May 17, 2024 • 43 mins
Ever wondered how a simple grape transforms into your favorite bottle of Syrah? Prepare to unravel the secrets of the wine world with our spirited connoisseurs, the Wine Wonder Boy and Jazzy J, and our special guest, the ever-insightful Liz Keyser. We're not just sipping on vintages; we're taking a deep, ruby-red look into the art of crafting wine, from the allure of co-fermentation to the balancing act between tradition and innovation. Get ready to chuckle over our past pronunciation mishaps and join us on a sensory journey that promises to leave your palate intrigued and your winemaking wisdom enriched.
This episode isn't just for wine aficionados—it's for the cool nerds, the science lovers, and the passionately curious. Liz Keyser showers us with her chemical expertise as we explore the nerdy nooks of winemaking, and for those who thirst for knowledge, there's an article tucked away in the show notes for a deeper dive. Hear about my own adventures in pitching experimental techniques at work, the newfound glory of the 'cool nerd' in modern industries, and how we, as vintners, blend a minimal intervention approach with a profound respect for the science and soul that goes into each bottle.
But vineyard life isn't all grapes and glamour. We get candid about the thorny vines of wine business operations, particularly in the picturesque yet challenging Lake Chelan region. Understand the true labor of love and the economic realities that shape the nectar in your glass. With Liz's vast expertise, we navigate the terrain of vineyard economics, the evolving landscape of wine tourism, and the necessity of professionalism in our craft. So pour yourself a glass and join our heartfelt conversation; it's an episode full of character, complexity, and a shared passion for the world of wine.
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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 wonder boy.
And we got jazzy jay, jazzy.
What is a bum?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bum wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
All right, welcome, welcome,jabroni, our wine jabronis out
(00:26):
there.
Thank you so much forsupporting us.
The Wine Wonder Boy, jazzy J,and we have Liz Kieser.
Nailed it, nailed it.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I was like what is he going to say?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
If you watched the original or the uh, yeah, the
original episode to this.
Um, I done fucked it up, so Icorrected myself.
Well, there was a street inSanta Barbara called uh Kaiser.
Uh N it's just like your name,except for an N Kaiser way.
And so I was like, oh, justdrop the N, it's Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
No, it's Kaiser.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Like a set of keys.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So, All right, so here let'sstart with what we were drinking
.
Yeah, because you're empty andlet's get tasting notes on this
one.
We didn't do tasting notes onthis one.
You have to do the tastingnotes on this one.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I passed the torch pass the torch and the bottle.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
That's your category all right, oh god, in front of
liz.
Okay, I'm a little a littlenervous, a little nervous yeah,
no um yeah, I mean, it's a greatruby color, medium intensity.
Oh, there's a lot of like a tonof spice, immediately like on
(01:51):
the nose.
A ton of spice, spice andbrambly, like you were saying to
the other one.
I mean, the tans are likeperfect, I feel like yeah, mean
you really do hit that palette,thank you.
Like it goes all the waythrough because bright the acid
(02:12):
is like kind of pushing the winethroughout the whole experience
with the length and then it has, like some of those almost like
I, yeah, brambly I don't knowwhat else because it's like
cranberry, but not so.
It's like yeah it's more kindof bramble berry and um.
I was very complex.
There's some earth in there,some mushroom.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I like this one yeah, I the more I drink it, the more
I like it, yeah, um yeah, soit's a 2022 Studio Syrah.
It's what?
75?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
75% Syrah, 25% whole cluster Viognier.
Yes, it's delicious.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
When I first saw it.
I've never personally have seenthose two blended.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But you were saying yeah, it's a practice in Coetit,
Northern Rhone, France.
They do Viognier co for men.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
they usually do like anywhere from like one, to like
10 would be pretty audaciousyeah I think 10 yeah I forget,
like the legal, because there'slike a legal limit.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I think it's like 15 legal oh really, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's like one to ten percent.
What made you go with 25?
Just because you had the oneton to the four?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
yeah, kind of it was like more just, pure, pure
harvest chaos, math it isinteresting, though, because,
like uc, davis has an articlethat they posted um on their
website about the chemicalbreakdown of when you co-ferment
viognier with syrah and itactually like lifts the
aromatics.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It creates a little bit more body sometimes yeah, so
there's these like sacrificialphenolic chains that are in the
grape skin of the viognier andit binds to the like sixth
carbon on the anthocyanin chain.
That gives you pigmentation forum, syrah, and so what happens
(04:10):
is those basically bind and itforms a super stable color
compound that's really hard tooxidize, but you also get the
phenolic chains, so phenols aregoing to be associated with like
flavor, but also tannin andaromatics of your wine and it
kind of just like imparts it onthe Syrah as well and creates a
(04:33):
super, super stable wine.
And so, like it was a happyaccident when this was first
like arrived upon, arrived uponum, and it was the way for
northern rhone, where cote rutiis located, to in a very cool
vintage, kind of like 2022 forus.
Yeah, get these wines that havestable, deep pigmented color
(04:54):
but also increase a little bitmore of that ripeness and kind
of like fake it a little bit.
I love that um, instead ofhaving this like, I hope they
see more of these, I mean I love, uh, co-ferment viognier and
syrah.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Like I'm a huge fan of that, like I was at a place
called jaffers in santa barbarauh for a while and we did a lot
of that and, honestly, with likethe ripeness that we got in
santa barbara with some of thoselocations um, this one vineyard
called larner, which isbasically a beach yeah, we were
talking about that behind thescenes before this um, that was
(05:28):
just like, it was just like aninsane color and, uh, experience
is just is nuts.
Like one thing that we would doat jaffers during harvest is we
would have harvest lunches orlike in the middle of the day.
I don't know how they did this,how they they their time
management is great.
Like they scheduled things.
Everything was by the dot.
I've never been anywhere where Ileft before 6 pm during harvest
(05:53):
, like it's no it never happensbut jaffers it happened, also
because they're really reallysmall and super boutique, but
like, and also the timemanagement skills are great, and
so lunch it would be the winesthat we are looking up to,
essentially like our, their, thewinemaker steven, what he was
influenced by, and so we wouldhave anything from corti to
(06:14):
cornos.
Um, they didn't do bubbles, butthey had.
We had fair share of champagne,which was fun, yeah, um, so it
so it was it was all my makersdo.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And, um, champagne, as I say, champagne is my blood
type, so it's just like correct.
Yeah, it's amazing, so got tokeep me going one way or another
.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So a lot of like of my tasting experience um broader
.
I guess high-end tastingexperience came from working
there because they would treatus to so many things yeah um, I
just remember having like, uh,co-routine corn off like on a
regular basis because we're so,we were so so raw heavy yeah you
know, um, and so I mean thatwas so much fun for me, and
(07:00):
that's when I learned about theUC Davis cause our, the
assistant winemaker, she, uh, isgoing to still possibly
probably in the tail end of hertime at UC Davis right now
online, but, um, yeah, and she'sabsolutely amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Uh, marissa, yeah, uh , good for her.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, I learned so much from there.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
and, um, yeah, I just love the the I'd love to read
that article about the wholeconnection to that.
I love how nerdy you got it.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, I can send you the article love the nerdness.
If you guys want, actually I'lljust link the article in the
show notes for the patreonpeople too.
Um.
I don't know if you'll readthat, but I'll post it.
It's a good read it's a reallyinteresting read.
It's very nerdy.
Um, liz did a great job ofbreaking down the chemical uh
breakdown of it.
She a really interesting read.
It's very nerdy.
Liz did a great job of breakingdown the chemical breakdown of
it.
She's really fucking smart.
If you didn't know that alreadyyeah, if you didn't listen
Speaker 3 (07:52):
to the first one.
Trust me, if you didn't catchthe vibe, she's really fucking
smart, which is awesome reallynerdy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You're like a cool nerd, you like me oh yeah, for
sure I'm not saying you're anerd, come on now this is high
school.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
No, we love nerds.
Does that even?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I don't know After the age of like 18?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know, I don't think so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Nerds are like cool.
Yeah, cool nerds are the onlyway after 18.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, they own like Tesla and Facebook and shit yeah
.
And.
Google and you know, and makingwine.
Yeah.
Space X.
They're great people, yeah,yeah, all the nerds.
So I was so excited because Ihave proposed that to the place
I work.
I get my work very anonymous onthe podcast.
Sorry, I didn't say that before, but I do.
(08:41):
Just in case anything I say theydon't like or whatever, it
doesn't influence.
Yeah, fair enough, yeah, um andI was like, dude, it'd be so
sick to do a co-firm and aVionier.
And one thing I love about themis that, like, well, here's the
thing we are, we are all astate and so we're only doing a
state grapes and we just don'thave Vionier.
That's one.
(09:01):
And the other one was like Idon't know, because he's still
pretty green and to thewinemaking um, to the wine
industry in general, but alsojust winemaking and he's, he is
growing so, so much, um, whichis amazing.
Every single year it's likeanother thing.
