May 15, 2024 • 50 mins
Rocky Pond Links
rockypondwinery.com
Instagram: @rockypondwinery
Bung Pod
bungpod.store
From the vine-laden landscapes of New York to the innovative wineries in Orondo, Washington, Liz Keyser's journey epitomizes the passion and grit that define the world of winemaking. Our latest chat bubbles with stories of her ascent, shattering the glass ceiling along the way. As we swirl through anecdotes and insights, you'll be captivated by her transformative experience in Santa Barbara's wine circles and her groundbreaking work at Rocky Pond. Liz is more than a guest; she's a beacon for the evolving role of women in this storied industry.
Raise a glass to the narrative behind each bottle as we reminisce about the 2022 vintage—a story of overcoming the whims of weather and the dance of phenology. The character of Rocky Pond's Stratasone blends owes much to the bold choice of whole cluster fermentation, showcasing how innovation can coax the unique personality of Grenache to the fore. From the challenging arrival in Chelan to the harmonious flavor profiles that emerged, this is a tale of resilience and creativity that's sure to enrich your appreciation for the fine craft of winemaking.
As we peek into the vineyard's future, your palate will tingle with anticipation. We're not just planting vines; we're cultivating experiences that blend the richness of fine wine with the warmth of unforgettable moments. Discover how varietals like Malbec thrive in Washington's short seasons and how co-fermented Syrah and Viognier foretell a tantalizing future for Rocky Pond's vision. Sit back, sip, and savor this episode where each story is as engaging as the wines we cherish.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bung pod.
Welcome back, wine Wonderboy.
And we got Jazzy J.
Jazzy, what is a bung?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bung.
Wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
Welcome back to the bung pod.
(00:28):
It's your boy, ian King, akaWine Wonderboy, and we got my
co-host with me, jazzy J.
Say what's up, jazz, hi.
Thank you guys for supportingthe podcast.
Love the support If you canleave a five-star feedback on
whatever you're listening.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
How great I am.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
On how great we are.
That would be wonderful.
Also connect with us onInstagram, TikTok, ex-formerly
Twitter, at OfficialBungPod.
And.
This podcast episode is veryexciting because we have a
special guest today we're in aspecial place today, we are in a
special place.
We are in Arundo Washington,washington.
(01:05):
Um, why are you like this?
Dude, I don't know I just getcrazy on the mic.
Um orondo, washington, um northcentral washington, at, uh,
rocky pond, and we have the winemaker with us.
We got liz kaiser, kaiser,kaiser I'm so sorry, all good,
(01:33):
yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's one of those last names.
That it's okay, honestly yeah,I can be your kaiser.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I love it.
I knew one of these days I wasgonna botch someone's name and I
just try to do my homework.
I really do All good.
Yeah, well, thank you forjoining us.
I think you're our first womanwinemaker on the pod.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, you are actually Very cool, yeah, right
on Hashtag women in wine.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What's up?
I love that.
That's so fun.
It is kind of funny because myintroduction into the wine
industry in Santa Barbara therewere in my circle there were a
lot of women winemakers.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I was hearing all this big push about women in
wine and support women in wine.
And usually when people havelike a sort of campaign or
something like that, it'susually because there's a lack
of representation.
But in my little circle I wasjust like why is this thing of
campaign or something like that?
It's usually because there's alack of representation.
And then, but in my littlecircle I was just like why is
this thing?
I mean, there's so many womenin wine, like all my friends who
(02:32):
are women, are like inwinemakers and like one is, you
know, has her own label, startedher own label, and I was like
what is this?
and then I went outside of thesanta barbara little uh pocket I
was in and I was like oh right,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, there's another world out there.
Oh, that's so fun, I didn'teven realize that.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I think that that's really one of like the really
awesome benefits of working in akind of I mean, obviously Santa
Barbara is a nostalgicestablished wine growing region,
but those kind of smaller winegrowing regions there's so much
more representation of reallykind of who is drinking wine but
also, um, people at all levelsin in the winemaking process.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So yeah yeah I mean when I first started, like I was
when I was super green to thewhole industry, um, because wine
is such like I, I don't know,growing up it's always been like
a quote unquote like femaleproducts, like women drink wine,
guys drink beer or liquor youknow whatever.
Um, and so I was like oh yeah,like it's a female product, so
(03:34):
it's gotta be have a ton offemales working there.
And uh, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And um I that's life.
I have learned True.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You live and then you learn and you adjust Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, so your background is a little
interesting.
Yeah, so you came up toWashington State.
Are you from here?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, I grew up in New York, actually.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
New York, yeah, like New York, new York, new York,
new York, wow.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So yeah, New York, New York.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
New York New.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
York, wow, well, not the city, but Westchester County
.
Okay, so I grew up in a towncalled Pelham, bordering the
Bronx.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And agriculture wine scene was totally like a world
removed from where I grew up.
I'm like mind blown right now.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
My parents were really fabulous wine collectors
and it's always kind of beenthis background thing of like I
don't know big holiday or familyevent.
There's always like thisceremony around, like what wine
we're gonna serve, type of thing.
Yeah, and I just thought thatthat's how normal families were.
Yeah, because, like you don'tknow until you know, and so I
(04:44):
graduated from undergrad withjust kind of this like insane
amount of wine knowledge for a20 year old kid, and um started
working in a retail shop in NewYork called Zachy's and at that
time it was one of the largestwine retailers for fine wine and
um, you know, was able to growon kind of the baseline
(05:05):
knowledge that I already had.
And there's only so much timethat you can spend there before
you're like, how is thisactually made?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And so I um yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
How old were you when you started that 21.
?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, yeah, so just like fresh out the gate yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And so I mean I graduated in kind of a crummy
economy and so it was likeeverybody wanted to um, I don't
know find themselves at thatmoment Right, like it's post
2008 people who are like laidoff, especially in like in my
area of the world where it waslike wall street shut down
basically.
(05:38):
Right and so um started workingat this wine retailer and, you
know, started working andstarted working more on the
junior buying side, and so wasable to have contact with
winemakers as they came into ourstore and really kind of bend
their ear for a little bit oftime and finally found somebody
(05:58):
who would take me under theirwing and invited me out for my
first harvest in 2011.
And from there really quicklyorganized my life to no longer
be in wine retail.
So I applied to a bunch ofdifferent post-bac and um
analogy programs across thecountry and actually found my
(06:19):
way back to New York fromCalifornia and um found myself
in the Finger Lakes for myenology degree.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah so.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I worked for Cornell's extension office with
our Finger Lakes scrape program,so learning, you know,
technical enology studies, butalso having my hand on the vit
side of things, and from therewas really just ready to explore
more and kind of I wanted tojust work in as many different
(06:49):
places as possible to try tolike really round things out.
And I think at that time I waspretty naive and was like, yeah,
I'm gonna start my own mindlabel at 22 did not happen,
obviously but it brought me tooregon, and then, and then
Australia, and then um that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, where'd you go in Australia?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
McLaren Vale okay, yeah so I worked for Hardy
Centauri, which is a super,super large production facility.
Be like saying you work for EJGallo um, here in the states and
kind of from there stepped downin production levels, because
that was to me a little bit ofthe soul of winemaking had been
lost in the sauce.
When it's like you know, justyeah that big containers of
(07:31):
grapes coming in every day, justkind of like going to direct
press, and so um kind of honedin my my search for a full-time
position and found myself inNapa, um, and was hired by Hall
Family Wines.
And that's where I would meet myreally good friend and mentor
in the wine industry, SteveLevesque, who was eventually
(07:53):
hired by Rocky Pond asconsulting winemaker, and so I
spent five years kind of risingthe ranks in the winemaking team
at Hall and at that point intime just really wanted more
creative license but alsoownership.
I was in a role where I was aproduction winemaker,
essentially like executing thecreative vision of somebody else
(08:14):
, and just really wanted thatopportunity to play with more
different varietals than what wewere doing.
Yeah, but also just kind oflike try it on for size a little
bit.
And um, yeah, everything kindof came together when rocky pond
was also um, thinking that theywould grow their winemaking
team and maybe restructure it,and so, um, I was chirping and
(08:38):
steve's ear being like I thinkI'm ready, can you like keep
your ear to the ground?
And I'm not necessarilyattached to Napa or Sonoma, I
think I really want to like gooutside the box on this.
And he was like sit tight,there's this really cool thing
happening in Washington that I'ma part of and, um, just fly up
for a weekend.
You and you and Matt jump on aplane, go meet the Dufan horse
(09:00):
and John Ware.
And then it was literally likethree days here in Aranda and we
were signing papers, resigningour jobs, figuring out how to,
how we're going to move toWashington.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So yeah, well, it's such a great family to work for.
So it's not.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
It's it's fabulous.
And when you look at thebroader team that they've
assembled, with John Ware withhis you know 20 some odd year
with Quiltsita Creek, and then,um, you have Holly and Danny,
and this um really just likeawesome female led team um here
at the winery and it was reallycool.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
it was really inspiring and got to hire my
team too, and so I have, likethis really awesome smart
assistant winemaker who's fromChelan and um, a local girl from
Waterville, as our seller leadand we just we get stuff done.
So it's fun.
Yeah, oh, that's so fun.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I love that.
It's a cool story, are you sureyou?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
don't need anybody else.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well, we're growing, but not quite yet we're pretty
well staffed um, awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So when did you come to chelan?
What year was that?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
february of 2022, gosh, it's already been that
long, yeah yeah, so I inheritedthe um kind of unblended
components of 2020 and 2021,assembled those blends for for
rocky pond, and then 2022 was myfirst vintage here.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
From start, to finish oh, that's awesome.
That was a good year.
Oh, it was a brutal year ohyeah, that was a rough year.
At the end there was a reallyearly cold.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Oh yeah, like november, like fourth, or
something started dumping snow,yeah that was really dumb and it
took forever to get out of thatkind of like gross winter mode.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we just lived in like monotone colors down here
for like ever.
It was May before things likestarted to turn green and I'm a
little bit of like a phenologynerd, and so I was tracking
things against the historicrecords and we stayed at like a
two to three week pace behindhistoric records until we hit
(11:06):
october.
