Violet Grgich on Wine as Emotion, Heritage & Rebellion | Wine Talks with Paul K

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Wine has that ability to draw you into the moment, to make you

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completely engaged, to bring people together, to take

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an instant and make it seem infinite. It is truly

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magical. Sit back and grab a glass.

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It's Wine Talks with Paul Kay.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are at away game today

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up in the Napa Valley, about to have a conversation with Violet Grgich. Introductions in

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just a moment. And hey, have a listen to a podcast I just released

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with Zaya Unan. This is a

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Iranian immigrant at 13 years old, hustled his way to the United States

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and became. Well, he's got five hotels and three golf courses and

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a luxury brand cigar and places in Paris and you name

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it. So really interesting conversation on how he did that, but

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not while we're here. We're here to have a conversation with Violet. She is the

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descendant, I'm going to say, of Mike Girgis, the famed winemaker of the Judgment

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of Paris in 1976. And now the head.

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What do you call yourself? The head. Everything, I guess. So

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welcome to the show. Thank you so much. This is. I just got an email.

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This is what I want to start with. I just got an email from the

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Napa Valley Vintners association and said helping you

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tell the Napa Valley story. And of course, it goes on to tell all the

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resources that Napa Valley vintners have done to help tell the story.

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But how, how important today is

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telling this story? I would say telling the story

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is probably the most important part other than

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making a friend and creating a relationship. Well, that was the other thing. You know,

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I forgot about that when you and I spoke a few years ago and you

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told us that famous quote from your dad which

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includes making friends. What was it exactly? So

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every day, do your best, learn something new, and make

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a friend. So my daughter, who's now with Apple,

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she's part of the recruiting team to bring women back into the

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workforce, into the hardware side of Apple, and she uses that

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regularly. That's wonderful. Oh, my gosh. I have

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to say, it was told to my father by his father when he left

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home to go to school. And he grew up in a very

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small, very poor village, didn't have any money, but he had

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wisdom. And that's what he passed along to my father. And over the

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years, I've realized that if stick to those values,

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you have no choice but to succeed in life, because that

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tells you how to behave in any, any kind of situation. Because those are the

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issues of life. Yeah. Not necessarily winning gold medals in your wine or becoming

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the, you know, winning judgment of Paris in 1976. All those things.

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It's really about being a human being. Right. And the lessons you learn from that.

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I mean, this is interesting because your

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father's story is amazing. He comes to America, I think

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it was $25. Sold. Sewed in the shoe. 32. $32.

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And I've been dying when we go to St. Helena to figure out which hotel

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it was that he landed in front of, like, where do I stay? Oh, St.

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Helena Hotel. Is it still there? Oh, the building's still there. I

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don't think they've operated for a little while, but it's right in the middle of

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Main Street. St. Helena. Yeah. That vision

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to me is phenomenal because my father's an immigrant, and

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to know this gentleman just took the risk, showed up and like,

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what was it? What have you. When you discussed that with him, what was his

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thought process? What was he feeling? Oh, my gosh. I mean, he felt all

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kinds of things. He was. You know, Croatia was part of

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Yugoslavia. He'd gone through World War II. His father went through World War

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I and World War II. He'd been through a lot. He came from a small,

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poor village, and he felt like the best thing that he could do for himself

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was to get an education. He ended up studying viticulture and

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enology at the University of Zagreb. And when he was

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there, he heard from a professor who'd been to California,

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specifically to UC Berkeley, he heard that Napa Valley

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was paradise and that America was a land you could achieve your

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dreams. And that inspired him. Because of this

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conversation with this professor, the secret police were after him. He

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fled the country. You know, he'd been collecting some money, which he sewed

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up in his shoe, but it took him a while. He didn't just, you know,

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come to America. He went through a lot to be able to get there. He

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went through Germany. He was in an internment camp. Camp. He got a

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visa to go to Canada as a lumberjack. And, of

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course, anybody seeing my dad. My dad a lumberjack? Are you gotta be kidding? He's

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like, five. But, yeah. His

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first step in America was remarkable because, again,

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that idea of being able to have freedom,

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freedom of speech, freedom to follow your dreams.

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And so when we broke grounds on Gurgich Hills, we broke

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grounds on July 4th, Independence Day. Wow. Deliverance. Because of

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that, that was so special to him, the fact that he had freedom.

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You know, it's an interesting path. I was just mentioning this Zaya Unan, who Came

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from Iran at 13. And he's talking about almost the same type of

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thing where he had to sort of puddle jump his way over here. But what

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ambition and persistence and what's the

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word? Vision of the dream to put up with that. Like

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he could have stopped anywhere and said, well, you know, this is good enough. I'm

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tired. Was he a winemaker before he left? He was.

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And as a small, you know, as a peasant and if

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village, everyone made wine. His father was known as making the best wine

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in the village. And even though my father had originally studied business,

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he didn't find it to be very creative. He found that, you know, all those

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closets of papers that he was generating, what use is that?

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And so he ended up following his passion. He started

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stomping grapes when he was three years old and of course

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immediately started drinking wine and water. The reason for

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that was you couldn't drink water in a village, you would get sick. So when

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you put wine with it, it steri. It was also a lot more

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fun to work. Well, yeah, of course, but that's a

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persistent theme. I just heard this the other day about the water of those

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days being poisonous and causing probably a lot of disease at the time.

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And I have a poster. Well, I have an image of a poster. I've been

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trying to find the original. In Bezier, France, in

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the early 20s, they put up a poster saying, put wine in

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your water. Deliberately? Yeah, absolutely. How

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interesting. So you've. So you, your grandfather then was

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the best winemaker of the village, huh? That's it,

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yeah. It's wonderful. Any gold medals over there? No, no. I

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mean, you know, he didn't have any money, so they, he grew, you know, they

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grew everything they ate, they traded. It was a very different life

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than what, you know, we have here in Napa Valley.

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But it definitely set my dad, you know, gave him a

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background where he was always working hard. He was always trying to keep

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things simple. I was in Armenia

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a few months ago and I shot this. I spent three days in the

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villages shooting winemakers, talking to them as we're talking now.

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But I did stop at a roadside down by the Iranian

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border. There's a whole bunch of winery wine

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related kiosks. And the first person said, no, you're not filming

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me like this. And then the other woman said, yeah, film me. So I went

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up and they said, you need to taste this live. You know, I was shooting

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this. I'm like, oh my God, are you kidding? I have to taste this. It

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was in a Coke Bot, you know, plastic. And you know what? I go,

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this is completely palatable and, you know,

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drinkable. I'm like, I don't think I'd have a problem having a glass of this.

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So how, how much this. That leads me to this conversation.

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There's all this talk of contemporary innovation, and

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I just think it's generationally driven. But

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I mean, how different is wine from when your grandfather made it? I

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mean, really, how different is it really? No, not

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much. Right? Really not much. I mean, basically, you take grapes, you

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ferment them, you make wine. How you do it? I mean, there's in.

