February 14, 2024 • 51 mins
Step into the world of Glacial Till Vineyards where the art of winemaking takes center stage. Tim Merman, the General Manager, along with our friend Josh Harrah of Harrah’s Electric, joins us for a conversation that uncorks the secrets of thriving in Nebraska's unexpected wine country. Discover how a family pastime transformed into an award-winning winery and cidery, navigating financial hurdles and Nebraska's frosty challenges to pour out a legacy of exceptional beverages.
Crack open the complexities of managing a family business where job titles are as fluid as the wine in their glasses, and decisions—like bringing on Chef Allison Hill—are crafted with as much care as their finest vintage. Learn how a surprise frost spurred innovation, leading to the creation of an eclectic array of ciders that now stand alongside the vineyard's robust wine offerings. Our chat meanders through the orchards of practical know-how and the fertile ground of family dynamics, sharing laughs and insights into the everyday life of a vineyard's heartbeat.
Finally, raise your glass to the future as we discuss plans for growth and community favorites like 'Fermented Fridays'. This episode is more than a tasting; it's a full-bodied experience of passion, perseverance, and poetry that bottles the spirit of one family's dream. Join us and sip on the rich tales of Glacial Till Vineyards.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to another episode of Stay Modern with
Murray, brought to you by MurrayCustom Ponds, where we build
your dream home together.
Now sit back, buckle up andenjoy the ride with your host,
matt Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for joining us on theFun Friday edition.
Today we're on location atGlacial Till Vineyards in
Ashland talking with GeneralManager and a friend, tim Merman
.
Tim, thank you so much fortaking time out of your day.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, and we actually got a very good friend of yours
who introduced us to you, so wethought it'd be appropriate to
bring him on.
You've been on before Josh herewith Hair is Electric.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'm back, I'm back.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm back.
It's your third one.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
This is my third one.
I didn't even want to do thefirst one.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And I said well, josh , I didn't want to do any of
them.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, but no, thank you guys for taking time out of
your day.
We're all the way out Ashland.
We just came from Palmyra,right, Yep, been at Palmyra area
when you call that the.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, it's the Vineyard and Winery, and so
we've got our productionfacility there and then our
event center.
So a lot of weddings and eventsin the summertime, Right, I'm
sure a lot of.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Lincolnites and Ashland people who listen to
this know what's to talk about.
Like I said, I'm not fromaround here, so I'm still.
My wife drives everywhere and Ijust work, and so I still just
don't know all the littlecommunities and where they're at
.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
You're not watching where you're?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
going.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So it's like, yeah, I just don't get it.
I was wondering about that.
She chauffeurs you everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
She thinks I'm so I'm always doing everything other
than driving, working on myphone, talking, calling, so
she's just it's probably betterthan yeah.
But anyways, we started the dayout taking a tour of your
facility and first off, it wasamazing.
I was saying before this that Ifind myself, I like to think
I'm an intellectual guy, butthere's just so many things you
(01:49):
don't think about that in theday-to-day operations of life
how the food's made that you getand the production that goes
into it and everything.
And I got an invite at like9.30, 10 o'clock last night from
Josh to come there and do thatand I'm glad he talked me into
it.
I had a crazy busy day but Iwas glad I fitted in.
But just walking into there Inever just thought about all the
(02:11):
intricacies of what go intothis place and wine and
everything.
But step us through a littlebit of what we saw today because
it was awesome.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, I guess everything starts out in the
field.
So first and foremost we'refarmers and we're growing a
specialty crop and corn andsoybean.
So that right there poses ourfirst difficulty of growing
grapes in Nebraska, wheretypically it's corn and soybean.
So just growing the fruit is adifficult task in itself.
(02:42):
And then making wine after thatis also difficult.
And you got to see the processof how we do that at the winery,
and even if every growingseason is different, so it's not
always the same, so the fruit'sdifferent quality every year,
and so we take what we can getand then we do our best to make
the best quality wines from that.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And I'll get into the details of everything about how
many acres of wine.
I found all that veryinteresting.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I saw that question on there.
He did show me the quick one.
Yes, and I hated that onequestion.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
There's so many questions that I have because
I'm a nerd.
I'm such a nerd Get into thatand being a business owner,
knowing the nuances and the insand the outs of why you do this
and why you don't grow more andwhy you buy other people's
grapes I want to get into allthat, but I think I skipped over
the foundation of this.
I thought it was veryinteresting because up until
(03:36):
even knowing Josh, I knew of youand your family's history with
this.