And october was a godsendbecause it was four weeks of
just gorgeous weather well, itwas so pretty and then snowed
basically halloween and we werelike, okay, gotta get it all in.
Oh yeah, I moved up here, april22.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, I moved up here april 22 and then the first
week I was here, um, we weregonna go down for a conference
in tri-cities and it was likeapril and it was dumping snow
like early in the morning and Iwas like what the fuck is going
on here?
Like I was just so it's like anormal life.
Yeah, yeah, we're like oh, it'scool and then like living in
(11:43):
santa barbara for like 11 yearsI was like, oh my god, I gotta
get carhartt jacket out, I gottaget like.
I was all layered up and bundledup, yep, for the car ride down
and then it all melted off andit was like 50 degrees whatever
in the afternoon and I didn'thave like anything else and so I
was just sweating.
I got taking off layers but Iwas like sweating at this
(12:05):
conference and I was like Ishould have dressed way
differently because everyonehere is just like in a Patagonia
jacket.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I was going to say, then all you need is a
sweatshirt or something.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Maybe a light layer over that.
Yeah, and it's like, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
All right, so we should introduce the wines we
have today, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Do yeah, yeah.
Do you want to talk about therosé, or do you want to just?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
launch into the red to me, let's.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
We'll just skip forward, let's go we were just
drinking a rosé um granache,sram or vedra, yeah, yeah, it
was delicious.
And then this is it's umsibling wine, also stratosone.
So for rocky pond, anythingthat falls in the Rhone family
and is a blend, we give the nameStratasone.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Where does that come from I?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
was going to say.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So Stratasone is actually a rock formation and
Dani, the daughter of theDoofenhorses a little bit of a
geology nerd.
That was one of her favoriteclasses in undergrad and when we
were naming these wines shereally loved the name
Stratastone and so it's kind ofa reference to the rocks where
(13:10):
we actually grow our Grenache,syrah and Mervet tends to be the
more like pervasively rockysections of our vineyards and so
, yeah, it all just kind of liketies in pretty neatly and, um,
so this is going to be a almost34% Grenache.
Um, we did 30% whole cluster onon the Grenache and then, um,
(13:32):
squeaky clean on the, theMarvette and the Syrah.
For the remaining, you know, 60ish parts.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, people listening.
Um, why do you do whole cluster?
What's the point in that?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Um, um, yeah, so whole cluster can kind of bring
out a little bit more of like aspicy character.
Um, depending on the, the levelof inclusion, it can start to
shift your ph with a potassiumblocker and so, um, it's a good
way to kind of eke out a littlebit more spice and texture out
of um, out of varietals, and Ithink like it's such a
(14:06):
traditional practice in therhone.
But when I inherited some ofthe wines from rocky pond I
really I loved the texture ofthe grenache but I just wanted a
little bit more than kind oflike it was a little bit in the
pocket of kind of like adultkool-aid and I was like we need
to funk this up.
Yeah, and so whole cluster is areally easy lever to pull to
kind of like get you more onthat earthy mineral spicy drive.
(14:28):
So played around with itbecause the fruit was really
clean and pretty low risk to beable to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
That's awesome, yeah, so who wants to give the
tasting notes here?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Oh, let's do this one I do it all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Oh goodness.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
If you want to break down the lines for us um, yeah,
we generally do, well, not he.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Ian does.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Uh, well, explains the color for our listeners, the
notes that he gets I basicallyquickly go down the grid
essentially okay but like notfully, I don't really give, like
you know but we want to explainto our listeners Medium, medium
, minus.
I don't do that, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It's a quick like tasting note for those who are
listening so that they can.
If it sounds interesting tothem, they can go to your
website and purchase it.
Yeah, or your tasting room,depending on where they're at.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Also check the show notes.
All the links to Rocky Pond forpurchasing wines and the Wine
Club link will be there.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, yeah.
So 2022 is a pretty coolvintage for us, right, and so
for me all of the wines acrossthe board in 2022 have this
fingerprint of just a little bitmore of that cooler tone, a
little bit more peaked acidity,and I really dig the tension and
(15:47):
that kind of like palate feelwhen you have a little bit
higher acidity.
And so this is going to be apretty traditional blend about
34% Grenache, 33% Morved, 33%Syrah, and on the nose I get a
lot of like super spicycharacter, a little bit of that
kind of like whole clustergreenness.
Um, and then on the palate, I Ialways find with um like GSM
(16:13):
blends, they tend to fall intothe more like medium bodied uh
category this one, I would putin that that category as well um
, I get a lot of kind of likespicy bramble fruit and get a
bite to it.
Yeah, this um kind of likemineral kick too.
We we farm in the rocky reach,ava, but also lake chelan, and
(16:34):
this blend is going to be 100sourced from our Rocky Reach
vineyards.
And for me there's just alwaysthis anchoring of kind of like a
mineral undertow to those wines.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I love that, yeah, which goes right into.
I want to hear all about yourvineyards.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, yeah, so I do have photos, so like we can
always post those for people tolook.
But give us the breakdown.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Sure.
So I guess the down and dirtyhistory of Rocky Pond.
The Doofenhors family purchasedtheir original acreage here in
Aranda when it was still part ofthe larger Columbia Valley AVA,
and as they were developingthis stretch of land, they
engaged the services of tworeally key people Dick Boucher,
(17:20):
who's a revered grower here inWashington State, to kind of
give the thumbs up that yeah,this is going to be good land to
plant for vinifera, and thenthey also engaged the services
of Dr Kevin Pogue from WhitmanCollege, who is a soil scientist
, a soil scientist and when hecame here to review the soil pit
(17:43):
analysis, he discovered that weare actually on a fundamentally
different bedrock layer thanthe balance of the Columbia
Valley.
And so Columbia Valley is goingto be this big stretch of basalt
as your basement layer and wehave this really tight band of
quartz silica that's from aboutWenatchee up to as far as, like
I don't know, lone pine fruitstand.
(18:05):
So sorry, sorry for the thelocal reference, but I don't
know where else to say like 10miles, that way, right yeah and
then the boundary is really the,the plateaus to um the east and
the west of us.
So it rises from about 700 feetin elevation on the Columbia
River to about 1,100 feet inelevation.
(18:25):
So before you get up to theplateaus in Waterville it's
already flipped back to theColumbia Valley and so really
really tight band that also hasthis really awesome heat sink to
it and so we can be anywherefrom 10 to 12 degrees warmer
from our soil probes than ourvineyards on Lake Chelan.
So that kind of steered them inthe direction of being
(18:48):
predominantly planted to redvarietals here on the river.
Kind of helps us get a littlebit more maturity, a little bit
more phenolic ripeness.
And I think it's a little bit ofa misnomer to classify Chelan
or Rocky Reach as cool climateregions.
They're just fundamentally not,but they are is they're
compressed growing seasons andso you have to really be
(19:11):
diligent about your yourviticultural inputs and having
that a little bit extra heatsummation here really it kind of
it helps push things along alittle bit more um.
So yeah, that the soil profileis is really awesome, well
draining um mixture of thatbasement layer of quartz silica,
followed by this unsorted rivercobble that's as small as like
(19:34):
a tiny pebble that you would seein a fish tank, all the way up
to like these boulders that arethe size of a gadgeta, and so
that kind of is the thedelicious layer cakes that we're
we're growing yeah, yeah, so,um and so when did uh rocky
reach become its own ava in?
2022, so and wasn't it the 22ndava or something it was was the
(19:57):
20th AVA yeah, so I think thatthere's maybe like six or seven
additional AVAs who are on thequeue with the TTB but have not
been approved yet.
So I think we're still like thenew kid on the block.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I love that.
Yeah, oh, how fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh, that's awesome.
So you're able to grow.
Okay, so in Lake Chelan forthose listening that don't know
the area it's pretty difficultsometimes to grow Grenache and
Morvedra and some of those.
Rhone varieties into fullmaturity and ripeness yeah.
But you're able to do it herewhich is not too far away from
(20:34):
Chelan but is geologically verydifferent Mm-hmm, which is not
too far away from Chelan but isgeologically very different.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
So are you seeing any issue with getting those into
full ripeness?
No, and I think that is thebenefit of being down here on
the river, In the same way thatLake Chelan acts as a moderating
body for the Lake Chelan AVAthe river is also a moderating
body for us too, and so get somebecause your vineyards are like
like a river on the river onthe river yeah we're looking at
(21:04):
it right now and everyone.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
It's a big river uh it's not one of these small
little creeks that you see,sometimes we're gonna go down
the river and float.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
It's a big ass river, people boat on it, so yeah,
it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, so you know, vines always like a, like really
primo view, um, so they getwaterfront property here,
waterfront property and lakechelan, and it must be nice, I
know right, yeah I love to be avine in my um, you know next
life reincarnation, yeah, that'swhat I was looking for, yeah,
(21:40):
um.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So how many great varieties do you guys grow here?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
so we have 28 um different varietals under vine.
Not all of it comes to rockypond, so kind of like simplified
on in the rocky reach we'redoing predominantly cab, merlot,
malbec for the bordeaux familyand then traditional suite of
gsm.
On the rhone side we do have,uh, viennier, marsan and roussan
(22:10):
, as well as savion blanc umgrown here in the rocky reach.
And then when you get to theclocheval vineyard, that's when
we kind of in chelan and that'sin chelan we open up to have
aromatic varietals like rieslingand covert streaminer, pinot
gris, sparkling base wine, sochardonnay, pinot noir, pinot
meunier and then syrah, and soall in we have um this, this
(22:34):
kind of like classic washingtonmix of the crispy white
varietals all the way through tothe sweet of Bordeaux.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So yeah, all right, let's take a break for a minute,
because Jazzy has got somethingto tell you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Did you know we do have extra episodes on Patreon
and you can only get these for$5.
What, yeah Christ, I know Dope,so go to Patreon.
Link is in the description ofthe episode and subscribe $5.
You're supporting us and you'regetting to learn more about the
(23:10):
wine industry.
Let's go, woo, all right, allright, all right, guess what?
I think Ian has something totell us.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I do, I do.
We got some merch going onright now.