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In Napa Valley particular, there's, especially at very high end wineries,

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there's a lot of technology that we choose not to

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use because we want. We want wine. So

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for, for example, picking every perfect berry, you know,

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that leaves out a lot of complexity. And wine is something

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that's incredibly complex. We take the whole grape

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cluster and we ferment it naturally using yeast

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that is found on the grapes themselves. We can do this because we're

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regenerative, organic, certified. Everything is natural. Everything is

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really about life and creating balance and harmony, both in the vineyard,

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but also in the winery. So we do as little as possible

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to try to retain the natural flavors that are found in the grapes.

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That's another thing I find fascinating. Wasn't it always that way? I mean, here we

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patting ourselves on the back for doing it, which is great. We should be doing

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it the way you're talking. But when your father got here, there

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weren't pesticides, insecticides and herbicides. You did it this way.

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Wasn't always natural fermentation. No, there wasn't. And actually, I

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remember when my father was at our neighbor there, Bordeaux Vineyards, he and

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Andrei Cellicev worked on a number of projects. One of which

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was introducing millipore filtration to the wine.

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Another was actually working on strains of yeast that were very consistent

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to be found. I mean, there were pesticides and herbicides. I

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believe back then. They didn't farm naturally like they did back in the old country,

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which is how my dad grew up. But they developed a strain of

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yeast that was the most widely used yeast for many, many decades,

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French white. They also produced the first

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industrially induced malolactic fermentation, which previously had been

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spontaneous. And so that was a lot of development that happened

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there. But then when my f. Father went to Robert Mondavi,

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Robert thought that Napa Valley could someday, you know, become

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one of the great wine growing regions of the world because the climate the

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soil, the terroir. But we had something that the

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French didn't have. The French were considered by themselves and by everyone in

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the world to make the best wines. And they had their

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tradition, but we had science and technology. And so

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Robert Mondavi was very much about the latest scientific discoveries,

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the latest scientific methods. How can I do things in a more modern,

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modern way? And so when my father made the wine that made

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Robert Mondavi famous, that was the 1969 cabernet,

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he actually centrifuged his wine. He used numerous other

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technologies that was processing the wine.

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And this wine was. It won this amazing

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first place at tasting in Los Angeles and

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literally put Robert Mondavi on the map. But my dad had an experience

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where one of his friends who made wines in his garage made a complete.

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And his wine was unfiltered, unfined, didn't look

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very pretty at all. And yet his wine, my

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dad found he couldn't stop drinking. And he thought, why is

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this. I have all this technology. I'm, you know, processing this wine,

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and. But his friend just used literally what came from the

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vineyard. And that literally inspired my father's

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winemaking technique for the rest of his life, which is to get the best

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grapes possible and to do as little as possible to them,

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to retain all the natural aromas and flavors. Because those things,

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you could come from the grapes themselves. You know, you can take great grapes

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and make bad wine. Oh, yeah. If you can't take bad grapes and make great

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wine. Yeah. It's just impossible. So his path. Let's just.

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I don't want to touch on that, but his path was he lands here.

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His first job was. His first job was with Lee Stewart

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at Souvarine Cellars. Oh, yeah, right. Which. Most people don't know who he

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is, but very shy person. He also trained War

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Vinyarski from Snag Sleep. He worked at Christian Brothers for a year,

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and then he worked with Andrei Chalicev at Bouill Vineyards. And that

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was the longest period. He worked there for about eight years before he

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went on to Robert Mondavi. And then when he was at Robert

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Mondavi, the winery had gotten bigger and

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bigger. He was doing some custom crush. And one of the people who brought his

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Chardonnay to get crushed there knew that my dad made the

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69 cabernet. He was one of the owners of Chateau Montelena.

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And so they asked my dad to be their winemaker,

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but not because of Chardonnay, because of Cabernet. That's what they wanted. To make.

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That's hilarious. Yeah. Was it Jim's partner? So it was

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Jim. So there were three partners. Ernie Hahn, Lee

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Pasch, and Jim Barrett. So those were the three partners in Chateau

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Montelena. And my dad actually ended up having to make

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Chardonnay as a cash flow wine because you weren't going to be making any money

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for a while. Mr. Barrett was a neighbor of ours. He came to my

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dad's store all the time. And I used to surf with the youngest son, Kevin,

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though he didn't think much of my surfing. But, you know, they bought that

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place originally just as a tax haven. They were looking for an idea

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to protect some assets as an attorney. And they. Oh,

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grapes sound interesting. They're talking about wheat. They're talking about other stuff. And here they

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have Chateau Montalana. So your dad goes there to make

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red wine, which I think in general, Chateau de Montalaya is known

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for their red wines, their calisthenic wines. But, well,

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I think it depends on really, on who you talk to. It's interesting. I remember

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being in New York one time and, you know, a customer said, oh, you make

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Chardonnay? I thought you only made Zinfandel. Yeah, right. Whereas we got famous

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for Chardonnay because of the Paris tasting. And that was what brought

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Chateau Montelena fame as well, was the Chardonnay that won the

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Paris tasting that my father made. But was that. Beau will tell you,

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I worked at. He was working in the cellar at that time. I don't think

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the youngest son ever got involved, really. But he was saying that, you

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know, we don't. We don't know. We don't. Not sure we exactly know what we're

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doing. And we just decided. And I guess Patricia Gastau

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and Steven Spurrier came around and decided to put the wines in the tasting and

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get them shipped over by Joanne Dupuis. You know, that whole concept, you know the

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story. But was there any. Do you know if there's any

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expectations at that point, or it was just, you know, let's put it in there

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for fun or what? Oh, no. Well, they didn't know the wine was entered in

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the tasting. That was a secret to them. But, you know, the,

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you know, the expectations for my father, for the wine that he made were very

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high. And those had, you know, he was always a perfectionist when it

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came to really working hard to make the best wines possible.

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You know, his wines were his children. If you look at that photograph

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behind you there, you know, he's looking at his baby. And

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I Know, I know. It's funny. Michael Mondavi was just telling me the other day

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that, you know, when my dad was working there, he says he would tell Michael,

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wines are your children. Sometimes you have to sleep with them.

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And so Michael said that, you know, my mom would bring me to the

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winery so that my dad could actually see me because he was so involved with

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the winemaking. The real child. The real. The real child. So were you.

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This isn't always the case. That's what I'm asking you. But were you destined to

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do this, or did you have other plans? Well, I. You know, my dad was

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always telling me that I was going to be a winemaker. And being a stubborn

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Croatian, I was, you know, going in the other direction. So

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I ended up studying music and a few other things, but I

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loved being around the winery. I, of course, was

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in awe of my father, who was just so successful and so fabulous

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at what he did. And it was his entire life. That's

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what he did. That was his life. And so I didn't really think I

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would follow in his footsteps or really be able to until

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years later, I kept coming back to the winery. I kept

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pouring at wine tastings, working in the tasting room, working in the accounting department.

256
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I started out working in the cellar, in the laboratory, which was really

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fabulous because I didn't really have to talk to people because I was very, very

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shy. So at some point, my dad. Yeah, he. He

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made me go out and learn how to sell wine. And. And

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so that was. That was hard, but I thought it was. Learn how to

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sell wine. We're still learning how to sell wine. We

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absolutely are, all the time. But did it hit you at that time

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what a powerful, emotional product this is, or

264
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was it kind of business at that point? Oh, no, it was definitely. I

265
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mean, wine was always, you know, wine was always on our table.