He's getting nerdy about anotherthing, which is awesome to see
yeah at some point I would lovefor him to do some whole cluster
(09:23):
syrah, at least like a certainpercentage.
That was yeah.
When I first came on board Iwas like, oh, you want to do
like a, like a 25 whole clusteror 15 or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Keep it low and just like play with it and play with
it, and he's like uh, no, Idon't want to.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I was like, all right , that's cool, that's cool yeah,
sick, but like it'd be fun, youknow yeah, super fun just
because I I came from that kindof community of, and that
community, that's a stupid wordum god, that was so dumb um this
wine making you don't evenrealize when you like get in,
(10:05):
like get nerdy about wine, it'slike slowly just brings you in
to this little cult and youdon't even realize it then, you
just like look at your winecellar and you're like I need
more.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And you're like I haven't even drank any of this,
but I need more yeah I mean I Iyeah, I was raised winemaking
wise um on like low intervention, a lot of whole cluster stuff
going on, um, native ferments, alot of those and um, and then
coming to washington it was justlike kind of a culture shock
for me a little bit because,like so many people were so
(10:37):
reluctant to do any of that andI was like oh, that's, that's
weird.
Yeah, like everyone here islike did you see that as well?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
no, I mean, it's um, I haven't honestly done that
much exploration in terms of,like, what other people in our
area are doing their cellar.
It's been more of just.
I haven't honestly done thatmuch exploration in terms of,
like, what other people in ourarea are doing in their cellar.
It's been more of just kind oflike focusing on what we're
doing here and totally shame onme.
I need to get back out thereand do that too.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I know you came to our place to work and haven't
seen you since.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I know I will get back out there.
We live in.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Wenatchee, and so it's like an hour drive.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We live in Wenatchee and so it's it's like an hour
drive.
I really only go to Wenatcheeto go to the weed shop, so it's
like yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
But I think, um, for me at least when I was, when I
was starting off in kind of likemy early days, um, I was
coached by um the winemaker thatI was working for at the time,
to be like, look, it's reallycool that you want to do 100
whole cluster and you want tolike, do all these crazy things.
But before you break the rulesyou have to know what they are.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And that's kind of like what?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
what kind of rules of ?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
music yeah, you have to know you have to stay in this
little box for a certain amountof time, until you understand
how to break the rules.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Exactly, and so I think like that was really
important for me to kind of likewait to explain that.
Yeah, build, build.
That philosophy and you knowwhere I've arrived at this point
in time is pretty hands off,but still like, super respecting
the foundation of like biologyand chemistry and so, um, yeah,
like we, we always go with themission of being unfined and
(12:13):
unfiltered and, like I obviouslystill use sulfur.
I'm not like 100% au natural onthings You're like zero zero,
yeah, no, because, like I alsoknow, like the wine pH that
we're working you need some typeof like antimicrobial agent to
be scrubbing your wine and, um,yeah, so it's like you.
(12:33):
For me it's.
It's finding that balancebetween, like the things that
you can do as a winemaker thatare going to be additive and
supportive, versus taking awayfrom the wine and so like.
For me, because finding agentsaren't selective filtration
media is close, but still notselective in what it's removing.
I don't want to be chemicallyripping apart and changing this
(12:55):
wine that we have literally fromthe vine made like the pruning
decisions all the way throughthe bottle or just before bottle
, to then be like, okay, I'mgoing to rip you apart on a
molecular level, slap you backtogether and so, like what it
does.
It sets us up with this likelist of cultural practices that
keeps my team really likediligent about making sure that
(13:19):
the ambient microflora and ourwinery can like support that
mission, but also, like I don'tknow, if you have a goal, then
you know what you work needs tobe done to get there.
Um, it'd be, super easy to justkind of like pick things super
overripe and oak the hell out ofthem and oh like everybody.
(13:39):
I mean like everybody's had arocket fuel wine before where
you're just like this thing isdoctored, this could be
coca-cola with alcohol in it.
You know, like that's, likethat's, that's soulless, that's
not fun for me.
Yeah, patreon.
We're good, we're good.
Lock that shit behind a paywall.
There's a paywall.
So Just my personal preferenceyeah.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Um, but yeah, that's um.
No, it's, it's just reallyinteresting.
No, it's, it's just reallyinteresting.
Um, when you get into likedifferent communities, I mean
like wazoo doesn't teach likethey I went through the process
wazoo process and yeah, they areagainst a lot of things, like
in their viticulture they don'tteach sustainable or organic or
(14:26):
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Are you guys working towards sustainability or any of
that?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
so we were actually part of the pilot program for
sustainable wa certification.
Okay, so our three estatevineyards are farmed to spec for
sustainable washington.
Um, prior to that, we werefarming under live and salmon
safe co certification.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So the winery that I'm currently working for is
organic, sustainable salmon,safe and live.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah.
So I feel like I wasn't part ofthe decision making when
Sustainable Washington was beingbuilt up as a program, but what
I love about it is it isuniquely tailored to the
environmental conditions here inWashington, where CCOF and live
those are built for Californiaand the unique like features of
(15:14):
California and same thing forfor live, and so having that
kind of tailored fit program forWashington is phenomenal.
Um and then, in terms of, like,the practices that we do in the
vineyard, it's really justgiving name to what we already
did.
I mean, we're a hundred percentestate driven, already had a
mission of not using you knowthat heavy hitter herbicides and
(15:36):
pesticides.
We are not organic, but becauseit gives us like, the leverage
that let's say it is a shit yearand we have to get out there
and spray, we will, because wealso need to be financially
responsible to ourselves Likethis whole thing doesn't
continue to go forward if we'relike, well, we're gonna crop
this to half a ton per acre andmaybe right, like at some point
(15:59):
in time you're gonna like shootyourself in the foot and you
can't get back out of it and soum we're not pursuing that, but
like for conventional farming,we're pretty damn near squeaky
clean.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, and so even damn when we so we did a behind
the scenes walkthrough of theproduction facility and I like
jerked off to how clean that wasLike it's beautiful in here.
It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful facility.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Well, you guys do a lot of native ferments, right?
Speaker 4 (16:30):
We do a lot of native ferments, that the chemistry
supports it.
So obviously, if we have, likeyou know, disease pressure or
it's like 30 bricks, if we couldeven eke that out here, that's
not going to finish.
So we're not going to like, setourselves up for um failure and
we'll inoculate, um and then,quite frankly, some of like the
(16:50):
tank fermented white wines.
It's kind of like so I didn'tforget it like let's get this
just like blended away type ofthing, and that will pitch east,
because I don't want to bebabysitting pinot gris for 45
days.
I want to know that it's likefinished, it's dry, it's sulfur
and it's good to go.
Yeah, it's good to go it'lltaste delicious, as kind of like
a blender extender for you knowour white wine program.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But I'm not going to be there like babysitting a
barrel ferment of peanut, agree,like I mean, one of my friends
has still has a native fermentgoing right now of grenache I
mean I think that's just calledstuck from it it's not stuck,
it's like so slow it's crazy butum, is it off skins?
(17:33):
Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I didn't ask that question I really hope so yeah,
so yeah, yeah, I really hope soum you have other microbes than
just yeast that are like workingon that sugar too.
So yeah, I mean I'm sure it'sgonna be crazy volatile, but
probably they do makeoutstanding wine and so I'm like
you know, like I trust, they'vebeen doing it for years.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, this is not the their first rodeo with a wine
like that yeah I'm like okaymost winemakers I know would
just be shitting their pants umfor real or have been or do
something like restart, yeah um,but yeah, he's fine.
And one thing I one of myfriends, she um julia.
(18:19):
She works with uh, sashi,mormon and raj par for their
wine label, uh, both sandy anddomain de la cote, and they do
all native everything andthey're making their own yeast
culture in the vineyard.
Yeah.
They also do a pied-à-couve.
Do you guys do a pied-à-couveat all?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
We don't.
I have before I actually.
So when I was in Australia Ihad a yeast propagation program
and so I would basically plateand grow the ambient yeast
culture for kind of the internalprogram that we call the basket
program.
So smaller lot fermentationsand much more quality focus and
(19:03):
kind of making those larger likebulk style blends that they
would do, and so that was reallyfun to be able to do.
That.
We don't do it here because Ihaven't seen the need for it.
Um, we only do like two turnsin the winery right now, so
we'll basically have everythingfull with just our own varietals
.
Get things drained Um, we don't.
(19:26):
I mean we will press the wine,but we don't do any press
inclusion into the barrels.
And then once we have thingsgoing with Malik in barrels for
our own side, that tends to bewhen we need to start picking
for the Bordeaux program andthat fills the tank or fills the
room back up, and at that pointin time there's so much like
(19:46):
ambient microflora that'sgetting things going.
Yeah, ambient microflora that'sgetting things going.
Yeah, um, that your ferment'sgonna start, unless you are
really have it handed with yoursulfur regimen, or?