We got hoodies.
Say what we got handbags.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
No way.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
We got stickers, what we got.
Tank tops right now for thesummertime, ooh Hell.
Yeah, we got some windbreakerstoo, oh shit.
So go to bungpodstore and getyour bungpod merch, yeah.
So I've been on this campaignfor a new grape variety in
(23:47):
Washington state.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Oh, yes, I'm here for this, yeah, and I want to know
what you.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I want to know your thoughts on this.
Okay, so one thing I've seen isthat washington state is
lacking a really good, complexum lighter red grape variety
just like how oregon is, likethey're known for their pinot
noir sure yeah, and we don'tknow, not to people that you
(24:13):
know, make pinot out here.
I'm not sure if you guys are ornot, but um I every Pinot I've
tried in Washington state hasbeen very mid.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, you know it's like it's.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I get it's very one dimensional, a lot of times very
simple.
They're like just cranberry orjust cherry and then that's it
for the most part.
There's been a few that I'mlike, okay, this is a little bit
interesting, but my thing islike I think Gamay would be an
amazing grape variety inWashington State and I've had
some from like Sincline from theGorge.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And theirs is.
It's light, it's complex, it'smore like a fleurie and I just
like, absolutely love thosewines and it's definitely my own
um passion to for people tomake a good.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I mean, I, I love Gamay as well.
I actually think that, um, downhere where we are at the
production facility, where wehave this like close to foot
deep of sand and um silt, itmight be really compelling to to
put, uh gamay on this, but itwould also thrive on the stones
that we have up at double d.
So, yeah, um yeah, cool, coolconcept, I think.
(25:27):
For us, though, what we'relooking to do is we we started
off with this huge, wide arrayof varietals, trying to, like,
see what would work, and nowwe're in that kind of more taper
and focus mode, and so I don'tknow if we'll be replanting any
but I would love to see becauseI'm not asking.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I love you watching all the ones that you make and
you would make a great one no,but I think like it's not much
to ask, yeah, come on granache.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
To me, though, is kind of like that spicy, lighter
red where it's growing, hereand so yeah, no more power to
you to grow some.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, grenache was my first, uh, love, yeah For great
varieties, just because, likewhen I first started, all I knew
about was like Merlot Cab andPinot Noir and that was it.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And everybody does.
Yeah, and then when I startedat carhartt um, which people can
watch the last episode that wedid with them um number 16, they
had a grenache and it was alighter kind of style but it was
very unique and complex and ithad the little sea spray um
thing that santa barbara wines alot of times are a little
closer to the ocean house and itwas just so interesting I was
(26:40):
like okay, this is what wine canbe.
It's not just like, um, youknow, columbia Crest or whatever
that I grew up my my mom.
I grew up watching my mom drinkUm and.
I'm like oh so wine is a littlemore complex and this and then
that's what started the rabbithole into making this a career,
(27:02):
into making wine a career, um,and then I was broke and I still
am.
And then, um, I was going to mywine education process from w
set three and then also acertified specialist of wines,
and I had to buy so many wines,um, and my friend is a wine
buyer and I went through him forpretty much everything and I
(27:23):
was like, look, I want a goodBurgundy, but I'm broke and my
friend told me that Beaujolaiswas the best thing, best you
know, bang for your buck for,like, quote unquote, burgundy, I
guess, um, and then after thatjust fell in love.
I was like this is the shit,this is what.
This is what I'm about, yeah,so like, I've had a lot of gamay
(27:46):
, uh, domestic gamay in santabarbara and also sonoma pac,
small, makes a great, uh, has acouple great gamays over there.
He also makes trousseau noirand I also.
I also love that, love the verylight body.
Basically, like you know, myfriend calls it the juice box.
He's like I'm on the juice boxcraze, you know, but that's more
(28:10):
kind of natural wine.
Quote, unquote, whatever thatterm is, but yeah, anyways.
Yeah.
So I've been on a gamay kickwanting people in washington to
plant gamay and make a good oneyeah, because I think it could
be a great great I think you canoutshine pino noir in
washington state.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's all I'm saying it's not much to ask for not
much to ask for.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
But yeah, I know I love what you guys are doing um
you guys are also growingtemperanillo here.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So we did have Tempranillo at one point in time
.
That was grafted over to SavionBlanc, oh, okay, and yeah, the
Musque clone of Savion Blanc atour Double D Vineyard.
So there is this section of thevineyard where the rows are
running east-west instead ofnorth-s, northwest, southwest or
(29:00):
southeast, and, um, it wasreally challenging to get
uniform ripeness because youhave a certain amount of
sunlight hours on one side ofthe canopy and the others wasn't
being exposed properly, and so,um kind of came in and grafted
that away from any of the redvarietals that were over there
(29:25):
and I think that the Tempranilloat the time was really only
kind of going into a roséprogram.
So it would be cool to developa different site with a
different aspect for Tempranillohere, because I think that that
could be a really viablevarietal for this area.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But yeah, what's your favorite grape to play with?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Ooh, I am having so much fun playing around with
malbec okay, actually, I thinkfor me, I love malbecs.
Well, they're so fun for me,coming from napa, like malbec
doesn't ever get its fair shakethere, and yeah the styles that
you get domestically.
In napa, at least what I wasexposed to, there's these just
like fat overripe over oak todeath type of expressions, and
(30:07):
so I never really kind of likegave it its fair shake until I
moved here and that was one oflike the most delicious
surprises is there's reallygorgeous complexity but also
some cool tension, and I thinkthat you know like we were
talking about.
This is a compressed growingseason.
Having more of those earlyripening Bordeaux varietals
really kind of like saves thebacon when you need to do some
(30:28):
blending on.
It really does, yeah.
So I think, yeah, malbec hasbeen super fun to work with.
And then I'm having a field daywith playing around with Sarag
and you know I didn't.
I didn't make it for six years.
It was my time in Australiawhere I was making sarah, so
yeah, um so yeah it's, it's beenreally fun just kind of being
(30:51):
able to, like you know, be supercreative and also explore a
bunch of different varietals.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So what are you excited about?
Like the future, like whatRocky Pond's doing and the
future that they're pursuing.
I mean they have a lot going on.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think, um, david andMichelle have this passion for
entertainment as well as,obviously, wine, but for them
it's it's like setting a table.
It needs to come with fabulousfood, really great music, a
place to wine and dine and thenstay.
And I think that, like you know, we're we're all from this area
(31:29):
, we know how underserved, youknow fine hotels are in this
area and so they had this visionto not only um own wine label
but build it and they will cometype of concept for here.
So in development is a 60-roomboutique hotel on our property,
(31:49):
as well as fractional ownershiphomes and actually this summer
and you guys should come downfor some of the concerts are
unveiling a um 500 person musicvenue at yeah, that's so.
It's really fun yeah so we havekind of like some of the the
local faves here, like whiskeytrail, coming in, but then we
(32:12):
also, you know, the hope is tobe able to draw some bigger
entertainment too yeah, yeah,well, and it's just again.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
It's like, uh, the gorge, beautiful venue, great,
like you have the river rightthere, you have everything all
right there.
But this is like more likebougie, I like more like
(32:46):
billionaire cowboy, you knowwhat I mean.
It's very like yellowstonevibes.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I know that well because it's like super rustic
right, but there is this likegorgeous, pristine, untouched
nature about it.
Um, yeah, so it's.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's very little slice of heaven, very
agricultural and we have thewine, so obviously they're good,
they're bougie, but then throwa little boutique hotel word I
do, I love.
It might be my favorite word umand then also to have a music
venue.
What else could you ask for?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
yeah, I mean it's so when I was being recruited by
Rocky Pond this was all stilljust kind of like a dream for
them, and so I I stepped intoRocky Pond at a time where the
foundation was poured but nobuilding was there.
And here we are two years laterand it's like unveiled.
And every time you talk toDavid and Michelle, the vision
(33:41):
has grown yet again, and so it'sreally cool to see just their
kind of like attack and approachon on getting this done and
it's awesome to see there'sgoals, because there comes a
point where a lot of people willsay, oh, this is my goal, and
they come close or hit it andthen that's it, like they don't
continue their goals.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I'm kind of going through that phase right now of
like I, you know, graduatedcollege I said I'd move to
Chelan, I'd work at a winery.
Well, I've done that.
So what's my next goal?
And to keep goals going is hugeand I feel like some people
just they get comfortable.
Yeah.
(34:21):
That's the biggest thing, theyget comfortable and yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well, I think that that's like what's so exciting
about where we are and wherewe're farming right now.
The general consensus that Iget is, you know, chelan is
going through this almostRenaissance where people are
thinking about viticulture in amore serious way, and that's not
to not pay respect to kind oflike the, the legends who
(34:44):
started us here, right.
But there's this kind of likeyounger surge that's coming in
with fresh ideas and there's theability to really kind of
execute and get after it and besuper creative, and so it's fun
to be in that kind of headspacewhere everybody is like pushing
each other a little bit to bejust incrementally better and
just kind of working on movingthe goalpost.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
So yeah, that was kind of that's the one thing I
thought about when I was.
I did one harvest here, like in2019.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And that was like one thing that me and, uh, Charlie
Liebecker from Curtis reallytalked about.
And it was like if we can, likemove the needle and like
encourage each other and pusheach other to be better, than
like this would explode, likethis whole Valley would explode.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, absolutely In a good way.
Yeah, no, in a great way.
Yeah, I mean, even I wastalking to someone actually
today where they brought upgoing down to Walla Walla and
they're like like it was sounfortunate because they were so
spread out and all this stuffand you could barely find it.
But I feel like we do a reallygood job of supporting each
other and pushing each other tobe better.
yeah, um, you know, when peoplecome into the winery, it's not
(35:51):
the attitude of oh, I'm the bestone, why would you go anywhere
else, yeah, but it's the fact oflike, let me tell, like, I will
grab our, like Lakeland Valleywine book.
That's like here's where youshould go and I like highlight
like 15 of them and like, go tothese destinations like or like,
(36:11):
try to keep it in the same areawhere they're staying or
driving.