But I was actually at abusiness lunch on Monday and he
wanted to do another closingtoday or a discussion about a
closing today, and I said I hada podcast and he's like where
are you going?
I told him I was coming outhere and he's like he knew your
dad and knew about the historyof the company and stuff and I
(03:57):
found it very interesting.
So you were kind of hitting onit today.
But go back to the foundationof this and how we ended up in
this building and how you gotthat and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I guess we got to give all the thanks to my dad
and props to him.
He got it all started.
He was a businessman in Lincolnso he had a successful computer
software business calledPenlink and so when he retired
from there he still is workingwith us and he does all kinds of
things.
But it would have been back in2003 is when he kind of started
(04:28):
the hobby of trying to growgrapes here in Nebraska as a
hobby winemaker.
So that's kind of where it allgot started.
We purchased the land out thereby Bennett Palmyra area, started
with maybe about an acre worthof grapes and just over the
course of the years we plantedthem.
I was probably a high schoolage kid so it was a good time to
(04:49):
go out there.
We planted the vines, put upall the trellising so great
learning experience for mybrothers and I and then it's
just kind of grown from there.
So started out very small hobby.
It kind of continued to grow.
And then once my older brother,john, finished college, my dad
had a building out there.
He's still working full timeand John was like what are you
(05:12):
going to do with that?
And that was John kind of tookthat over and really started the
process of getting the liquorlicenses and all that stuff to
do in the research, buying thetanks and going full fledged and
starting the winery.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And you said he went back to UC Davis and got his
master.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yep.
So my brother and I both wentto University of South Dakota
and then, once John started thebusiness and we were probably
maybe about a year or two intooperating the business and he'd
been making wine for a handfulof years, but he went back to
school and went to UC Davis toget his masters in winemaking,
just to really understand theprocesses.
(05:49):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I didn't know that that'sawesome.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
He's one of the smartest guys I know, but if
you're to school wise, he's notthe best at books, but I mean he
can.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That was one sitting up top today, right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yep, that's John.
So John manages a lot of theproduction side of things.
So all the winemaking, cidermaking, packaging, a lot of the
field work too.
Anything that breaks he'susually just fixing stuff.
So John kind of takes care ofthat building.
And then my brother, Craig,that we met over at the event
(06:25):
center.
He does a lot of our marketinglabels, so anything that you see
visually that's Craig.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So you guys, we'll get into that too.
I think you're asking foranother round.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Sorry, I'm sampling all their stuff today.
I'm trying to get a cider.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Whatever I'm drinking , the hibiscus is amazing.
Oh, thank you.
It's like a rosé on steroids orsomething I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, you like ginger .
It's got a lot of that.
Ginger is very prevalent there.
It's good.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So not to go too far down this because I have so many
questions today.
But how'd you go to this?
You said South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, my brother and I both, we both swam, so not
many programs after Title IX andstuff like that.
Nebraska used to have a program, so a lot of people that were
swimming at Nebraska.
Ultimately there's some peoplethat went up to South Dakota to
swim in college and my brotherhad went there, and some other
(07:19):
guys from Nebraska and so that'skind of what led?
Us to South Dakota so both ofyou and I swam up there for four
years and ended up back inLincoln.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And so you buy the building out there.
Your brother comes back and youstart the operation there.
When do you become heavilyinvolved?
What was your involvement Did?
You always know at that pointyou were just going to do the
family business.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I kind of felt like I might do that, just because it
was there in an auction.
And so, yeah, john was doing alot of the wine making and stuff
like that, but he wasn't youknow the book, were taking care
of the finances, selling youknow he's making wine, but we
didn't even have a place to sellit.
So it's like, well, we got todo something and so that's about
when I came on board, you knowit would have been well, is that
(08:03):
2008 or so you know, kind offinancial crash?
You know kind of had some, youknow, job applications out there
, but at the same time I wasalways working at the winery
regardless.
So it was just, you know,that's what we're going to do
Perfect fit Family business Yep.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So where did it go from there?
So it sounds like 2008,.
You're kind of a company.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So 2008 would have been the first year we started
and I don't think we really didanything until probably the
summer of 2009.
So that area that I had you upin that tower, we used to do
like a Topos tasting.
So we used to do a wine andfood pairing up there, so we had
eight wines at that point intime.
We do like an eight coursepairing and we charged $25 for
this eight course pairing.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
That's cheap, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It was not good.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
So you know, and we had to walk food up those stairs
and basically losing money toget people's attention?
Yep, pretty much.
So in the course of the years,you know you learn things at
work.
