]:
And then they screwed up because they couldn't figure it out so effectively. That's the way they felt.

Bo Barrett [00:20:01]:
Yeah, that's the way he told the story to Vitamin D. That's the way they felt. That's the way I understand it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:20:04]:
Yeah. So. So she's trying to figure out how to get samples to Paris.

Bo Barrett [00:20:10]:
Right.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:20:11]:
Because apparently it wasn't as easy. Well, it's not easy now. It's even harder to get across state lines. But. So I was telling my dad the story because I was talking to Joanne on the phone, and he goes, you know, I remember when Jim came into the store with the Time magazine article with his famous moniker. Not bad for a couple of guys from the sticks and started telling the story and started to complain that he had to carry the wine in a suitcase and it was a pain in the butt or whoever was carrying it on this trip to get it to Paris. He goes, it was just a pain in the rear end. He goes, I remember this.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:20:44]:
Your dad telling this story. So now we've gotten the wines in the Paris, and your dad is apparently at a chateau somewhere.

Bo Barrett [00:20:52]:
The way he told her was at Lascombe.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:20:54]:
It was Lascombe.

Bo Barrett [00:20:54]:
Okay.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:20:55]:
And he gets a phone call, and I'm thinking maybe you called him.

Bo Barrett [00:20:59]:
No, it was George, I think.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:21:00]:
Okay. So the results of the winning of the Shut the Whites first came from Paris to Napa.

Bo Barrett [00:21:09]:
We got a telegram.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:21:10]:
Oh, you got a telegram.

Bo Barrett [00:21:11]:
So, yeah, so we'd have to ask George or go back and read the book, but I'm pretty sure George Tabor called him and asked him for the comment. Because the not bad for kids from the sticks was the quote from George that's quoted him. So I believe that George Tabor tracked him. Well, anyway, it's pretty certain that George Tabor tracked him down at Chateau Lascombe, and that's where he and all the Americans were just keeping it really quiet. My dad told the story. He's like, as soon as they get back on the bus, they're all, yahoo. But he sent us a telegraph. How I found him out.

Bo Barrett [00:21:41]:
We were just in the cellar. It was a regular summer day, spring, you know, racking barrels or something. The parking lot was gravel at the time. And Gurgaon is out there, you know, he's dancing around with his beret. We won. We won. You know, we thought he'd gone around the bend. So then he came out and he told us that, you know, Vivan.

Bo Barrett [00:21:58]:
And it was with his little Croatian accent. So it was, you know, because I was.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:22:03]:
So you were. But you were here then.

Bo Barrett [00:22:05]:
Yeah, I was that, like, 73. There was only three of us on the Crush crew, so, you know, we had a hand bottling line. So I know my job on the 73. I was not the lowest pay grade guy. I ran. I crushed every grape. I crushed the grapes. I ran the stuff.

Bo Barrett [00:22:20]:
And then the bottling line was handed. I was filler guy, and my brother Mike was the corker guy. Actually, Rome was the corker guy. My boss in the cellar.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:22:30]:
So Kevin never really got involved.

Bo Barrett [00:22:32]:
He was pretty young. Kevin worked on the bottling line. There's a picture of me and Kev and Mike and Rome Steinicke, the four of us all working on the hand

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:22:40]:
bottling line because he brought a bottle of the state Cab to our 40th. I hate to say it, but our 40th reunion.

Bo Barrett [00:22:48]:
Kev was on the bottom line. We actually have the paycheck records from that week. You can see how many who worked how many hours for the $2.25 an hour. $2.15. And we have the payroll records. And my brother Mike was not on that, but for just. Only the bottling. But Kev was actually helping out a little bit because my folks, you know, my dad was a kid of Irish immigrants, and, you know, we couldn't.

Bo Barrett [00:23:09]:
We had to work in the vineyard when we were up here for the summer.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:23:12]:
How long did he work as an attorney into now this, what is going to be an amazing career for this chateau?