And I think we're all trying topush each other to be better,
but it also is a group effort,yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
And I think, like celebrating the diversity too is
super important.
You know at some point in timelike this could have been a
different conversation, whereeverybody is just making one
Syrah and we're just pattingthemselves on the back for like
growing this awesome thing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
But no, you see people playing around with, like
maybe, a gamay noir or you knowdiversity and grape varieties
exactly, yeah, sorry also in thefuture, but also but you know,
but also different, likewinemaking styles and you know,
like different influences foreverybody here like the
(36:59):
sandstone and the concretes, andpeople are playing with
different things, and even likeputting it in the tank for a
while and then into the concretefor a while.
You know people are playing andI love that.
Yeah, get out of your comfortzone.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
You don't need to be like Billy Joe down the street.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, so what's the other one that you brought?
Yeah, so the first one let'ssay it again so people know is a
stratostone?
Yeah, 2022 stratostone redgrenache, more vedra and syrah
gsm beautiful and then the nextone is the studio Sarah.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, so you know, kind of keeping in line with our
conversation about like beingsuper creative and hopefully
pushing the boundaries, Um, oneof the things that kind of keeps
me going year after year isjust this genuine intellectual
curiosity and, um, fortunatelyRocky pond has given me pretty
wide berth to to go afterwhatever curiosity I have at the
(38:04):
moment.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Also, like I know, like cause we had has behind the
scenes tour and you talkedabout that a little bit and I
just love it when, whencompanies do that and we'll just
give free reign or like I trustyou go ahead, play with it, and
so I'm really stoked thatyou're in that position.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It makes me very happy.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
No, I mean, it's so satisfying and it's totally what
I was searching for when I wasin my more kind of like
corporate-y winemaking job, andso it's super fun to kind of
like step into this role.
And at Koshval Vineyard, ourvineyard on Lake Chelan, we grow
Syrah at three differentelevations and the highest
(38:51):
elevation planting has nevertraditionally made a blend or a
single varietal wine for RockyPond, and so it gave me five to
six tons of Syrah to really becreative and playful with.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
And that's a lot of grapes right there.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It's a lot of grapes that that weren't doing anything
for us, right?
And so, um, what's the worstcase scenario?
We screw it up and it goes tothe bulk market, while it was
going to go there anyways, soyeah let's play.
And so, um yeah, when, when wewere picking it 2022, super
compressed growing season it wasa mad dash to get everything in
(39:22):
at the end, and we were pickingViognier at the same time that
we were picking Cab.
It was the weirdest vintage onearth in that regard.
So I remember that day when webrought in this five tons of
Syrah from the age block thereand we had also brought in close
(39:42):
to like seven tons of V&A.
Well, we have a three ton pressand I think there would have
been mutiny on my hands if I waslike guys, we're going to fire
that bad boy up for one morepress load today.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I've been in that position where someone looks at
me and I'm like, oh, so today'sthe day you want to die, exactly
.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So we were already slated to do a small amount of
of co-fermentation with this.
But then I was like you know,this maps out to where I can
have a really cool playful likeconcept here.
So we we did um four tons ofSyrah into the tank with one ton
of uh whole cluster VNA, more,more or less.
(40:26):
You know like it roughs out tobe 75% Syrah, 25% whole cluster
VNA, and um did not have highhopes for it but wanted to learn
a lot about kind of like.
If we push the boundaries onwhole cluster here, if we push
the boundaries onco-fermentation, what is that
going to look like?
And it very quickly became Jilland Carly's and my like
(40:48):
favorite ferment of the vintageand again a credit to the
Doofenhorst in just kind of likehaving faith in what we're
doing here.
They were like well, if youlove it so much, let's bottle it
.
And I was like thank you.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
That's so exciting.
You go home and cry and you'relike I.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Finally did it.
I mean, and not that we don'thave that same amount of like
creativity and like passion forthe other wines we do.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It was just like one of those happy little moments,
yeah and that's really like allright, like I don't know what
the outcome is going to be herebut, let's just go for it, yeah,
um, so why'd you do wholecluster in?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
that.
So again, I, you know, wouldhave had like a mile mutant on
my hand if it was not justsimple as like we're putting
wine or grapes into a tank.
Today, um and so we we weregoing to do whole cluster on the
syrah, but um had alreadyde-stemmed the majority of it
and so decided to have the wholecluster come in with the
(41:49):
vinaigre.
And because that vinaigre waskind of like sitting out there,
it was probably closer to like23, 23 and a half bricks okay,
the rachis had fully lignifiedand so when I was chomping on
explain what a brick is to ourviewers.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Sure, yeah, it's um also lignification and rachis so
.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
So bricks is kind of like the measurement of sugar
density of your, of your wine,and um 23 and a half bricks is
kind of on the medium high sidefor a white varietal but on the
kind of like lower side for ared.
And rachis is just a fancy wordfor the stem, yeah, and so, as
(42:29):
you're going through the growingseason and your vines are
maturing and coming into thatreally yummy stage, the green
tissue switches over to woodytissue, and so that's what
lignification is.
And, um, if you have a bunch ofgreen stems, they can
exacerbate some of the morestringent side of, um, your
tannin profiles.
(42:49):
And so it was important for me,in a cooler year like that, to
not give any more green to thefermenters, but I did want that
spice and I wanted that texturethat can come from it, and so,
um, it was just one of thosethings where, like, the stars
aligned and it was meant to be.
It was meant to be, so that'swhat we did.
Um, yeah, and so for me, I getthis like crazy high-toned
(43:13):
aromatics on this wine.
It's kind of like are you aviennier, are you a syrah?
Like, are you a Viennese, areyou a Syrah?
Like what are you?
But also this really cool, likespicy, chewy, almost like
tea-like tannin on the palate,and I think it's like we also
produce more traditional Syrah,which is going to be the more
muscular and powerful side ofthings, and so these side by
(43:36):
side are just polar opposites.
I hate using words likefeminine or like masculine,
right but.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
But you know, if you want to like, you know I this is
a really delicate feminine wine, but it still has that power
right, yeah, it's very smooth onthe palate and then it's just
like oh yeah, it's got a littlekick to it, baby I'm a little
bit of a texture hound, like Ilove that for my red wines.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I want that kind of smooth and silky, suave thing
yeah I like a little kick ofacidity at the end.
I want to feel like, okay,these tannins are well
integrated, it's givingstructure, but it's not being
like super drying and kind oflike killing your palate and um
on my whites.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I'm like more acid yeah, I'm kind of an acid head
as just as a yeah, acid headacid head yeah yeah, yeah, yeah
but, like I don't know, when Itook my w set three up in Napa,
I was very picky in which,because when I was working at a
wine shop under a wine buyer, Iwas helping with selecting
(44:45):
certain wines for the wine shopand so I'd meet with reps and
there's this one rep who came inand she was like, oh, you're
going to love this tasting.
It's all retail $150 plus allNapa wines.
And I was like okay, we'll seewhat happens.
And then I didn't like any ofthem and she just was a little
(45:05):
upset or not upset.
She was just like taken back.
But also we in our demographicthat was in Santa Barbara they
just didn't buy a lot of Napawines either, and so it doesn't
really matter if I like them ornot, cause I still have to talk
to the wine bar about purchasingthem for the wine shop If I
think it would be a good thingto curate the shop for.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Um, but I just didn't like any of them and cause.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
They're all the same.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
It's like you know like don't get me wrong, I love
Napa.
Um, there's certain wineriesthat I absolutely adore, so, um,
it's like frog sleep and heightcellar big fans of those people
.
Um, when I went to my W setthree, I took, did like a whole
weekend of it, you know, causeI've never been there before and
that was my first time.
(45:54):
So I was like, okay, cool, solet's just do.
A whole weekend I bounced arounda bunch of different wineries
and it was really fun because,like I don't necessarily, it's
just my personal, um, experience, my personal opinion, is like I
just don't really like overripeand over-oaked wines.
And that's what a lot of peoplewho go to Napa, who have a lot
(46:16):
of money and they just build upthis big thing and they're like,
okay, cool, and it's all verylike systematic and very
formulaic and like I want thisstyle of wine, like, okay, cool,
let's pump it up, yeah that'swhat's yeah, robert Parker likes
or whatever and like certainyou know um, but there's also a
ton of like amazing gems in Napaas well, and people are growing
(46:38):
things other than cap yes um,um, it's.
I mean it's mostly cab, but it's, you know, yeah, it really is.
Yeah, yeah, but, like I've, Ireally gravitate towards some of
those more kind of uh I don'twant to say French or Bordeaux
like cabs that are made in moredelicate style, that are like a
(46:58):
chorus and Matthias and vibe.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I love themyeah absolutely, and so that's
what I was like.
Okay, this opened my mind alittle bit more to to like the
Napa area and like it's justbecause I don't like huge wines,
but I think they also have aplace on a dinner table as well.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
So yeah, no, for sure .
I mean, where I was before, inNapa, we had, um, we sourced
fruit from 16 of the different,18 different AVAs in Napa, in
Napa County, and we quiteseriously made 12 different
expressions of Cabernet, and itwas at some point in time like
(47:35):
four by four, four by four, fourby four.
I need some acid, I need somelike life and brevity, and so it
was like it's yeah it's beenfun working with like cab of a
different style here in.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Washington.
So carbonic carbonate?
No, just kidding.
No, no, that'd be crazy yeah.
Um well do we want to wrap thisup and bring it on to the
Patreon?
Patreon yeah, let's do it.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
Liz, you are absolutely amazing.
Thank you so much for invitingus here or letting us crash your
(48:11):
spot and the tour, and you arevery knowledgeable and amazing
so everything, all the sociallinks will be in the show notes,
so it'll be the first thingthat you see in the show notes.
So go there um all the links totheir socials and also the
website and wine club.
So go there and click on that.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah, go to Rocky Pond's website and visit their
tasting rooms Super cute.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, they have tasting room in Wooden Creek,
woodinville area, and thenthey're also in, like Chelan, is
there another one?
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Is that Leavenworth?
Leavenworth as well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
So go go check it out , Check the wines out.
They're amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, thank you guys.