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My dad was just so passionate about what he did and the art

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of winemaking that, again, he would always talk about himself as

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a wine sitter, as, like, in a babysitter. You know, those

269
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were his children. This was his passion. And that was very clear.

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There was, you know, the wine and what it

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meant to us on a regular basis. I mean, my father, we always drank my

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dad's wines. I was, I have to say, super spoiled as a kid.

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The first bad wine I drive, I'm like, oh, my gosh, how can people drink

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that stuff? So I cannot tell you that it's the best way to

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get an education, but it certainly set me in

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the right direction. It certainly is passion

277
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that takes over, and obviously, your father

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had that. When did you learn that? Because it took me. I

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was selling wine for 35 years. It took me a few years to say, wait

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a minute, there's something interesting besides the margins here, which

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suck. But. Well, you know, I

282
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think I always appreciated wine. I always had it around.

283
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I didn't start really attending wine tastings and trying other wines until

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maybe I was a little older, you know, as a teenager. But the

285
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fact that you could have wines of a particular variety that could be so

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different from one another, it was pretty remarkable. I.

287
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You know, as a musician, I'm always using musical analogies. And,

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you know, the best wines are those that continue to evolve and

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continue to interest you, not only over the course of an

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evening, but over the course of, let's say, a case of wine.

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I just got a wonderful note from a customer who.

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They bought a case of 1990 Chardonnay, and my

293
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dad apparently wheeled it out in his dolly out to

294
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their car, and they just finished their last bottle about a month

295
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ago, and they said it was one of the best wines they had ever had.

296
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That's amazing. So that kind of thing always comes back to me as

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like, wow, this. This is amazing. And hearing those stories,

298
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hearing how people have been affected by our wine and what a difference

299
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it's made is really huge. I mean, wine is

300
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truly an art and a science as well, but

301
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so is music. But there seems to be no other product

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on the face of the earth that affects humanity like wine does. And

303
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this is what I wrestle with when I read the contemporary Gen Z

304
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conversations, because then you went to. You got your

305
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MBA at Pepperdine. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen

306
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people try to apply their business school in their spreadsheets

307
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and their programs to wine business

308
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and realize it doesn't work because the product is so emotional,

309
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Even to the extent. The other day I went to a Bordeaux tasting

310
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and I put my nose into a glass of Barsack,

311
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and I've never felt like this before. It was just one of those wines

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where you just were overcome with emotions. There's no

313
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other product in the humanity that does that. No. And it's

314
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literally true. I mean, wine reminds you of

315
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a place and a time, and one sip is a journey.

316
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That first smell, that first sip, and as it sort of

317
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lingers in your mouth, it goes through a transformation.

318
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It is so incredibly complex. It reminds you of

319
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situations, places, people. How do we feel? And

320
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emotion. I mean, was that a priority here? At the winery, if I come in

321
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for an experience at Girgich, am I getting that?

322
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Am I feeling this passion? I believe so.

323
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I think for us, the most important thing is

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that any person who comes here should immediately feel like they're the most important

325
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person in the world and that

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we're very down to earth. We're not what people would expect, I think, in

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Napa Valley, but we're farmers, and this is our life.

328
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It's not our lifestyle. It's our life. And for

329
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our team to explain to people what wine means, to

330
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educate them about it, but for them to have that experience, you know,

331
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trying the wine, what does that mean to you? And

332
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people come here with all different levels of education of

333
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wine. And I think our team is really, really

334
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good at knowing how much to tell, how much not to tell.

335
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And most importantly, though, is a story. And that personal connection,

336
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that personal connection that our team feels with people through wine

337
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is invaluable. I mean, the story, just.

338
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Just the hard luck story, but the story of your

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father coming and if that's just told briefly to someone and

340
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then they realize what's in this bottle, because. And I think you would agree with

341
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this, that the terroir has to include

342
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the wisdom of your father and your grandfather and you.

343
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As time evolves, as you learn, as you grow, as this industry,

344
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as you, this winery grows, that what's in the bottle really is a reflection

345
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of all of that. That. Yeah. I mean, you can't taste like in the tannin.

346
00:21:23,190 --> 00:21:26,710
Right. There's. Oh, this is Mike Gergis's tannin. But it's his story,

347
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but it's got to come out. It's. It's. You know,

348
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it's my father's spirit, it's my family's spirit, and it's

349
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the spirit of the land. The thing that was most

350
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important to my father was not that he was the winemaker.

351
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It was that he allowed something to be

352
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created that was greater than the sum of its parts.

353
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And for him, the winery

354
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was originally actually called Chateau Hills. Many people don't know that.

355
00:21:56,850 --> 00:22:00,210
No, I'm very good. Because when he found his partner, Austin Hills, they

356
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both agreed to contribute one word to the name of the

357
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winery. And Austin, his last name. Hills.

358
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He's from the Hills Brothers coffee family of San Francisco.

359
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Wow. And my father said Chateau, not because he wanted a fancy

360
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building here, but because he wanted to create a chateau

361
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style. Whereas we were known for the wine, not for the

362
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,960
winemaker, asserting their own ego into the

363
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,720
wine. It was all about, you Know the child, the spirit of

364
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the land, and, you know, the way we farm. We are regenerative,

365
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,760
organic, certified. It's the highest level of farming

366
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possible. We started organic farming in 2000,

367
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biodynamic farming in 2003. We've still retained some

368
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of biodynamics, but it is about regenerative, organic. And we've

369
00:22:47,790 --> 00:22:51,550
seen results, more results with this farming than in all of our years of

370
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doing the other two. So that enables us to make wines

371
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as naturally as possible, which allows, we think, for

372
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even greater and greater quality, complexity,

373
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longevity. Isn't that interesting how that's come around like that?

374
00:23:06,430 --> 00:23:10,190
And it's really, I mean, it has to create the vibrancy in the life

375
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of a wine. Absolutely. I mean, wine is a living thing. It

376
00:23:13,750 --> 00:23:17,370
truly is a living thing. And the more naturally it's

377
00:23:17,370 --> 00:23:20,650
made, the more alive it is. And I think there's this

378
00:23:20,650 --> 00:23:24,290
misconception and possibly because, you know, some people who make

379
00:23:24,290 --> 00:23:27,810
natural wines, literally, it's such a hands off experience.

380
00:23:28,130 --> 00:23:31,530
Our goal is to make the best wines possible in the most

381
00:23:31,530 --> 00:23:35,370
natural way possible. But define that for me. So what we

382
00:23:35,370 --> 00:23:39,050
do and we, I. Mean, there must be a moving target

383
00:23:39,050 --> 00:23:42,210
for every winery to make the best wine possible. Because some would say the best

384
00:23:42,210 --> 00:23:44,730
wine possible that I can make the most money on. And so I'm going to

385
00:23:44,730 --> 00:23:47,130
make it taste the same every year and add sugar and all this other crap

386
00:23:47,130 --> 00:23:50,830
to it, or the best wine possible as the best expression of what

387
00:23:50,990 --> 00:23:54,750
we're given here. I think it's a combination of everything,

388
00:23:54,750 --> 00:23:58,150
but for us it's not about the money. You know, if we, if we want

389
00:23:58,150 --> 00:24:01,710
it, we go into another business, you know, it

390
00:24:01,710 --> 00:24:05,470
helps, you know. And you know, my dad actually, of all the things

391
00:24:05,470 --> 00:24:09,230
that he's accomplished was said, always said that the thing he was

392
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most proud of was providing employment for almost 50 people.