Um, what we did actually do inthis past vintage was we started
playing around with ummechnikova pokerama, which is
like a non-fermentative yeaststrain that can help you extend
(20:08):
your um cold soak and sointeresting playing around with
kind of like where we're gettingour, our extraction and I found
for cabernet here because thetannin profile is um, it's just,
it's slightly different thanwhat we're dealing with in in
napa.
I want to be as extractive aspossible at the front end of the
(20:29):
fermentation where it's anaqueous solution, not an
alcoholic, and so, liketraditional winemaking, you're
probably going to have your cabtwo to three days in in cold
soak, then, um, you know, warmertemperature fermentations and
then you say can you explainwhat cold soaking really means?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
yeah, and also I was gonna ask what aqueous.
Oh yeah, I don't know thatwater, water solution right.
So so juice, so juice, right.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
So, uh yeah yeah, cold soak is going to be the
period of time before youactually start fermentation on
your wine and at that point intime, depending on, like, how,
what you're doing, you can havegrapes just sitting in a tank
and just chilling their buttsoff um, and that could be
considered a cold soak.
But what we do is we actuallystart the cap management process
(21:15):
.
So pumping over the take andwatching that juice get deeper
and deeper in pigmentation butalso more concentrated in its
color and its flavor and um,playing around with it at a
water base is going to be lessextractive than alcohol, right.
And so if you're going tofollow the standard practice of,
(21:36):
you know, having your wine intank for two to three days and
then fermenting at a highertemperature, so you get that
enzymatic action where it'sgoing to really richen and
deepen the color of your wine,you lose some of the nuance and
some of the volatile aromaticsthat are part of that.
But it also sets you up to havealcohol in your extraction
(21:56):
process earlier and alcohol isgoing to extract much faster and
it's going to get down deeperinto, kind of like the seed
tannin and so, like, think oflike.
Have you like watched any ofthose like trad wives videos on
Instagram where they're likemaking their own vanilla extract
at home.
It's basically taking like youknow, vanilla beans and alcohol
(22:19):
right Like it's the same processthat's going to like pull out a
bunch of flavor tannin, all thethings faster and earlier, and
you lose control over that, um,that process.
And so if you are working withkind of on the greener side or
more herbaceous side of Cabernet, where those tannins and
anthocyanins aren't fully maturein some instances, I want to
(22:41):
get all that extraction done ina more gentle environment like
water or a juice space.
And then turn on the fermenter,get things going really fast.
And so playing around with anon-fermentative yeast kind of
extends that period of timewhere it's suppressing all the
spoilage microbes that could beactive in your fermenter without
having to get you up to like 50parts of free sulfur, because I
(23:05):
also don't want to start off atthat high of a sulfur level,
like start off at that high of asulfur level, because that's
antagonistic to the yeast thatare going to then kind of come
in and do the actualfermentation.
And so playing around with kindof like a suite of
non-fermentative yeast like thatwe found last year was really
awesome in extending that windowfor us but also then gave us
(23:29):
the opportunity to get thingsoff of skins faster because
we've already done all the hardwork upfront and we don't need
40 days of tannin resolutiondoing like extended maceration
where things just sit and thenthey start to lose color and,
yeah, the tannins resolving, butyou're also having to blast it
with oxygen and like play aroundwith your, your heat and so um,
(23:49):
a little bit of its efficiency.
But the the end goal is to alsohave better polymerization and
smoother, richer tanninstructures um from the, from the
jump, so kind of rambly.
Sorry, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So I don't have a lot of technical knowledge because
I didn't go to uh, I didn't doanalogy school yeah, so I never
went to winemaking school at all.
I was just all kind oftrade-based and kind of
apprenticeships for me, and so Iknow how to do certain things,
but I don't know why I'm doingthem and so like that, yeah,
that breakdown was reallyinteresting to me.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, I was like well , I'll be re-watching this one
we can chat more about it too.
Yeah, that's awesome, it's kindof boring to like just listen
to somebody talk about that.
No, and actually, I love thatyou went more in depth in it
because, like you said,sometimes it's just handed down
(24:44):
and you just do what you dobecause that's what you were
taught, right.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Um, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
And that's how it was for me, like I I mean I did
some background with theviticulture program, yeah, and
then being more hands-on andbeing explained on why you're
doing it and like certainvarieties and how you pick these
ones at this time, and all thatgood stuff.
But I love that you went morein depth and kind of explained
(25:12):
the chemistry and the wholecompounding and all that good
stuff.
Thanks, yeah, yeah, no, I mean,it's very intriguing and like
to have someone on this podcastthat can explain that Totally.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, I think for me too.
I mean, like I live in bothworlds, right, where I have to
be able to give like aconversational snippet to our
tasting room team, cause likeeverybody wants that like
factoid, that they can saythat's going to be slightly
different than somebody else,right?
And so also like I, for me,wine is one of those things
where it was like the firstintellectual curiosity that I
(25:48):
ever had in my life and so, likethe more I learned, the less I
felt like I knew and like droveme to like really study things
like chemistry and biology.
But it's right sized just forwine.
Like, yeah, I could not tellyou, like you know outside of
why, like you know, there'syeast cultures in your yogurt,
right?
Yeah, I don't fucking knowwhat's going on in there.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
No, but that's seriously how I am.
I love nerding out on wine andjust talking about it.
We've done a couple segments onjust the viticulture side and
explaining certain varieties andall this stuff, but to go more
in-depth on the actual wine isjust cool, I love it.
To nerd out on the wine is justit's awesome.
(26:32):
Thanks.
And I mean wine is just so.
There's so many varieties outthere in the different um.
There's just so many differentthings out there.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
And.
But don't you feel like in yourexploration, like the more you
find out, the less you feel likeyou actually know, cause you're
like holy fuck, you can do that.
Like yeah, the less you feellike you actually know because
you're like holy fuck, you cando that.
Like what?
Yeah, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that?
There's like how many?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
clones of T'Ral but they're like they're the same
but they're not.
But they're wait, but thatclone does well here but that
clone does not do well over here.
And it's like Wait and like forthe black and white people.
They're like wait, isn't therejust a Roth?
Yeah, and it's like no, dependson how nerdy you want to get,
you know, yeah, one thing that'scool about wine is that so many
(27:16):
people say all the time.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
But I also love this thing is that you can never
master it because there's somany unknown things about wine.
So you can never knoweverything about wine which is
super cool there, about winewhich is super cool there's
always something to learn.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
So for I want to.
I, how do I ask this question?
So in your lab, so, do you likehave things that will break
down the grapes, that willreally tell you what you're?
Do you have that?
Technology here that goesbeyond what most wineries do.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
We do have a um, have a benchtop spec so I could
bring in the SA kits to doanthocyanin concentration and
tanning concentration.
I do not, because for me thatkind of decision making is done
visually and by palette, becauseI mean there's so many
(28:11):
different interconnecting piecesthat are going to make up the
mouthfeel of your, your wine.
Right, you have like the basicslike alcohol, sugar, acid, but
then you also start to layer indifferent types of anthocyanins
and, well, anthocyanins color,but, like you know, different,
um, uh, different.
You literally just watched mego brain dead for a second.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Welcome to my life.
This happens to us all the time.
Yeah, We'll look at each otherand we're like what are?
We saying what's the word I'mlooking for, especially like
after a day of work, and I'mlike what the fuck are we
talking about now?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
yeah, so, um, so there's, there's all this whole,
like it's literally called amatrix.
What is going to be likedriving the structural
components of your wine, butalso the flavor, and I don't
want a computer or a set ofnumbers telling me what to do.
I want to be tasting the wineon a daily basis while it's
going through its fermentationprocess and, um, it's kind of
(29:15):
lazy and drive by winemaking tojust kind of look at the numbers
, yeah, and be like, okay, thisis good, like get it off its
hands right, yeah, and so likewe don't do that here, you're
definitely looking at qualityhere as one thing that charlie
brought up on the
Speaker 1 (29:27):
podcast too is like if you just look at the numbers,
it's not gonna tell you thefull story.
You have to.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
That's why he does like from from viticulture to
winemaking like all through theprocess, you have to taste.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
You're a winemaker, you have to know both sides well
and that's the beauty of beingin a state vineyard source
winery like we are right, it'slike I literally how many visits
?
No, yeah, it's like stupid andI'm fortunate that my vineyards
are like right there and likeyou know, 10 minutes drive from
from my production facility, um,but like when I was at hall and
(30:00):
wall and baka, you know, wecovered a thousand miles of
coastline from shay vineyard inwillamette all the way down, to
quote Pepe, and you know like Iwas on the road for that right,
it's in Santa Barbara so youmight be familiar
Speaker 1 (30:15):
the owner of the current owner of Jaffers.
He created Quo Pepe with Wes,so that was one of his projects,
and so I was like, yeah, isthere a vineyard in fucking
Oregon that's also Quo Pepe, no,but that was a whole shtick
right.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And so I was like, yeah, is there a vineyard in
fucking Oregon that's alsocalled Pepe?
No, no, but that was the wholeshtick right.