Thanks for having me oh shoot,I need to sorry.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
I messed this up.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I can't cheers an empty glass, that's just like.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
That's a mistake.
Cheers, hey you, now that Ihave your attention and you've
listened to this wonderfulpodcast that we had to offer,
we'd like you to scroll down.
(49:19):
And what?
What are they going to do whenthey scroll down?
Ian, scroll down and give ussome feedback.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Rate us on your podcast platform ideally five
stars, and if you would give ussome critical feedback, you can
DM us on Instagram atOfficialBungPod.
Let's hear it, let's go.
It is only two of us writingthe show, two of us producing
(49:46):
the show.
It's me, Ian King, JasmineShattuck and the lovely Becca
Hines.
As our producers and ourwriters are.
Me, ian King.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
And Jasmine Chaddick.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Let's go.
Bung pod.
Welcome back, wine Wonderboy.
And we got Jazzy J.
Jazzy, what is a bung?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bung.
Wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
Welcome back to the bung pod.
(00:28):
It's your boy, ian King, akaWine Wonderboy, and we got my
co-host with me, jazzy J.
Say what's up, jazz, hi.
Thank you guys for supportingthe podcast.
Love the support If you canleave a five-star feedback on
whatever you're listening.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
How great I am.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
On how great we are.
That would be wonderful.
Also connect with us onInstagram, TikTok, ex-formerly
Twitter, at OfficialBungPod.
And.
This podcast episode is veryexciting because we have a
special guest today we're in aspecial place today, we are in a
special place.
We are in Arundo Washington,washington.
(01:05):
Um, why are you like this?
Dude, I don't know I just getcrazy on the mic.
Um orondo, washington, um northcentral washington, at, uh,
rocky pond, and we have the winemaker with us.
We got liz kaiser, kaiser,kaiser I'm so sorry, all good,
(01:33):
yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's one of those last names.
That it's okay, honestly yeah,I can be your kaiser.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I love it.
I knew one of these days I wasgonna botch someone's name and I
just try to do my homework.
I really do All good.
Yeah, well, thank you forjoining us.
I think you're our first womanwinemaker on the pod.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, you are actually Very cool, yeah, right
on Hashtag women in wine.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What's up?
I love that.
That's so fun.
It is kind of funny because myintroduction into the wine
industry in Santa Barbara therewere in my circle there were a
lot of women winemakers.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I was hearing all this big push about women in
wine and support women in wine.
And usually when people havelike a sort of campaign or
something like that, it'susually because there's a lack
of representation.
But in my little circle I wasjust like why is this thing of
campaign or something like that?
It's usually because there's alack of representation.
And then, but in my littlecircle I was just like why is
this thing?
I mean, there's so many womenin wine, like all my friends who
(02:32):
are women, are like inwinemakers and like one is, you
know, has her own label, startedher own label, and I was like
what is this?
and then I went outside of thesanta barbara little uh pocket I
was in and I was like oh right,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, there's another world out there.
Oh, that's so fun, I didn'teven realize that.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I think that that's really one of like the really
awesome benefits of working in akind of I mean, obviously Santa
Barbara is a nostalgicestablished wine growing region,
but those kind of smaller winegrowing regions there's so much
more representation of reallykind of who is drinking wine but
also, um, people at all levelsin in the winemaking process.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So yeah yeah I mean when I first started, like I was
when I was super green to thewhole industry, um, because wine
is such like I, I don't know,growing up it's always been like
a quote unquote like femaleproducts, like women drink wine,
guys drink beer or liquor youknow whatever.
Um, and so I was like oh yeah,like it's a female product, so
(03:34):
it's gotta be have a ton offemales working there.
And uh, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And um I that's life.
I have learned True.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You live and then you learn and you adjust Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, so your background is a little
interesting.
Yeah, so you came up toWashington State.
Are you from here?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, I grew up in New York, actually.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
New York, yeah, like New York, new York, new York,
new York, wow.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So yeah, New York, New York.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
New York New.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
York, wow, well, not the city, but Westchester County
.
Okay, so I grew up in a towncalled Pelham, bordering the
Bronx.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And agriculture wine scene was totally like a world
removed from where I grew up.
I'm like mind blown right now.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
My parents were really fabulous wine collectors
and it's always kind of beenthis background thing of like I
don't know big holiday or familyevent.
There's always like thisceremony around, like what wine
we're gonna serve, type of thing.
Yeah, and I just thought thatthat's how normal families were.
Yeah, because, like you don'tknow until you know, and so I
(04:44):
graduated from undergrad withjust kind of this like insane
amount of wine knowledge for a20 year old kid, and um started
working in a retail shop in NewYork called Zachy's and at that
time it was one of the largestwine retailers for fine wine and
um, you know, was able to growon kind of the baseline
(05:05):
knowledge that I already had.
And there's only so much timethat you can spend there before
you're like, how is thisactually made?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And so I um yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
How old were you when you started that 21.
?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, yeah, so just like fresh out the gate yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And so I mean I graduated in kind of a crummy
economy and so it was likeeverybody wanted to um, I don't
know find themselves at thatmoment Right, like it's post
2008 people who are like laidoff, especially in like in my
area of the world where it waslike wall street shut down
basically.
(05:38):
Right and so um started workingat this wine retailer and, you
know, started working andstarted working more on the
junior buying side, and so wasable to have contact with
winemakers as they came into ourstore and really kind of bend
their ear for a little bit oftime and finally found somebody
(05:58):
who would take me under theirwing and invited me out for my
first harvest in 2011.
And from there really quicklyorganized my life to no longer
be in wine retail.
So I applied to a bunch ofdifferent post-bac and um
analogy programs across thecountry and actually found my
(06:19):
way back to New York fromCalifornia and um found myself
in the Finger Lakes for myenology degree.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah so.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I worked for Cornell's extension office with
our Finger Lakes scrape program,so learning, you know,
technical enology studies, butalso having my hand on the vit
side of things, and from therewas really just ready to explore
more and kind of I wanted tojust work in as many different
(06:49):
places as possible to try tolike really round things out.
And I think at that time I waspretty naive and was like, yeah,
I'm gonna start my own mindlabel at 22 did not happen,
obviously but it brought me tooregon, and then, and then
Australia, and then um that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, where'd you go in Australia?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
McLaren Vale okay, yeah so I worked for Hardy
Centauri, which is a super,super large production facility.
Be like saying you work for EJGallo um, here in the states and
kind of from there stepped downin production levels, because
that was to me a little bit ofthe soul of winemaking had been
lost in the sauce.
When it's like you know, justyeah that big containers of
(07:31):
grapes coming in every day, justkind of like going to direct
press, and so um kind of honedin my my search for a full-time
position and found myself inNapa, um, and was hired by Hall
Family Wines.
And that's where I would meet myreally good friend and mentor
in the wine industry, SteveLevesque, who was eventually
(07:53):
hired by Rocky Pond asconsulting winemaker, and so I
spent five years kind of risingthe ranks in the winemaking team
at Hall and at that point intime just really wanted more
creative license but alsoownership.
I was in a role where I was aproduction winemaker,
essentially like executing thecreative vision of somebody else
(08:14):
, and just really wanted thatopportunity to play with more
different varietals than what wewere doing.
Yeah, but also just kind oflike try it on for size a little
bit.
And um, yeah, everything kindof came together when rocky pond
was also um, thinking that theywould grow their winemaking
team and maybe restructure it,and so, um, I was chirping and
(08:38):
steve's ear being like I thinkI'm ready, can you like keep
your ear to the ground?
And I'm not necessarilyattached to Napa or Sonoma, I
think I really want to like gooutside the box on this.
And he was like sit tight,there's this really cool thing
happening in Washington that I'ma part of and, um, just fly up
for a weekend.
You and you and Matt jump on aplane, go meet the Dufan horse
(09:00):
and John Ware.
And then it was literally likethree days here in Aranda and we
were signing papers, resigningour jobs, figuring out how to,
how we're going to move toWashington.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So yeah, well, it's such a great family to work for.
So it's not.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
It's it's fabulous.
And when you look at thebroader team that they've
assembled, with John Ware withhis you know 20 some odd year
with Quiltsita Creek, and then,um, you have Holly and Danny,
and this um really just likeawesome female led team um here
at the winery and it was reallycool.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
it was really inspiring and got to hire my
team too, and so I have, likethis really awesome smart
assistant winemaker who's fromChelan and um, a local girl from
Waterville, as our seller leadand we just we get stuff done.
So it's fun.
Yeah, oh, that's so fun.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I love that.
It's a cool story, are you sureyou?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
don't need anybody else.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well, we're growing, but not quite yet we're pretty
well staffed um, awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So when did you come to chelan?
What year was that?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
february of 2022, gosh, it's already been that
long, yeah yeah, so I inheritedthe um kind of unblended
components of 2020 and 2021,assembled those blends for for
rocky pond, and then 2022 was myfirst vintage here.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
From start, to finish oh, that's awesome.
That was a good year.
Oh, it was a brutal year ohyeah, that was a rough year.
At the end there was a reallyearly cold.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Oh yeah, like november, like fourth, or
something started dumping snow,yeah that was really dumb and it
took forever to get out of thatkind of like gross winter mode.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we just lived in like monotone colors down here
for like ever.
It was May before things likestarted to turn green and I'm a
little bit of like a phenologynerd, and so I was tracking
things against the historicrecords and we stayed at like a
two to three week pace behindhistoric records until we hit
(11:06):
october.
And october was a godsendbecause it was four weeks of
just gorgeous weather well, itwas so pretty and then snowed
basically halloween and we werelike, okay, gotta get it all in.
Oh yeah, I moved up here, april22.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, I moved up here april 22 and then the first
week I was here, um, we weregonna go down for a conference
in tri-cities and it was likeapril and it was dumping snow
like early in the morning and Iwas like what the fuck is going
on here?
Like I was just so it's like anormal life.
Yeah, yeah, we're like oh, it'scool and then like living in
(11:43):
santa barbara for like 11 yearsI was like, oh my god, I gotta
get carhartt jacket out, I gottaget like.
I was all layered up and bundledup, yep, for the car ride down
and then it all melted off andit was like 50 degrees whatever
in the afternoon and I didn'thave like anything else and so I
was just sweating.
