December 17, 2025 • 49 mins
Doug Frost's storied career in wine and hospitality began a new chapter in 2018 when he cofounded Echolands Winery in Washington's Walla Walla Valley AVA with fellow Kansan Brad Bergman. Frost is the first individual to attain both the Master of Wine and Master Sommelier certification, He discusses his career as an educator, wine director at the American Restaurant in Kansas City and now as vintner/ owner of Echolands Winery with a focus on environmental conservation.
www.echolandswinery.com
The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
www.echolandswinery.com
The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four CY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live, where your hosts Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people, places, food,
and drink we experience because we want you to step
out of your comfort zone and experience the world and
see how amazing it is whether you're eating, drinking, exploring,
(01:04):
or looking for more inspiration. You're watching live on the
Connected Table live on YouTube, and you can hear all
our shows on demand anytime on sixty five podcast channels
and follow us along at the Connected Table. So we
are taking you to Washington State. There's a photo behind
(01:26):
us to the Walla Walla Valley Ava to talk about
the area and meet a vintner who has had multiple
careers and this is like his next chapter. We're talking
about Frost Alert Doug Frost, who has had an amazing
long career in the hospitality industry. He's been on the
(01:48):
show in another capacity, but we're doing it now as
he's a vennor. First of all, Doug is the first
individual to attain both the Master of Wine and Master
Soley Aid recognitions, which only I think four people have done. Wow.
He is a co founder and co creator of bar
Beverage Alcohol Resources, a certification program for barking of professionals
(02:10):
and it's like really intense. We saw a great movie
on it at Tales of the Cocktail. He also was
the long time has been the longtime one director at
American Restaurant, I know for how many years. We'll ask
him in Kansas City where he's from. And now Vintner
is his latest chapter. And that's why we're in Walla
Walla because in twenty eighteen, Doug Frost and Apalla is
(02:34):
in Kansas named Brad Bergman who comes from a tree
farm family, so he's an arborist. They established Echo Lands
Winery in the Walla Walla Valley, ABA, and we had
a selection of wines sent to us that we're going
to talk about. And we actually, I have not been
to the Walla Walla Belley of you. Well, we're eager
to learn more and get out there. But we're so
(02:54):
excited to see that. We saw him at Tales of
the Cocktail and we got him back on. I'm going
to welcome them and then we're going to show a video.
So Doug Frost, welcome to the Connected Table. David, you
were saying something, well, I was just saying, this is
a repeat too.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We've had Doug on the show before. Yeah, and now
we're having him here to talk about the wine because
he hadn't really come out with the wine yet when
we last saw.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
This is a whole new chapter and we want to
scase that.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So Hey Doug, Hey Melanie, Hey David, how are you both?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
How are you so you're in Kansas right now? You're
in Kansas City, Kansas. Yes, we're going to just briefly
show a video to transport our viewers and listeners. I'm sorry,
just go to YouTube. Then a Connected Table TV YouTube
to see the full thing. A short video and everybody
hang in there to show you echo lens and where
we're going with this. All right, very nice. I see
(04:53):
the lot of earth and sky and form and function
and and a very interesting landscape. So dog, let's set
this up first with what did we just see?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, that is the estate, winery and the estate itself.
We actually owned two vineyards, two vineyard sites, i should say,
and the first one was a piece of land we
bought in twenty seventeen as we were deciding to put
this project together, and it's on the south end of
Wallawalla Valley. Now Wallawalla Alley straddles the Oregon Washington state lines,
(05:25):
so half the vineyards are in Oregon, half the vineyards
are in Washington for the entire ava. And our first
site was on the south end, and that's actually what's
right behind you. And that picture is looking out on
some of the snow capped hills just above that vineyard
called Taggart, which I named after my grandfather who grew
up in the area and who lived in Walla Walla,
(05:47):
et cetera, et cetera. So in the meanwhile, we bought
another piece of land and that's what you're seeing in
that video. It's about three hundred and forty one acres
hills that rise up to eighteen hundred feet or so.
So much colder, much wetter. What's kind of crazy about
it is that Wallawalla Valley being, you know, not that
big a alley. We're fourteen miles apart the Taggart Vineyard,
(06:10):
which is very typical of Washington State. It's desert. You
get about eight or nine inches of annual rainfall. You
irrigate or you die fourteen miles away. Is that a
state that you saw in the video. It's twenty eight
inches of annual rainfall for almost four times as much
rainfall fourteen miles away because it's the rain part of
the rain shadow that the blue mountains that you saw
(06:31):
in the video. The blue mountains create that rain shadow,
if you will. And so that's the new estate. It's
a tasting room. You saw the interior with the big
windows looking at the blues, and then you saw Blake,
our assistant winemaker, washing off in the middle of in
the middle of a harvest. We finished harvest in October,
(06:52):
and so you know we're still we're just finishing cleanup.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well it's stunning, right.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It's a beautiful air. I have not been Milanie of you.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
No, I haven't. I've only been to you know, like Woodenville. Yes,
And here's what I've learned, and you're the masters side.
So let's just set up the geography of Washington State.
So first of all, for anybody, it's another geography. It's
in the northwest, Pacific northwest. What I learned studying, and
you know, you're the educator. I learned that most of
(07:22):
the wineries are on the eastern side of the Cascade
mountain Ridge. Is compared to Oregon, we're on the western
side of the Cascade Mountainridge. That that was cool. And
you brought up a couple of interesting points. One the
Walla Walla Valley is one of the avas. It's in
hugs both Washington and Oregon, which is cool. I think
there's maybe one or two other ones.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Right, Yeah, there's a couple of areas like Ohio River
Valley has like five states and and but yeah, it's
it's a bit unique.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I pulled up some info from the Walla Walla Valley
AVA website. I learned that it's a big agricultural hub
with known for strawberries, apples, sparicas, and onions, as well
as wine. And it's about one hundred and twenty wineries,
including Echo Lands. Now, we just learned with you that
(08:11):
you have family history in the area, so tell us
about that.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Well, my mom was born in Tacoma. I was born
in Portland, Oregon. My grandfather, like I say, grew up Wenatchee.
And so even though I live in Kansas City, we
moved out to the Midwest when I was a little kid.
But everybody else in the family was certainly the extended family.
Everybody else is on the West Coast, and so we
(08:35):
were the black sheep of the family and we would come,
you know, drive back and forth to the West Coast,
mostly to the Bay Area, because that's where most of
the family ended up. And so I got into the
wine business out here in Kansas City and then had
an opportunity to buy some land in Walla, Walla. And
you know, the truth of the matter is is that
(08:56):
my business partner who you mentioned earlier, Brad Bergman, he
was kind of on me to buy something on how
Mountain or someplace else in Napa or at least in California.
And I said, no, you know, we're not going to
do that. And the answer is when people ask me why,
there's several reasons. One is certainly price. I mean, the
(09:16):
price of land, unplanted land in Walla Walla was a
fraction of what I would pay in Napa Valley. And
two was I feel like it's one of the reasons
that I'm not in the Willammette. Like you said, the
Walamite in Oregon is right between the coastal and the cascades.
It's a much cooler and wetter site ideal for Pin
and Noir. But one, I knew that my business partner,
(09:37):
Brad didn't really care about Pin and Noir like I do.
Two and I feel the same way about Napa. They
don't need me, they don't need me to come along
and go. Doug's got a better idea. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's a saturated area, that's for sure. And I think
you have an ability to the ability to really kind
of get in on the ground floor and build up
in Walla Walla.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yeah, it really is true to But I think a
lot of it was my feeling that I had a
different vision of wine and Walla Walla than maybe was
common there. And so I thought that there was something
that we could do that would would add to the industry.
And I have to say, I've been going to Walla
Walla since the mid eighties. I was a wholesaler, fell
in love with frankly with Oregon wines and with Washington
(10:21):
wines back in the early eighties, and so from nineteen
eighty four onward, I was buying wines from there to
sell in the Missouri market because I was obsessed with
these wines, and I made friends some you know, some
of whom are still around, like Trey Bush and Christap Baron,
and some that have passed on, like Eric Dunham, who
was certainly, you know, part of my love of the area.
(10:44):
I just fell in love with these people and with
this area, and so it really was a place I
wanted to go when I had a chance to finally
build a winery and start a vineyard.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You know, I knew you first knew because when I
was running the James Beard Awards, the American Restaurant Kansas
City was constantly being nominated. I think eventually won thanks
to your work. How long did you work with the
American Restaurant.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I was really only there for a few years, but
there were formative years. I worked with you know, with
Michael Smith and I worked with Selena TiO, both of
whom won James Speared awards there. So it was it
was a two time winner, which was a big deal,
and it was really it was really a fun place
to work. But at that point in time, I had
(11:29):
started to create a you know, a client list, some
of which are still around, like United Airlines. I still
choose the wines for them, and some you know, like
Princess Cruise Lines or what you know, off and on
retail chain based in North Carolina called Wine Store, and
you know, some of these clients that were going to
help me get going. And as you mentioned, I started
(11:52):
something at the time with a colleague named Steve Olsen
that was the precursor to Bar and Bar. As you mentioned,
there's a documentary out about it right now, just called
Bar that just came out and is on is on
Amazon Prime now and it's it's a it's a fun
portrayal of of what we've done with that program because
(12:13):
it's now twenty years old.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Believable has it been that long. Really, it's a terrific
so just everybody, it's called Bar, and you said Amazon Prime.
We saw the preview, the premiere, the premiere, and it
was it exceeded my expectations. That's all I'm going to say.
I had such a feeling for all of the students
(12:35):
and what they were going through and their purpose. Uh,
it's a terrific documentary. Everybody bar, really terrific. So here's
something I learned I was doing. I was writing a
blog post about the late great Joe Bown. Oh yeah,
I learned he was asked to design the American restaurant.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Absolutely, I had no idea. No, it's so true. You
know that the funny coincidences or of the links if
you will, because Joe Baum, because he was there, he
brought in Kevin'sureili to classes. So Kevin was one of
my early mentors. I certainly I have to say, you know,
and I tell Kevin this, he always gets mad at me.