393
00:24:14,470 --> 00:24:18,190
Huge. And that's huge. So we could not do

394
00:24:18,190 --> 00:24:19,830
what we do without our team.

395
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And our team has belief in

396
00:24:26,470 --> 00:24:30,190
our values. And I think every organization works

397
00:24:30,190 --> 00:24:33,950
the best when you have values that everyone believes in and are

398
00:24:33,950 --> 00:24:37,710
able to translate those to your customers, your guests,

399
00:24:37,710 --> 00:24:40,290
the people who visit. So you've been moving towards word

400
00:24:40,770 --> 00:24:44,210
biodynamic or is not because people are asking for it,

401
00:24:44,610 --> 00:24:48,330
because that was a trendy thing, let's say five to seven years ago. This

402
00:24:48,330 --> 00:24:51,370
is organic. And then you taste the wine and it was like an excuse for

403
00:24:51,370 --> 00:24:55,050
it to be like kombucha. You know, it had this yeasty,

404
00:24:55,050 --> 00:24:58,690
raw, weedy and, and that was just coming from the novices

405
00:24:58,770 --> 00:25:02,570
really, in my opinion, when wine was always natural,

406
00:25:02,570 --> 00:25:06,010
I mean, the Burgundians made it natural, the Borde Lays made it natural. Until all

407
00:25:06,010 --> 00:25:09,830
the other stuff came. And here you're doing it because not only you

408
00:25:09,830 --> 00:25:13,590
think it produces a more vibrant, lively wine, but it

409
00:25:13,590 --> 00:25:16,350
also is better for the earth. It's better for. It's better for everything.

410
00:25:17,710 --> 00:25:21,550
But I think that idea that natural wine has to be funky. No.

411
00:25:21,550 --> 00:25:25,390
Is absolutely not true. That's simply an excuse for making bad wine.

412
00:25:26,190 --> 00:25:28,990
So that's one of the reasons it's hard to sort of say natural and happy.

413
00:25:28,990 --> 00:25:32,670
Oh, but doesn't it have funky. No. You can make natural wine

414
00:25:32,990 --> 00:25:36,670
to be perfect and to have no flaws and to have

415
00:25:36,910 --> 00:25:40,660
amazing character and I think. And longevity, too. And longevity.

416
00:25:41,130 --> 00:25:44,930
And, in fact, when my father turned 100, we had

417
00:25:44,930 --> 00:25:48,650
a special media and press tasting for him. And

418
00:25:48,650 --> 00:25:51,690
the wines that we tasted started with the 1965

419
00:25:52,010 --> 00:25:55,570
BV Private Reserve Cabernet. The oldest Chardonnay we

420
00:25:55,570 --> 00:25:59,090
tried was the 69 Mondavi Chardonnay, a

421
00:25:59,090 --> 00:26:02,370
72 Montelena Chardonnay, and then, of course,

422
00:26:02,370 --> 00:26:06,010
Gurgichel's wines through the teens. And what was most

423
00:26:06,010 --> 00:26:09,520
astounding, not just that that 69 Chardonnay still had life

424
00:26:10,550 --> 00:26:14,190
and freshness was amazing, but the fact that

425
00:26:14,190 --> 00:26:17,910
the style was continuous from those very

426
00:26:18,070 --> 00:26:21,790
mid-60s all the way through today, that was what my

427
00:26:21,790 --> 00:26:25,190
dad had hoped to achieve. And we were able to see that

428
00:26:25,589 --> 00:26:29,230
in this one tasting. It was truly remarkable. And in different

429
00:26:29,230 --> 00:26:32,870
vineyards, different winemaking techniques, you know, my dad was always

430
00:26:32,870 --> 00:26:36,710
learning, always trying to learn from people smarter than himself.

431
00:26:37,530 --> 00:26:41,250
And that's a humble position to take. Yeah, absolutely. And, you

432
00:26:41,250 --> 00:26:45,010
know, I appreciate that as well. I like to surround myself by people

433
00:26:45,010 --> 00:26:48,770
smarter than myself, too. Makes the job a little easier. It does, actually.

434
00:26:48,770 --> 00:26:52,330
What was his first vintage at Monteleno? 73. It was 72.

435
00:26:52,330 --> 00:26:56,050
Yeah. And the one that won was the 73, right?

436
00:26:56,050 --> 00:26:59,370
Correct. Yeah. So Mr. Baer came into my dad's shop

437
00:26:59,610 --> 00:27:03,290
and said, look, now that I bought this winery, I'm getting

438
00:27:03,290 --> 00:27:07,050
all kinds of requests for donations from all over the Palos Verdes,

439
00:27:07,210 --> 00:27:10,390
you know, elites and aristocrats and all the

440
00:27:10,470 --> 00:27:14,150
organizations. He goes, would you mind just bringing the wines in and

441
00:27:14,710 --> 00:27:18,150
having them on your shelf so that at least I could point them somewhere? And

442
00:27:18,150 --> 00:27:21,190
so I still have the newsletter from the 1972

443
00:27:21,590 --> 00:27:25,430
Chardonnay that my dad featured in the wine shop. Wow. Oh, my gosh. I would

444
00:27:25,430 --> 00:27:28,830
love to see that. Please do. Somewhere. My dad was a prolific

445
00:27:28,830 --> 00:27:32,470
collector of everything, so he still. Let's Talk about that for a second. The style.

446
00:27:33,990 --> 00:27:37,790
I remember when I first started, I started in 88 doing this. The

447
00:27:37,790 --> 00:27:41,450
buzzword was, this is so Burgundian or this is so Bordelai. And this

448
00:27:41,450 --> 00:27:45,170
is. We were trying to copy the French or at least look like the

449
00:27:45,170 --> 00:27:49,010
French. You don't hear that anymore. So what drove your father's style?

450
00:27:49,010 --> 00:27:52,210
Do you have an inkling as to what was that? Absolutely.

451
00:27:53,250 --> 00:27:56,770
He wanted a style of wine that was food friendly

452
00:27:56,850 --> 00:28:00,290
and that was balanced and that would be complex and

453
00:28:00,290 --> 00:28:03,490
interesting. And that style that,

454
00:28:04,050 --> 00:28:07,410
you know, I suppose that that sort of is the

455
00:28:07,410 --> 00:28:11,170
Burgundian style, the French style, you know, it's more Old World. It's

456
00:28:11,170 --> 00:28:14,950
more the kind of wine that, you know, have on a daily basis

457
00:28:14,950 --> 00:28:18,670
with food and their family and friends. Whereas wine

458
00:28:18,670 --> 00:28:22,270
has, you know, had a difficult and interesting history in America.

459
00:28:22,350 --> 00:28:25,550
Wine wasn't something that people really enjoyed on a regular basis.