What don't work, you know whatwine sell, what don't sell, you
know.
So I mean, still we're stilllearning.
You know, 15 years into it andyou know still still don't know
what to do.
Yeah, but we've learned whatyou know, some things that do
(09:09):
work, some things that don'twork, or what we can do better.
Yep, you know, and so probablyafter you know, that first year
of doing those tastings is like,wow, that's a lot of work for
not much money and people arelike, man, this is a great deal.
Yeah, and so you know.
And after that, you know, westarted doing larger events with
music and stuff like that, andthen I think it was probably
(09:30):
2011,.
We were talking about thisbuilding that we're in now.
And so, going back to my dadand his other business, he was
using this space to train peopleon his computer software.
So his business being inLincoln and a lot of people
flying in, whether it be Lincolnor Omaha again, ashland makes
for a really good place to meetin the middle, and so they did
(09:50):
their training programs out hereOver the years.
You know, he expanded inLincoln and didn't need the
space anymore.
And then about that time, whenwe're working out at the winery
and you know, kind of runninginto some issues, you know, as
far as you know our space andwhat we can do with it, we were
allowed one offsite locationwith the liquor commission for
(10:10):
our liquor license, and so it'slike we got that building there.
It's in between Lincoln andOmaha.
That would be a perfect fit.
Really, don't have to do muchto the space, and you know, and
that's when we opened up ourtasting room, and so that was
probably 2011.
And then in 2018 is when weclosed temporarily and expanded
(10:31):
into these next two bays thatwe've got.
How long do you have to closefor, geez?
I mean, I'd want to say it'sprobably close to a year, really
.
Yeah, I was gonna say they didit in about a year, I mean, and
yeah, it was wild to see theconstruction.
I mean I'm sure some of theneighbors probably weren't too
happy, you know, while it'sgoing on, oh for sure, and we
lucked out.
The Chamber of Commerce here inAshland really helped us out
(10:53):
and they had a building here sowe didn't want to, we didn't
actually have to just closecompletely.
Oh, that's awesome.
So we stayed open across thestreet and did a like, just like
a pop-up.
You know people could buy likebottles to go and stuff like
that, but we didn't serveanything Like you know, there
wasn't enough space to have, youknow, customers come in and
sample and stuff like that.
So we at least still had apresence downtown here.
(11:16):
But you know, it was about ayear.
That was awesome.
The Chamber is working with you.
Yeah yeah, the community's beengreat to work with.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So the building where you hold the events at the
other location in Palmyra,bennett, was that building
always there?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Nope, so that would have been probably 2016.
2015, 16 is when we built that.
We'd been doing a lot of eventsoutside at the other building,
the winery building.
But again, weather is always anissue.
You know we'd had weddings andthings like that.
But usually when you knowpeople are wanting to book it,
they love the space but like,how are you going to do this?
(11:50):
How are we going to do that?
What happens if this happens?
And you know it's like we needa better space out here that we
can operate in, because you knowthe production building, you
know strictly, is mostly set upto produce wine inside.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So so you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but you
have 80 acres out there andfive acres are dedicated towards
growing Yep, right, and sowhat's fascinating to me is so I
don't know what you will get.
We'll get to where you are onproduction and how many bottles
you produce and everything, butso you guys do five acres and my
question was so five acresprovides you everything you need
(12:26):
for your wine?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And Not necessarily Right.
So yeah, and that's hard, andthat's the question that I was
talking about earlier, that Ihate.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
How many grapes go into a?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
bottle of wine.
You know, I mean if we werethere in the summer and I'd love
to have you back out and showyou the vines and everything
else like that.
But you know, 80-wise clustercompared to front net cluster,
you know one's about the size ofa football and the one's about
the size of your fist.
So you know, I mean you havevery small berries, you have
large berries.
So you know, like that's a verycommon question, but you know
(12:58):
it just depends, you know I meandepends on the varietal and
things like that.
But you know it's hard to saywhat.
You know there is metrics thatyou could use to say how many
grapes go into a bottle.
You know, and I know ournumbers, but you know, so for us
, like in wine, in this previousyear we did around five, six
(13:19):
thousand gallons of wine andthen we did like 180,000 gallons
of cider.
Okay, and the cider we get fromout of state where the wine,
like we were talking about, willharvest once a year.
So we really have oneopportunity to make wine where,
with the cider, we're makingthat, you know, monthly.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And that's what you guys were bottling in the back,
right you can bring the fruit infrom other places.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
The cider we bring in , you know, juice from out of
state and that's what makes youknow, helps us keep it going
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So you guys do the five acres yourself, yep, and
then and then.