I'm like, you're the father of as all and He's like,
(13:16):
shut up, I'm not older than you. And I'm like, well, whatever, dude,
you were there first. You know, you're one of the greatest,
most entertaining speakers about wine, and I've tried to emulate
you ever since. And the funny part about it bar.
One of the bar partners is Dale de Groff, who
is Joe Baum's cocktail guy. Right, you know, all these
connections were made. Actually it was even weirder. The guy
(13:38):
who introduced me to Dale de Groff a million years
ago was one of my high school chums from Hutchinson, Kansas.
He was the he was the matre d of Rainbows
and Stars, the nightclub at Rainbow Room. So all these
crazy connections.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, you know what I call that, six degrees of
separation is separation. It's going to be a book. It's
going to be a book.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
It's give me a book.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So I really cool, Doug. Before we get into the wine,
let's talk about.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You a little bit. Well, we know you very well
and have known you for years, but a lot of
our listeners may not. So tell us how you got
into wine and what the path was, and your path
to the MW and MS as well.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Sure, I was working in restaurants at the age of fourteen,
I was washing dishes, continued to work in restaurants, became
a bartender. Actually before it was legal, I lied about
my age, so I was I was bartending at eighteen
and nineteen you know, in Colorado and started working in
restaurants again. My high school chum was working at a
(14:38):
particular restaurant in Kansas City called Plaza three. I started
working there and a wine steward there, a guy named
John Scupney. He in the first week I was there,
he said, you seem to know something about wine, which
I did not, but I was a good mimic in
my you know, undergrad degrees in acting and directing. So
(14:58):
he was like, wow, you're really good wine. You seem
to know a lot about it. I'm like, no, I
know how to pretend to be John Scupney. So I
sold a lot of wine. I won the contest. So
he took me to wine tastings and my eyes were
just open. I had no idea. My uncle another reason
why I called the vineyard. Taggart my uncle, you you know,
Jean Taggart poured me my first glass of wine when
I was fifteen years old. It was it was Louis
(15:20):
Martini Special Select Peanut and War in nineteen sixty eight.
Good way to start, just to be you know, complete
full disclosure. Second glass of wine was Country Quencher and
I think Strawberry Hill was the third glass of wine.
But you know, I started good, and so you know
this this restaurant passed, took me into hotels and helping
(15:42):
run multiple restaurants with hotels, and then into distributorship and
so I was now and I still remember my one
of my closest friends to this day hired me at
that time. This is back in the in like nineteen
eighty one or so, and he said, you seem to
love riding wineless and I was like, this is the
most fun I've had. I've got two restaurants and a
banquet banquet hall that I can write wineless for. He's like,
(16:04):
how would you like to write a hundred wineless? I
was like, Okay, sign me up. I'm in. And I
became a distributor, basically consulting with restaurants, including one called
Starker's Harry Starkers, which won a Grand Award from the
Wine Spectator. One of my close friends, his uncle owned
the place, so we collaborated on that wine list. It
just really it's you know, I just fell into this
(16:25):
thing that I loved, and I had great mentors like
my friend John Scotney and Mendel and you know, watching
Zareli work and people like that, and just managed to
build a career out of that. And then once I
finished my Master Samoia and Master of Wine in nineteen
ninety three, I finished both and I do have to
(16:46):
say I was number two. The first guy was two
years before me, was Ron Wigan. And if he's listening
to this, Ron, you're number one. Okay, we know?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And are there still only four? Was that like all news?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And it's more now there's actually still only four?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So who are the other two?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Crazy? It's a little crazy. But I think that the
honest truth about that is most people finish one and
they're good. It's like it requires somebody very very insecure,
living in Kansas City in the wine business to need
both of them, you know. It's like, look at me,
look at me with.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
A masterful accomplishment and a great thing to have on
your curriculum vita, as they say. And I think many,
you know, as we get the announcements of new Master
saw Mays and Masters of Wine, I admire them because
it is a rigorous process.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
It's true. Yeah, it's very true. I mean, the supposedly
it depends up how you do the math, but it
has a very low pass rate, under five percent. And
typically we'll say that the MS if you get through
it as a five to eight year process, and the
MW if you get through it as an eight to
eleven year process. So I was I was fortunate. I
was kind of ready to go, and I passed the
(17:59):
MW in the days when you didn't have to write
a dissertation. So I got through both of them in
under five years. But that was that was then. You know,
I'm an old guy. I forgot.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Do you recommend, because you're the wise guy, would you
recommend to people who were younger or starting out in
the business or career changing or whatever, would you recommend
that they get some level of certification. It may not
be MWMS, maybe WSCT. What would you tell them and
what would you like to say.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I think that's a great question, and I really would say, yes,
some certification, not for the you know, postnomenals, not for
the title, but because it's a there's some version of
discipline of study, research and understanding and comprehension, and actually,
probably more importantly to me, certainly at the time, more
importantly to me, the camaraderie that the you know, I
(18:52):
got to meet my tribe. I was like, you know, truthfully,
the MW I was prepping for kind of got involved
and I had to step away because of work stuff.
I got back into it, and two weeks before the
Advanced Samolier Exam, I was told about it, and on
all a lark, I show up for it, you know,
and I passed by a miracle. But the truth is
(19:14):
I didn't mean to do both. But they they helped
each other, and they really were that. As I say,
those moments when I looked around the room and thought,
these are my people. Why haven't I been hanging out
with these people before? Even if I don't pass, I
don't care. I got to meet these people and become
a peer of theirs, and I'm just really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think it's important. I mean, for me, I did
through the society and wanted you care. It just for me.
Had added a dimension of understanding, particularly when it gets
to Vita culture and why. And you know, I have
to my right is my textbook open to Washington State,
because I constantly refer to it when I travel now
and look at the maps and everything. It helps in
(19:55):
that context, which leads us to why in twenty eighteen.
Did you decide to go into the wine producing wine
when we know it's you know, historically money losing operation
is very challenging, people drinking less wine and all that.
Why then and wine? And we know why, Washington? But
why did you make this choice?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Well, at my age, I honestly saw it as this
is it. You know, this is your one chance to
do this. If you're going to do it, do it.
And I really did feel that my understanding was incomplete.
I feel strongly, I say it all the time that
the more I learn about wine, the stupider I feel,
because it's just unending. And I knew how ignorant I
(20:38):
was of the production side of things, and I knew
there was really only one way that was going to change,
and that was, you know, drop yourself into the deep
end of the pool and start paddling as quick as
you can. And fortunately I've had two really good winemakers.
My initial winemaker was a wonderful guy named Taylor Oswald,
and he and I were the show for god three years.
(20:59):
It was basically the two of us doing everything. And
nowadays we hired Brian Rudin, who's incredibly talented and wonderful
guy to work with. He's the GM of the winery
because I was general managing from one thousand miles away. Yeah,
incredibly stupid idea. So you know, we've got a staff
now and some wonderful people that I work with, so
(21:21):
I get to ask more questions than try to provide
phony answers.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, you know, it really is a hands on business.
As you probably know that, I also made wine. My
family had a winery in New York for a long time.
But it's a very hands on business and constant, you know,
twenty four hours a day all year long, and change.
There's something always happening, and there's a lot of change
that happens throughout that year too. Yeah, you can't predict
what's going to happen in the fall list.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And you live in a climate. Before we went on
the show, we're talking about you know, climate issues going
on right now in Washington State. I mean, you know,
you're constantly dealing with that.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, twenty eighteen was our first full vintage, and I
loved telling people that twenty eighteen was the kind of
vintage where an idiot could have made good wine and
he did, you know, and nineteen it froze three times
before harvest was over. I was out of my mind.
I was like, is this what I'm dealing with? Twenty twenty,
everything looked great, and then the West coast was set
(22:16):
on fire, and so we lost almost twenty five percent
of our crop to smoke damage. And then you know,
twenty one, it was the hottest vintage on record. It
was one hundred and eighteen degrees in seven hills, six
degrees higher than it had ever been measured. And then
you got twenty two, when all of a sudden it rains,
it pours, and it's cold as hell, and we're like,
you know, so every vintage has been one of those. Yeah,
(22:38):
just hold my beer, watch this right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, and you drink a lot of beer when you
make wine. I'm flue. That's true.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That our that that was our unsung motto with our winery.
It takes a lot of beer to make good wine.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I have a very basic question, what is Echo Lends?
Was this part of the region or why the name?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the name.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Obviously names are hard to come by, and so I
had already decided that the vineyard would be named Taggart
after my grandfather. He's the only grandfather I knew, and
he was a baker by trade, so he taught me
about flavor. And as I say, my uncle Jean you
know his son, and my mom you know Staggert La
(23:20):
la la. So that was easy. It was Taggart Vineyard.
I did a search. The name was available, Great Echo Lands.
I went to work on or I came up with, really,
because I literally to figure out a name. I'm like,
I have to have a name. We're out of time.
And so I took a bottle of cut roteae because
the first one we made was Syrah, and I took
it up to the top of Taggart and I had
(23:40):
a glass and I popped it open, and I said,
I'm not leaving this vineyard until either the bottle was
empty or I got a name. And so I kind
of stood up after a few glasses and started yelling.
And you can see basically underneath you in that picture
behind you is a canyon where lower Dry Creek is.
And so as I stood at the top of our
which goes up to thirteen hundred feet, and I yelled,
(24:02):
my voice came back, and I thought, okay, echo echo
is a good thing. Because I've always told people you know,
the decades I've been in the wine business, people are like,
well what should I call? You know, what should be
on the label? And I'd always say the same thing.
Tell me who you are and tell me where you
come from. So the vintnor's name is on the back
of the label and where the wine has grown. But
Echo Lands, it suddenly appealed to me to say something
(24:24):
about Echo and Lands just kind of you know, was
the name available because I realized I need to admit
to people I live in Kansas City, this is in Walla, Walla.