Bo Barrett [00:23:19]:
Well, it had to be. We had to wait. It took a long time because, you know, we're planting the cab in 72 and 74. And the place was always designed to be a, you know, Cabernet house to make the estate cab. That was the original design. And as you remember, all through the Parker years, you know, we were kind of, oh yeah, those guys, they make Chardonnay. Everybody had forgotten about that. We made chardonnay.

Bo Barrett [00:23:38]:
We always made it a little bit. But so what happened was it was not until we sold the 82, I mean the 78, which was an 82 and those in those years we used a four year cycle on the cab. And now it's like 40 months, it's only a little bit shorter. So until we started selling the 78 and that was successful. And that really took till about 85, I think. 84, 85 is when he got to turn down his law career, wind down the law career and move up here full time.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:24:07]:
That's interesting because being that the Chardonnay one and it hit the streets, it was sought after on the east coast. People wanted to know what this wine was and so. But you're really a red house.

Bo Barrett [00:24:19]:
Yeah, that was his dream. Yeah, his dream was to be like the Latour of California, just to make it okay.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:24:25]:
So the Trans, because you make Jo Berg and you make Sauvignon Blanc and you made, I think we Featured like the 73 or 74. Johannesburg recently as well.

Bo Barrett [00:24:34]:
Okay, well, let's go back to the original business plan because those are actually. Sometimes when you get into emotional decisions, if you can turn it into arithmetic, they get easier. Riesling is a one year wine. Chardonnay is a two year wine.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:24:46]:
That's true.

Bo Barrett [00:24:47]:
Zinfandel is a three year wine and Cabernet is a four year wine. So your money's going to go away at a prodigious rate. You got to plant the vineyard, you got to buy a tractor, you got to get stakes and drip tubes and all that stuff. Then you got to buy a crusher and a destemmer and a forklift and some barrels and some tanks and a refrigerator.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:25:02]:
Hire your kids at 10:25.

Bo Barrett [00:25:04]:
You get to buy corks and bottles at a warehouse. And so your money's going away at a prodigious rate. So the fastest way to start earning some money is to get a one year wine. So in 72 we made Riesling because that's a one year wine. And so you can crush it in September, bottle it in March and start selling it the very next summer. And then so when those original product decisions were made, they were actually part of the business, business plan to establish this great Cabernet vineyard.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:25:33]:
So that was calculated, thought out. This is how we're going to do it. We don't know anything about why, but we figured that much out, right?

Bo Barrett [00:25:38]:
And the reason we still make them is because if you taste our Zinfandel, having a table wine Zinfandel, rather than the big, you know, massive dry creek style or the Larry Turley style, you know, we make this like dinner wine style, Zen. And you know, we could grow. If we were only in it for the money, we'd grow nothing but Cabernet on this property. But why do we even screw around with Zinfandel? Primitivo.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:25:57]:
Well, Primitiva too.

Bo Barrett [00:25:59]:
Yeah, well, you know, Heidi, Heidi differs with me on this. She thinks they're different. But I say the clone, the DNA is the same. It walks like a duck, it swims like a duck, quacks like a duck. You know, it's a duck. So, yeah, we grow Primitivo but sell Zinfandel.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:26:14]:
Don't tell that to the people that tell you.

Bo Barrett [00:26:16]:
Yeah, so that's. So that's how those four products. Yeah. So, you know, 48 years later, we make Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet and Zin. When we lease the Takahashi property, you know, it's a 35 year deal. We got the Sauv Blanc came with that. So that stays remote. We have four acres of Sauv Blanc.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:26:31]:
So, you know, you just mentioned the life cycle of trying to do this. And you know, so much of the public would generally think, you know, make, you know, I'm going to start a wine brand and make a million dollars and retire.

Bo Barrett [00:26:43]:
Right.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:26:43]:
And it seems to be the other way around. Do you think that's even possible today, particularly in the Napa Valley, to say, oh, I think I'm going to start this without a boatload of money and a ton of time.