I got taking off layers but Iwas like sweating at this
(12:05):
conference and I was like Ishould have dressed way
differently because everyonehere is just like in a Patagonia
jacket.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I was going to say, then all you need is a
sweatshirt or something.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Maybe a light layer over that.
Yeah, and it's like, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
All right, so we should introduce the wines we
have today, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Do yeah, yeah.
Do you want to talk about therosé, or do you want to just?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
launch into the red to me, let's.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
We'll just skip forward, let's go we were just
drinking a rosé um granache,sram or vedra, yeah, yeah, it
was delicious.
And then this is it's umsibling wine, also stratosone.
So for rocky pond, anythingthat falls in the Rhone family
and is a blend, we give the nameStratasone.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Where does that come from I?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
was going to say.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So Stratasone is actually a rock formation and
Dani, the daughter of theDoofenhorses a little bit of a
geology nerd.
That was one of her favoriteclasses in undergrad and when we
were naming these wines shereally loved the name
Stratastone and so it's kind ofa reference to the rocks where
(13:10):
we actually grow our Grenache,syrah and Mervet tends to be the
more like pervasively rockysections of our vineyards and so
, yeah, it all just kind of liketies in pretty neatly and, um,
so this is going to be a almost34% Grenache.
Um, we did 30% whole cluster onon the Grenache and then, um,
(13:32):
squeaky clean on the, theMarvette and the Syrah.
For the remaining, you know, 60ish parts.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, people listening.
Um, why do you do whole cluster?
What's the point in that?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Um, um, yeah, so whole cluster can kind of bring
out a little bit more of like aspicy character.
Um, depending on the, the levelof inclusion, it can start to
shift your ph with a potassiumblocker and so, um, it's a good
way to kind of eke out a littlebit more spice and texture out
of um, out of varietals, and Ithink like it's such a
(14:06):
traditional practice in therhone.
But when I inherited some ofthe wines from rocky pond I
really I loved the texture ofthe grenache but I just wanted a
little bit more than kind oflike it was a little bit in the
pocket of kind of like adultkool-aid and I was like we need
to funk this up.
Yeah, and so whole cluster is areally easy lever to pull to
kind of like get you more onthat earthy mineral spicy drive.
(14:28):
So played around with itbecause the fruit was really
clean and pretty low risk to beable to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
That's awesome, yeah, so who wants to give the
tasting notes here?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Oh, let's do this one I do it all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Oh goodness.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
If you want to break down the lines for us um, yeah,
we generally do, well, not he.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Ian does.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Uh, well, explains the color for our listeners, the
notes that he gets I basicallyquickly go down the grid
essentially okay but like notfully, I don't really give, like
you know but we want to explainto our listeners Medium, medium
, minus.
I don't do that, no, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It's a quick like tasting note for those who are
listening so that they can.
If it sounds interesting tothem, they can go to your
website and purchase it.
Yeah, or your tasting room,depending on where they're at.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Also check the show notes.
All the links to Rocky Pond forpurchasing wines and the Wine
Club link will be there.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, yeah.
So 2022 is a pretty coolvintage for us, right, and so
for me all of the wines acrossthe board in 2022 have this
fingerprint of just a little bitmore of that cooler tone, a
little bit more peaked acidity,and I really dig the tension and
(15:47):
that kind of like palate feelwhen you have a little bit
higher acidity.
And so this is going to be apretty traditional blend about
34% Grenache, 33% Morved, 33%Syrah, and on the nose I get a
lot of like super spicycharacter, a little bit of that
kind of like whole clustergreenness.
Um, and then on the palate, I Ialways find with um like GSM
(16:13):
blends, they tend to fall intothe more like medium bodied uh
category this one, I would putin that that category as well um
, I get a lot of kind of likespicy bramble fruit and get a
bite to it.
Yeah, this um kind of likemineral kick too.
We we farm in the rocky reach,ava, but also lake chelan, and
(16:34):
this blend is going to be 100sourced from our Rocky Reach
vineyards.
And for me there's just alwaysthis anchoring of kind of like a
mineral undertow to those wines.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I love that, yeah, which goes right into.
I want to hear all about yourvineyards.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, yeah, so I do have photos, so like we can
always post those for people tolook.
But give us the breakdown.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Sure.
So I guess the down and dirtyhistory of Rocky Pond.
The Doofenhors family purchasedtheir original acreage here in
Aranda when it was still part ofthe larger Columbia Valley AVA,
and as they were developingthis stretch of land, they
engaged the services of tworeally key people Dick Boucher,
(17:20):
who's a revered grower here inWashington State, to kind of
give the thumbs up that yeah,this is going to be good land to
plant for vinifera, and thenthey also engaged the services
of Dr Kevin Pogue from WhitmanCollege, who is a soil scientist
, a soil scientist and when hecame here to review the soil pit
(17:43):
analysis, he discovered that weare actually on a fundamentally
different bedrock layer thanthe balance of the Columbia
Valley.
And so Columbia Valley is goingto be this big stretch of basalt
as your basement layer and wehave this really tight band of
quartz silica that's from aboutWenatchee up to as far as, like
I don't know, lone pine fruitstand.
(18:05):
So sorry, sorry for the thelocal reference, but I don't
know where else to say like 10miles, that way, right yeah and
then the boundary is really the,the plateaus to um the east and
the west of us.
So it rises from about 700 feetin elevation on the Columbia
River to about 1,100 feet inelevation.
(18:25):
So before you get up to theplateaus in Waterville it's
already flipped back to theColumbia Valley and so really
really tight band that also hasthis really awesome heat sink to
it and so we can be anywherefrom 10 to 12 degrees warmer
from our soil probes than ourvineyards on Lake Chelan.
So that kind of steered them inthe direction of being
(18:48):
predominantly planted to redvarietals here on the river.
Kind of helps us get a littlebit more maturity, a little bit
more phenolic ripeness.
And I think it's a little bit ofa misnomer to classify Chelan
or Rocky Reach as cool climateregions.
They're just fundamentally not,but they are is they're
compressed growing seasons andso you have to really be
(19:11):
diligent about your yourviticultural inputs and having
that a little bit extra heatsummation here really it kind of
it helps push things along alittle bit more um.
So yeah, that the soil profileis is really awesome, well
draining um mixture of thatbasement layer of quartz silica,
followed by this unsorted rivercobble that's as small as like
(19:34):
a tiny pebble that you would seein a fish tank, all the way up
to like these boulders that arethe size of a gadgeta, and so
that kind of is the thedelicious layer cakes that we're
we're growing yeah, yeah, so,um and so when did uh rocky
reach become its own ava in?
2022, so and wasn't it the 22ndava or something it was was the
(19:57):
20th AVA yeah, so I think thatthere's maybe like six or seven
additional AVAs who are on thequeue with the TTB but have not
been approved yet.
So I think we're still like thenew kid on the block.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I love that.
Yeah, oh, how fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh, that's awesome.
So you're able to grow.
Okay, so in Lake Chelan forthose listening that don't know
the area it's pretty difficultsometimes to grow Grenache and
Morvedra and some of those.
Rhone varieties into fullmaturity and ripeness yeah.
But you're able to do it herewhich is not too far away from
(20:34):
Chelan but is geologically verydifferent Mm-hmm, which is not
too far away from Chelan but isgeologically very different.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
So are you seeing any issue with getting those into
full ripeness?
No, and I think that is thebenefit of being down here on
the river, In the same way thatLake Chelan acts as a moderating
body for the Lake Chelan AVAthe river is also a moderating
body for us too, and so get somebecause your vineyards are like
like a river on the river onthe river yeah we're looking at
(21:04):
it right now and everyone.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
It's a big river uh it's not one of these small
little creeks that you see,sometimes we're gonna go down
the river and float.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
It's a big ass river, people boat on it, so yeah,
it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, so you know, vines always like a, like really
primo view, um, so they getwaterfront property here,
waterfront property and lakechelan, and it must be nice, I
know right, yeah I love to be avine in my um, you know next
life reincarnation, yeah, that'swhat I was looking for, yeah,
(21:40):
um.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So how many great varieties do you guys grow here?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
so we have 28 um different varietals under vine.
Not all of it comes to rockypond, so kind of like simplified
on in the rocky reach we'redoing predominantly cab, merlot,
malbec for the bordeaux familyand then traditional suite of
gsm.
On the rhone side we do have,uh, viennier, marsan and roussan
(22:10):
, as well as savion blanc umgrown here in the rocky reach.
And then when you get to theclocheval vineyard, that's when
we kind of in chelan and that'sin chelan we open up to have
aromatic varietals like rieslingand covert streaminer, pinot
gris, sparkling base wine, sochardonnay, pinot noir, pinot
meunier and then syrah, and soall in we have um this, this
(22:34):
kind of like classic washingtonmix of the crispy white
varietals all the way through tothe sweet of Bordeaux.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So yeah, all right, let's take a break for a minute,
because Jazzy has got somethingto tell you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Did you know we do have extra episodes on Patreon
and you can only get these for$5.
What, yeah Christ, I know Dope,so go to Patreon.
Link is in the description ofthe episode and subscribe $5.
You're supporting us and you'regetting to learn more about the
(23:10):
wine industry.
Let's go, woo, all right, allright, all right, guess what?
I think Ian has something totell us.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I do, I do.
We got some merch going onright now.
We got hoodies.
Say what we got handbags.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
No way.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
We got stickers, what we got.
Tank tops right now for thesummertime, ooh Hell.
Yeah, we got some windbreakerstoo, oh shit.
So go to bungpodstore and getyour bungpod merch, yeah.
So I've been on this campaignfor a new grape variety in
(23:47):
Washington state.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Oh, yes, I'm here for this, yeah, and I want to know
what you.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I want to know your thoughts on this.
Okay, so one thing I've seen isthat washington state is
lacking a really good, complexum lighter red grape variety
just like how oregon is, likethey're known for their pinot
noir sure yeah, and we don'tknow, not to people that you
(24:13):
know, make pinot out here.