It's like an echo. It's not a direct voice. I
have to admit to people, and so the name was
really an admission of that. But wait, there's more, you know,
which is now I'm like two thirds through the bottle
(24:47):
and I'm like, you know, but Av's metamorphosis where we
get the myth of Echo is really instructive here, because
remember the gods give Echo the gift of voice, so
she can declare her love for the youth. Narcissus and
I'm going to go bad to in Men's sister because
you know he's a narcissist, and so you know, the
gods are assholes. So They're like, you can only say
what is said to you. And I thought, well, what
(25:07):
an apt metaphor for wine making. You shouldn't try to
add your voice to it. You should merely let the
grapes echo the land, Let the wine echo the grapes,
and let that be all. But I have to admit
there's one other connection because I finished the bottle, and
that's Walla Walla. It's an echo.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So oh that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, so you know I'll come up with a fifth reason.
There's got to be another reason.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well, it works for us. We like the name a
lot love. We like the wine too.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
You Walla Walla is known for cabernet. You you make
a range. Though we tasted I think it was six
or seven win is. Actually we had not tasted two
of them. But you do arrange we taste, you know
when we'll go through. And we tasted to Reasling, Yes,
(25:55):
a sauvion blanc, which is very different from a lot
of the sauvignon blancs that I've tasted. It very distinct
and probably one of my first I think Sam Strong
up there the sinse So which we loved, Oh cool,
just loved the Cabinet fr Frank, which is terrific, Lacolin vineyards,
so different vineyards, the Sirah and then Resound, which we
(26:16):
haven't opened because it's a Bordeaux blend. Yes, a cab
cab Marlow, Cap Franc and Petifer. Do what do you
feel are your strong points here? And what do you
feel are the wines that really in that range? And
there's others. This is what we tasted. What are you
(26:37):
best known for?
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Well, the cab franc has We've planted more cab fronc
than anything else. And you know, probably the highest accolade
we got was earlier this year Decanner magazine, which they
do their World Wine Awards. They taste seventeen thousand plus
wines and they picked six American wines to give a
platinum or higher reward to. One of them was our
(27:00):
Cap Frank was the only Washington state wine that won
a platinum or better award. And and so you know,
we are very grateful for that. But as you tasted,
if you tasted the capt Frank, it's a bit more
lai Ish in style, it is. You know, it is
a funny coincidence again that my first mentor I mentioned
John Scupney. He went on to found a winery in
(27:22):
Napa Valley which does specializes in Caberney Franc. It's a
winery called Lang and Reed. And you know, he and
I were still talk and you know, still have a
close connection and and Camp Bronks are great that I
felt needed more love and attention. It was one of
the reasons why the winery. One of the goals of
the winery was to bring more attention to Cap Franc.
(27:44):
Certainly Sirah is something I love dearly, and so that
was the first wine we made. And finally, I think
Bordeaux style blends are one of the strengths of Walla
Walla Valley, right, so I felt that it you know,
we had to folks us on that. So we make
a few different Bordeaux blends, the resound being more Cab dominant.
(28:05):
But we make another one called ground Swell that we've
already sold out of. But I'll get you twenty three
when it's released, and it's more Cab Franc mayor low
it's more right, banky if you will.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, I have a few questions. So the cap Fronc,
we love kup Fronc and the East coast is very
strong in Kapor. We love the laur cap franc so
we're already built in fans. The twenty twenty three A
Walla Wallaby cab Fronc that you sent us was seventy
five percent cap Fronc, Yes, nineteen percent Merlow, and six
percent Cabernet Semgnon.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Yeah, it was. It kind of begged for us to
go ahead and let it because the previous cab Fronc
was very almost one hundred percent. But in twenty three
it was one of those things where the Cabsov and
the Mayri Low, we're just begging us to say, go
ahead and bend your rules a little bit on this one.
(28:53):
So we actually we make another one that is mostly
cab Fronc and a little bit of mar Low. But
I say you that twenty three, because it it was
twenty three, is just a great vintage up and down
the West coast. As far as I'm concerned, I think
Oregon did great work, and California if you were willing
to hang, let it hang, let the fruit hang a
little longer, and didn't lose your nerve, you ended up
(29:14):
making wonderful wines. And so the twenty threes were kind
of begging us to say, you know, the let It
comes back to my mo that the wines are going
to tell you what they want to be. You know,
you can't just impose your will upon them simply because
you want it to be a particular style. So I
embrace the fact that every vintage, sometimes the style is
going to shift. So the difference between our twenty two
(29:36):
that the decanter loved and the twenty three, they probably
won't love the twenty three as much because it's a
little more American. No.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I think that's one of the great things about about wine,
to be honest, is that is that the vintages are different,
which is why it's a never ending learning process.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Which, yes, it gives you another question. So the Sara
we tell it that's that's a very earthy, you know,
verbal firm Surrah. And then looking at the tech sheet,
it has a weeny teensy bit of vin Yes, what
does the VNA bring do it?
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Well? The VNA in truth there is in the in
uh Windom there's this belief that VNA will help you
adjust your pH and there's this belief that VNA will
help you fix color. And I would have to say,
I've read a lot about that and there is no
evidence to support those long held myths. So vna is
(30:33):
there one? Because there's vna grown right next to my sirah,
So why not two? Because I love cover Rote and
Crote almost always has two or three percent n A
in it, and it adds a little floral note, It
adds so incomplexity, and it just it provides almost like
a little smile, you know, somewhere in as you say,
what is otherwise sometimes an earthy hopefully not our but
(30:55):
but certainly can be a bit of a serious wine.
And the Vina provides a little you know, mile on
top of it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Interesting. That's very interesting, and it definitely was a very
different time.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Do you have plans or are you that we haven't
had doing any vignier on its own.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
No, but we did go ahead and plant some vigna
because we're we're now We've now planted Vermentino, Grenoche Blanc,
and I think the Vina will probably be a wonderful
help mate there that we can use some sure in
our surah. But I think actually it'll be fun to
play with it with Grenache Blanc and Vermentino as we
go forward and you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Do a grenoche rouge as well. We didn't try that,
but but you know, let's talk about the Roe viridols,
because we did have the C and soa yes, which
is blended with sarah and it was lovely.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Well, thank you. It's it's very fun. It's it's certainly
I think, a really cheerful wine. Yeah, I'll be honest
the story behind the sanso if if I'll be forgiven
for telling a story on Pascoline la Peltier. Do you
know Pascoline? Of course you do. So I showed my
grenache to Pascoline a couple of years ago, and I
(32:01):
quote she said, Doug, like, you want to keep, but
I not buy. I tell you what, you put some
sansol in your cow. You bring back to me, maybe
I'd buy. Okay, if Pascleen tells you to do it, yeah, okay,
you go and plant sanso. And I planted too much,
so I had this senso leftover. So now the grenache
(32:22):
is ten percent sanso and the sanso is ten percent grenache,
and both of them are better, and they're just you know,
they're really fun wines to make, and they appeal to me,
partly because obviously the market is always changing, and I
had believe for a long time that we needed to
make some obviously big, bold reds, but we also need
to make, if not more whimsical wines, certainly easier wines
(32:46):
to drink. Lighter reds are now of a thing, and
we planted them before it had turned into a thing.
But I just believe in that because I like to
drink them. And I told my business partner, I was like, Brad,
we're going to make a bunch of wine that we
like that we like to drink, because we may have
to drink them all, so you know, make sure you
like the wine you make.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
We're big fans of your sense. So it was a
lovely bottle of wine to have. The only one that
he sent us at a screw top, which makes it
easy to be easy to open. And it was a
very enjoyable wine. And you know, we're with you on
the whole lighter wines thing.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
It is.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
It is a trend, but but you know, we we
seek out lighter wines all the time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I think it's a trend for a lot of reasons.
One of the way we're eating now pries out for
lighter wine, lighter reds one percent.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
It's really my experience as well. I don't eat that
same kind of big, you know, powerful food that I
think we associated with a different generation, if you will.
And I love having a lighter red because I can
have it with fish too, you know, or vegetarian. I
can eat it with vegetarian. I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, you know, I think we've been big on that child.
We live in Louisiana, so chillable breads.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, it's just different.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, totally. So the resound which we have it over
because I'm wanting it to twenty twenty two. We're wondering
when that best open the bottle time would be. I
figure we'd need more time. But it's a classic Bordeaux blend.
You said you had a couple of them. What was
your thinking behind this?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Well, as I say, I think it plays to the
to the real assets of Wallawalla Valley. And I've always
loved the idea of blending to make something better than this,
you know, the sum of its parts. So it was
for me something we need to do, we need to
you know, if nothing else to say, well, look, this
(34:34):
is what message we can create by putting these different
pieces together. That little bit of petite for dau. I
would never put that in a Caberney franc for instance,
or a standalone camp Frank because it would overwhelm a
two percent we'll step on everything. But when you have
Caberney Signon and Marlow and camp Frank, that little tiny
piece of petit ri dau is the salt in the soup.
(34:55):
You know, it literally adds. It helps bring pieces to
together and make them work together. Obviously, if you add
too much petit for dough, it's like too much salt,
it tastes crappy. But similarly, without the petit for dough,
the soup is kind of like, I don't get it.
What are you trying to do here? And then you
put the salt in there and you go, oh, this
is delicious.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I love that that comparison. Yes, you know, if you're
cooking everything.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
So why do we Why don't we talk about the
sauviny O bloc because we opened it last night?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah we did. Racy enjoyed it, enjoyed it quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
And that's obviously from our home vineyard. That's the Taggart vineyard.
Soavie and it's a bit of a I wouldn't call
it an accident, but it was a pivot away from
what we had intended to do. For instance, you know,
to explain, we were making a wine which we continued
to make. We're out of it right now. But it's
called albus and it's just Latin for white, and it's
(35:50):
a servieum blanc semion blend, and that came from Taggart.