It's like you have this likecomplete suite of Pinot
expressions, all from coastalUSA.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Right, which is awesome.
That's really cool.
It was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
But logistically but so much time spent on the road
and having to.
I mean like I love walking thevines, but like if you aren't
actually there and if you can't.
I mean like having theflexibility that if I see a
problem tomorrow out there, Ican pick up the phone.
I call Javier and I'm like hey,come walk, walk 13 Merlot, with
(31:05):
me.
Let's talk about this pruning.
We got to fix up thisarchitecture and, like you know,
being able to like do thosethings and not have to wait two
weeks because how much how manypeople are on your vineyard crew
?
So we have a full-time crew of12 that covers our roughly 120
acres under vine, um, and so youknow simple math 10 acres per
(31:26):
dude type of thing, um, and thenduring the harvest season, when
it's time to like actuallystart picking, we will bring in
additional labor crews if thethe weather is really pushing us
and we need to get stuff inyeah, so no one thing I thought
how many people do you bring in?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
sorry, you go ahead.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Um, it really just depends, and it also depends on,
like, who's available right, sowe're all borrowing from the
same labor pool at the end ofthe day.
Um, but, but Rocky pond will bea little greedy and like as
soon as.
Like pear and apple crops arelike picked out on this side.
We basically just go and getthem and we we have work to do
(32:04):
always and so like we'll bringthem on board.
But there's people year-roundand they're full-time employees
benefits housing whole nineyards here for them.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Oh, good for them.
Yeah, that's one thing I loveabout Rocky Pond is they really
take care.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
I think for us it fits into that sustainability
model where it's not justtalking about the bottom line
for Rocky Pond and then, likeyou, know what we're spraying
out there.
There's a holistic approach tolike enriching the lives of the
people who work here, but alsothe community, and so, yeah, I
don't know it's important.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Yeah, I love that too .
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, I feel like there's such a, I mean within
this community.
I mean this also goes for everycommunity that's out there, but
you have people with themindset of scarcity versus the
mindset of abundance right,totally, and so the people that
are like the scarcity mindsetare going to be more jealous and
(33:03):
talk shit for no reason orwhatever.
Or there's a reasons, becausethey're scared or whatever
taking business away, whateverit is.
But if you have a mindset ofabundance and then you're going
to support those people becauseit's also in turn going to
support you Also.
It's kind of like the idea ofkarma a little bit.
Yeah.
Well, and that's kind of likewhat I explained earlier, of
(33:24):
just like yeah and so somepeople see like each other money
bags coming into a smallcommunity and then they
immediately have a certain ideaor perspective of it.
But when, um, you get down tothe brass tacks and then you
find out everything that they'redoing, then it's a lot.
You're uncovering a lot moreinformation than you were if you
(33:46):
were just like looking and um,assuming certain things.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right, there's two stories that we could tell here,
right it's like another richseattle person moved on to like
this agricultural land and istrying to like drive up the
property values.
But you could also say, hey,we're, we're part of building
community.
We're giving jobs year-round topeople who would building
houses not not have.
(34:11):
We're farming the land in aresponsible way yeah, and.
I mean for me very selfishly too.
That gives me generationalknowledge that I can then step
into this role, like I did twoyears ago.
But the crew has been farmingthis land since 2013.
And I can learn from them inthe same way that, like as I'm
telling them what myexpectations are for inputs,
(34:32):
they're telling me like hey, wetried this in 2015 and this is
what we saw, and you know, likehaving those conversations
instead of having like a blankslate, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So they can easily have a person that would come in
.
That's not you, um, that wouldhave been like changing.
You know we're doing this, andthis is what I say so do what I
say versus you actually listento them.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Yeah, you know so that's good, it's, that's your
best knowledge.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Right there is absolutely seen it they, they
see it because they're thepeople out there doing the work
and I don't know it's.
It's also important to me tofeel like you know the wine that
we produce.
It's not just like a trait,saying that like it's made out
there Right, like it really is,like it gives them the chance to
feel like they're bought intothe process too and like are
(35:20):
also making this wine that'sthen ultimately paying them in
the end of the day, right, likeif we're not making good shit,
then we're not selling wine andnobody gets paid, exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Even for the standard customer that comes in and they
go into, say, chelan, they gointo this tasting room and they
go, oh, this wine's reallyexpensive, but that's all they
know.
They see the menu, they tastethe wines and they go, wow,
these prices are higher than thenormal.
(35:53):
Or like the Valley, or whateverit is.
Yeah, and it's like, first off,they really aren't compared,
especially compared to like Napaand those places not at Napa
Walla, walla, all those placesthey're not even close, all
(36:14):
those places they're not evenclose.
But at the same time, liketalking to you make me, makes me
have such a more open mindsetto why the prices are where
they're at.
And again, you have all thisland and all these people to
take care of as well.
And some people don't thinkabout it.
They think, oh, you crush themgrapes and put it in a bottle,
and yeah, and that's not thecase.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
And I would, I would hope to that the the quality of
the wine is commiserate with,kind of like the effort that
we're putting into it and theprice that we're asking.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah, and more tears, tears but I also think too
right, like I mean, what wouldchelan look like if, in the 70s,
you know, oh my gosh, dr boband tom pettigrew were like
let's build some condos, man,you know?
we're also running up againstthe, the reality that, like it
(37:06):
is just fundamentally moreexpensive to farm here than
really anywhere else in thestate because that could be
another you know five milliondollar property, or it could be
an acre of vines, you know likeI mean, I talked to my friend
seth kitsky down um, that'supside down wine.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So yeah, yeah um, and we were just chatting, he was
at norwood, uh, in wenatchee,yeah, and so we're just hanging
out.
Um, the first time I actuallymet him in person, because we've
been, like you know, socialmedia friends for a while.
Yeah, um, and I never actuallymet him in person, so it was
really cool that he was doing atasting pop up there, so I got
(37:43):
to see him.
Yeah.
And I was like dude, like from aviticulture standpoint, like
what, what's your like opinionof Chelan?
I just want, I just want toknow from someone that's a
little bit more experienced inthe wine industry, that has come
to the area.
And he was like, oh dude, it'ssuch a prime area to grow grapes
, but it's so fucking expensive,yeah.
(38:05):
So he was just like he was likeI, I thought about oh, I thought
about it a lot like purchasingland up in chelan and growing
grapes, but like end of the day,just doesn't pencil out for me,
it wouldn't make sense.
Yeah, versus like the desertwhere he is, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, very cheap land , also great area to grow grapes
so it's like well, and evenjust like the expensive land not
only is going up, but then Ifeel like the employees are not
being paid to.
I mean, I'm going through thatstruggle right now of like
(38:42):
trying to buy a house and wedon't need to go down that
rabbit hole, but like it's a yougotta, I mean we're obviously I
just visited san barbararecently and I feel a lot better
being I miss it down there somuch.
But, like also, um, but I feellike there's that, especially
(39:04):
for the younger generations likeus, it's we're.
I have this argument with mygrandpa all the time.
He's like, well, when I wasyour age, I had four kids and
bought a house and was doing allthese things and I'm like, yeah
, you paid a wanted and ahandshake for it and I'm like
uh-huh, I'm just like waiting tofind, because he sends me
(39:28):
emails or like forwards me allthe emails and I want to like,
send him, like a YouTube linkand be like let's break down
what's the hell is actuallyhappening in this environment,
right?
Speaker 4 (39:38):
now and why all your inheritance shouldn't just go to
a charity well, I think, like Iyou know, having worked in
other wine growing regions,there is this unique culture for
me, specifically in the LakeChelan area of the tasting rooms
(39:58):
are staffed by people who arerecently retired but still
looking for a social activityand maybe a little bit of like
pocket money, but basically likecool place to hang out, get
some free wine and like chat allday and so like.
If you have this culture ofthis being an optional or like a
side hustle, there isn't thatlevel of professionalism that's
(40:21):
in a place like Napa or Sonoma,where it's like people our age,
I don't, I mean like I assumewe're all within like a couple
of years of each other.
Being like, okay, well, we'reall within like a couple years
of each other, yeah, totally.
Being like okay, well, like Ineed to be saving for a mortgage
.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
And like you can't pay me minimum wage.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
And then like ask me to just kind of like live off of
the commission that I earn.
I mean, it's also easier toearn a fat commission check when
you're selling you know know ahundred dollar bottles of wine.
So, um, I think like there'slike a cultural shift that I
hope is in the works here, but Ihaven't experienced that type
of like dynamic outside of LakeChelan.
(41:00):
Yeah, and I've also worked insome like kind of poor Z's
places like the Finger Lakes,right like it was yeah, it was a
lot of people still our age whowere like interested in being
part of this, like artisticcreative community and like
growing this thing together.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So, yeah, interesting , yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well, that's our time , but um so fun.
Thank you, liz, so much Um youare so well-spoken and so smart
and I'm jealous because I wish Icould be you just a little bit.
I'm working on it, trust me,it's a goal.
Even though I host a podcast.