I'm not sure if you guys are ornot, but um I every Pinot I've
tried in Washington state hasbeen very mid.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, you know it's like it's.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I get it's very one dimensional, a lot of times very
simple.
They're like just cranberry orjust cherry and then that's it
for the most part.
There's been a few that I'mlike, okay, this is a little bit
interesting, but my thing islike I think Gamay would be an
amazing grape variety inWashington State and I've had
some from like Sincline from theGorge.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And theirs is.
It's light, it's complex, it'smore like a fleurie and I just
like, absolutely love thosewines and it's definitely my own
um passion to for people tomake a good.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I mean, I, I love Gamay as well.
I actually think that, um, downhere where we are at the
production facility, where wehave this like close to foot
deep of sand and um silt, itmight be really compelling to to
put, uh gamay on this, but itwould also thrive on the stones
that we have up at double d.
So, yeah, um yeah, cool, coolconcept, I think.
(25:27):
For us, though, what we'relooking to do is we we started
off with this huge, wide arrayof varietals, trying to, like,
see what would work, and nowwe're in that kind of more taper
and focus mode, and so I don'tknow if we'll be replanting any
but I would love to see becauseI'm not asking.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I love you watching all the ones that you make and
you would make a great one no,but I think like it's not much
to ask, yeah, come on granache.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
To me, though, is kind of like that spicy, lighter
red where it's growing, hereand so yeah, no more power to
you to grow some.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, grenache was my first, uh, love, yeah For great
varieties, just because, likewhen I first started, all I knew
about was like Merlot Cab andPinot Noir and that was it.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And everybody does.
Yeah, and then when I startedat carhartt um, which people can
watch the last episode that wedid with them um number 16, they
had a grenache and it was alighter kind of style but it was
very unique and complex and ithad the little sea spray um
thing that santa barbara wines alot of times are a little
closer to the ocean house and itwas just so interesting I was
(26:40):
like okay, this is what wine canbe.
It's not just like, um, youknow, columbia Crest or whatever
that I grew up my my mom.
I grew up watching my mom drinkUm and.
I'm like oh so wine is a littlemore complex and this and then
that's what started the rabbithole into making this a career,
(27:02):
into making wine a career, um,and then I was broke and I still
am.
And then, um, I was going to mywine education process from w
set three and then also acertified specialist of wines,
and I had to buy so many wines,um, and my friend is a wine
buyer and I went through him forpretty much everything and I
(27:23):
was like, look, I want a goodBurgundy, but I'm broke and my
friend told me that Beaujolaiswas the best thing, best you
know, bang for your buck for,like, quote unquote, burgundy, I
guess, um, and then after thatjust fell in love.
I was like this is the shit,this is what.
This is what I'm about, yeah,so like, I've had a lot of gamay
(27:46):
, uh, domestic gamay in santabarbara and also sonoma pac,
small, makes a great, uh, has acouple great gamays over there.
He also makes trousseau noirand I also.
I also love that, love the verylight body.
Basically, like you know, myfriend calls it the juice box.
He's like I'm on the juice boxcraze, you know, but that's more
(28:10):
kind of natural wine.
Quote, unquote, whatever thatterm is, but yeah, anyways.
Yeah.
So I've been on a gamay kickwanting people in washington to
plant gamay and make a good oneyeah, because I think it could
be a great great I think you canoutshine pino noir in
washington state.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's all I'm saying it's not much to ask for not
much to ask for.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
But yeah, I know I love what you guys are doing um
you guys are also growingtemperanillo here.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So we did have Tempranillo at one point in time
.
That was grafted over to SavionBlanc, oh, okay, and yeah, the
Musque clone of Savion Blanc atour Double D Vineyard.
So there is this section of thevineyard where the rows are
running east-west instead ofnorth-s, northwest, southwest or
(29:00):
southeast, and, um, it wasreally challenging to get
uniform ripeness because youhave a certain amount of
sunlight hours on one side ofthe canopy and the others wasn't
being exposed properly, and so,um kind of came in and grafted
that away from any of the redvarietals that were over there
(29:25):
and I think that the Tempranilloat the time was really only
kind of going into a roséprogram.
So it would be cool to developa different site with a
different aspect for Tempranillohere, because I think that that
could be a really viablevarietal for this area.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But yeah, what's your favorite grape to play with?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Ooh, I am having so much fun playing around with
malbec okay, actually, I thinkfor me, I love malbecs.
Well, they're so fun for me,coming from napa, like malbec
doesn't ever get its fair shakethere, and yeah the styles that
you get domestically.
In napa, at least what I wasexposed to, there's these just
like fat overripe over oak todeath type of expressions, and
(30:07):
so I never really kind of likegave it its fair shake until I
moved here and that was one oflike the most delicious
surprises is there's reallygorgeous complexity but also
some cool tension, and I thinkthat you know like we were
talking about.
This is a compressed growingseason.
Having more of those earlyripening Bordeaux varietals
really kind of like saves thebacon when you need to do some
(30:28):
blending on.
It really does, yeah.
So I think, yeah, malbec hasbeen super fun to work with.
And then I'm having a field daywith playing around with Sarag
and you know I didn't.
I didn't make it for six years.
It was my time in Australiawhere I was making sarah, so
yeah, um so yeah it's, it's beenreally fun just kind of being
(30:51):
able to, like you know, be supercreative and also explore a
bunch of different varietals.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So what are you excited about?
Like the future, like whatRocky Pond's doing and the
future that they're pursuing.
I mean they have a lot going on.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think, um, david andMichelle have this passion for
entertainment as well as,obviously, wine, but for them
it's it's like setting a table.
It needs to come with fabulousfood, really great music, a
place to wine and dine and thenstay.
And I think that, like you know, we're we're all from this area
(31:29):
, we know how underserved, youknow fine hotels are in this
area and so they had this visionto not only um own wine label
but build it and they will cometype of concept for here.
So in development is a 60-roomboutique hotel on our property,
(31:49):
as well as fractional ownershiphomes and actually this summer
and you guys should come downfor some of the concerts are
unveiling a um 500 person musicvenue at yeah, that's so.
It's really fun yeah so we havekind of like some of the the
local faves here, like whiskeytrail, coming in, but then we
(32:12):
also, you know, the hope is tobe able to draw some bigger
entertainment too yeah, yeah,well, and it's just again.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
It's like, uh, the gorge, beautiful venue, great,
like you have the river rightthere, you have everything all
right there.
But this is like more likebougie, I like more like
(32:46):
billionaire cowboy, you knowwhat I mean.
It's very like yellowstonevibes.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I know that well because it's like super rustic
right, but there is this likegorgeous, pristine, untouched
nature about it.
Um, yeah, so it's.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's very little slice of heaven, very
agricultural and we have thewine, so obviously they're good,
they're bougie, but then throwa little boutique hotel word I
do, I love.
It might be my favorite word umand then also to have a music
venue.
What else could you ask for?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
yeah, I mean it's so when I was being recruited by
Rocky Pond this was all stilljust kind of like a dream for
them, and so I I stepped intoRocky Pond at a time where the
foundation was poured but nobuilding was there.
And here we are two years laterand it's like unveiled.
And every time you talk toDavid and Michelle, the vision
(33:41):
has grown yet again, and so it'sreally cool to see just their
kind of like attack and approachon on getting this done and
it's awesome to see there'sgoals, because there comes a
point where a lot of people willsay, oh, this is my goal, and
they come close or hit it andthen that's it, like they don't
continue their goals.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I'm kind of going through that phase right now of
like I, you know, graduatedcollege I said I'd move to
Chelan, I'd work at a winery.
Well, I've done that.
So what's my next goal?
And to keep goals going is hugeand I feel like some people
just they get comfortable.
Yeah.
(34:21):
That's the biggest thing, theyget comfortable and yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well, I think that that's like what's so exciting
about where we are and wherewe're farming right now.
The general consensus that Iget is, you know, chelan is
going through this almostRenaissance where people are
thinking about viticulture in amore serious way, and that's not
to not pay respect to kind oflike the, the legends who
(34:44):
started us here, right.
But there's this kind of likeyounger surge that's coming in
with fresh ideas and there's theability to really kind of
execute and get after it and besuper creative, and so it's fun
to be in that kind of headspacewhere everybody is like pushing
each other a little bit to bejust incrementally better and
just kind of working on movingthe goalpost.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
So yeah, that was kind of that's the one thing I
thought about when I was.
I did one harvest here, like in2019.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And that was like one thing that me and, uh, Charlie
Liebecker from Curtis reallytalked about.
And it was like if we can, likemove the needle and like
encourage each other and pusheach other to be better, than
like this would explode, likethis whole Valley would explode.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, absolutely In a good way.
Yeah, no, in a great way.
Yeah, I mean, even I wastalking to someone actually
today where they brought upgoing down to Walla Walla and
they're like like it was sounfortunate because they were so
spread out and all this stuffand you could barely find it.
But I feel like we do a reallygood job of supporting each
other and pushing each other tobe better.
yeah, um, you know, when peoplecome into the winery, it's not
(35:51):
the attitude of oh, I'm the bestone, why would you go anywhere
else, yeah, but it's the fact oflike, let me tell, like, I will
grab our, like Lakeland Valleywine book.
That's like here's where youshould go and I like highlight
like 15 of them and like, go tothese destinations like or like,
(36:11):
try to keep it in the same areawhere they're staying or
driving.
And I think we're all trying topush each other to be better,
but it also is a group effort,yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
And I think, like celebrating the diversity too is
super important.
You know at some point in timelike this could have been a
different conversation, whereeverybody is just making one
Syrah and we're just pattingthemselves on the back for like
growing this awesome thing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
But no, you see people playing around with, like
maybe, a gamay noir or you knowdiversity and grape varieties
exactly, yeah, sorry also in thefuture, but also but you know,
but also different, likewinemaking styles and you know,
like different influences foreverybody here like the
(36:59):
sandstone and the concretes, andpeople are playing with
different things, and even likeputting it in the tank for a
while and then into the concretefor a while.
You know people are playing andI love that.
Yeah, get out of your comfortzone.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
You don't need to be like Billy Joe down the street.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, so what's the other one that you brought?