But then in January of twenty four on January thirteenth,
the temperature dropped to eighteen degrees below zero in Taggart
and in much of Wallawalla Valley, and the initial report
was you've lost your entire crop. You may have lost
much of your vineyard. Of course I was like, oh
my god, here we go again. And so immediately on
(36:15):
January fourteenth, Brian and I were on the phone trying
to find people who had fruit because Walla Walla was
theoretically wiped out. What turned out to be true was
we only lost about a third of our crop, which
is of course hilarious about you know, wine growing. The
good news only a thirty year crop has gone. But
in the meanwhile, it was like, okay, we can't make
(36:37):
Albus from Taggart. We got to go to another place,
and so we went to Yakima to this vineyard called Angelina,
which is up at about it's about thirteen hundred and
sixteen hundred feet elevation. We know it well, Brian used
to work with it, and so we bought Sybea and
blancin Semeon from them and blended Albus. Meanwhile, you know,
we're looking at our vineyard and the semon is wiped out,
(36:59):
it's gone. But the Suvian Blanc came through, and it
came through really well. And so I said, well, you know,
we don't need two Suvian blancs quote unquote, that are
two versions of Albus, which is more stainless steel, more
you know, sort of Bordeau BLANKI I was like, it's
time we tried Pesseck Lanyan or grove blanc or whatever
you want to call it. So it's one hundred percent
barrel fermented. I kind of defy people to notice that
(37:23):
because it doesn't seem beryl fermented, but it seems very
textured and it seems, you know, it has an intensity
that the barrels give it. It's about half of the
barrels were brand new, but it was an experiment. It
was a happy experiment. I'd played around with this with
one barrel in twenty three and so I was like,
(37:43):
I know this will work, or at least I think
of this will work. And since I'm going to get
some Souvian blanc off of Tagger despite what mother nature
threw at me, let's go for it. And I really
I'm hopeful that wine is the kind of wine in
ten years will taste and go. This is from where,
you know, just capable of aging, but it's very few
(38:04):
of them that are.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, it's interesting, very very interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Well, we love the fact that it has fifteen percent
semion in it as well, which is one of our
pet great.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
I mean some of my my semion was wiped out,
but I had a little bit of semion. We didn't
make very much of the one at the end of
the day, but I was like, you know that semon,
it adds texture. Yeah. The thing that's interesting is I'll
do three days of skin contact on the sovieum Bloc,
but I definitely don't do that on the Semon because
Semon gets kind of weird. And WHYI if you do
that but in contact. It's a trick I learned in
(38:35):
Bordeaux twenty years ago, and I was like, we're going
for it, man, We're doing skin contact. We're going to
get crazy. So it was fun. I'm happy with that wine,
you know.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I think skint the little thing that they don't tell
you a lot of times.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
It's true. No, it's true because it sounds weird. Red
wine is sure. White wines of course.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, very interesting. Let's talk about the winery in the
structure because and here we're going to pop photo up
because it's quite striking. Our engineer want will put the
photo up shortly, and then that'll lead into the visitor experience.
I mean it kind of like talk to us about
who designed and the element, because a lot of this
(39:15):
is to really be insensitivity to form, function, earth, sky
and nature and being blended well blended.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
It's true, and I will always have to admit that
very little of the design is me. I mean, I
certainly had some ideas, but my business partner, Brad Bergman,
had been down this road before, certainly not with wineries,
but with other buildings and our architectural firm, soda Strom
(39:45):
based in Portland, Oregon. I knew of them from Adelsheim
a million years ago. They did the sellers, they're seeing
some of their work and the two primary people there,
but actually it was the whole firm obviously was involved
in the design of this. And the more we talked
about it, the more I loved the direction it was going.
(40:05):
But I have to say Brad and I had one
rule from the get go, which was, we think it's
crazy that if you go to Walla Walla, the most
beautiful part of Walla Walla or the Blue Mountains, and
hardly any winery has windows that face the Blues. It
was like, we want to be candilevered off the hill
and just nothing but the Blues. And Wayne, Ben Loon
and Larry and for our and everybody at Soderstorm, you know,
(40:30):
Kaylin and they were all like, yeah, we get it,
We totally get it. So we all went up to
the top of the hill, walked around for hours on end,
and then they came back with an idea that Brad
just kept pushing, you know, in certain directions, and I'm
really pleased with it. So what you saw that big
long lit area is literally the walkway off to your
(40:51):
right is the barrel room. That you can see through windows,
and then when you get to the end of it,
you see that big open room that you saw on
the video that faced the blues.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So when you go there to for a tasting experience,
what are some examples of tasting experiences that you offer
to people who wish to visit Equi Lens.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
So we do flights. The flights are ever changing. So
it may be that you do Aron flight, so you
see the Sans, you see the Grenache, you see the Sirah.
It may be that you do more of a Bordeaux
flight these days, or certainly during you know, the warmer months,
we were very focused on the white wines we make
because we not only make the Sylvian Blanc, as I said,
(41:31):
we had the Albus until that sold out. We had
a small amount of Grenache blanc that we fermented in
clay Amphora that we quickly sold out of. We made
Russin that disappeared instantly. We made al Rahemo that disappeared instantly,
making more of each of those. So you know, we'll
set up flights based on kind of what's available, but
also the season. Right now, it's more about let's give
(41:53):
you some bigger Boulder reds.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
You know, one of the things I noticed on your
website was that there are a lot of different types
of vessels at your winery. It's not just stainless steel
in Barique. You've got big oak, you've got concrete eggs,
you've got some amphora. Tell us about the philosophy behind
using all these different things, and highlight a couple of
wines for us.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Sure, of course, Well poor Brad, you know, he gets
to pay for the toys, because I'm always like Brian
and I are like, well, you know what we could buy.
And so the reasling that you had, about a third
of that came out of a concrete egg, and then
about two thirds of it was stainless steel. But we
also make a dry reasling that will release in twenty
(42:38):
six that about a third of it was in concrete
egg and two thirds came out of an Austrian oval.
It's about the same amount as ten barrels. It's a
giant oval from you know, with Austrian wood. We ran
some white wine through it to kind of clean it up,
and then fermended the reasling in there and it just
came out beautiful. It's really wonderful how that's altered the
(43:00):
reasoning force those concrete eggs. What they did for us
with the selvium blanc is add some texture. Concrete is
a porous surface, and it allows this kind of continuous
oxygen ingress that can help a wine to develop some texture.
We've got giant concrete tulips that are well they're giant,
(43:24):
you know, they're like twelve feet tall, and we have
done Rose's in them. Once again, you get this kind
of inner convection inside there. You get some porosity that
helps the wine not to be so steely and tough,
but allows the wine to kind of open up and
become a bit more supple. So that was initially used
(43:46):
for cabernet and for Reasling and for sevieum blanc. And
we decided last year that concrete cubes are better vessels
for Syrah and for cabernet. So now that cabinets and
thes go in these rather large concrete cubes, you know,
the kind of these are the kind of toys that
you're seeing now often in Bordeaux, as we're sort of
(44:08):
going back to the past and seeing how that the
world of stainless steel is useful for certain walks, certainly
to keep that reasoning that you had nice and bright
and shiny. That stainless steel is very useful. But when
you're trying to create more I think gentler or more
complex textures, I think having concrete, having a lot of
(44:31):
oak to play with. David, as you mentioned, for our Surrah,
all the Sarragos in five hundred liter puncheons, which allows
more oxygen than oak exposure. And for me with Sirah,
that's really really important. And I saw this in the
eighties the first time I went to the Rhone Valley.
Everybody I visited had five hundred liters, and I thought,
if I ever make straw, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So what do you what's in your crystal ball for
echo lands you in Rads.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, I think as the vineyards come online around the winery,
you know, you saw some of the early versions of
those those vines. They're really happy up there, and so
they're growing quickly, We're going to have more toys to
play with. Like I said, Vermentino and Grenache Blanc will
probably get our first ginage next year. We grew on
(45:21):
the Taggart side on the southern end, where it's really
hot and dry and windy. We grew some assirt go
the famous and yeah, we had enough to make twelve
cases this year because the plants are babies and it's like, oh,
this is going to be good. It seems real happy there,
but it's you know, it's hot, dry, windy on volcanic soil.
Sounds like Santorini, you know, So we'll see how that goes.
(45:44):
And I think most importantly what we discovered in the
seventh year of Taggart, we really had I honestly have
to admit I had started to lose hope in that vineyard.
It was really struggling. There was really you know, I
wasn't getting the yields that I thought I deserved. I
wasn't sure what was going on. And in twenty five
this past year, the heavens opened up. It's like, oh
(46:07):
my god, that's what we were waiting for.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
It.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
And my neighbors, like, you know, for Marty, you know,
Club at Nicole with Ferguson Vinyer was like, oh, it
takes time up here, you have to wait. It's really
a tough space. But once the mines get there, then
you're off to the races. And it seems to be true.
So we're, you know, believing that we can make kind
of bigger, more complex red wine. But we also, as
I say, have pivoted to as well, making lighter style
(46:33):
reds and hopefully making more complex white wine.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well, it'll be interesting to see where you go with
this because it's still a very young winery in the
scheme of things. One last question before we have to wrap.
So you're part of a small and estinguished group of
sommeliers of note who had ventured into becoming vennors up
in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, with success, So congratulations. What
would you say to anyone who is listening or watching
(46:57):
to the show thinking I want to create my next
job and do what Doug and Larry stone Rager all
these people have done.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
What do you want to say to them, Well, that
the old line is the only way to make a
small fortune in the wine business to begin with a
large one. So I you know, I hesitate to encourage
anybody to do it unless you just have that burning
desire and you can find a business partner or partners
who get it. This is not a ten year project.
(47:26):
It's well a twenty or thirty year project, and you
have to approach it that way. It is just there's
no way, especially these days. I mean, the market is
very unsettled, and you know, the larger market the world
is very unsettled, and so it's even more difficult today.
You just have to be in it for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And patience and you know, mother Nature ultimately has a
final word.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yes she does. Oh man, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Well, Doug, it's great to talk to you again for
another much more focused story of your life for the
Connected Table Live. We wish you all the best. We
can't wait to come out and visit Echo Lands and
Winery and also Walla Walla and really experience it for
ourselves firsthand.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
We would love to have you out there, but of
course I look forward to seeing you in your anywhere
Jelly Noiland soon. You know, that's one of the greatest
cities in the world. That's all.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
We'll be here. We'll be here, so thank you again.
If you are watching and listening and want more information,
it's Echo Lendswinery dot com. You can go there's some
great information there about the winery, and then you can
also go to the Washington Wine Institute and the Walla
Walla Valley AVA websites for more information on the region
and the wines, which is I found very helpful as
(48:39):
well because it's totally unique. Because as we all know,
the United States, you make wine everywhere. There is wine
made in every United States. So go out there and
travel and explore and taste because we want you to
expand your palate and we hope that this show will
inspire you to eat, drink, explore, and be more expired inspired.