So about how many acres, so tospeak, like just as a comparison
?
I know you don't buy a lot, sowe had we had a.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
This year we did, I want to say is a little over 40
tons of grapes that we processed.
Out of the 40 tons, I think wepurchased 32 of those.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So you know we we had about.
We had about eight to 10 tonsourselves.
We had a really good year outat the winery for ourselves, and
then the rest of it we boughtfrom other growers in the state.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so I would have to assume you know there's a lot
of input that goes into growingyour own grapes.
If you're already buying 32, isit worth the inputs to do your
own five acres?
Is it because the, the, the, uh, yes, yes and no there could be
?
The net is much better whenyou're growing your own.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
The net is, it can be .
I mean, you know it's thequality, you know.
So with us buying them, youknow we don't have control of
you know what goes on, you knowwhat spray programs, uh, you
know, whatever it may be.
So, and then we've got greatgrowers.
So I'm not saying that ourgrapes are better than theirs by
any means, right, but yeah, Imean we could expand where we're
(15:03):
at, but we're we would preferto purchase them from other
growers if we can.
So you, you're just becauseit's a lot of work.
You know farming.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Right and I asked you the question.
I said who?
I didn't know.
You harvest once a year, so Isaid who does it?
And you said friends, familywhoever we can get.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So whoever listens to this podcast, come on out.
Uh, you know, starting inAugust, our first grape that we
usually harvest is Adelweiss, sopretty much starting first
second week of August, you knowwe'll.
We've got eight differentvarieties, so we'll we'll
harvest, um you know, eightdifferent times between August
through.
Probably the latest we've evertaken anything out would be like
(15:41):
the first week of October.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Well, and it's a great way for like sports and
kids to dance, like to raisemoney for that.
They come out and you guys paythem a certain amount per bucket
or pound, whatever.
I mean, that's how you get it.
Like we have, we're going tohave Terran come out there.
She danced for the Polyneersand they would pay her and her
team to come out and pick grapes.
What do you guys charge for?
(16:04):
Like if, if my daughter cameout with her dance team, like,
how do you cheat?
Have to do it for free.
Yes, terran would do it becauseit's Terran.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
No, I don't, I don't really know what we.
I mean, it's always kind ofbeen different.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You know it just kind of depends.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
You know some days I mean there's been days, you know
, where we've picked for threedays straight, you know, because
we don't have enough people youknow being my dad and I and
John, and I mean the people thatwork there full time, you know.
And then there's other dayswhere we've had, you know, 40,
50 people and it gets done likethat.
So I mean that's what we'dprefer.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'd prefer those days .
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It's really fun when you're doing it, but you know if
you have to do it all day,every day, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yeah Well, and then some days nobody shows up and
it's just you and your brothersand your dad.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So I mean we've done pretty good on getting them out.
You know over the years,whether it be friends, family,
you know hired help, whatever itmay be, but I'm not going to do
it.
Yeah, you've never shown up.
You get one last drink.
I don't even ask.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
I wasn't invited like .
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Tommy.
Last time I quit inviting himto the lake too.
He doesn't go out there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I second that because every weekend I saw him out
there of Tom on Snapchat.
Oh, I don't think so when?
At your lake?
No, he never came he only cameonce.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
No, I've been out there.
He didn't come out.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Well, tom this isn't about me.
This is about Glacial Tilt andMurray Customs.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It's always about you .
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Well, tell us about the family atmosphere.
I thought it was really cool,you know, when you hear that you
know a family works together, Ididn't know it would be so
close and intimate, as it wasLike we walked into the
production, we walked upstairsand it was your brother, and
then we walked into the frontevent center and it was your
other brother, and then your dadwalked in and started shooting
(17:41):
basketball and so tell me aboutthat.
Tell me about your brothers andhow they fit in and your day to
day.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah.
I know that you said I mean,you know I love working with my
family.
You know everybody's kind ofgot their role but you know
everybody pitches in where theycan.
And you know, unlike the TVshows and things like that where
people are screaming andyelling at each other, we don't
have that.
I get along with my brothersreally well and work well
together.
I mean, they might saydifferently, but I don't think
we continue to go on familytrips and do a ton of things as
(18:15):
a family.
So it's great.
You know, at the first minuteFridays my dad will be out there
handing out the raffle tickets.
You know he's out there pruning, he's out there picking grapes
and I mean, again, you know it'sbeing an owner of something.
You know it falls on yourshoulders.