I am terrible.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
So I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I'm always working on it, though.
Thank you so much.
You're a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Neither of us have wine for our last cheers.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
I'm really gravitating towards the uh
stratastone right now but I'malso just a really I'm just a
fucking sucker for a good rumblend I think the studio is
still like really tightly woundthat needs some time to like
kind of like flesh up a littlebit, yeah, yeah but yeah,
awesome.
Well, thank you liz, we reallydo Well, thank you Liz.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
We really do appreciate it Thank you guys.
And thank you, rocky Pond,obviously for letting us do this
.
We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Awesome.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Thank you, liz, thanks for your time.
Well cheers, appreciate it.
Cheers, cheers, cheers you,thank you.
bung pod, welcome back.
Wine wonder boy.
And we got jazzy jay, jazzy.
What is a bum?
The hole of the barrel iscalled a bung hole.
Inside the bung hole is calleda bum wine with mayhem.
That's what it's about.
All right, welcome, welcome,jabroni, our wine jabronis out
(00:26):
there.
Thank you so much forsupporting us.
The Wine Wonder Boy, jazzy J,and we have Liz Kieser.
Nailed it, nailed it.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I was like what is he going to say?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
If you watched the original or the uh, yeah, the
original episode to this.
Um, I done fucked it up, so Icorrected myself.
Well, there was a street inSanta Barbara called uh Kaiser.
Uh N it's just like your name,except for an N Kaiser way.
And so I was like, oh, justdrop the N, it's Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
No, it's Kaiser.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Like a set of keys.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So, All right, so here let'sstart with what we were drinking
.
Yeah, because you're empty andlet's get tasting notes on this
one.
We didn't do tasting notes onthis one.
You have to do the tastingnotes on this one.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I passed the torch pass the torch and the bottle.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
That's your category all right, oh god, in front of
liz.
Okay, I'm a little a littlenervous, a little nervous yeah,
no um yeah, I mean, it's a greatruby color, medium intensity.
Oh, there's a lot of like a tonof spice, immediately like on
(01:51):
the nose.
A ton of spice, spice andbrambly, like you were saying to
the other one.
I mean, the tans are likeperfect, I feel like yeah, mean
you really do hit that palette,thank you.
Like it goes all the waythrough because bright the acid
(02:12):
is like kind of pushing the winethroughout the whole experience
with the length and then it has, like some of those almost like
I, yeah, brambly I don't knowwhat else because it's like
cranberry, but not so.
It's like yeah it's more kindof bramble berry and um.
I was very complex.
There's some earth in there,some mushroom.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I like this one yeah, I the more I drink it, the more
I like it, yeah, um yeah, soit's a 2022 Studio Syrah.
It's what?
75?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
75% Syrah, 25% whole cluster Viognier.
Yes, it's delicious.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
When I first saw it.
I've never personally have seenthose two blended.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But you were saying yeah, it's a practice in Coetit,
Northern Rhone, France.
They do Viognier co for men.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
they usually do like anywhere from like one, to like
10 would be pretty audaciousyeah I think 10 yeah I forget,
like the legal, because there'slike a legal limit.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I think it's like 15 legal oh really, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's like one to ten percent.
What made you go with 25?
Just because you had the oneton to the four?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
yeah, kind of it was like more just, pure, pure
harvest chaos, math it isinteresting, though, because,
like uc, davis has an articlethat they posted um on their
website about the chemicalbreakdown of when you co-ferment
viognier with syrah and itactually like lifts the
aromatics.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It creates a little bit more body sometimes yeah, so
there's these like sacrificialphenolic chains that are in the
grape skin of the viognier andit binds to the like sixth
carbon on the anthocyanin chain.
That gives you pigmentation forum, syrah, and so what happens
(04:10):
is those basically bind and itforms a super stable color
compound that's really hard tooxidize, but you also get the
phenolic chains, so phenols aregoing to be associated with like
flavor, but also tannin andaromatics of your wine and it
kind of just like imparts it onthe Syrah as well and creates a
(04:33):
super, super stable wine.
And so, like it was a happyaccident when this was first
like arrived upon, arrived uponum, and it was the way for
northern rhone, where cote rutiis located, to in a very cool
vintage, kind of like 2022 forus.
Yeah, get these wines that havestable, deep pigmented color
(04:54):
but also increase a little bitmore of that ripeness and kind
of like fake it a little bit.
I love that um, instead ofhaving this like, I hope they
see more of these, I mean I love, uh, co-ferment viognier and
syrah.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Like I'm a huge fan of that, like I was at a place
called jaffers in santa barbarauh for a while and we did a lot
of that and, honestly, with likethe ripeness that we got in
santa barbara with some of thoselocations um, this one vineyard
called larner, which isbasically a beach yeah, we were
talking about that behind thescenes before this um, that was
(05:28):
just like, it was just like aninsane color and, uh, experience
is just is nuts.
Like one thing that we would doat jaffers during harvest is we
would have harvest lunches orlike in the middle of the day.
I don't know how they did this,how they they their time
management is great.
Like they scheduled things.
Everything was by the dot.
I've never been anywhere where Ileft before 6 pm during harvest
(05:53):
, like it's no it never happensbut jaffers it happened, also
because they're really reallysmall and super boutique, but
like, and also the timemanagement skills are great, and
so lunch it would be the winesthat we are looking up to,
essentially like our, their, thewinemaker steven, what he was
influenced by, and so we wouldhave anything from corti to
(06:14):
cornos.
Um, they didn't do bubbles, butthey had.
We had fair share of champagne,which was fun, yeah, um, so it
so it was it was all my makersdo.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And, um, champagne, as I say, champagne is my blood
type, so it's just like correct.
Yeah, it's amazing, so got tokeep me going one way or another
.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So a lot of like of my tasting experience um broader
.
I guess high-end tastingexperience came from working
there because they would treatus to so many things yeah um, I
just remember having like, uh,co-routine corn off like on a
regular basis because we're so,we were so so raw heavy yeah you
know, um, and so I mean thatwas so much fun for me, and
(07:00):
that's when I learned about theUC Davis cause our, the
assistant winemaker, she, uh, isgoing to still possibly
probably in the tail end of hertime at UC Davis right now
online, but, um, yeah, and she'sabsolutely amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Uh, marissa, yeah, uh , good for her.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, I learned so much from there.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
and, um, yeah, I just love the the I'd love to read
that article about the wholeconnection to that.
I love how nerdy you got it.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, I can send you the article love the nerdness.
If you guys want, actually I'lljust link the article in the
show notes for the patreonpeople too.
Um.
I don't know if you'll readthat, but I'll post it.
It's a good read it's a reallyinteresting read.
It's very nerdy.
Um, liz did a great job ofbreaking down the chemical uh
breakdown of it.
She a really interesting read.
It's very nerdy.
Liz did a great job of breakingdown the chemical breakdown of
it.
She's really fucking smart.
If you didn't know that alreadyyeah, if you didn't listen
Speaker 3 (07:52):
to the first one.
Trust me, if you didn't catchthe vibe, she's really fucking
smart, which is awesome reallynerdy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You're like a cool nerd, you like me oh yeah, for
sure I'm not saying you're anerd, come on now this is high
school.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
No, we love nerds.
Does that even?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I don't know After the age of like 18?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know, I don't think so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Nerds are like cool.
Yeah, cool nerds are the onlyway after 18.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, they own like Tesla and Facebook and shit yeah
.
And.
Google and you know, and makingwine.
Yeah.
Space X.
They're great people, yeah,yeah, all the nerds.
So I was so excited because Ihave proposed that to the place
I work.
I get my work very anonymous onthe podcast.
Sorry, I didn't say that before, but I do.
(08:41):
Just in case anything I say theydon't like or whatever, it
doesn't influence.
Yeah, fair enough, yeah, um andI was like, dude, it'd be so
sick to do a co-firm and aVionier.
And one thing I love about themis that, like, well, here's the
thing we are, we are all astate and so we're only doing a
state grapes and we just don'thave Vionier.
That's one.
(09:01):
And the other one was like Idon't know, because he's still
pretty green and to thewinemaking um, to the wine
industry in general, but alsojust winemaking and he's, he is
growing so, so much, um, whichis amazing.
Every single year it's likeanother thing.
He's getting nerdy about anotherthing, which is awesome to see
yeah at some point I would lovefor him to do some whole cluster
(09:23):
syrah, at least like a certainpercentage.
That was yeah.
When I first came on board Iwas like, oh, you want to do
like a, like a 25 whole clusteror 15 or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Keep it low and just like play with it and play with
it, and he's like uh, no, Idon't want to.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I was like, all right , that's cool, that's cool yeah,
sick, but like it'd be fun, youknow yeah, super fun just
because I I came from that kindof community of, and that
community, that's a stupid wordum god, that was so dumb um this
wine making you don't evenrealize when you like get in,
(10:05):
like get nerdy about wine, it'slike slowly just brings you in
to this little cult and youdon't even realize it then, you
just like look at your winecellar and you're like I need
more.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And you're like I haven't even drank any of this,
but I need more yeah I mean I Iyeah, I was raised winemaking
wise um on like low intervention, a lot of whole cluster stuff
going on, um, native ferments, alot of those and um, and then
coming to washington it was justlike kind of a culture shock
for me a little bit because,like so many people were so
(10:37):
reluctant to do any of that andI was like oh, that's, that's
weird.