Bo Barrett [00:26:55]:
There's a few family wineries doing it, but there typically there would be a grower like Stephen Thiasson or somebody like that. What's happened now is that you can rent space and wineries in the custom Crush outfits. And so that way you don't have all the capital expense. And. Yeah, and again, letting the tax tail wag the dog, you get to expense your stuff rather than capitalize it. So, yeah, I think that if you're smart about it and you could get the grapes. But the counties, the problem in California now is just the regulatory burdens are

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:27:23]:
insane on the manufacturing side because I know the DTC side's a mess as

Bo Barrett [00:27:28]:
an employer, as a farmer, the environmental regulations. So I'd say that if I was going to take my million bucks and start a winery, I'd probably go to a. A more favorable business environment and maybe,

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:27:41]:
you know, Montana or something and make Concord or Texas. Texas, yeah. They make some nice Rhone varietals down there.

Bo Barrett [00:27:48]:
They do, they do, yeah. They get. You get the grapes in Lubbock and you sell them down in the road between San Antonio.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:27:55]:
Well, you know, this Karen Cakebread, particularly today, she says, you know, all these people that come up here with their, you know, they're surgeons or whatever they were, and they're asphalt. Asphalt contractors for the government. They made their billions of dollars and they're. They don't pay attention. They're not passionate about it. And there's something. We were talking about the history of the vine sort of speak here in Burgundy. You've got these things from the 1200.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:28:17]:
The monks figured out, you know, where to grow the best. You know, what's going to happen to the grapes, how deep the roots have to go. Without any labs, without any technology, they just click on phenolic ripeness and how wines are going to turn out. And that's passion. Your dad had passion. Andrew Chelicev had passion. Mike Ergich had passion. Because it wasn't about trying to make a buck.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:28:39]:
No, it was about coming here.

Bo Barrett [00:28:42]:
I remember one time. This is years going back years and years. My dad was bragging and whatever. He goes, yeah, man, we made a million bucks last year. The guy goes, what? You screw around with those grapes and those barrels and the sales and the taxes for a lousy million dollar. But so some of the people that come up with the. The tycoons that come up, they're into the passion thing. Like, you know, Gerald, what's his name? Gerald from Devo.

Bo Barrett [00:29:10]:
You know, he's got it. Robert Kamen, you know, he's got the passion. If you do learn to love the land like, you know, we all do, and work and work with your property, like you said, like the monks did. It's like you understand your land, you trust it, it trusts you, and you do the right thing. You know how terroir they talk about it? Well, the hand of man and the decisions he makes is that magically critical component of the terroir. So there are a lot of the people that come up with crazy money and invest just to get chicks, but there's other guys, but there's other people that do truly believe in it. You know that are they get the passion. It does get in your blood of wow.

Bo Barrett [00:29:53]:
It is a. But it is a passion thing. It's a lot like the people that fly airplanes or surface. You know, it's a magic water planet. And those of us who work with the planet tend to respect it the most.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:30:05]:
That's an interesting point because. And I ask this question all the time and I don't have. There's no answer to the question. The question is, why is it the grape of all the biocultural products, pineapples you want to go to, you want to go to Hawaii and get a Maui Blanc at a pineapple, you don't have that ethereal experience that you get that when you taste this wine and you really experience that aha moment for wine. There's something about the grape that expresses not only the place, but the time and the history of where it's grown.

Bo Barrett [00:30:33]:
Right. And the hand of man, you know, whether it's the Bible or Benjamin Franklin, all those great quotes, you know, the Benjamin Franklin, you know, thanks for the rain that falls on the ground and nurtures the vine, produces the wine. That's proof that God loves us. Well, it wants to see us happy.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:30:52]:
We saw. I brought this up with Karen, that Noah landed his ark on Mount Ararat in Armenia and he planted the grapes, he became drunk. And that's the way the story goes.

Bo Barrett [00:31:00]:
Yeah, exactly. I'm going to make some. It could have been a dry boat ride.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:31:05]:
So when was that time for you, when you decided this farming? Because I think one of the things that happens, particularly now with the way the industry's change and the marketing and digital marketing and email marketing and chatting and all the things you got to do now, texting, if you're not, I mean, if you, if a winery who's in the direct to consumer world isn't texting, soon, it's going to get buried. And I think with COVID we found that a lot of wineries just weren't prepared and they're relying on the foot traffic to get this done. What's going to happen with this next level of winemaking and getting it to the consumer and how we're going to produce this? Have you guys put any thought of that?