So I mean, everybody picks upwhere they can and you know it's
awesome.
Shannon asked me what my titlewas and I always just say
(18:35):
general manager.
But you know I don't, I don'tlike him.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Your other brother told me he was a general manager
.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, fighting over the position You're the
assistant oh really no, I wasgoing to say which one.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
He used to have just made it.
We all had manager on our card.
We only manage ourselves.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
But, it seems like you guys have done a very good
job of having your each segmentsand fitting in.
Like you said, your one brotherdoes marketing and you're kind
of the people person, so tospeak, and managing this.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Sometimes yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And then your other brother sounds like the
Production.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Wizard Right right.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
They're all super in.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And you know it's not just us three.
You know we've got great peoplethat work with us.
You gotta meet Adam Andersonthere, adam Frederick, brian
Huggins, jack in the productionbuilding and then out at the
winery, some of our full timestaff Lisa, mallory and Aubrey
that do all the kind of weddingevents and public facing events
as well, and then here inAshland, sandy and Rhonda are
(19:38):
two managers and then our chef,allison Hill.
That's something that we did.
I see you guys got some foodover here but we did small, you
know, kind of meat cheese traysand stuff like that.
And when we did expand here wewanted to have some larger food
offerings and that's when we,you know, got introduced to
Allison.
I believe that Lisa made thatconnection for us, somebody that
(19:59):
worked for us, and that's beengreat.
You know, talking about ourpeople, you know a lot of our
great people have came fromwithin or been recommended, you
know, by Lisa.
It's like, hey, I know this gal, allison Hill, and you know I
mean she's a phenomenal chef andit's we never intended on doing
food like we're doing now andyou know she just elevated it
for us.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
So I will say you guys always speak very, very
highly of your employees.
Like you, guys are very proudof who's with you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's good.
She had a great.
My wife had a good question.
She's sitting right over here.
We got a room full of peoplehere listening His are awful
quiet.
Yeah, geez.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
How come you didn't get me a drink?
We're trying to.
What do you want?
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I want what Tom was drinking.
Tommy wouldn't get me onebecause he's still mad at me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Tom's probably drinking that one with Brandy in
it.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
That was really good.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Bourbon.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, I'll do bourbon barrel.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So this I don't know if you know, but I was on a, I
told him what do you call him?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Sober kick?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Well, yeah, sober kick, but it's been 11 months,
so is he?
Yeah, 11 months, I'm in, that'sgood.
So this is probably like myfifth to 10th drink in the last
10, 11 months Between five and10.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Don't blame me.
Don't blame me.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Nah, he's.
Blame him, blame me.
Oh, this is good, though.
Whenever Matt hangs out with me, he likes to drink more,
because he can't handle me withso many sober.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That is true.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's true for everybody.
It's a little unique going outwith the group now and not
drinking.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
That would be tough.
It is tough, it is a littletough.
Look, I might try it.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
No, don't do it.
Remember bowling night, when Ididn't drink and everybody was
drunk?
Yeah, I could have to leaveright away.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
But no, my wife had a great question on the way here
about I know you have a lot ofdifferent employees that fit
into a lot of differentcategories, but the ones that we
saw in the production in theback, she's like I wonder what
qualifications they have to have.
I'm like well, I'm sure there'snot a lot of people around
Lincoln, nebraska, that haveexperience in production and
wine facilities, so I would haveto assume that means you train
(21:57):
these people a little bit, so tospeak.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A lot of it's on the job training.
Yeah, I'm trying to think, ifanybody has any I know Jack,
he's got a chemistry degree sohe's very good with and that's
what a lot of the wine and cidermaking is a lot of chemistry.
So outside of that it's been alot of on the job training and
kind of similar to Chef orsomebody.
It's like a recipe.
I mean there is kind of aplaybook, but I mean they're
(22:23):
kind of unique in that way thatthey kind of create what they
want to do.
Sometimes it might work,sometimes it doesn't.
But yeah, again, it's a lot ofon the job training.
But yeah, like seeing thecentrifuge or cross flow filter
and some of the equipment it'snot common equipment- they're
like oh wow, you just take acouple tri-clamp fittings.
(22:44):
Hook this hose up to this, hookthis up to that and press a
button.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It looked like a science room.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, it's a whole lot of science that's going on
and I know what it does, but canI operate it?
No, so, and you saw that Adamcalled me out for that I showed
you the can, that's pretty cool,he tells you.
I know how most of it works andI know what it does and why we
have it, but I don't operate anyof it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
He put a can in the canning machine, it just blew it
right off the tracks.