460
00:28:26,910 --> 00:28:29,790
I remember as a kid, you know, of course I had wine with dinner and,

461
00:28:29,790 --> 00:28:32,350
you know, people would look at my lunch and go,

462
00:28:33,390 --> 00:28:37,110
what is that stuff? And then it was like, well, it's French bread and

463
00:28:37,110 --> 00:28:40,510
liverwurst and, you know, figs and, like. Figs. What are those?

464
00:28:42,190 --> 00:28:45,770
Yeah. And then they're like, oh, your mom cooks. And I'm like, well, how

465
00:28:45,770 --> 00:28:49,410
else do you eat? So it was a very different climate

466
00:28:49,410 --> 00:28:53,090
here, particularly on the west coast, than it

467
00:28:53,090 --> 00:28:56,410
was, I would imagine, on the East Coast. But again, for my father,

468
00:28:57,050 --> 00:29:00,849
that style came about because it not only went well

469
00:29:00,849 --> 00:29:04,690
with food, but it had this amazing complexity, and it tasted

470
00:29:04,690 --> 00:29:08,370
better the longer it sat in the glass, and it tasted fabulous the

471
00:29:08,370 --> 00:29:12,220
next day and the next week. So for

472
00:29:12,220 --> 00:29:16,060
him, that was the ultimate. You know, we were in Croatia,

473
00:29:16,060 --> 00:29:19,900
we went to Hvar, Split, Dubrovnik, all that, and we

474
00:29:19,900 --> 00:29:23,460
went to a Michelin star restaurant in Dubrovnik. And I realized at that point,

475
00:29:23,620 --> 00:29:26,980
I can't pronounce the grape varietals, the indigenous grape varietals of Croatia.

476
00:29:27,460 --> 00:29:30,900
Of course, the only American wine on any of the lists was your dad's. But

477
00:29:31,540 --> 00:29:35,180
what I found fascinating was the Croatian wines were really

478
00:29:35,180 --> 00:29:38,670
good, and they were very complex, and the

479
00:29:38,670 --> 00:29:42,470
indigenous grapes were fascinating. And I just relied on the Psalms

480
00:29:42,470 --> 00:29:46,190
to say, this is what you're eating, this is what's happening. So he

481
00:29:46,190 --> 00:29:49,430
must have brought that with him. As to the whole.

482
00:29:49,830 --> 00:29:53,430
Maybe it's just the DNA thing that this

483
00:29:53,430 --> 00:29:57,110
happened like this. I think there's a lot of DNA there. But when my

484
00:29:57,110 --> 00:30:00,870
dad fled Yugoslavia, it was a communist country,

485
00:30:01,190 --> 00:30:04,790
and so much of what had been good had really

486
00:30:04,790 --> 00:30:08,570
fallen into disuse. And wine was one of those. There was

487
00:30:08,570 --> 00:30:11,890
no incentive for people to make good wine anymore. And

488
00:30:12,210 --> 00:30:15,530
when he heard and finally Croatia declared

489
00:30:15,530 --> 00:30:19,330
independence and he finally went back after those many decades of not being

490
00:30:20,130 --> 00:30:23,969
in his homeland, he really wanted to do something to help the

491
00:30:23,969 --> 00:30:27,690
new country, the new independent, democratic country. And so he

492
00:30:27,690 --> 00:30:31,410
found a place to build a small winery. And

493
00:30:31,490 --> 00:30:35,170
the intent for him was to have it be a place where people

494
00:30:35,170 --> 00:30:38,210
could come and learn everything that he learned. He wanted to share

495
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,840
everything that he learned in his entire journey about how to make great

496
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,640
wine, how to grow grapes and great wine. And that wasn't really seen

497
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,360
very well. It was sort of like, what are you doing coming and telling us

498
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,200
what to do, really? But I think eventually after, you

499
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,600
know, I would literally go over, I would do a trade lunch and the

500
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,040
restaurateurs and retailers would tell me, ah, why are you putting your wine in

501
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,240
Barique? You may as well throw it in the Adriatic. And

502
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,360
so I literally went from one summer where I was yelled, we were yelled

503
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:11,140
at for putting our wine in Barique, and the next summer where you saw Barique

504
00:31:11,380 --> 00:31:14,660
on the labels and it was more expensive. Wow, it was

505
00:31:14,980 --> 00:31:18,580
funny. So I think that's important, though. Yeah, but the entire

506
00:31:18,580 --> 00:31:22,020
journey, I mean, it would not have happened had Croatia not declared

507
00:31:22,020 --> 00:31:25,860
independence and been able to create a place where people

508
00:31:25,860 --> 00:31:29,700
could see the beauty of the land. And as more people started

509
00:31:29,700 --> 00:31:33,260
to find out about it, people started, you know, becoming

510
00:31:33,260 --> 00:31:36,860
more, you know, again, I think it's the natural DNA. I think

511
00:31:36,860 --> 00:31:40,290
naturally, you know, there is great, incredible food in

512
00:31:40,290 --> 00:31:44,050
Croatia. Just the basic food is just so delicious. And

513
00:31:44,050 --> 00:31:47,050
then to sort of go to the next level, to take it on the world

514
00:31:47,050 --> 00:31:50,770
stage, a lot of that did happen because people had to up

515
00:31:50,770 --> 00:31:54,290
their ante because now people with a lot of money were coming and their

516
00:31:54,290 --> 00:31:58,090
expectations were being set. But I have to say my favorite

517
00:31:58,090 --> 00:32:01,770
food is still the down home country food, the

518
00:32:01,770 --> 00:32:05,490
basic grilled fish and the vegetables and the

519
00:32:05,490 --> 00:32:09,200
roast lamb. And it just has such a particular wonderful

520
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,680
flavor to it. There's a simplicity to it. The simplicity if it's proper.

521
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,920
And, you know, we are all about keeping things simple. And again, another

522
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,760
musical analogy. Most people think that when you play a lot of notes really

523
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:24,400
fast, you're a really good musician. It's actually

524
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:28,000
the opposite. It is much harder to

525
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,800
play very few notes connected by very long

526
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,680
periods of time where you have to shape the sound of the

527
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:39,060
note and the sound of the spaces between the notes.

528
00:32:39,300 --> 00:32:43,060
There's incredible complexity there. And it's all. You can't

529
00:32:43,060 --> 00:32:46,260
hide that as you can by playing a flurry of a lot of notes.

530
00:32:46,900 --> 00:32:50,700
So less is more. And that's

531
00:32:50,700 --> 00:32:54,100
one of the reasons why we like to keep our style and not sort of

532
00:32:54,100 --> 00:32:57,860
waver back and forth and follow trends. Because as

533
00:32:57,860 --> 00:33:01,700
a style, we again, keep things simple. In winemaking, we do very little,

534
00:33:01,940 --> 00:33:05,450
but it produces immense quality with immense

535
00:33:05,450 --> 00:33:09,170
complexity. And so that to me, all goes

536
00:33:09,170 --> 00:33:11,930
together. Do you know Susan Lynn, the mw?