Bo Barrett [00:31:44]:
Oh, yeah, we work on that all the time. You see that like Ms. Mannix here, where we have plenty of the younger millennials working on our market because, you know, for decades our consumer group has been people, the boomers, you know, our age and up. And as they age out, we got to get the next generation to get excited about wine. They're much more of omnivore. I'm sure your dad would say people that you go to PV Country Club right now, there's people there that only drink Rombin Chardonnay. That's all they want, that one wine. So they're super brand loyal.

Bo Barrett [00:32:17]:
What we see now is with the next generation of consumers, they want quality, they want authenticity, they're willing to pay for the real thing. So that's what we focus on is, you know, stay small, make sure we tell our message that, you know, our wines are very authentic. They're, you know, handcrafted. It's a labor of love and all that, rather than, you know, how cool is our tasting room and all that, you know, sexy stuff, like you can have, you know, a lamb chop with your tasting. So what we do is we just stick to the basics here. That's really our plan. And to go to the next generation is really we that our strength will be the authenticity and the dedication and the integrity. Because, you know, with the brand loyal consumers, that was a great phase.

Bo Barrett [00:33:01]:
And, you know, it's really. What's the question is what happened after the Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator era? Because if you recall back really from 86 through about 2000, if you had. If Robert Parker liked you or the Wine Spectator liked you, you were in business, you were gold. And if both of them liked you, you were. And. But what happened is Robert Parker winding down on his career, the wine spectators becoming less forceful, and they still sell a ton of wine. They still sell a ton of wine. You get, number one, the Wine Spectator, they're still golden.

Bo Barrett [00:33:38]:
But what happened is the. It's a little bit like the Cold War days. You know, you're either with the Americans or you're with the Russians, and everybody knows, or the Soviets, you know, so you know who you're with. It's a very stable environment. And then now it's this anarchy that you see around the world. Well, it's kind of like the allegory going to the wine business is you gotta be nimble, you gotta be quick, you gotta have products that will sell themselves. You know, thinking about it, in the modern world, it's so difficult to sell one bottle of wine, but that bottle of wine has to sell the next one for you.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:34:08]:
That's right.

Bo Barrett [00:34:10]:
That's the trick is just to put out amazing products.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:34:13]:
There's been a little stability seeing this every day with. When the millennials started drinking, there was a huge issue in the wine world. What Are they going to drink? Who are we going to get to them? How are we going to talk to them? What's going to happen? What are they drinking? They're drinking craft beer now. They're drinking defined spirit, quality spirits. But I think you're right. I think that the brand loyalty and the story now, and with the advent of so much social that you can tell the story, that you can get your message across. And I had this conversation every time because I have to put it out there. You know, our wine business in Napa, even the French winemakers are up against a lot of crap.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:34:52]:
I mean, you can get on Groupon and get 15 wines for 45 bucks. Yeah, it's junk, right?

Bo Barrett [00:34:57]:
We have a guy who used to work, Matt Crafton, our winemaker. His brother is the logistics specialist. He went to work for. No, he worked for MasterCard. You might.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:35:09]:
Well, they are.

Bo Barrett [00:35:10]:
Then he came up and helped us work on our logistics system here. And then he went to work and he did that. He developed the logistics for Naked Wines. So then he went to work with this other billion dollar company, speaking of those wines, on their logistics. And so he gets dialed in because this is a billion dollar company. So they get to the top. Wine. This is the wine guy of the company.

Bo Barrett [00:35:26]:
This is the wine guy of the company. The guy goes, ah, I just joined this awesome wine club. And you know, he's thinking it's going to be no shots of Wataland or something like that. He goes, naked Wines. And so, yeah, there's still a lot of potential. Because you think about the American. What probation did is that there were three generations drank only spirits or beer, right?

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:35:47]:
Yes.