So thank you for joining us, Doug on ol of
(49:01):
our viewers and listeners on another edition of The Connected
Table Life. Always stay insatiably curious.
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four CY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live, where your hosts Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people, places, food,
and drink we experience because we want you to step
out of your comfort zone and experience the world and
see how amazing it is whether you're eating, drinking, exploring,
(01:04):
or looking for more inspiration. You're watching live on the
Connected Table live on YouTube, and you can hear all
our shows on demand anytime on sixty five podcast channels
and follow us along at the Connected Table. So we
are taking you to Washington State. There's a photo behind
(01:26):
us to the Walla Walla Valley Ava to talk about
the area and meet a vintner who has had multiple
careers and this is like his next chapter. We're talking
about Frost Alert Doug Frost, who has had an amazing
long career in the hospitality industry. He's been on the
(01:48):
show in another capacity, but we're doing it now as
he's a vennor. First of all, Doug is the first
individual to attain both the Master of Wine and Master
Soley Aid recognitions, which only I think four people have done. Wow.
He is a co founder and co creator of bar
Beverage Alcohol Resources, a certification program for barking of professionals
(02:10):
and it's like really intense. We saw a great movie
on it at Tales of the Cocktail. He also was
the long time has been the longtime one director at
American Restaurant, I know for how many years. We'll ask
him in Kansas City where he's from. And now Vintner
is his latest chapter. And that's why we're in Walla
Walla because in twenty eighteen, Doug Frost and Apalla is
(02:34):
in Kansas named Brad Bergman who comes from a tree
farm family, so he's an arborist. They established Echo Lands
Winery in the Walla Walla Valley, ABA, and we had
a selection of wines sent to us that we're going
to talk about. And we actually, I have not been
to the Walla Walla Belley of you. Well, we're eager
to learn more and get out there. But we're so
(02:54):
excited to see that. We saw him at Tales of
the Cocktail and we got him back on. I'm going
to welcome them and then we're going to show a video.
So Doug Frost, welcome to the Connected Table. David, you
were saying something, well, I was just saying, this is
a repeat too.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We've had Doug on the show before. Yeah, and now
we're having him here to talk about the wine because
he hadn't really come out with the wine yet when
we last saw.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
This is a whole new chapter and we want to
scase that.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So Hey Doug, Hey Melanie, Hey David, how are you both?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
How are you so you're in Kansas right now? You're
in Kansas City, Kansas. Yes, we're going to just briefly
show a video to transport our viewers and listeners. I'm sorry,
just go to YouTube. Then a Connected Table TV YouTube
to see the full thing. A short video and everybody
hang in there to show you echo lens and where
we're going with this. All right, very nice. I see
(04:53):
the lot of earth and sky and form and function
and and a very interesting landscape. So dog, let's set
this up first with what did we just see?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, that is the estate, winery and the estate itself.
We actually owned two vineyards, two vineyard sites, i should say,
and the first one was a piece of land we
bought in twenty seventeen as we were deciding to put
this project together, and it's on the south end of
Wallawalla Valley. Now Wallawalla Alley straddles the Oregon Washington state lines,
(05:25):
so half the vineyards are in Oregon, half the vineyards
are in Washington for the entire ava. And our first
site was on the south end, and that's actually what's
right behind you. And that picture is looking out on
some of the snow capped hills just above that vineyard
called Taggart, which I named after my grandfather who grew
up in the area and who lived in Walla Walla,
(05:47):
et cetera, et cetera. So in the meanwhile, we bought
another piece of land and that's what you're seeing in
that video. It's about three hundred and forty one acres
hills that rise up to eighteen hundred feet or so.
So much colder, much wetter. What's kind of crazy about
it is that Wallawalla Valley being, you know, not that
big a alley. We're fourteen miles apart the Taggart Vineyard,
(06:10):
which is very typical of Washington State. It's desert. You
get about eight or nine inches of annual rainfall. You
irrigate or you die fourteen miles away. Is that a
state that you saw in the video. It's twenty eight
inches of annual rainfall for almost four times as much
rainfall fourteen miles away because it's the rain part of
the rain shadow that the blue mountains that you saw
(06:31):
in the video. The blue mountains create that rain shadow,
if you will. And so that's the new estate. It's
a tasting room. You saw the interior with the big
windows looking at the blues, and then you saw Blake,
our assistant winemaker, washing off in the middle of in
the middle of a harvest. We finished harvest in October,
(06:52):
and so you know we're still we're just finishing cleanup.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well it's stunning, right.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It's a beautiful air. I have not been Milanie of you.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
No, I haven't. I've only been to you know, like Woodenville. Yes,
And here's what I've learned, and you're the masters side.
So let's just set up the geography of Washington State.
So first of all, for anybody, it's another geography. It's
in the northwest, Pacific northwest. What I learned studying, and
you know, you're the educator. I learned that most of
(07:22):
the wineries are on the eastern side of the Cascade
mountain Ridge. Is compared to Oregon, we're on the western
side of the Cascade Mountainridge. That that was cool. And
you brought up a couple of interesting points. One the
Walla Walla Valley is one of the avas. It's in
hugs both Washington and Oregon, which is cool. I think
there's maybe one or two other ones.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Right, Yeah, there's a couple of areas like Ohio River
Valley has like five states and and but yeah, it's
it's a bit unique.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I pulled up some info from the Walla Walla Valley
AVA website. I learned that it's a big agricultural hub
with known for strawberries, apples, sparicas, and onions, as well
as wine. And it's about one hundred and twenty wineries,
including Echo Lands. Now, we just learned with you that
(08:11):
you have family history in the area, so tell us
about that.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Well, my mom was born in Tacoma. I was born
in Portland, Oregon. My grandfather, like I say, grew up Wenatchee.
And so even though I live in Kansas City, we
moved out to the Midwest when I was a little kid.
But everybody else in the family was certainly the extended family.
Everybody else is on the West Coast, and so we
(08:35):
were the black sheep of the family and we would come,
you know, drive back and forth to the West Coast,
mostly to the Bay Area, because that's where most of
the family ended up. And so I got into the
wine business out here in Kansas City and then had
an opportunity to buy some land in Walla, Walla. And
you know, the truth of the matter is is that
(08:56):
my business partner who you mentioned earlier, Brad Bergman, he
was kind of on me to buy something on how
Mountain or someplace else in Napa or at least in California.
And I said, no, you know, we're not going to
do that. And the answer is when people ask me why,
there's several reasons. One is certainly price. I mean, the
(09:16):
price of land, unplanted land in Walla Walla was a
fraction of what I would pay in Napa Valley. And
two was I feel like it's one of the reasons
that I'm not in the Willammette. Like you said, the
Walamite in Oregon is right between the coastal and the cascades.
It's a much cooler and wetter site ideal for Pin
and Noir. But one, I knew that my business partner,
(09:37):
Brad didn't really care about Pin and Noir like I do.
Two and I feel the same way about Napa. They
don't need me, they don't need me to come along
and go. Doug's got a better idea. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's a saturated area, that's for sure. And I think
you have an ability to the ability to really kind
of get in on the ground floor and build up
in Walla Walla.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yeah, it really is true to But I think a
lot of it was my feeling that I had a
different vision of wine and Walla Walla than maybe was
common there. And so I thought that there was something
that we could do that would would add to the industry.
And I have to say, I've been going to Walla
Walla since the mid eighties. I was a wholesaler, fell
in love with frankly with Oregon wines and with Washington
(10:21):
wines back in the early eighties, and so from nineteen
eighty four onward, I was buying wines from there to
sell in the Missouri market because I was obsessed with
these wines, and I made friends some you know, some
of whom are still around, like Trey Bush and Christap Baron,
and some that have passed on, like Eric Dunham, who
was certainly, you know, part of my love of the area.
(10:44):
I just fell in love with these people and with
this area, and so it really was a place I
wanted to go when I had a chance to finally
build a winery and start a vineyard.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You know, I knew you first knew because when I
was running the James Beard Awards, the American Restaurant Kansas
City was constantly being nominated. I think eventually won thanks
to your work. How long did you work with the
American Restaurant.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I was really only there for a few years, but
there were formative years. I worked with you know, with
Michael Smith and I worked with Selena TiO, both of
whom won James Speared awards there. So it was it
was a two time winner, which was a big deal,
and it was really it was really a fun place
to work. But at that point in time, I had
(11:29):
started to create a you know, a client list, some
of which are still around, like United Airlines. I still
choose the wines for them, and some you know, like
Princess Cruise Lines or what you know, off and on
retail chain based in North Carolina called Wine Store, and
you know, some of these clients that were going to
help me get going. And as you mentioned, I started
(11:52):
something at the time with a colleague named Steve Olsen
that was the precursor to Bar and Bar. As you mentioned,
there's a documentary out about it right now, just called
Bar that just came out and is on is on
Amazon Prime now and it's it's a it's a fun
portrayal of of what we've done with that program because
(12:13):
it's now twenty years old.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Believable has it been that long. Really, it's a terrific
so just everybody, it's called Bar, and you said Amazon Prime.
We saw the preview, the premiere, the premiere, and it
was it exceeded my expectations. That's all I'm going to say.
I had such a feeling for all of the students
(12:35):
and what they were going through and their purpose. Uh,
it's a terrific documentary. Everybody bar, really terrific. So here's
something I learned I was doing. I was writing a
blog post about the late great Joe Bown. Oh yeah,
I learned he was asked to design the American restaurant.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Absolutely, I had no idea. No, it's so true. You
know that the funny coincidences or of the links if
you will, because Joe Baum, because he was there, he
brought in Kevin'sureili to classes. So Kevin was one of
my early mentors. I certainly I have to say, you know,
and I tell Kevin this, he always gets mad at me.
I'm like, you're the father of as all and He's like,
(13:16):
shut up, I'm not older than you. And I'm like, well, whatever, dude,
you were there first. You know, you're one of the greatest,
most entertaining speakers about wine, and I've tried to emulate
you ever since. And the funny part about it bar.