But no, yeah, it was super coolJust seeing everything.
Take us through, kind of youknow the terminology you're
using with the different winesand the offerings.
I think it was pretty cool whenyou said that you guys had a
freeze right when you lost yourharvest that one year and that's
(23:29):
what led you to the ciders Kindof go through that.
So you first started doingwines and only wines.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, so we started out, you know, just doing wine
and then it would have been 2015.
We had a really bad frost inMay, so once the vines bud out,
you know, and they're coming out, so we had a frost and we lost
all of our fruit that year.
So we had I don't know how muchfruit we had, but not enough to
(23:56):
really make any wine.
And Kimmel Orchard's being downin Nebraska City, we ended up
buying a bunch of apple juicefrom them and at that time we
were doing events at the wineryand we called them fermented
Fridays and we were featuringthe local craft beers.
And so we had a goodrelationship with one of our
distributors in Lincoln, k&z,and we were making the cider and
(24:18):
we were serving it at ourevents and he's like man, this
is great stuff, you know, likeyou should let us distribute it,
and so you know that's kind ofhow it got started.
You know, the year that wecouldn't make wine, we started
making cider and then it justkind of took off from there.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So it was in disguise .
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Didn't you guys win some awards for your ciders?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yes, yeah, we've won quite a few awards, you know, in
different competitions andstuff and I don't know.
Just a couple of years ago wegot like national cidery of the
Really yeah, top cidery andstuff.
So yeah, I mean we've won quitea few awards.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I couldn't name what they are.
I should have done moreresearch on ourselves to give us
some accolades.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
But so what is the Take us through?
You know, when you were at thevery beginning, you offered, you
said, eight different wines.
Yep, If that's the proper term,Is that?
Yeah, I mean no.
When you say eight differentwines, is that so somebody
novice like me, tom, would knowmore, because he drinks a bottle
at night.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
No, I mean you could, and you could do different
wines in different styles.
So you know, take a Cabernet,you could press it right away
and you could make a Rosé.
You know, that way it's notthat full body, dark red.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So no clue you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, you could take a same grape and you could make
it different ways, you know.
So it could be completely drywhere there's no residual sugar
left, or you could stop thefermentation where there is a
little bit of sugar left, likethe Adelweiss that they're
drinking.
You know it's a sweeter wine,okay, so you could use the same
grape and make a different wine,you know.
So when I say that we had eightofferings, it might not be.
(25:47):
You know eight different kindsof grapes.
You know it might have been.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, two Frontenacs in a different style,
or you know so Okay, and ifI've learned anything today, the
Frontenac is the grape.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, frontenac is a name of one of our grapes so we
grow here in Nebraska.
They're called French Americanhybrids.
Okay, so a lot of the grapesthat you'd know, or like the
noble grapes you know, cabernet,or you know, you look at, I got
a poster up here somewhere butyou know the grapes that you see
in the store Merlot, cabernet.
You know, those are the onesthat people know, but there's
(26:22):
thousands of different grapevariety that was grown all over
the world that people are makingwines with.
It's just not as common or tosee it and know what it is.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And so you had eight wines, different selections at
the beginning, in the beginning,yeah, so where are we at now
Shoot, I don't know we'd have togo back.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Somebody go grab a menu.
We got a lot now.
I mean we've got a.
You know usually at least eightto 12 different ciders on tap
out here, you know.
And the wines, you know atleast 10 different wines you
know, and just kind of dependson you know the vintage, how
much we do of something, youknow.
Just you know how things go outthe door.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
So you have eight to 10 wines total Yep generally
yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I mean sometimes more .
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, and so go through the selection of grapes,
like what you have and thenwhat you buy.
And I thought that was prettycool and you were explaining to
me if I was going to go out andget a high end grape like a Napa
Valley you know it might bename brand versus your guys'
grapes and what you're a locally, I guess I don't understand the
question.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
So, you guys, what would you call your guys, grapes
?
Oh, they're French Americanhybrids.
So, right, it's like a crossbetween the vanilla variety,
which, like would be, you know,cabernet, and the things that
are growing that you know you'dsee in the grocery store,
crossed with a native grape.
That way it can withstand, youknow, our climate, right?
(27:45):
So a lot of like the atyl iceand some of these grapes, you
know, can withstand thesetemperatures that you know get
down to negative 20 degreesFahrenheit and, you know,
survive.
So the vanilla varieties, youknow, would not survive our
climate, that's true.