Bo Barrett [00:35:48]:
And so then the kids, like my kids grew up and their kids grew up. So wine has become a thing. And we always were kind of hoping and praying that the NASCAR people in middle America would start drinking wine. And they did. They started drinking wine. And so that was really. Well, the world couldn't make enough wine during that wine boom. But as we go into millennials and they're going to keep drinking wine and eventually they all have three kids and put on 40 pounds.

Bo Barrett [00:36:11]:
And the doctor says, you can't drink spirits anym. And that's when we get them put

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:36:15]:
on the COVID 19.

Bo Barrett [00:36:17]:
We get them after they put on 30 or 40 pounds. The doctor says, well, you can either lose some weight and start taking.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:36:22]:
What a plan.

Bo Barrett [00:36:23]:
That's a great plan. So you get. Yeah, we typically get them when they're

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:36:26]:
about 40 because everybody's struggling in my industry on the DTC side, because. And the reason I brought up the one, those guys, naked wines. You know, I don't diss competitors typically, but, you know, in the beginning, Anyway, these were €1 per liter wines. This was stuff like was I used to get the wine just to see what they're selling. This is early on. And I'd look at the bottles, I'd go, I rejected that exact bottle. You know, it was coming from what was then AWD in Santa Rosa, right? Yeah, just bottled Semillon. Who knows what the hell is in there? And I said, look, I go, this stuff's no good.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:36:58]:
And people are getting it. You know, that's not an experience to me. And it's getting back to what you're saying. Wine is an experience. It should be an experience. I should be able to sit down with this glass of Cabernet from Chateau Montreal.

Bo Barrett [00:37:09]:
But they gotta start someplace.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:37:10]:
Tell the story.

Bo Barrett [00:37:11]:
Yeah, but they gotta start someplace. Think about the greatness of the Sutter Home White Zen, you know, the success of that. And then following that with the KJ Vintners Reserve Chardonnay, those entry level wines, they gave us all the consumers eventually in the long run. So, you know, they might have started with, you know. You know, and what happened with the Gallo Hardy Burgundy and stuff, that really never got people to go to cross. It was all just the paisans. That was just the same group of people that kept selling the same. But what happened with, if you think of the KJ vendors reserve, is that, like, how many people started with those soft, low acid wines? Because especially that generation that's a little bit older than us, where Americans really like sweet.

Bo Barrett [00:37:52]:
You know, how the British like salty and the French like fat, and the Americans really like sweet. And so having those Chardonnays, like Ron Bauer is a great example, it's like giving the people what they want. Having those low acid, really quite sweet, quite soft Chardonnays. And then what happens is, like, I don't like Chardonnay. It's too heavy. And then they come to our tasting room. They go, well, this is what it. You know, try this one.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:38:13]:
One.

Bo Barrett [00:38:13]:
And so in our taste room, it's like, we get people in here right now, today, never. No Paris tasting or nothing. I don't drink Chardonnay. And they're really killers. Yeah, no. And they're sitting there, they got their glass, and they go, yeah, look, an eagle. And they look weird. And they put some Chardonnay and they go, oh, this is really nice.

Bo Barrett [00:38:29]:
Yeah, that's really funny.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:38:29]:
So well, it's leaner and brighter and.

Bo Barrett [00:38:32]:
Yeah, so that. So that style of Chardonnay, but that was extremely difficult to sell. You got to think of the 80s 90s, when we were really a red wine house where Robert Parker really loved us and Steve Tanzer and Wine Spectator, all those ones were rooting for us throughout 2007, something like that, we always made the chardonnay. It was 2000 that we had to decide whether to reinvest in it because our prime grower was getting ready to quit and his vineyard needed to be replanted. And so we had to decide whether we're going to even. It came to a point where we almost stopped making the famous chardonnay because in 2000, it was very difficult to sell because of the success and the scalability of those ML plus barrel, fermented, high oak, high sugar Chardonnays were really dominating the market. So much so that our style of Chardonnay was really quite unpopular. So we talked about not making it interesting.