537
00:33:12,970 --> 00:33:16,810
Not personally. I think she's up here. I had her on the

538
00:33:16,810 --> 00:33:20,410
show not too long ago, but she is a classically trained pianist

539
00:33:20,730 --> 00:33:24,330
and she's working with the emotion of wine and

540
00:33:24,330 --> 00:33:28,130
music together. You probably have a fabulous conversation with her. And I was

541
00:33:28,130 --> 00:33:31,820
reading, I've been trying to go back because of

542
00:33:32,050 --> 00:33:35,850
this jibber jabber on LinkedIn and between Gen Z's

543
00:33:35,850 --> 00:33:39,490
and this generation that thinks they're going to change the wine industry,

544
00:33:39,490 --> 00:33:43,090
which doesn't need changing, in my opinion. That's our next subject. But

545
00:33:44,450 --> 00:33:47,570
I've been going back and reading articles from the Les Ami Devant

546
00:33:47,970 --> 00:33:51,810
group. They had a great magazine, it was really good. And

547
00:33:51,810 --> 00:33:55,170
I go on ebay and I look for old copies and my dad had a

548
00:33:55,170 --> 00:33:59,010
couple still and there's a whole article about music and wine. And there was a.

549
00:33:59,090 --> 00:34:02,930
Somebody had written some score and I gave it to a friend of

550
00:34:02,930 --> 00:34:05,630
mine for him to want. I want to hear what the score is because I

551
00:34:05,630 --> 00:34:08,270
don't know what he was talking about. And I want to figure out if, you

552
00:34:08,270 --> 00:34:11,990
know, I want to make connect the dots between his article wine and why he

553
00:34:11,990 --> 00:34:15,630
wrote the score. And so she was fascinated by this thing when I sent it

554
00:34:15,630 --> 00:34:18,270
to her. I'll send it to you too. Oh, absolutely. Scanned it and looked at

555
00:34:18,270 --> 00:34:21,710
it. But it's funny because I get in trouble for

556
00:34:21,950 --> 00:34:25,750
literally crying when I listen to someone like you from Adele. And

557
00:34:25,750 --> 00:34:29,250
that's just like a piano and very slow notes.

558
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:33,839
It draws out so much. There you go. She goes, what happened to you that

559
00:34:33,839 --> 00:34:37,679
you. That you cry at the song? That's the best.

560
00:34:37,679 --> 00:34:39,719
I mean, that's an outpouring of emotion.

561
00:34:41,639 --> 00:34:44,999
Wine is so emotional. Wine. Absolutely, absolutely.

562
00:34:45,559 --> 00:34:49,079
So when they talk about this, and I've noticed

563
00:34:49,159 --> 00:34:52,319
I've never been in your tasting room. This can accommodate a lot of people and

564
00:34:52,319 --> 00:34:54,439
I think it feels really good in there.

565
00:34:57,330 --> 00:35:00,370
What does innovation mean to you in this segment in this

566
00:35:00,850 --> 00:35:04,690
industry? For instance, I'll give you an example. We're in Chateau Bailly on the

567
00:35:04,690 --> 00:35:08,290
Left bank and she has created this

568
00:35:08,290 --> 00:35:12,130
incredible winery for visitors to come to.

569
00:35:12,130 --> 00:35:15,890
And so you actually can dine on top of the fermentation tanks,

570
00:35:16,210 --> 00:35:19,970
and then you can actually lift the lid and look down at the fermentation that

571
00:35:19,970 --> 00:35:23,570
can be there. And that seemed to me to be an

572
00:35:23,570 --> 00:35:27,090
experiential innovation where people are going to go and remember this.

573
00:35:28,050 --> 00:35:30,970
And I think what's going on in the Internet is people are talking about cans

574
00:35:30,970 --> 00:35:33,890
and tetrapacs and flavors and

575
00:35:34,530 --> 00:35:38,250
whatever. Is that innovative to you? What does that mean here?

576
00:35:38,250 --> 00:35:41,610
What does it mean to gurgish, to be innovative? What do you work? Well, we're

577
00:35:41,610 --> 00:35:44,730
a little bit different, as I mentioned. We like to keep things simple and we

578
00:35:44,730 --> 00:35:48,570
like to keep things natural. We found that. That Mother Nature

579
00:35:48,570 --> 00:35:50,970
seems to be smarter than everyone.

580
00:35:52,410 --> 00:35:55,610
You know, just thinking about solar panels, you know, the

581
00:35:55,770 --> 00:35:59,450
natural photosynthesis that happens in green

582
00:35:59,450 --> 00:36:03,169
plants is so much more efficient than what we're able to

583
00:36:03,169 --> 00:36:06,930
make in solar panels. It's just we're doing our best to try to mimic

584
00:36:06,930 --> 00:36:10,410
nature. That's the first time I've heard that. That's really interesting. Yeah. And

585
00:36:10,570 --> 00:36:14,010
what we're doing in our vineyard is trying to mimic nature and to keep things

586
00:36:14,010 --> 00:36:17,290
simple. And in that simplicity, we find the greatest

587
00:36:17,290 --> 00:36:21,070
complexity. So us innovation is just learning how to

588
00:36:21,070 --> 00:36:24,710
do things better. I think, you know, there's a lot of,

589
00:36:25,110 --> 00:36:28,750
you know, tricks and what's new, and, you know,

590
00:36:28,750 --> 00:36:32,550
we're. It's. It's hard to always have what's new when you're really focusing on

591
00:36:32,550 --> 00:36:36,230
just doing what you've always done, but better and better.

592
00:36:36,950 --> 00:36:40,670
We have, you know, added some wines that we didn't, you know, we

593
00:36:40,670 --> 00:36:44,150
started with several different wines, five different wines. Now we have three different

594
00:36:44,150 --> 00:36:47,860
Chardonnays, three different Cabernets. The

595
00:36:47,860 --> 00:36:51,460
world has changed. And the fact that we're all 100% estate grown

596
00:36:51,540 --> 00:36:55,140
gives us opportunity to create special wines for

597
00:36:55,140 --> 00:36:58,740
our club members or visitors to the winery that they don't have a

598
00:36:58,740 --> 00:37:02,300
chance seeing anywhere else. And it's really fun for our team, too,

599
00:37:02,300 --> 00:37:05,780
because, you know, they get to innovate and experiment. And,

600
00:37:06,020 --> 00:37:09,780
you know, interestingly enough, my father has always been innovative.

601
00:37:10,100 --> 00:37:12,740
You know, he didn't always. This is the way I make it, and that's it.

602
00:37:12,980 --> 00:37:16,700
You know, how we've made wine has changed over the years, but

603
00:37:16,700 --> 00:37:19,920
it's changed in an effort to maintain. Maintain our same style.

604
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:24,400
So with different vineyard sources, that's a.

605
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,280
Tough role because you stepped in.

606
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:32,000
The distractions had to be huge to

607
00:37:32,720 --> 00:37:36,440
move away from what was traditionally your father's position on

608
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,120
this, because there's so much going on around the world

609
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,760
least of all would be somebody saying, hey, we want to buy your place.

610
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,980
I mean, you must have a hundred proposals. Or people ask. We.

611
00:37:48,540 --> 00:37:52,140
Oh. In fact, some people assume when my father died that we were already sold.