So the cross between them is,you know, they're disease
resistant, pest resistant,climate resistant, yet have the
(28:06):
fruit quality of, you know thename, grapes like the Cabernet
and whatnot, right, but canwithstand our climates.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So probably completely different grape than
they're growing in Napa Valley,and so you were saying that in
order to with all the differentrules and regulations, in order
to bottle your wine.
A certain thing asked me wouldyou say 75% your grape or?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
what was that?
Yeah, there's a whole lot oflaws.
You know we're in a very highlyregulated industry and, yeah,
when it comes to wines, it's alot of marketing.
You know different wine regions, american viticulture areas,
you know, get labeled to NapaValley, sonoma Valley, and then,
yeah, again, there's a wholelot of labeling requirements.
(28:48):
You know.
You see the government warningson there.
All of our labels are approvedby, you know, the federal
government and you can only saycertain things.
You can't say this, can't saythat, and you know that's where
the labeling requirements comein.
But for any wine, like to sayat Cabernet, or say this you
know a Merlot or a Frontenac,it's got to be 75% or more of
(29:12):
that grape.
Got you labeled with that?
So there's a lot of regulationsto you know, hopefully, steer
the consumer in the rightdirection and not false
advertise with that.
But it's a, it's a task, youknow, getting into the weeds
with the government.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, I think we heard the same thing when they
were at the distillery that wedid in Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Oh, what was that?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Sideshow.
They're explaining how therehas to be a certain percentage
to be called.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, whether it's like a Rye whiskey or bourbon.
Bourbon's got to be two yearsand yeah, there's a lot of that
kind of stuff in the alcoholindustry that you know.
You might not know about thatit's just like whoa, yeah, it
gets a little crazy.
And then again you know all thereporting and you know
everything like that with thetaxes.
I bet Just very got to stay ontop of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And it sounds like the chief fire marshal, let's
not talk about that.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
What's up Gabe?
What's up guys?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
That's a more Murray employees walking in here, yeah,
but the reason that we'vealways wanted to do a podcast
for you actually shit.
We reached out to you maybe sixmonths ago, a year ago, to get
something lined up.
But I know you're busy, we'rebusy, but one of the reasons
that spurred this and got it onthe books was, you know, murray
does a lot of gifting.
So when you know, when we signa contract, we try to give him a
(30:34):
gift when they close on theirhouse, to try to get my
housewarming gift and you know,inevitably the way the world is,
it's usually a lot of wine.
And actually when I firststarted getting into the high
end market, I was pretty youngI'm not now, but back when I was
a high end home builder inLincoln, I was a new builder.
Not only was I new, but I wasdoing in a high end market where
it was a lot of experiencedolder generation builders the
(30:57):
Bob Schultz's and those guys andI was here, this 20-some year
old kid, trying to compete withthem, and so I had to do
something to make myself standout.
I learned very early on that alot of the wives of the families
that I was entertaining to signwith us were winos, and I
didn't even know that term atthe time Right, and so I was
(31:20):
entertaining these and I wasgetting a lot of spurring along
by the people in my group bymake sure that the wife's happy,
take her a bottle of wine.
You know, take Merlot, take Cab, and so I had to start to
understand wine.
But it is very much a thing Ithink I don't know if it's in
the high end world.
You know you have a bar in thebasement so you have to stock
the bar.
Or you know the husband andwife like sit and drink.
(31:42):
You know there's a lot ofdifferent reasons to drink wine,
but it seems like the clientelethat we are catering to always
wanted wine, and so we startedgifting wine a lot and we give
gosh, I would say, hundreds ofbottles.
And now that we're now that I'ma realtor and we have our home
inspection business there's justa lot more personal touch that
goes into advertising ratherthan just throwing a commercial
(32:05):
out and hoping that it sticks.
There's a lot of interaction,social networking.
We call it brand ambassador,and so we have three brand
ambassadors that just meet withpeople on a daily basis and, you
know, at the end of the day,it's kind of schmoozing, you
know.
I know people gift them whatthey want.
But so when we were thinkingabout it in a meeting the other
day, it was you know, if we'regoing to be giving out hundreds
of bottles every year, if notmore, why don't we have a Murray
(32:27):
label on it?
I mean shit, we have Chapstickwith our label on it, we have
pens, you know, everything,everything these days, has a
label on it.
Right, you've just got four ofthose Chapsticks.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I mean, everything has a label on it.
So we're like let's pair withsomebody in the community that
we can represent their brand andwe just put our label on it and
it's a win-win situation.
So well, we'd love to do it foryou.
So yeah, and that's that.