Bo Barrett [00:39:27]:
But then my dad and I, you know, we sat down and said, well, we got this franchise with the first tasting. You know, Chardonnay is a great product. We love drinking it. And I actually thought at the time that people would come around to drinking proper Chardonnay, because you got to remember, at that same time, Burgundy price was going through the ceiling. So everybody loved that pure, crisp, bright, brilliant Chardonnay as long as it had a Burgundian label on it. But I said, but if we can give them the alternative here for, you know, one fifth the price at the same quality level or even higher, then we'll eventually get them in the long game. And so then, sure enough, really, when the Millennials came along. So clearly, the Country Club Chardonnay is still extremely popular with one demographic group, the Country Club people like the Cougars or whatever you want to call it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:40:15]:
Country Club, which is a classic position for that.

Bo Barrett [00:40:17]:
It is. It's awesome. And, you know, like, the LA Country Club used to sell a palate of our Chardonnay a year, you know. Really? Yeah, it was always really popular, but that was with the people who were drinking French wine. So that's basically the, you know, kind of the brief history of it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:40:31]:
You think that Taste of Paris in 1976, it took a little while for that traction to hit and the popularity for California wines to become, like George Tabor will tell you, well, it would have happened in five to 10 years anyway. And I'm like, well, but we wouldn't be having this conversation. So I don't necessarily agree with all that completely, but do you think that that story is ready to tell again? I mean, Bottle Shock came out. You know, the movie's not a great representation of what happened happen, and the book is an excellent tome of it. Do you think that this time now, and how much of your business is really based on that story? In other words, people come, oh, yeah, I saw the movie. Oh, yeah. Can you take me on the Bottle Shock tour and all that?

Bo Barrett [00:41:09]:
It's. It's significant, I'd probably say of the visitors here, it's probably in the, you know, 15 to 20% range.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:41:15]:
It's not a ton.

Bo Barrett [00:41:16]:
It's. It's. But it's still significant. That's not, you know, but I think we, yeah, Mike and Violet have really focused on that, on their thing here. But really, that was about Chardonnay, and we're really all about Cabernet here. So we have a much broader and bigger story. Like, that was, you know, that was that time. That was that wine.

Bo Barrett [00:41:35]:
So we tend to do it every 10 years, so we celebrate it. So, you know, every. So the, you know, the 40th anniversary of the perestation was a big deal for us. You know, other people want to do it on the 45th or the 46th. You know, stag's Leap, clearly, you know, wants to do it, but they're owned by Altria now, if that's all you got. But, you know, we've had a lot of successes with our Cabernet and wines over the years, too. So, you know, we do. We're so extremely grateful for it.

Bo Barrett [00:42:01]:
But it's not our sole story that we tell here.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:42:04]:
I just. I just. When you were talking about millennials and telling the story and trying to get behind these brands and let people know that there's more to it than just some label. Like, one of the stories I tell is a. I tasted a Saturday Night Live Beaujolais. It was real Beaujolais. It was from France. It was awful.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:42:21]:
I mean, but if somebody bought it because they're SNL devotee, they're going to be going, ugh, this stuff's, like, not very good, Right? So that's not a story. The story's here. Places like Chantal, Montelena and your father.

Bo Barrett [00:42:34]:
That's why we're relying on people like you to get the word. Keep spreading the Bible.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:42:38]:
So I got two more subjects, then we'll wrap this up because, like, we're getting on here 45 minutes, but organic and biodynamic. Is this something that you're doing that you want to do or do you think it's, you're just part of, I mean.

Bo Barrett [00:42:49]:
Well, we've always been on the sustainable side. The thing about biodynamic, it's, it's really a religion, not a farming practice. And that, that's the thing about biodynamic. What I like about biodynamic is that it makes people farm like we do, that they respect the land and they take care of their plants a lot better and they take care of their soil primarily. But I never knew any other way. That's the way we're doing it. And to say we're sustainable. And the thing about certified organic, and this is a true story, we make our own compost.

Bo Barrett [00:43:18]:
Yeah. So you make the compost. And in the compost you put in wood chips for a carbon source. You put in all the byproducts of the wine, the grape skin, seeds, pulp, stems, all that stuff, pumice. And then you put in manure for the nitrogen source and then you cook it for a year. And so if you're certified organic, that means certified organic. All that means is you do the paperwork, right? So you do the paperwork. So what do you need to make certified organic compost? You need the paperwork for certified organic chicken shit.