One of the bar partners is Dale de Groff, who
is Joe Baum's cocktail guy. Right, you know, all these
connections were made. Actually it was even weirder. The guy
(13:38):
who introduced me to Dale de Groff a million years
ago was one of my high school chums from Hutchinson, Kansas.
He was the he was the matre d of Rainbows
and Stars, the nightclub at Rainbow Room. So all these
crazy connections.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, you know what I call that, six degrees of
separation is separation. It's going to be a book. It's
going to be a book.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
It's give me a book.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So I really cool, Doug. Before we get into the wine,
let's talk about.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You a little bit. Well, we know you very well
and have known you for years, but a lot of
our listeners may not. So tell us how you got
into wine and what the path was, and your path
to the MW and MS as well.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Sure, I was working in restaurants at the age of fourteen,
I was washing dishes, continued to work in restaurants, became
a bartender. Actually before it was legal, I lied about
my age, so I was I was bartending at eighteen
and nineteen you know, in Colorado and started working in
restaurants again. My high school chum was working at a
(14:38):
particular restaurant in Kansas City called Plaza three. I started
working there and a wine steward there, a guy named
John Scupney. He in the first week I was there,
he said, you seem to know something about wine, which
I did not, but I was a good mimic in
my you know, undergrad degrees in acting and directing. So
(14:58):
he was like, wow, you're really good wine. You seem
to know a lot about it. I'm like, no, I
know how to pretend to be John Scupney. So I
sold a lot of wine. I won the contest. So
he took me to wine tastings and my eyes were
just open. I had no idea. My uncle another reason
why I called the vineyard. Taggart my uncle, you you know,
Jean Taggart poured me my first glass of wine when
I was fifteen years old. It was it was Louis
(15:20):
Martini Special Select Peanut and War in nineteen sixty eight.
Good way to start, just to be you know, complete
full disclosure. Second glass of wine was Country Quencher and
I think Strawberry Hill was the third glass of wine.
But you know, I started good, and so you know
this this restaurant passed, took me into hotels and helping
(15:42):
run multiple restaurants with hotels, and then into distributorship and
so I was now and I still remember my one
of my closest friends to this day hired me at
that time. This is back in the in like nineteen
eighty one or so, and he said, you seem to
love riding wineless and I was like, this is the
most fun I've had. I've got two restaurants and a
banquet banquet hall that I can write wineless for. He's like,
(16:04):
how would you like to write a hundred wineless? I
was like, Okay, sign me up. I'm in. And I
became a distributor, basically consulting with restaurants, including one called
Starker's Harry Starkers, which won a Grand Award from the
Wine Spectator. One of my close friends, his uncle owned
the place, so we collaborated on that wine list. It
just really it's you know, I just fell into this
(16:25):
thing that I loved, and I had great mentors like
my friend John Scotney and Mendel and you know, watching
Zareli work and people like that, and just managed to
build a career out of that. And then once I
finished my Master Samoia and Master of Wine in nineteen
ninety three, I finished both and I do have to
(16:46):
say I was number two. The first guy was two
years before me, was Ron Wigan. And if he's listening
to this, Ron, you're number one. Okay, we know?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And are there still only four? Was that like all news?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And it's more now there's actually still only four?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So who are the other two?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Crazy? It's a little crazy. But I think that the
honest truth about that is most people finish one and
they're good. It's like it requires somebody very very insecure,
living in Kansas City in the wine business to need
both of them, you know. It's like, look at me,
look at me with.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
A masterful accomplishment and a great thing to have on
your curriculum vita, as they say. And I think many,
you know, as we get the announcements of new Master
saw Mays and Masters of Wine, I admire them because
it is a rigorous process.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
It's true. Yeah, it's very true. I mean, the supposedly
it depends up how you do the math, but it
has a very low pass rate, under five percent. And
typically we'll say that the MS if you get through
it as a five to eight year process, and the
MW if you get through it as an eight to
eleven year process. So I was I was fortunate. I
was kind of ready to go, and I passed the
(17:59):
MW in the days when you didn't have to write
a dissertation. So I got through both of them in
under five years. But that was that was then. You know,
I'm an old guy. I forgot.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Do you recommend, because you're the wise guy, would you
recommend to people who were younger or starting out in
the business or career changing or whatever, would you recommend
that they get some level of certification. It may not
be MWMS, maybe WSCT. What would you tell them and
what would you like to say.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I think that's a great question, and I really would say, yes,
some certification, not for the you know, postnomenals, not for
the title, but because it's a there's some version of
discipline of study, research and understanding and comprehension, and actually,
probably more importantly to me, certainly at the time, more
importantly to me, the camaraderie that the you know, I
(18:52):
got to meet my tribe. I was like, you know, truthfully,
the MW I was prepping for kind of got involved
and I had to step away because of work stuff.
I got back into it, and two weeks before the
Advanced Samolier Exam, I was told about it, and on
all a lark, I show up for it, you know,
and I passed by a miracle. But the truth is
(19:14):
I didn't mean to do both. But they they helped
each other, and they really were that. As I say,
those moments when I looked around the room and thought,
these are my people. Why haven't I been hanging out
with these people before? Even if I don't pass, I
don't care. I got to meet these people and become
a peer of theirs, and I'm just really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think it's important. I mean, for me, I did
through the society and wanted you care. It just for me.
Had added a dimension of understanding, particularly when it gets
to Vita culture and why. And you know, I have
to my right is my textbook open to Washington State,
because I constantly refer to it when I travel now
and look at the maps and everything. It helps in
(19:55):
that context, which leads us to why in twenty eighteen.
Did you decide to go into the wine producing wine
when we know it's you know, historically money losing operation
is very challenging, people drinking less wine and all that.
Why then and wine? And we know why, Washington? But
why did you make this choice?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Well, at my age, I honestly saw it as this
is it. You know, this is your one chance to
do this. If you're going to do it, do it.
And I really did feel that my understanding was incomplete.
I feel strongly, I say it all the time that
the more I learn about wine, the stupider I feel,
because it's just unending. And I knew how ignorant I
(20:38):
was of the production side of things, and I knew
there was really only one way that was going to change,
and that was, you know, drop yourself into the deep
end of the pool and start paddling as quick as
you can. And fortunately I've had two really good winemakers.
My initial winemaker was a wonderful guy named Taylor Oswald,
and he and I were the show for god three years.
(20:59):
It was basically the two of us doing everything. And
nowadays we hired Brian Rudin, who's incredibly talented and wonderful
guy to work with. He's the GM of the winery
because I was general managing from one thousand miles away. Yeah,
incredibly stupid idea. So you know, we've got a staff
now and some wonderful people that I work with, so
(21:21):
I get to ask more questions than try to provide
phony answers.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, you know, it really is a hands on business.
As you probably know that, I also made wine. My
family had a winery in New York for a long time.
But it's a very hands on business and constant, you know,
twenty four hours a day all year long, and change.
There's something always happening, and there's a lot of change
that happens throughout that year too. Yeah, you can't predict
what's going to happen in the fall list.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And you live in a climate. Before we went on
the show, we're talking about you know, climate issues going
on right now in Washington State. I mean, you know,
you're constantly dealing with that.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, twenty eighteen was our first full vintage, and I
loved telling people that twenty eighteen was the kind of
vintage where an idiot could have made good wine and
he did, you know, and nineteen it froze three times
before harvest was over. I was out of my mind.
I was like, is this what I'm dealing with? Twenty twenty,
everything looked great, and then the West coast was set
(22:16):
on fire, and so we lost almost twenty five percent
of our crop to smoke damage. And then you know,
twenty one, it was the hottest vintage on record. It
was one hundred and eighteen degrees in seven hills, six
degrees higher than it had ever been measured. And then
you got twenty two, when all of a sudden it rains,
it pours, and it's cold as hell, and we're like,
you know, so every vintage has been one of those. Yeah,
(22:38):
just hold my beer, watch this right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, and you drink a lot of beer when you
make wine. I'm flue. That's true.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
That our that that was our unsung motto with our winery.
It takes a lot of beer to make good wine.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I have a very basic question, what is Echo Lends?
Was this part of the region or why the name?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the name.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Obviously names are hard to come by, and so I
had already decided that the vineyard would be named Taggart
after my grandfather. He's the only grandfather I knew, and
he was a baker by trade, so he taught me
about flavor. And as I say, my uncle Jean you
know his son, and my mom you know Staggert La
(23:20):
la la. So that was easy. It was Taggart Vineyard.
I did a search. The name was available, Great Echo Lands.
I went to work on or I came up with, really,
because I literally to figure out a name. I'm like,
I have to have a name. We're out of time.
And so I took a bottle of cut roteae because
the first one we made was Syrah, and I took
it up to the top of Taggart and I had
(23:40):
a glass and I popped it open, and I said,
I'm not leaving this vineyard until either the bottle was
empty or I got a name. And so I kind
of stood up after a few glasses and started yelling.
And you can see basically underneath you in that picture
behind you is a canyon where lower Dry Creek is.
And so as I stood at the top of our
which goes up to thirteen hundred feet, and I yelled,
(24:02):
my voice came back, and I thought, okay, echo echo
is a good thing. Because I've always told people you know,
the decades I've been in the wine business, people are like,
well what should I call? You know, what should be
on the label? And I'd always say the same thing.
Tell me who you are and tell me where you
come from. So the vintnor's name is on the back
of the label and where the wine has grown. But
Echo Lands, it suddenly appealed to me to say something
(24:24):
about Echo and Lands just kind of you know, was
the name available because I realized I need to admit
to people I live in Kansas City, this is in Walla, Walla.
It's like an echo. It's not a direct voice. I
have to admit to people, and so the name was
really an admission of that. But wait, there's more, you know,
which is now I'm like two thirds through the bottle
(24:47):
and I'm like, you know, but Av's metamorphosis where we
get the myth of Echo is really instructive here, because
remember the gods give Echo the gift of voice, so
she can declare her love for the youth. Narcissus and
I'm going to go bad to in Men's sister because
you know he's a narcissist, and so you know, the
gods are assholes. So They're like, you can only say
what is said to you. And I thought, well, what
(25:07):
an apt metaphor for wine making. You shouldn't try to
add your voice to it. You should merely let the
grapes echo the land, Let the wine echo the grapes,
and let that be all. But I have to admit
there's one other connection because I finished the bottle, and
that's Walla Walla. It's an echo.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So oh that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, so you know I'll come up with a fifth reason.