Yeah, like everyone here islike did you see that as well?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
no, I mean, it's um, I haven't honestly done that
much exploration in terms of,like, what other people in our
area are doing their cellar.
It's been more of just.
I haven't honestly done thatmuch exploration in terms of,
like, what other people in ourarea are doing in their cellar.
It's been more of just kind oflike focusing on what we're
doing here and totally shame onme.
I need to get back out thereand do that too.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I know you came to our place to work and haven't
seen you since.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I know I will get back out there.
We live in.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Wenatchee, and so it's like an hour drive.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We live in Wenatchee and so it's it's like an hour
drive.
I really only go to Wenatcheeto go to the weed shop, so it's
like yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
But I think, um, for me at least when I was, when I
was starting off in kind of likemy early days, um, I was
coached by um the winemaker thatI was working for at the time,
to be like, look, it's reallycool that you want to do 100
whole cluster and you want tolike, do all these crazy things.
But before you break the rulesyou have to know what they are.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And that's kind of like what?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
what kind of rules of ?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
music yeah, you have to know you have to stay in this
little box for a certain amountof time, until you understand
how to break the rules.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Exactly, and so I think like that was really
important for me to kind of likewait to explain that.
Yeah, build, build.
That philosophy and you knowwhere I've arrived at this point
in time is pretty hands off,but still like, super respecting
the foundation of like biologyand chemistry and so, um, yeah,
like we, we always go with themission of being unfined and
(12:13):
unfiltered and, like I obviouslystill use sulfur.
I'm not like 100% au natural onthings You're like zero zero,
yeah, no, because, like I alsoknow, like the wine pH that
we're working you need some typeof like antimicrobial agent to
be scrubbing your wine and, um,yeah, so it's like you.
(12:33):
For me it's.
It's finding that balancebetween, like the things that
you can do as a winemaker thatare going to be additive and
supportive, versus taking awayfrom the wine and so like.
For me, because finding agentsaren't selective filtration
media is close, but still notselective in what it's removing.
I don't want to be chemicallyripping apart and changing this
(12:55):
wine that we have literally fromthe vine made like the pruning
decisions all the way throughthe bottle or just before bottle
, to then be like, okay, I'mgoing to rip you apart on a
molecular level, slap you backtogether and so, like what it
does.
It sets us up with this likelist of cultural practices that
keeps my team really likediligent about making sure that
(13:19):
the ambient microflora and ourwinery can like support that
mission, but also, like I don'tknow, if you have a goal, then
you know what you work needs tobe done to get there.
Um, it'd be, super easy to justkind of like pick things super
overripe and oak the hell out ofthem and oh like everybody.
(13:39):
I mean like everybody's had arocket fuel wine before where
you're just like this thing isdoctored, this could be
coca-cola with alcohol in it.
You know, like that's, likethat's, that's soulless, that's
not fun for me.
Yeah, patreon.
We're good, we're good.
Lock that shit behind a paywall.
There's a paywall.
So Just my personal preferenceyeah.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Um, but yeah, that's um.
No, it's, it's just reallyinteresting.
No, it's, it's just reallyinteresting.
Um, when you get into likedifferent communities, I mean
like wazoo doesn't teach likethey I went through the process
wazoo process and yeah, they areagainst a lot of things, like
in their viticulture they don'tteach sustainable or organic or
(14:26):
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Are you guys working towards sustainability or any of
that?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
so we were actually part of the pilot program for
sustainable wa certification.
Okay, so our three estatevineyards are farmed to spec for
sustainable washington.
Um, prior to that, we werefarming under live and salmon
safe co certification.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So the winery that I'm currently working for is
organic, sustainable salmon,safe and live.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah.
So I feel like I wasn't part ofthe decision making when
Sustainable Washington was beingbuilt up as a program, but what
I love about it is it isuniquely tailored to the
environmental conditions here inWashington, where CCOF and live
those are built for Californiaand the unique like features of
(15:14):
California and same thing forfor live, and so having that
kind of tailored fit program forWashington is phenomenal.
Um and then, in terms of, like,the practices that we do in the
vineyard, it's really justgiving name to what we already
did.
I mean, we're a hundred percentestate driven, already had a
mission of not using you knowthat heavy hitter herbicides and
(15:36):
pesticides.
We are not organic, but becauseit gives us like, the leverage
that let's say it is a shit yearand we have to get out there
and spray, we will, because wealso need to be financially
responsible to ourselves Likethis whole thing doesn't
continue to go forward if we'relike, well, we're gonna crop
this to half a ton per acre andmaybe right, like at some point
(15:59):
in time you're gonna like shootyourself in the foot and you
can't get back out of it and soum we're not pursuing that, but
like for conventional farming,we're pretty damn near squeaky
clean.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, and so even damn when we so we did a behind
the scenes walkthrough of theproduction facility and I like
jerked off to how clean that wasLike it's beautiful in here.
It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful facility.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Well, you guys do a lot of native ferments, right?
Speaker 4 (16:30):
We do a lot of native ferments, that the chemistry
supports it.
So obviously, if we have, likeyou know, disease pressure or
it's like 30 bricks, if we couldeven eke that out here, that's
not going to finish.
So we're not going to like, setourselves up for um failure and
we'll inoculate, um and then,quite frankly, some of like the
(16:50):
tank fermented white wines.
It's kind of like so I didn'tforget it like let's get this
just like blended away type ofthing, and that will pitch east,
because I don't want to bebabysitting pinot gris for 45
days.
I want to know that it's likefinished, it's dry, it's sulfur
and it's good to go.
Yeah, it's good to go it'lltaste delicious, as kind of like
a blender extender for you knowour white wine program.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But I'm not going to be there like babysitting a
barrel ferment of peanut, agree,like I mean, one of my friends
has still has a native fermentgoing right now of grenache I
mean I think that's just calledstuck from it it's not stuck,
it's like so slow it's crazy butum, is it off skins?
(17:33):
Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I didn't ask that question I really hope so yeah,
so yeah, yeah, I really hope soum you have other microbes than
just yeast that are like workingon that sugar too.
So yeah, I mean I'm sure it'sgonna be crazy volatile, but
probably they do makeoutstanding wine and so I'm like
you know, like I trust, they'vebeen doing it for years.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, this is not the their first rodeo with a wine
like that yeah I'm like okaymost winemakers I know would
just be shitting their pants umfor real or have been or do
something like restart, yeah um,but yeah, he's fine.
And one thing I one of myfriends, she um julia.
(18:19):
She works with uh, sashi,mormon and raj par for their
wine label, uh, both sandy anddomain de la cote, and they do
all native everything andthey're making their own yeast
culture in the vineyard.
Yeah.
They also do a pied-à-couve.
Do you guys do a pied-à-couveat all?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
We don't.
I have before I actually.
So when I was in Australia Ihad a yeast propagation program
and so I would basically plateand grow the ambient yeast
culture for kind of the internalprogram that we call the basket
program.
So smaller lot fermentationsand much more quality focus and
(19:03):
kind of making those larger likebulk style blends that they
would do, and so that was reallyfun to be able to do.
That.
We don't do it here because Ihaven't seen the need for it.
Um, we only do like two turnsin the winery right now, so
we'll basically have everythingfull with just our own varietals
.
Get things drained Um, we don't.
(19:26):
I mean we will press the wine,but we don't do any press
inclusion into the barrels.
And then once we have thingsgoing with Malik in barrels for
our own side, that tends to bewhen we need to start picking
for the Bordeaux program andthat fills the tank or fills the
room back up, and at that pointin time there's so much like
(19:46):
ambient microflora that'sgetting things going.
Yeah, ambient microflora that'sgetting things going.
Yeah, um, that your ferment'sgonna start, unless you are
really have it handed with yoursulfur regimen, or?
Um, what we did actually do inthis past vintage was we started
playing around with ummechnikova pokerama, which is
like a non-fermentative yeaststrain that can help you extend
(20:08):
your um cold soak and sointeresting playing around with
kind of like where we're gettingour, our extraction and I found
for cabernet here because thetannin profile is um, it's just,
it's slightly different thanwhat we're dealing with in in
napa.
I want to be as extractive aspossible at the front end of the
(20:29):
fermentation where it's anaqueous solution, not an
alcoholic, and so, liketraditional winemaking, you're
probably going to have your cabtwo to three days in in cold
soak, then, um, you know, warmertemperature fermentations and
then you say can you explainwhat cold soaking really means?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
yeah, and also I was gonna ask what aqueous.
Oh yeah, I don't know thatwater, water solution right.