Yeah, so the first one let'ssay it again so people know is a
stratostone?
Yeah, 2022 stratostone redgrenache, more vedra and syrah
gsm beautiful and then the nextone is the studio Sarah.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, so you know, kind of keeping in line with our
conversation about like beingsuper creative and hopefully
pushing the boundaries, Um, oneof the things that kind of keeps
me going year after year isjust this genuine intellectual
curiosity and, um, fortunatelyRocky pond has given me pretty
wide berth to to go afterwhatever curiosity I have at the
(38:04):
moment.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Also, like I know, like cause we had has behind the
scenes tour and you talkedabout that a little bit and I
just love it when, whencompanies do that and we'll just
give free reign or like I trustyou go ahead, play with it, and
so I'm really stoked thatyou're in that position.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It makes me very happy.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
No, I mean, it's so satisfying and it's totally what
I was searching for when I wasin my more kind of like
corporate-y winemaking job, andso it's super fun to kind of
like step into this role.
And at Koshval Vineyard, ourvineyard on Lake Chelan, we grow
Syrah at three differentelevations and the highest
(38:51):
elevation planting has nevertraditionally made a blend or a
single varietal wine for RockyPond, and so it gave me five to
six tons of Syrah to really becreative and playful with.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
And that's a lot of grapes right there.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It's a lot of grapes that that weren't doing anything
for us, right?
And so, um, what's the worstcase scenario?
We screw it up and it goes tothe bulk market, while it was
going to go there anyways, soyeah let's play.
And so, um yeah, when, when wewere picking it 2022, super
compressed growing season it wasa mad dash to get everything in
(39:22):
at the end, and we were pickingViognier at the same time that
we were picking Cab.
It was the weirdest vintage onearth in that regard.
So I remember that day when webrought in this five tons of
Syrah from the age block thereand we had also brought in close
(39:42):
to like seven tons of V&A.
Well, we have a three ton pressand I think there would have
been mutiny on my hands if I waslike guys, we're going to fire
that bad boy up for one morepress load today.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I've been in that position where someone looks at
me and I'm like, oh, so today'sthe day you want to die, exactly
.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So we were already slated to do a small amount of
of co-fermentation with this.
But then I was like you know,this maps out to where I can
have a really cool playful likeconcept here.
So we we did um four tons ofSyrah into the tank with one ton
of uh whole cluster VNA, more,more or less.
(40:26):
You know like it roughs out tobe 75% Syrah, 25% whole cluster
VNA, and um did not have highhopes for it but wanted to learn
a lot about kind of like.
If we push the boundaries onwhole cluster here, if we push
the boundaries onco-fermentation, what is that
going to look like?
And it very quickly became Jilland Carly's and my like
(40:48):
favorite ferment of the vintageand again a credit to the
Doofenhorst in just kind of likehaving faith in what we're
doing here.
They were like well, if youlove it so much, let's bottle it
.
And I was like thank you.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
That's so exciting.
You go home and cry and you'relike I.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Finally did it.
I mean, and not that we don'thave that same amount of like
creativity and like passion forthe other wines we do.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It was just like one of those happy little moments,
yeah and that's really like allright, like I don't know what
the outcome is going to be herebut, let's just go for it, yeah,
um, so why'd you do wholecluster in?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
that.
So again, I, you know, wouldhave had like a mile mutant on
my hand if it was not justsimple as like we're putting
wine or grapes into a tank.
Today, um and so we we weregoing to do whole cluster on the
syrah, but um had alreadyde-stemmed the majority of it
and so decided to have the wholecluster come in with the
(41:49):
vinaigre.
And because that vinaigre waskind of like sitting out there,
it was probably closer to like23, 23 and a half bricks okay,
the rachis had fully lignifiedand so when I was chomping on
explain what a brick is to ourviewers.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Sure, yeah, it's um also lignification and rachis so
.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
So bricks is kind of like the measurement of sugar
density of your, of your wine,and um 23 and a half bricks is
kind of on the medium high sidefor a white varietal but on the
kind of like lower side for ared.
And rachis is just a fancy wordfor the stem, yeah, and so, as
(42:29):
you're going through the growingseason and your vines are
maturing and coming into thatreally yummy stage, the green
tissue switches over to woodytissue, and so that's what
lignification is.
And, um, if you have a bunch ofgreen stems, they can
exacerbate some of the morestringent side of, um, your
tannin profiles.
(42:49):
And so it was important for me,in a cooler year like that, to
not give any more green to thefermenters, but I did want that
spice and I wanted that texturethat can come from it, and so,
um, it was just one of thosethings where, like, the stars
aligned and it was meant to be.
It was meant to be, so that'swhat we did.
Um, yeah, and so for me, I getthis like crazy high-toned
(43:13):
aromatics on this wine.
It's kind of like are you aviennier, are you a syrah?
Like, are you a Viennese, areyou a Syrah?
Like what are you?
But also this really cool, likespicy, chewy, almost like
tea-like tannin on the palate,and I think it's like we also
produce more traditional Syrah,which is going to be the more
muscular and powerful side ofthings, and so these side by
(43:36):
side are just polar opposites.
I hate using words likefeminine or like masculine,
right but.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
But you know, if you want to like, you know I this is
a really delicate feminine wine, but it still has that power
right, yeah, it's very smooth onthe palate and then it's just
like oh yeah, it's got a littlekick to it, baby I'm a little
bit of a texture hound, like Ilove that for my red wines.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I want that kind of smooth and silky, suave thing
yeah I like a little kick ofacidity at the end.
I want to feel like, okay,these tannins are well
integrated, it's givingstructure, but it's not being
like super drying and kind oflike killing your palate and um
on my whites.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I'm like more acid yeah, I'm kind of an acid head
as just as a yeah, acid headacid head yeah yeah, yeah, yeah
but, like I don't know, when Itook my w set three up in Napa,
I was very picky in which,because when I was working at a
wine shop under a wine buyer, Iwas helping with selecting
(44:45):
certain wines for the wine shopand so I'd meet with reps and
there's this one rep who came inand she was like, oh, you're
going to love this tasting.
It's all retail $150 plus allNapa wines.
And I was like okay, we'll seewhat happens.
And then I didn't like any ofthem and she just was a little
(45:05):
upset or not upset.
She was just like taken back.
But also we in our demographicthat was in Santa Barbara they
just didn't buy a lot of Napawines either, and so it doesn't
really matter if I like them ornot, cause I still have to talk
to the wine bar about purchasingthem for the wine shop If I
think it would be a good thingto curate the shop for.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Um, but I just didn't like any of them and cause.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
They're all the same.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
It's like you know like don't get me wrong, I love
Napa.
Um, there's certain wineriesthat I absolutely adore, so, um,
it's like frog sleep and heightcellar big fans of those people
.
Um, when I went to my W setthree, I took, did like a whole
weekend of it, you know, causeI've never been there before and
that was my first time.
(45:54):
So I was like, okay, cool, solet's just do.
A whole weekend I bounced arounda bunch of different wineries
and it was really fun because,like I don't necessarily, it's
just my personal, um, experience, my personal opinion, is like I
just don't really like overripeand over-oaked wines.
And that's what a lot of peoplewho go to Napa, who have a lot
(46:16):
of money and they just build upthis big thing and they're like,
okay, cool, and it's all verylike systematic and very
formulaic and like I want thisstyle of wine, like, okay, cool,
let's pump it up, yeah that'swhat's yeah, robert Parker likes
or whatever and like certainyou know um, but there's also a
ton of like amazing gems in Napaas well, and people are growing
(46:38):
things other than cap yes um,um, it's.
I mean it's mostly cab, but it's, you know, yeah, it really is.
Yeah, yeah, but, like I've, Ireally gravitate towards some of
those more kind of uh I don'twant to say French or Bordeaux
like cabs that are made in moredelicate style, that are like a
(46:58):
chorus and Matthias and vibe.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I love themyeah absolutely, and so that's
what I was like.
Okay, this opened my mind alittle bit more to to like the
Napa area and like it's justbecause I don't like huge wines,
but I think they also have aplace on a dinner table as well.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
So yeah, no, for sure .
I mean, where I was before, inNapa, we had, um, we sourced
fruit from 16 of the different,18 different AVAs in Napa, in
Napa County, and we quiteseriously made 12 different
expressions of Cabernet, and itwas at some point in time like
(47:35):
four by four, four by four, fourby four.
I need some acid, I need somelike life and brevity, and so it
was like it's yeah it's beenfun working with like cab of a
different style here in.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Washington.
So carbonic carbonate?
No, just kidding.
No, no, that'd be crazy yeah.
Um well do we want to wrap thisup and bring it on to the
Patreon?
Patreon yeah, let's do it.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
Liz, you are absolutely amazing.
Thank you so much for invitingus here or letting us crash your
(48:11):
spot and the tour, and you arevery knowledgeable and amazing
so everything, all the sociallinks will be in the show notes,
so it'll be the first thingthat you see in the show notes.
So go there um all the links totheir socials and also the
website and wine club.
So go there and click on that.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah, go to Rocky Pond's website and visit their
tasting rooms Super cute.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, they have tasting room in Wooden Creek,
woodinville area, and thenthey're also in, like Chelan, is
there another one?
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Is that Leavenworth?
Leavenworth as well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
So go go check it out , Check the wines out.
They're amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, thank you guys.
Thanks for having me oh shoot,I need to sorry.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
I messed this up.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I can't cheers an empty glass, that's just like.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
That's a mistake.
Cheers, hey you, now that Ihave your attention and you've
listened to this wonderfulpodcast that we had to offer,
we'd like you to scroll down.
(49:19):
And what?
What are they going to do whenthey scroll down?
Ian, scroll down and give ussome feedback.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Rate us on your podcast platform ideally five
stars, and if you would give ussome critical feedback, you can
DM us on Instagram atOfficialBungPod.
Let's hear it, let's go.
It is only two of us writingthe show, two of us producing
(49:46):
the show.
It's me, Ian King, JasmineShattuck and the lovely Becca
Hines.
As our producers and ourwriters are.
Me, ian King.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
And Jasmine Chaddick.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Let's go.
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