There's got to be another reason.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well, it works for us. We like the name a
lot love. We like the wine too.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
You Walla Walla is known for cabernet. You you make
a range. Though we tasted I think it was six
or seven win is. Actually we had not tasted two
of them. But you do arrange we taste, you know
when we'll go through. And we tasted to Reasling, Yes,
(25:55):
a sauvion blanc, which is very different from a lot
of the sauvignon blancs that I've tasted. It very distinct
and probably one of my first I think Sam Strong
up there the sinse So which we loved, Oh cool,
just loved the Cabinet fr Frank, which is terrific, Lacolin vineyards,
so different vineyards, the Sirah and then Resound, which we
(26:16):
haven't opened because it's a Bordeaux blend. Yes, a cab
cab Marlow, Cap Franc and Petifer. Do what do you
feel are your strong points here? And what do you
feel are the wines that really in that range? And
there's others. This is what we tasted. What are you
(26:37):
best known for?
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Well, the cab franc has We've planted more cab fronc
than anything else. And you know, probably the highest accolade
we got was earlier this year Decanner magazine, which they
do their World Wine Awards. They taste seventeen thousand plus
wines and they picked six American wines to give a
platinum or higher reward to. One of them was our
(27:00):
Cap Frank was the only Washington state wine that won
a platinum or better award. And and so you know,
we are very grateful for that. But as you tasted,
if you tasted the capt Frank, it's a bit more
lai Ish in style, it is. You know, it is
a funny coincidence again that my first mentor I mentioned
John Scupney. He went on to found a winery in
(27:22):
Napa Valley which does specializes in Caberney Franc. It's a
winery called Lang and Reed. And you know, he and
I were still talk and you know, still have a
close connection and and Camp Bronks are great that I
felt needed more love and attention. It was one of
the reasons why the winery. One of the goals of
the winery was to bring more attention to Cap Franc.
(27:44):
Certainly Sirah is something I love dearly, and so that
was the first wine we made. And finally, I think
Bordeaux style blends are one of the strengths of Walla
Walla Valley, right, so I felt that it you know,
we had to folks us on that. So we make
a few different Bordeaux blends, the resound being more Cab dominant.
(28:05):
But we make another one called ground Swell that we've
already sold out of. But I'll get you twenty three
when it's released, and it's more Cab Franc mayor low
it's more right, banky if you will.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, I have a few questions. So the cap Fronc,
we love kup Fronc and the East coast is very
strong in Kapor. We love the laur cap franc so
we're already built in fans. The twenty twenty three A
Walla Wallaby cab Fronc that you sent us was seventy
five percent cap Fronc, Yes, nineteen percent Merlow, and six
percent Cabernet Semgnon.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Yeah, it was. It kind of begged for us to
go ahead and let it because the previous cab Fronc
was very almost one hundred percent. But in twenty three
it was one of those things where the Cabsov and
the Mayri Low, we're just begging us to say, go
ahead and bend your rules a little bit on this one.
(28:53):
So we actually we make another one that is mostly
cab Fronc and a little bit of mar Low. But
I say you that twenty three, because it it was
twenty three, is just a great vintage up and down
the West coast. As far as I'm concerned, I think
Oregon did great work, and California if you were willing
to hang, let it hang, let the fruit hang a
little longer, and didn't lose your nerve, you ended up
(29:14):
making wonderful wines. And so the twenty threes were kind
of begging us to say, you know, the let It
comes back to my mo that the wines are going
to tell you what they want to be. You know,
you can't just impose your will upon them simply because
you want it to be a particular style. So I
embrace the fact that every vintage, sometimes the style is
going to shift. So the difference between our twenty two
(29:36):
that the decanter loved and the twenty three, they probably
won't love the twenty three as much because it's a
little more American. No.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I think that's one of the great things about about wine,
to be honest, is that is that the vintages are different,
which is why it's a never ending learning process.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Which, yes, it gives you another question. So the Sara
we tell it that's that's a very earthy, you know,
verbal firm Surrah. And then looking at the tech sheet,
it has a weeny teensy bit of vin Yes, what
does the VNA bring do it?
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Well? The VNA in truth there is in the in
uh Windom there's this belief that VNA will help you
adjust your pH and there's this belief that VNA will
help you fix color. And I would have to say,
I've read a lot about that and there is no
evidence to support those long held myths. So vna is
(30:33):
there one? Because there's vna grown right next to my sirah,
So why not two? Because I love cover Rote and
Crote almost always has two or three percent n A
in it, and it adds a little floral note, It
adds so incomplexity, and it just it provides almost like
a little smile, you know, somewhere in as you say,
what is otherwise sometimes an earthy hopefully not our but
(30:55):
but certainly can be a bit of a serious wine.
And the Vina provides a little you know, mile on
top of it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Interesting. That's very interesting, and it definitely was a very
different time.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Do you have plans or are you that we haven't
had doing any vignier on its own.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
No, but we did go ahead and plant some vigna
because we're we're now We've now planted Vermentino, Grenoche Blanc,
and I think the Vina will probably be a wonderful
help mate there that we can use some sure in
our surah. But I think actually it'll be fun to
play with it with Grenache Blanc and Vermentino as we
go forward and you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Do a grenoche rouge as well. We didn't try that,
but but you know, let's talk about the Roe viridols,
because we did have the C and soa yes, which
is blended with sarah and it was lovely.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Well, thank you. It's it's very fun. It's it's certainly
I think, a really cheerful wine. Yeah, I'll be honest
the story behind the sanso if if I'll be forgiven
for telling a story on Pascoline la Peltier. Do you
know Pascoline? Of course you do. So I showed my
grenache to Pascoline a couple of years ago, and I
(32:01):
quote she said, Doug, like, you want to keep, but
I not buy. I tell you what, you put some
sansol in your cow. You bring back to me, maybe
I'd buy. Okay, if Pascleen tells you to do it, yeah, okay,
you go and plant sanso. And I planted too much,
so I had this senso leftover. So now the grenache
(32:22):
is ten percent sanso and the sanso is ten percent grenache,
and both of them are better, and they're just you know,
they're really fun wines to make, and they appeal to me,
partly because obviously the market is always changing, and I
had believe for a long time that we needed to
make some obviously big, bold reds, but we also need
to make, if not more whimsical wines, certainly easier wines
(32:46):
to drink. Lighter reds are now of a thing, and
we planted them before it had turned into a thing.
But I just believe in that because I like to
drink them. And I told my business partner, I was like, Brad,
we're going to make a bunch of wine that we
like that we like to drink, because we may have
to drink them all, so you know, make sure you
like the wine you make.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
We're big fans of your sense. So it was a
lovely bottle of wine to have. The only one that
he sent us at a screw top, which makes it
easy to be easy to open. And it was a
very enjoyable wine. And you know, we're with you on
the whole lighter wines thing.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
It is.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
It is a trend, but but you know, we we
seek out lighter wines all the time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I think it's a trend for a lot of reasons.
One of the way we're eating now pries out for
lighter wine, lighter reds one percent.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
It's really my experience as well. I don't eat that
same kind of big, you know, powerful food that I
think we associated with a different generation, if you will.
And I love having a lighter red because I can
have it with fish too, you know, or vegetarian. I
can eat it with vegetarian. I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, you know, I think we've been big on that child.
We live in Louisiana, so chillable breads.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, it's just different.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, totally. So the resound which we have it over
because I'm wanting it to twenty twenty two. We're wondering
when that best open the bottle time would be. I
figure we'd need more time. But it's a classic Bordeaux blend.
You said you had a couple of them. What was
your thinking behind this?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Well, as I say, I think it plays to the
to the real assets of Wallawalla Valley. And I've always
loved the idea of blending to make something better than this,
you know, the sum of its parts. So it was
for me something we need to do, we need to
you know, if nothing else to say, well, look, this
(34:34):
is what message we can create by putting these different
pieces together. That little bit of petite for dau. I
would never put that in a Caberney franc for instance,
or a standalone camp Frank because it would overwhelm a
two percent we'll step on everything. But when you have
Caberney Signon and Marlow and camp Frank, that little tiny
piece of petit ri dau is the salt in the soup.
(34:55):
You know, it literally adds. It helps bring pieces to
together and make them work together. Obviously, if you add
too much petit for dough, it's like too much salt,
it tastes crappy. But similarly, without the petit for dough,
the soup is kind of like, I don't get it.
What are you trying to do here? And then you
put the salt in there and you go, oh, this
is delicious.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I love that that comparison. Yes, you know, if you're
cooking everything.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
So why do we Why don't we talk about the
sauviny O bloc because we opened it last night?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah we did. Racy enjoyed it, enjoyed it quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
And that's obviously from our home vineyard. That's the Taggart vineyard.
Soavie and it's a bit of a I wouldn't call
it an accident, but it was a pivot away from
what we had intended to do. For instance, you know,
to explain, we were making a wine which we continued
to make. We're out of it right now. But it's
called albus and it's just Latin for white, and it's
(35:50):
a servieum blanc semion blend, and that came from Taggart.