So so juice, so juice, right.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
So, uh yeah yeah, cold soak is going to be the
period of time before youactually start fermentation on
your wine and at that point intime, depending on, like, how,
what you're doing, you can havegrapes just sitting in a tank
and just chilling their buttsoff um, and that could be
considered a cold soak.
But what we do is we actuallystart the cap management process
(21:15):
.
So pumping over the take andwatching that juice get deeper
and deeper in pigmentation butalso more concentrated in its
color and its flavor and um,playing around with it at a
water base is going to be lessextractive than alcohol, right.
And so if you're going tofollow the standard practice of,
(21:36):
you know, having your wine intank for two to three days and
then fermenting at a highertemperature, so you get that
enzymatic action where it'sgoing to really richen and
deepen the color of your wine,you lose some of the nuance and
some of the volatile aromaticsthat are part of that.
But it also sets you up to havealcohol in your extraction
(21:56):
process earlier and alcohol isgoing to extract much faster and
it's going to get down deeperinto, kind of like the seed
tannin and so, like, think oflike.
Have you like watched any ofthose like trad wives videos on
Instagram where they're likemaking their own vanilla extract
at home.
It's basically taking like youknow, vanilla beans and alcohol
(22:19):
right Like it's the same processthat's going to like pull out a
bunch of flavor tannin, all thethings faster and earlier, and
you lose control over that, um,that process.
And so if you are working withkind of on the greener side or
more herbaceous side of Cabernet, where those tannins and
anthocyanins aren't fully maturein some instances, I want to
(22:41):
get all that extraction done ina more gentle environment like
water or a juice space.
And then turn on the fermenter,get things going really fast.
And so playing around with anon-fermentative yeast kind of
extends that period of timewhere it's suppressing all the
spoilage microbes that could beactive in your fermenter without
having to get you up to like 50parts of free sulfur, because I
(23:05):
also don't want to start off atthat high of a sulfur level,
like start off at that high of asulfur level, because that's
antagonistic to the yeast thatare going to then kind of come
in and do the actualfermentation.
And so playing around with kindof like a suite of
non-fermentative yeast like thatwe found last year was really
awesome in extending that windowfor us but also then gave us
(23:29):
the opportunity to get thingsoff of skins faster because
we've already done all the hardwork upfront and we don't need
40 days of tannin resolutiondoing like extended maceration
where things just sit and thenthey start to lose color and,
yeah, the tannins resolving, butyou're also having to blast it
with oxygen and like play aroundwith your, your heat and so um,
(23:49):
a little bit of its efficiency.
But the the end goal is to alsohave better polymerization and
smoother, richer tanninstructures um from the, from the
jump, so kind of rambly.
Sorry, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So I don't have a lot of technical knowledge because
I didn't go to uh, I didn't doanalogy school yeah, so I never
went to winemaking school at all.
I was just all kind oftrade-based and kind of
apprenticeships for me, and so Iknow how to do certain things,
but I don't know why I'm doingthem and so like that, yeah,
that breakdown was reallyinteresting to me.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, I was like well , I'll be re-watching this one
we can chat more about it too.
Yeah, that's awesome, it's kindof boring to like just listen
to somebody talk about that.
No, and actually, I love thatyou went more in depth in it
because, like you said,sometimes it's just handed down
(24:44):
and you just do what you dobecause that's what you were
taught, right.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Um, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
And that's how it was for me, like I I mean I did
some background with theviticulture program, yeah, and
then being more hands-on andbeing explained on why you're
doing it and like certainvarieties and how you pick these
ones at this time, and all thatgood stuff.
But I love that you went morein depth and kind of explained
(25:12):
the chemistry and the wholecompounding and all that good
stuff.
Thanks, yeah, yeah, no, I mean,it's very intriguing and like
to have someone on this podcastthat can explain that Totally.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, I think for me too.
I mean, like I live in bothworlds, right, where I have to
be able to give like aconversational snippet to our
tasting room team, cause likeeverybody wants that like
factoid, that they can saythat's going to be slightly
different than somebody else,right?
And so also like I, for me,wine is one of those things
where it was like the firstintellectual curiosity that I
(25:48):
ever had in my life and so, likethe more I learned, the less I
felt like I knew and like droveme to like really study things
like chemistry and biology.
But it's right sized just forwine.
Like, yeah, I could not tellyou, like you know outside of
why, like you know, there'syeast cultures in your yogurt,
right?
Yeah, I don't fucking knowwhat's going on in there.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
No, but that's seriously how I am.
I love nerding out on wine andjust talking about it.
We've done a couple segments onjust the viticulture side and
explaining certain varieties andall this stuff, but to go more
in-depth on the actual wine isjust cool, I love it.
To nerd out on the wine is justit's awesome.
(26:32):
Thanks.
And I mean wine is just so.
There's so many varieties outthere in the different um.
There's just so many differentthings out there.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
And.
But don't you feel like in yourexploration, like the more you
find out, the less you feel likeyou actually know, cause you're
like holy fuck, you can do that.
Like yeah, the less you feellike you actually know because
you're like holy fuck, you cando that.
Like what?
Yeah, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that?
There's like how many?
Speaker 3 (26:54):
clones of T'Ral but they're like they're the same
but they're not.
But they're wait, but thatclone does well here but that
clone does not do well over here.
And it's like Wait and like forthe black and white people.
They're like wait, isn't therejust a Roth?
Yeah, and it's like no, dependson how nerdy you want to get,
you know, yeah, one thing that'scool about wine is that so many
(27:16):
people say all the time.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
But I also love this thing is that you can never
master it because there's somany unknown things about wine.
So you can never knoweverything about wine which is
super cool there, about winewhich is super cool there's
always something to learn.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
So for I want to.
I, how do I ask this question?
So in your lab, so, do you likehave things that will break
down the grapes, that willreally tell you what you're?
Do you have that?
Technology here that goesbeyond what most wineries do.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
We do have a um, have a benchtop spec so I could
bring in the SA kits to doanthocyanin concentration and
tanning concentration.
I do not, because for me thatkind of decision making is done
visually and by palette, becauseI mean there's so many
(28:11):
different interconnecting piecesthat are going to make up the
mouthfeel of your, your wine.
Right, you have like the basicslike alcohol, sugar, acid, but
then you also start to layer indifferent types of anthocyanins
and, well, anthocyanins color,but, like you know, different,
um, uh, different.
You literally just watched mego brain dead for a second.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Welcome to my life.
This happens to us all the time.
Yeah, We'll look at each otherand we're like what are?
We saying what's the word I'mlooking for, especially like
after a day of work, and I'mlike what the fuck are we
talking about now?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
yeah, so, um, so there's, there's all this whole,
like it's literally called amatrix.
What is going to be likedriving the structural
components of your wine, butalso the flavor, and I don't
want a computer or a set ofnumbers telling me what to do.
I want to be tasting the wineon a daily basis while it's
going through its fermentationprocess and, um, it's kind of
(29:15):
lazy and drive by winemaking tojust kind of look at the numbers
, yeah, and be like, okay, thisis good, like get it off its
hands right, yeah, and so likewe don't do that here, you're
definitely looking at qualityhere as one thing that charlie
brought up on the
Speaker 1 (29:27):
podcast too is like if you just look at the numbers,
it's not gonna tell you thefull story.
You have to.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
That's why he does like from from viticulture to
winemaking like all through theprocess, you have to taste.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
You're a winemaker, you have to know both sides well
and that's the beauty of beingin a state vineyard source
winery like we are right, it'slike I literally how many visits
?
No, yeah, it's like stupid andI'm fortunate that my vineyards
are like right there and likeyou know, 10 minutes drive from
from my production facility, um,but like when I was at hall and
(30:00):
wall and baka, you know, wecovered a thousand miles of
coastline from shay vineyard inwillamette all the way down, to
quote Pepe, and you know like Iwas on the road for that right,
it's in Santa Barbara so youmight be familiar
Speaker 1 (30:15):
the owner of the current owner of Jaffers.
He created Quo Pepe with Wes,so that was one of his projects,
and so I was like, yeah, isthere a vineyard in fucking
Oregon that's also Quo Pepe, no,but that was a whole shtick
right.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And so I was like, yeah, is there a vineyard in
fucking Oregon that's alsocalled Pepe?
No, no, but that was the wholeshtick right.
It's like you have this likecomplete suite of Pinot
expressions, all from coastalUSA.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Right, which is awesome.
That's really cool.
It was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
But logistically but so much time spent on the road
and having to.
I mean like I love walking thevines, but like if you aren't
actually there and if you can't.
I mean like having theflexibility that if I see a
problem tomorrow out there, Ican pick up the phone.
I call Javier and I'm like hey,come walk, walk 13 Merlot, with
(31:05):
me.
Let's talk about this pruning.
We got to fix up thisarchitecture and, like you know,
being able to like do thosethings and not have to wait two
weeks because how much how manypeople are on your vineyard crew
?