612
00:37:52,140 --> 00:37:55,780
I'm like, no, no, our. Our idea. And my,

613
00:37:55,780 --> 00:37:59,500
again, my father's idea of really creating this style of wine that would live

614
00:37:59,500 --> 00:38:03,020
through generations. This chateau style is something that

615
00:38:03,419 --> 00:38:07,260
I'm committed to. My, you know, winemaker and

616
00:38:07,260 --> 00:38:10,860
vice president is my cousin, Ivo Yeramas, who came from Croatia in

617
00:38:10,860 --> 00:38:14,500
1986. He started out as a mechanical engineer

618
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:18,060
and ended up falling in love with. With the vineyards and with wines.

619
00:38:18,540 --> 00:38:22,140
And so he's been the driving force between our farming

620
00:38:22,140 --> 00:38:25,780
practices. And, you know, when he came here and

621
00:38:25,780 --> 00:38:28,620
learned we were experimenting, we literally

622
00:38:29,660 --> 00:38:33,220
had gone from completely fermenting our

623
00:38:33,220 --> 00:38:37,020
whites in stainless steel to a slow process of experimenting and

624
00:38:37,820 --> 00:38:41,100
deciding to go to 100% oak fermentation.

625
00:38:41,980 --> 00:38:45,580
This was something driven by my dad. And so over the years, there would always

626
00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:49,300
be something new that we were trying, trying. Not in an attempt to

627
00:38:49,620 --> 00:38:52,900
do something new and different, but let's see how we can make things better.

628
00:38:53,380 --> 00:38:56,420
So every vintage, you probably put something aside to

629
00:38:57,300 --> 00:39:01,020
try or look at most vintages. Yeah. And

630
00:39:01,020 --> 00:39:03,780
that's something that is that interest of always

631
00:39:04,660 --> 00:39:08,500
being curious and wanting to do better. Let's learn about something

632
00:39:08,900 --> 00:39:12,620
else, but not change drastically the way we do things. And

633
00:39:12,620 --> 00:39:15,960
again, it's all in maintaining that same style, you know?

634
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,880
You know, you said lifestyle. It's a life and not a lifestyle. That's a really

635
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,600
interesting distinction. It is the difference

636
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:26,600
between being completely engaged in the present

637
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,560
and always thinking about yesterday or

638
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,560
tomorrow and something that's more superficial.

639
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,560
For us, it is something that's very deeply felt.

640
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:41,200
I mean, why would people stay in this business if you didn't feel about it

641
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,600
deeply? I think, you know, interesting. I remember years ago, I

642
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,580
don't do social media, and. And I remember our marketing

643
00:39:48,580 --> 00:39:52,260
manager was talking about, was it Pinterest or Instagram

644
00:39:52,260 --> 00:39:55,820
or one of those? And he said, wow, we get all these questions and

645
00:39:55,820 --> 00:39:59,660
we're like, well, what's the number one question people ask? Well, what do I wear

646
00:39:59,660 --> 00:40:03,300
in wine country? Which I thought was really funny.

647
00:40:03,700 --> 00:40:07,100
That's hilarious. You know, it's like, how do we be fashionable while we're doing all

648
00:40:07,100 --> 00:40:10,540
these things? And, you know, of course, this is my hometown. Yeah, right. That's really

649
00:40:10,540 --> 00:40:14,010
funny. But there is something about, you know,

650
00:40:15,850 --> 00:40:19,530
a kind of super wine has that ability to draw you

651
00:40:19,530 --> 00:40:23,290
into the moment, to make you completely engaged, to bring People together

652
00:40:23,850 --> 00:40:27,130
to take an instant and make it seem infinite.

653
00:40:28,090 --> 00:40:31,890
It is truly magical. And that, that's so hard

654
00:40:31,890 --> 00:40:35,050
to define. I had this woman on the show, her name was

655
00:40:35,050 --> 00:40:38,090
Gisla. She's German, obviously,

656
00:40:38,810 --> 00:40:42,570
and she's got a PhD in theology and then two masters

657
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,480
from very large, well known schools. And I think I

658
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,200
might know her. Yeah, she was a great lady. And her thing is

659
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:54,040
like, the only way you can explain it is a gift from God. It's just

660
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,800
because it's so magical. And I think about that because

661
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,680
people come here, they're looking for this experience. They want to go home and tell

662
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:06,040
some stories. I had somebody, we go to Starbucks every morning in my local town,

663
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,760
the Sierra Madre, and I have a couple of local guys and they know

664
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,560
him in the trade and they're like, we're going to Napa next week, where should

665
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:16,300
we go? And then they come back, they go, it's unbelievable. We had such

666
00:41:16,300 --> 00:41:19,620
a great time. And so they're looking to understand

667
00:41:20,100 --> 00:41:23,460
the lifestyle because that's what I think most people chase.

668
00:41:24,020 --> 00:41:27,660
And that's why I thought this definition of life versus lifestyle was so

669
00:41:27,660 --> 00:41:31,460
interesting. Because how many people, how many surgeons came up here and how many

670
00:41:31,540 --> 00:41:35,340
freeway engineers came up here thinking, I want to be in the wine business and

671
00:41:35,340 --> 00:41:39,100
realize you got to make a profit and you know, it's really expensive and

672
00:41:39,100 --> 00:41:42,440
all the things that go with it. That's chasing the lifestyle,

673
00:41:43,240 --> 00:41:46,120
not chasing the life. Which is a really interesting distinction.

674
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:55,040
What is happening now with, you know, we're talking about Gen Z

675
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,400
briefly, and what

676
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,000
generational changes, and we're almost done here, by the way. What

677
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,080
generational changes have you seen or can you remember

678
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:09,370
that sort of put one line on the back burner for some

679
00:42:09,370 --> 00:42:13,130
generations, but has always come back because it's

680
00:42:13,610 --> 00:42:16,970
6,000 or 12,000 years old, it's never going anywhere.

681
00:42:17,530 --> 00:42:20,570
Absolutely. It's interesting because there's always

682
00:42:21,130 --> 00:42:24,570
what happens when you listen to older people and they're like, oh, the world is

683
00:42:24,570 --> 00:42:27,490
going to pot and things aren't the way they used to be when I was

684
00:42:27,490 --> 00:42:31,290
young and everything's so much worse now and every single

685
00:42:31,290 --> 00:42:35,090
person ends up doing the same thing the older they get because of that

686
00:42:35,090 --> 00:42:38,090
amazing perspective you have and looking upon your life

687
00:42:38,870 --> 00:42:42,550
and opening yourself up

688
00:42:42,550 --> 00:42:46,150
to more experiences. And I think especially in

689
00:42:46,150 --> 00:42:49,430
America, where wine is considered alcohol,

690
00:42:49,750 --> 00:42:53,510
whereas wine is actually a natural beverage that contains

691
00:42:53,510 --> 00:42:57,190
some alcohol. But wine is not alcohol. And

692
00:42:57,190 --> 00:43:00,630
it's looked at as a very moral or

693
00:43:01,030 --> 00:43:04,790
immoral kind of way, which is bizarre

694
00:43:04,790 --> 00:43:07,430
to me because the way Americans treat alcohol

695
00:43:08,540 --> 00:43:11,940
and, gosh, you can go out and kill people for your country and vote, but

696
00:43:11,940 --> 00:43:14,860
you can't have alcohol until, you know, many years later.