But then in January of twenty four on January thirteenth,
the temperature dropped to eighteen degrees below zero in Taggart
and in much of Wallawalla Valley, and the initial report
was you've lost your entire crop. You may have lost
much of your vineyard. Of course I was like, oh
my god, here we go again. And so immediately on
(36:15):
January fourteenth, Brian and I were on the phone trying
to find people who had fruit because Walla Walla was
theoretically wiped out. What turned out to be true was
we only lost about a third of our crop, which
is of course hilarious about you know, wine growing. The
good news only a thirty year crop has gone. But
in the meanwhile, it was like, okay, we can't make
(36:37):
Albus from Taggart. We got to go to another place,
and so we went to Yakima to this vineyard called Angelina,
which is up at about it's about thirteen hundred and
sixteen hundred feet elevation. We know it well, Brian used
to work with it, and so we bought Sybea and
blancin Semeon from them and blended Albus. Meanwhile, you know,
we're looking at our vineyard and the semon is wiped out,
(36:59):
it's gone. But the Suvian Blanc came through, and it
came through really well. And so I said, well, you know,
we don't need two Suvian blancs quote unquote, that are
two versions of Albus, which is more stainless steel, more
you know, sort of Bordeau BLANKI I was like, it's
time we tried Pesseck Lanyan or grove blanc or whatever
you want to call it. So it's one hundred percent
barrel fermented. I kind of defy people to notice that
(37:23):
because it doesn't seem beryl fermented, but it seems very
textured and it seems, you know, it has an intensity
that the barrels give it. It's about half of the
barrels were brand new, but it was an experiment. It
was a happy experiment. I'd played around with this with
one barrel in twenty three and so I was like,
(37:43):
I know this will work, or at least I think
of this will work. And since I'm going to get
some Souvian blanc off of Tagger despite what mother nature
threw at me, let's go for it. And I really
I'm hopeful that wine is the kind of wine in
ten years will taste and go. This is from where,
you know, just capable of aging, but it's very few
(38:04):
of them that are.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, it's interesting, very very interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Well, we love the fact that it has fifteen percent
semion in it as well, which is one of our
pet great.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
I mean some of my my semion was wiped out,
but I had a little bit of semion. We didn't
make very much of the one at the end of
the day, but I was like, you know that semon,
it adds texture. Yeah. The thing that's interesting is I'll
do three days of skin contact on the sovieum Bloc,
but I definitely don't do that on the Semon because
Semon gets kind of weird. And WHYI if you do
that but in contact. It's a trick I learned in
(38:35):
Bordeaux twenty years ago, and I was like, we're going
for it, man, We're doing skin contact. We're going to
get crazy. So it was fun. I'm happy with that wine,
you know.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I think skint the little thing that they don't tell
you a lot of times.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
It's true. No, it's true because it sounds weird. Red
wine is sure. White wines of course.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, very interesting. Let's talk about the winery in the
structure because and here we're going to pop photo up
because it's quite striking. Our engineer want will put the
photo up shortly, and then that'll lead into the visitor experience.
I mean it kind of like talk to us about
who designed and the element, because a lot of this
(39:15):
is to really be insensitivity to form, function, earth, sky
and nature and being blended well blended.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
It's true, and I will always have to admit that
very little of the design is me. I mean, I
certainly had some ideas, but my business partner, Brad Bergman,
had been down this road before, certainly not with wineries,
but with other buildings and our architectural firm, soda Strom
(39:45):
based in Portland, Oregon. I knew of them from Adelsheim
a million years ago. They did the sellers, they're seeing
some of their work and the two primary people there,
but actually it was the whole firm obviously was involved
in the design of this. And the more we talked
about it, the more I loved the direction it was going.
(40:05):
But I have to say Brad and I had one
rule from the get go, which was, we think it's
crazy that if you go to Walla Walla, the most
beautiful part of Walla Walla or the Blue Mountains, and
hardly any winery has windows that face the Blues. It
was like, we want to be candilevered off the hill
and just nothing but the Blues. And Wayne, Ben Loon
and Larry and for our and everybody at Soderstorm, you know,
(40:30):
Kaylin and they were all like, yeah, we get it,
We totally get it. So we all went up to
the top of the hill, walked around for hours on end,
and then they came back with an idea that Brad
just kept pushing, you know, in certain directions, and I'm
really pleased with it. So what you saw that big
long lit area is literally the walkway off to your
(40:51):
right is the barrel room. That you can see through windows,
and then when you get to the end of it,
you see that big open room that you saw on
the video that faced the blues.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So when you go there to for a tasting experience,
what are some examples of tasting experiences that you offer
to people who wish to visit Equi Lens.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
So we do flights. The flights are ever changing. So
it may be that you do Aron flight, so you
see the Sans, you see the Grenache, you see the Sirah.
It may be that you do more of a Bordeaux
flight these days, or certainly during you know, the warmer months,
we were very focused on the white wines we make
because we not only make the Sylvian Blanc, as I said,
(41:31):
we had the Albus until that sold out. We had
a small amount of Grenache blanc that we fermented in
clay Amphora that we quickly sold out of. We made
Russin that disappeared instantly. We made al Rahemo that disappeared instantly,
making more of each of those. So you know, we'll
set up flights based on kind of what's available, but
also the season. Right now, it's more about let's give
(41:53):
you some bigger Boulder reds.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
You know, one of the things I noticed on your
website was that there are a lot of different types
of vessels at your winery. It's not just stainless steel
in Barique. You've got big oak, you've got concrete eggs,
you've got some amphora. Tell us about the philosophy behind
using all these different things, and highlight a couple of
wines for us.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Sure, of course, Well poor Brad, you know, he gets
to pay for the toys, because I'm always like Brian
and I are like, well, you know what we could buy.
And so the reasling that you had, about a third
of that came out of a concrete egg, and then
about two thirds of it was stainless steel. But we
also make a dry reasling that will release in twenty
(42:38):
six that about a third of it was in concrete
egg and two thirds came out of an Austrian oval.
It's about the same amount as ten barrels. It's a
giant oval from you know, with Austrian wood. We ran
some white wine through it to kind of clean it up,
and then fermended the reasling in there and it just
came out beautiful. It's really wonderful how that's altered the
(43:00):
reasoning force those concrete eggs. What they did for us
with the selvium blanc is add some texture. Concrete is
a porous surface, and it allows this kind of continuous
oxygen ingress that can help a wine to develop some texture.
We've got giant concrete tulips that are well they're giant,
(43:24):
you know, they're like twelve feet tall, and we have
done Rose's in them. Once again, you get this kind
of inner convection inside there. You get some porosity that
helps the wine not to be so steely and tough,
but allows the wine to kind of open up and
become a bit more supple. So that was initially used
(43:46):
for cabernet and for Reasling and for sevieum blanc. And
we decided last year that concrete cubes are better vessels
for Syrah and for cabernet. So now that cabinets and
thes go in these rather large concrete cubes, you know,
the kind of these are the kind of toys that
you're seeing now often in Bordeaux, as we're sort of
(44:08):
going back to the past and seeing how that the
world of stainless steel is useful for certain walks, certainly
to keep that reasoning that you had nice and bright
and shiny. That stainless steel is very useful. But when
you're trying to create more I think gentler or more
complex textures, I think having concrete, having a lot of
(44:31):
oak to play with. David, as you mentioned, for our Surrah,
all the Sarragos in five hundred liter puncheons, which allows
more oxygen than oak exposure. And for me with Sirah,
that's really really important. And I saw this in the
eighties the first time I went to the Rhone Valley.
Everybody I visited had five hundred liters, and I thought,
if I ever make straw, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So what do you what's in your crystal ball for
echo lands you in Rads.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, I think as the vineyards come online around the winery,
you know, you saw some of the early versions of
those those vines. They're really happy up there, and so
they're growing quickly, We're going to have more toys to
play with. Like I said, Vermentino and Grenache Blanc will
probably get our first ginage next year. We grew on
(45:21):
the Taggart side on the southern end, where it's really
hot and dry and windy. We grew some assirt go
the famous and yeah, we had enough to make twelve
cases this year because the plants are babies and it's like, oh,
this is going to be good. It seems real happy there,
but it's you know, it's hot, dry, windy on volcanic soil.
Sounds like Santorini, you know, So we'll see how that goes.
(45:44):
And I think most importantly what we discovered in the
seventh year of Taggart, we really had I honestly have
to admit I had started to lose hope in that vineyard.
It was really struggling. There was really you know, I
wasn't getting the yields that I thought I deserved. I
wasn't sure what was going on. And in twenty five
this past year, the heavens opened up. It's like, oh
(46:07):
my god, that's what we were waiting for.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
It.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
And my neighbors, like, you know, for Marty, you know,
Club at Nicole with Ferguson Vinyer was like, oh, it
takes time up here, you have to wait. It's really
a tough space. But once the mines get there, then
you're off to the races. And it seems to be true.
So we're, you know, believing that we can make kind
of bigger, more complex red wine. But we also, as
I say, have pivoted to as well, making lighter style
(46:33):
reds and hopefully making more complex white wine.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well, it'll be interesting to see where you go with
this because it's still a very young winery in the
scheme of things. One last question before we have to wrap.
So you're part of a small and estinguished group of
sommeliers of note who had ventured into becoming vennors up
in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, with success, So congratulations. What
would you say to anyone who is listening or watching
(46:57):
to the show thinking I want to create my next
job and do what Doug and Larry stone Rager all
these people have done.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
What do you want to say to them, Well, that
the old line is the only way to make a
small fortune in the wine business to begin with a
large one. So I you know, I hesitate to encourage
anybody to do it unless you just have that burning
desire and you can find a business partner or partners
who get it. This is not a ten year project.
(47:26):
It's well a twenty or thirty year project, and you
have to approach it that way. It is just there's
no way, especially these days. I mean, the market is
very unsettled, and you know, the larger market the world
is very unsettled, and so it's even more difficult today.
You just have to be in it for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And patience and you know, mother Nature ultimately has a
final word.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yes she does. Oh man, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Well, Doug, it's great to talk to you again for
another much more focused story of your life for the
Connected Table Live. We wish you all the best. We
can't wait to come out and visit Echo Lands and
Winery and also Walla Walla and really experience it for
ourselves firsthand.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
We would love to have you out there, but of
course I look forward to seeing you in your anywhere
Jelly Noiland soon. You know, that's one of the greatest
cities in the world. That's all.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
We'll be here. We'll be here, so thank you again.
If you are watching and listening and want more information,
it's Echo Lendswinery dot com. You can go there's some
great information there about the winery, and then you can
also go to the Washington Wine Institute and the Walla
Walla Valley AVA websites for more information on the region
and the wines, which is I found very helpful as
(48:39):
well because it's totally unique. Because as we all know,
the United States, you make wine everywhere. There is wine
made in every United States. So go out there and
travel and explore and taste because we want you to
expand your palate and we hope that this show will
inspire you to eat, drink, explore, and be more expired inspired.
So thank you for joining us, Doug on ol of
(49:01):
our viewers and listeners on another edition of The Connected
Table Life. Always stay insatiably curious.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.