So we have a full-time crew of12 that covers our roughly 120
acres under vine, um, and so youknow simple math 10 acres per
(31:26):
dude type of thing, um, and thenduring the harvest season, when
it's time to like actuallystart picking, we will bring in
additional labor crews if thethe weather is really pushing us
and we need to get stuff inyeah, so no one thing I thought
how many people do you bring in?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
sorry, you go ahead.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Um, it really just depends, and it also depends on,
like, who's available right, sowe're all borrowing from the
same labor pool at the end ofthe day.
Um, but, but Rocky pond will bea little greedy and like as
soon as.
Like pear and apple crops arelike picked out on this side.
We basically just go and getthem and we we have work to do
(32:04):
always and so like we'll bringthem on board.
But there's people year-roundand they're full-time employees
benefits housing whole nineyards here for them.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Oh, good for them.
Yeah, that's one thing I loveabout Rocky Pond is they really
take care.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
I think for us it fits into that sustainability
model where it's not justtalking about the bottom line
for Rocky Pond and then, likeyou, know what we're spraying
out there.
There's a holistic approach tolike enriching the lives of the
people who work here, but alsothe community, and so, yeah, I
don't know it's important.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Yeah, I love that too .
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, I feel like there's such a, I mean within
this community.
I mean this also goes for everycommunity that's out there, but
you have people with themindset of scarcity versus the
mindset of abundance right,totally, and so the people that
are like the scarcity mindsetare going to be more jealous and
(33:03):
talk shit for no reason orwhatever.
Or there's a reasons, becausethey're scared or whatever
taking business away, whateverit is.
But if you have a mindset ofabundance and then you're going
to support those people becauseit's also in turn going to
support you Also.
It's kind of like the idea ofkarma a little bit.
Yeah.
Well, and that's kind of likewhat I explained earlier, of
(33:24):
just like yeah and so somepeople see like each other money
bags coming into a smallcommunity and then they
immediately have a certain ideaor perspective of it.
But when, um, you get down tothe brass tacks and then you
find out everything that they'redoing, then it's a lot.
You're uncovering a lot moreinformation than you were if you
(33:46):
were just like looking and um,assuming certain things.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right, there's two stories that we could tell here,
right it's like another richseattle person moved on to like
this agricultural land and istrying to like drive up the
property values.
But you could also say, hey,we're, we're part of building
community.
We're giving jobs year-round topeople who would building
houses not not have.
(34:11):
We're farming the land in aresponsible way yeah, and.
I mean for me very selfishly too.
That gives me generationalknowledge that I can then step
into this role, like I did twoyears ago.
But the crew has been farmingthis land since 2013.
And I can learn from them inthe same way that, like as I'm
telling them what myexpectations are for inputs,
(34:32):
they're telling me like hey, wetried this in 2015 and this is
what we saw, and you know, likehaving those conversations
instead of having like a blankslate, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So they can easily have a person that would come in
.
That's not you, um, that wouldhave been like changing.
You know we're doing this, andthis is what I say so do what I
say versus you actually listento them.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Yeah, you know so that's good, it's, that's your
best knowledge.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Right there is absolutely seen it they, they
see it because they're thepeople out there doing the work
and I don't know it's.
It's also important to me tofeel like you know the wine that
we produce.
It's not just like a trait,saying that like it's made out
there Right, like it really is,like it gives them the chance to
feel like they're bought intothe process too and like are
(35:20):
also making this wine that'sthen ultimately paying them in
the end of the day, right, likeif we're not making good shit,
then we're not selling wine andnobody gets paid, exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Even for the standard customer that comes in and they
go into, say, chelan, they gointo this tasting room and they
go, oh, this wine's reallyexpensive, but that's all they
know.
They see the menu, they tastethe wines and they go, wow,
these prices are higher than thenormal.
(35:53):
Or like the Valley, or whateverit is.
Yeah, and it's like, first off,they really aren't compared,
especially compared to like Napaand those places not at Napa
Walla, walla, all those placesthey're not even close, all
(36:14):
those places they're not evenclose.
But at the same time, liketalking to you make me, makes me
have such a more open mindsetto why the prices are where
they're at.
And again, you have all thisland and all these people to
take care of as well.
And some people don't thinkabout it.
They think, oh, you crush themgrapes and put it in a bottle,
and yeah, and that's not thecase.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
And I would, I would hope to that the the quality of
the wine is commiserate with,kind of like the effort that
we're putting into it and theprice that we're asking.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah, and more tears, tears but I also think too
right, like I mean, what wouldchelan look like if, in the 70s,
you know, oh my gosh, dr boband tom pettigrew were like
let's build some condos, man,you know?
we're also running up againstthe, the reality that, like it
(37:06):
is just fundamentally moreexpensive to farm here than
really anywhere else in thestate because that could be
another you know five milliondollar property, or it could be
an acre of vines, you know likeI mean, I talked to my friend
seth kitsky down um, that'supside down wine.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So yeah, yeah um, and we were just chatting, he was
at norwood, uh, in wenatchee,yeah, and so we're just hanging
out.
Um, the first time I actuallymet him in person, because we've
been, like you know, socialmedia friends for a while.
Yeah, um, and I never actuallymet him in person, so it was
really cool that he was doing atasting pop up there, so I got
(37:43):
to see him.
Yeah.
And I was like dude, like from aviticulture standpoint, like
what, what's your like opinionof Chelan?
I just want, I just want toknow from someone that's a
little bit more experienced inthe wine industry, that has come
to the area.
And he was like, oh dude, it'ssuch a prime area to grow grapes
, but it's so fucking expensive,yeah.
(38:05):
So he was just like he was likeI, I thought about oh, I thought
about it a lot like purchasingland up in chelan and growing
grapes, but like end of the day,just doesn't pencil out for me,
it wouldn't make sense.
Yeah, versus like the desertwhere he is, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, very cheap land , also great area to grow grapes
so it's like well, and evenjust like the expensive land not
only is going up, but then Ifeel like the employees are not
being paid to.
I mean, I'm going through thatstruggle right now of like
(38:42):
trying to buy a house and wedon't need to go down that
rabbit hole, but like it's a yougotta, I mean we're obviously I
just visited san barbararecently and I feel a lot better
being I miss it down there somuch.
But, like also, um, but I feellike there's that, especially
(39:04):
for the younger generations likeus, it's we're.
I have this argument with mygrandpa all the time.
He's like, well, when I wasyour age, I had four kids and
bought a house and was doing allthese things and I'm like, yeah
, you paid a wanted and ahandshake for it and I'm like
uh-huh, I'm just like waiting tofind, because he sends me
(39:28):
emails or like forwards me allthe emails and I want to like,
send him, like a YouTube linkand be like let's break down
what's the hell is actuallyhappening in this environment,
right?
Speaker 4 (39:38):
now and why all your inheritance shouldn't just go to
a charity well, I think, like Iyou know, having worked in
other wine growing regions,there is this unique culture for
me, specifically in the LakeChelan area of the tasting rooms
(39:58):
are staffed by people who arerecently retired but still
looking for a social activityand maybe a little bit of like
pocket money, but basically likecool place to hang out, get
some free wine and like chat allday and so like.
If you have this culture ofthis being an optional or like a
side hustle, there isn't thatlevel of professionalism that's
(40:21):
in a place like Napa or Sonoma,where it's like people our age,
I don't, I mean like I assumewe're all within like a couple
of years of each other.
Being like, okay, well, we'reall within like a couple years
of each other, yeah, totally.
Being like okay, well, like Ineed to be saving for a mortgage
.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
And like you can't pay me minimum wage.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
And then like ask me to just kind of like live off of
the commission that I earn.
I mean, it's also easier toearn a fat commission check when
you're selling you know know ahundred dollar bottles of wine.
So, um, I think like there'slike a cultural shift that I
hope is in the works here, but Ihaven't experienced that type
of like dynamic outside of LakeChelan.
(41:00):
Yeah, and I've also worked insome like kind of poor Z's
places like the Finger Lakes,right like it was yeah, it was a
lot of people still our age whowere like interested in being
part of this, like artisticcreative community and like
growing this thing together.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So, yeah, interesting , yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well, that's our time , but um so fun.
Thank you, liz, so much Um youare so well-spoken and so smart
and I'm jealous because I wish Icould be you just a little bit.
I'm working on it, trust me,it's a goal.
Even though I host a podcast.
I am terrible.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
So I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I'm always working on it, though.
Thank you so much.
You're a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Neither of us have wine for our last cheers.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
I'm really gravitating towards the uh
stratastone right now but I'malso just a really I'm just a
fucking sucker for a good rumblend I think the studio is
still like really tightly woundthat needs some time to like
kind of like flesh up a littlebit, yeah, yeah but yeah,
awesome.
Well, thank you liz, we reallydo Well, thank you Liz.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
We really do appreciate it Thank you guys.
And thank you, rocky Pond,obviously for letting us do this
.
We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Awesome.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Thank you, liz, thanks for your time.
Well cheers, appreciate it.
Cheers, cheers, cheers you,thank you.
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