697
00:43:16,220 --> 00:43:19,660
It is one of those things that literally drives younger people to

698
00:43:19,660 --> 00:43:23,379
experiment with it in a way that is abusive. And so this

699
00:43:23,379 --> 00:43:27,180
whole, let's try to protect our kids, they're not educated

700
00:43:27,180 --> 00:43:30,460
about wine or alcohol. They don't know how to use it.

701
00:43:31,180 --> 00:43:34,700
Of course, children naturally have to grow up.

702
00:43:35,020 --> 00:43:38,680
And that transition, you know, that teenagerhood, that sort of becoming.

703
00:43:39,240 --> 00:43:42,920
Learning to become independent, you've got to test boundaries,

704
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,640
and you tend to do things that your parents tell you not to do

705
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,960
because that's how you become independent. Right? That's right. You know, that's the way it

706
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,680
works. So by not having education and

707
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,160
by looking at this in a way that's very different than

708
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,320
the way I was raised as a European, I

709
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:05,080
think brings great harm to America, having that education,

710
00:44:05,500 --> 00:44:09,250
making, knowing, you know, gosh, wine is not something to be abused.

711
00:44:09,810 --> 00:44:12,890
Okay, I see you drank a little bit too much and you felt ill. Well,

712
00:44:12,890 --> 00:44:16,610
that's. You don't want to feel that way again, do you? That's called education. That's.

713
00:44:16,610 --> 00:44:20,250
Yeah. And so. And so I forgot what the

714
00:44:20,250 --> 00:44:23,930
original question was, but. Oh, we're talking about the younger

715
00:44:23,930 --> 00:44:27,530
generation. So the younger generation, you know, of course

716
00:44:27,530 --> 00:44:30,050
they're going to have. It's. It's.

717
00:44:32,060 --> 00:44:35,660
I would say that every generation has been not that interested in wine,

718
00:44:35,660 --> 00:44:39,220
unless you grew up with wine and you develop it later through a

719
00:44:39,220 --> 00:44:43,060
series of. And maybe your path is a little bit different. Maybe it's

720
00:44:43,060 --> 00:44:46,900
through other things, through cocktails or craft beer. It's going to be a little

721
00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:50,740
different for every generation. But the size of the generation, they

722
00:44:50,740 --> 00:44:53,900
end up discovering wine and loving it. It just takes a little bit of time.

723
00:44:54,540 --> 00:44:58,260
So, you know, the expectation that wineries, oh, we've got to get

724
00:44:58,260 --> 00:45:01,960
these young people right now. And how come they're not drinking wine? They

725
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,760
will eventually, but do it in the right way. So one of the things

726
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,400
that, Especially the younger generation, their values are very similar to our

727
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,760
values. We value doing things naturally. We value

728
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,679
experiences. We value being in the moment, sharing

729
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:20,440
with friends. We value natural

730
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:24,280
farming. Our regenerative organic farming is the number one way

731
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:28,120
you can actually help combat climate change. You

732
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,920
know, we value being down to earth and making friends and connecting.

733
00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:36,560
So those are all things that are our values that young people

734
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,080
connect with. And so we don't have to go out and sell to them.

735
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:43,800
They don't want to be sold to. They Want to learn. And we

736
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,520
simply, you know, when I was so terrified of selling wine,

737
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,440
I thought, okay, thank goodness, all I have to do is show up and

738
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,820
pour the wine, have them take taste it, and then take their order

739
00:45:55,380 --> 00:45:58,420
because they would fall in love with it. And that's exactly what happens.

740
00:45:58,660 --> 00:46:02,060
Exactly. So I would say that people's

741
00:46:02,060 --> 00:46:05,660
expectations of what wine is and what particular varietals

742
00:46:05,660 --> 00:46:09,140
are, are usually shattered when they come here. You know,

743
00:46:09,300 --> 00:46:12,820
number one thing I hear is, I hate Chardonnay, but I love

744
00:46:12,820 --> 00:46:16,300
yours. Or I don't drink red wines, but your Cabernet is

745
00:46:16,300 --> 00:46:19,900
amazing. So I love that. I'd say most of the

746
00:46:19,900 --> 00:46:23,610
compliments we get are from people who like, I had no idea idea your wines

747
00:46:23,610 --> 00:46:27,450
tasted like this. I think that's right on. And I. You,

748
00:46:27,450 --> 00:46:31,170
you said it properly, at least in my outlook as well, which

749
00:46:31,170 --> 00:46:34,970
is eventually every generation comes around to a proper glass

750
00:46:34,970 --> 00:46:37,970
of wine, an honest glass of wine, because if you're buying the stuff off the

751
00:46:37,970 --> 00:46:41,410
shelf at the market, you can easily get a bad taste in your mouth for

752
00:46:41,410 --> 00:46:45,250
what's. For what wine really is. And until you have that

753
00:46:45,250 --> 00:46:48,770
complex expression of where it came from and what it was, you know, what you

754
00:46:48,770 --> 00:46:51,970
were trying to show. And there was One of the MWs I had on the

755
00:46:51,970 --> 00:46:55,310
show, Tim Hanai, who said, you know, there's studies that

756
00:46:56,190 --> 00:46:59,830
show that sweet beverages, let's just take sweeter

757
00:46:59,830 --> 00:47:03,230
wines or wines that are on the market shelf that have sugar and chapitalized

758
00:47:03,550 --> 00:47:06,030
that you get bored of them.

759
00:47:07,070 --> 00:47:10,429
And it's not until you put your nose in the glass and you smell a

760
00:47:10,429 --> 00:47:14,270
Girgis Merlot and you go, wait a minute, I have not smelled this before.

761
00:47:14,270 --> 00:47:16,990
And I think every generation comes to that

762
00:47:18,350 --> 00:47:22,080
eventually. I think they come to, to, and

763
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,560
some later than others. Look, look, I, you know, when I sold my company,

764
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,840
fortunately the people that bought it only wanted my stuff that was for

765
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:34,040
sale to my customers, which was around $20 wines.

766
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,840
He didn't want any of my collection, which I don't really collect. Didn't really collect.

767
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,840
But Covid was so good to us, I'd buy all kinds of stuff. Now I

768
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:44,280
have this beautiful collection of Bordeaux and domestic, you know, cabs.

769
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,700
But the depletion is much faster than I expected that since my kids are

770
00:47:48,700 --> 00:47:52,540
living with me now, so it's a little to figure out how to

771
00:47:52,540 --> 00:47:56,220
restock, but oh my gosh, interest really. Thank you for taking the

772
00:47:56,220 --> 00:47:59,980
time today to show us your outlook on what's going on out there

773
00:47:59,980 --> 00:48:03,300
and the history here. And it's refreshing

774
00:48:04,100 --> 00:48:07,540
to hear the story and understand it. Sort of inspiring to

775
00:48:08,020 --> 00:48:10,660
stay in the fight and teach the people.

776
00:48:11,700 --> 00:48:15,060
Thanks again. You are most welcome. It's been a pleasure. I hope we can do

777
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:18,740
it one time in the future after we get through so of this generational

778
00:48:18,740 --> 00:48:22,540
changes and we'll have something else to talk about. Absolutely. We'll see

779
00:48:22,540 --> 00:48:24,900
how right we were. That's right. Cheers.