Bo Barrett [00:43:51]:
And I won't do the chicken shit paperwork. So we're not certified organic. And the other thing about it is too. So let's just say you have a insect coming into your property. We had the European grapevine moth, a great example. It's a lepidoptera. Right. The biodynamic.

Bo Barrett [00:44:08]:
And the organic pesticide you use is Bacillus thuringiensis. It's a broadband insecticide that kills lots and lots and lots of kinds of hard shell and soft shell insects. So it kills a lot. There's a lot of B kill on it. Or by cats, whatever you term. But if you spray a Lepidoptera specific insecticide, what's best for all the biota, everybody living in the vineyard, what's best? You got an invasive species, a moth. Should you kill all the bugs out there or just the moth again? So that's the same thing as being a holistic, sustainable farmer, I think is actually better. So our policy on our farming has always take the highest road you possibly can.

Bo Barrett [00:44:51]:
So if we have to use an agricultural chemical, we will. And the same thing in winemaking. I will do everything possible to make the wine for our customers better. If I have to, you know, deal Riesling or something like that, I will do it. Because my. My job is to make the very best pure product that I can. So if I have to use some of the modern technologies to make the wine better, I have. I have seriously no problem with that.

Bo Barrett [00:45:16]:
So it is on the farming, but the farming is like, you know, I grew up in that vineyard. My kids, my dogs, now my grandchildren are up there. I don't use any, you know, anything out there, you know, all organic sulfur, and we dust and all that good stuff. So we use as little of the modern chemicals as we can. And for the most part, you don't really need them. The weather here is generally very good. We don't have a lot of mildew pressure. It's not like Oregon, where you got to spray every day, and that's a much more difficult decision is how you can run your spray program.

Bo Barrett [00:45:47]:
But for us here, it's pretty holistic, sustainable, but it's always for the best. For all the biotops, that's the number

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:45:54]:
one comment particularly made from the European winemakers, is my kids are playing in that vineyard, and I don't want them crawling around at a bunch of pesticides. So we do it naturally.

Bo Barrett [00:46:03]:
And it is. That's the best way to do it, because that's if you live in there. So those are the people with the passion. They're living out there. They're out there every day. But think about me. I'm out there every day. It's like.

Bo Barrett [00:46:12]:
It's hard to get me in my office like today. The reason I was late today is because I found a leaky part on one of my irrigation. Some of them just, like, spraying water out. Water is really precious.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:46:24]:
It's probably more dangerous to walk on a golf course with all the pesticides they put out there.

Bo Barrett [00:46:27]:
Oh, yeah, that's lavender.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:46:29]:
So two things on packaging, then we'll wrap up. I just tasted about 75 cans of wine and found some very palatable, interesting wines that had been canned, as well, as I noticed at Whole Foods of the day, a liter bottle. A plastic liter bottle of French vin blanc from France. So, you know, plastic bottles have been around forever with water. We drink water from it. You see any movement in the California side of. I see lots of cans and skip that for a second. But the plastic bottle, which now you're getting a liter in the same size as a 750 as far as on the shelf presence, and you can put 36 of those in a case and get the same weight as.

Bo Barrett [00:47:11]:
Yeah, I definitely see that. The leader in that really is Sweden. They're Very. Yeah, well you gotta remember it's a symbolog. They have a state monopoly so they have very strict rules on their environmental laws. And so yeah, over there, everything under I think 15 krona, which is about $15. It's all an alternative packaging, you know, the tetra pack, you know, the plastic box or the plastic bottle. You see that and I do see that.

Bo Barrett [00:47:36]:
You know here we at our quality level of production. So like for us we've never used Chinese or European glass. Again, back to your sustainable things. So all of our packaging other than the quarks actually is North American produced. So we get our glasses all North America, you know, because Canada, Mexico, it's all, you know, so we get North American glass. We don't use the fancy bottles. Our bottles are just the lightest ones we can use for it. But yeah, I definitely think that that's all part of the global move to sustainability.

Bo Barrett [00:48:06]:
I think the cans is good. Personally I'd probably have a problem. I'd be kind of inclined to drink it like a beer right out of the can and then next thing you know you drink it. You know, you drink a half a bottle of wine.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:48:21]:
Well you know the 375 is like the size of a 12 ounce beer can. Right.

Bo Barrett [00:48:24]:
So yeah. So then all of a sudden you, you know, you're so used to knocking back a beer and at 6% alcohol you knock back a bottle of wine with or a can of wine with 14% alcohol, you're talking about getting in trouble, in a hurry, you know, sleeping on the sofa or something.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:48:37]:
I did notice most of it was just like it's going to go in a can, don't worry about about it. But I, I had a 250 of a Russian river vintage Pinot Noir. It was really good. I had a Lodi cab 18. It was really good. And once in a 187. I don't know why they make it that big. So there was seems to be a movement to actually get into the can forge portability, you know, a decent wine.

Bo Barrett [00:49:01]:
Try to go get it and go see Francis Francis for Cope. Ask him how is that champagne he was making with his daughter was in that can. Yeah, but that was like 10 years ago. So they tried it. But yeah, the can thing, it's like it's kind of out of my sector.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:49:16]:
Yeah, I don't think it's here but I just wonder what you, you know, if the consumers talk about it. We, I just did it because I wanted to show my members, you know, what's out there.

Bo Barrett [00:49:25]:
Well, the diversity of the packaging is great, you know, because you see the kegs going out now, you know, for the wine by the glass programs and stuff like that. And so I think anything we could do is all. All great. It's all good. That's. I support the whole move. If you have products for that sector, I would, you know, if I worked. If you started a winery and we were down in Madera or someplace and a million bucks.

Bo Barrett [00:49:46]:
Yeah, we definitely would be. Well, we'd be able to see our foothills, probably.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:49:50]:
Yeah. Hey, it's a pleasure. I'm not going to take any more of your time. I know we got some tasting to do. I think what I'm going to do, because I get all my surf shirts from a place called Last Wave Original, and they have the Greg Knoll.

Bo Barrett [00:50:02]:
Wow.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:03]:
So I'm gonna pick up a couple for you. Set them up.

Bo Barrett [00:50:05]:
That'd be awesome.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:06]:
So when you come up to the taste room, they're like, what is he wearing a surf shirt for?

Bo Barrett [00:50:09]:
Yeah. One of our neighbors here. I don't know. You know where. The Harbor House in Kona. Oh, yeah, Right. So my neighbor Peter Nessen, the guy who farms Mark right next to my Vader. I.

Bo Barrett [00:50:20]:
I walk it. I could always tell. But he's in a good mood because he's wearing his Kona Brewing. Kona Powell Harbor. That's awesome.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:27]:
I typically wear Dewey Weber shirts. And we're in the San Gabriel Valley.

Bo Barrett [00:50:30]:
Yeah.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:30]:
Even the Sarah Madre, Arcadia, Monroe, they're like, hey, do this.

Bo Barrett [00:50:34]:
That's what I want to ask you. What happened to Hap Jacobs and all those guys? I went to high school. John Bruff. Don't they all. Didn't they all move up to the ranch or something?

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:40]:
Yeah, they're not. Yeah, those guys are all gone. The one guy that's around is the guy that started. Old guys rule. His name is. Shoot, forgot his last name. He lived on 19th street in Hermosa. We have a house on 18th street that we visit quite a bit.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:55]:
We love Hermosa beach because it's the cool part of the beach scene.

Bo Barrett [00:50:58]:
And it's still.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:50:59]:
Still that authentic hippie style.

Bo Barrett [00:51:01]:
Right.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:51:01]:
Not the Manhattan and not the Redondo. It's that Hermosa. Cool spot. So pleasure speaking with you both. Thanks for taking the time. All right. And let's. Let's do some tasting.

Bo Barrett [00:51:09]:
All right. On. Let's get into it.

Paul Kalemkiarian [00:51:11]:
Thank you.

Bo Barrett [00:51:11]:
All right, J.