And you know you were asking mequestions all day, shit.
Let's wait for Shannon to behere, because he's the one
that's going to take these notesand probably pull the executive
(32:56):
decision.
But talk about that a littlebit.
I know that we had just talkedabout it in there a little bit.
There's the different ways thatwe can label the bottles and
the different varieties that wecan get.
You know whether we want to gowith an exotic, so to speak, or
a local.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can do it, but yeah,
I mean it comes down to you.
What do you want, what do youlike, what do you want to give
to your customers?
So you know we've done a lot ofbottles for weddings and stuff
like that.
You know bridal showers andthings like that, customized
bottles in the bank you knowthey do the same sort of thing
like you're going to do.
So I mean We'll do it better.
(33:31):
Yeah, I hope so.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think the answer would be I didn't want to get
into the weeds earlier because Iwanted to save for the podcast
but you know we'll have the.
We'll have this, so to speak,everyday wine that we just hand
out, just a general good flavor,good bodied wine.
That is just our hand out wine.
That's what you want to call it, but you let us know before we
walk out of here today.
Let these guys taste thedifferent wines and land on a
(33:58):
couple of selections while youguys are here, so that way we
can get pricing and get thatsolidified and start getting
some wine out to people Wouldlove to do that.
How many bottles are in a case?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
There's 12 bottles to a case.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So Tom drinks like 10 cases a month.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I know I drink one case with him one night.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
So 12 bottles in a case I haven't been back to his
house since.
So 12 bottles in a case, whatis a?
I know this is tough, but ifyou had somebody like us coming
in and say, hey, we want to buysome wine, what is medium volume
?
I mean, what if I said I wantedthis many cases?
That would be like shit.
Man, we can do that.
That's a good volume.
Is it five cases?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
I don't understand the question either.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I mean, I'd love if you came in and wanted to buy a
hundred cases.
That's not a lot of cases, Idon't think, but five cases in a
lot of cases.
So we're just average.
Tom buys that at Costco everyweek Right.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
So just average Joe to walking and buying.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I mean, you're not an average Joe, Absolutely not, so
we need to be at 20, 30 casesmaybe.
We'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll talk about it, we'll
talk about it.
Drink another glass and thenwe'll deal pricing.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I got no pricing for you, I want to know how many you
want, and then I'll give you aprice.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Man.
That's see that I think, andthe reason I'm asking is it's
kind of like I need you to saysomething before you say
something vice versa, like shit,I don't.
We've never done this before,right, so I, when you ask me how
many I need, I don't reallyknow.
I could take a shot in the dark, but I think it would largely
depend on we want to make thiseasy on you.
We want to partner with youguys long term.
(35:36):
So I don't want you to dosomething that is going to be at
a loss for you guys, but I alsodon't want to overshoot it and
just have wine stuck in my backforever.
So yeah, so whatever you, youknow, if there was incentives
for us to do this amount versusthis amount, maybe if you could
lead us down a path of that.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I'll lead you down the path, just not on the
podcast, because I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
I got none of those numbers.
I wasn't prepared to give you aprice.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
That's trying to get on recording.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
You're trying to get the price.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
How price Friday?
Right, yeah, that's awesome.
Josh, what else you got?
Anybody else in here?
Feel free to jump on.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
You know, the cider thing is one of my favorite
things.
Like just how, how all thathappened and you guys had to
force yourself to do the cidersand I love the ciders, the
ciders are delicious.
Yeah, go go.
No, go ahead, no no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
No, the cider.
No, you go ahead, no, you goahead.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
I do love the ciders.
The ciders are delicious and Ilike that.
They make new ones.
Every season there's there'sseasonal ciders, so hibiscus is
definitely one of my favoritesand that was like one of the
first ones that you guys did.
Is that correct?
Yeah, one of the originals.
I love them and I push themevery time I can.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And talking about the ciders too, you see all of our
stacks of cider out here.
We do a cider club, so that'ssomething that last week I know
I canceled.
You know, with the snow andstuff I had it go into the
winery but tractor broke.
You know the truck.
Yeah, it's been a rough coupleof weeks with snow and you saw
what our location is like.
So you saw the semi trucks thatare there and it can be
(37:01):
difficult to operating.
You know a manufacturingfacility in the country.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
When I say that we know that, I want to make sure
that you know that I'm notsaying I know that, but you have
a couple of people staring atme over there that scooped eight
foot snow drifts out of thebasement of the house.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Oh yeah, oh my God yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So and so what I was going back to, last week we also
had our cider club release.
So every quarter we've we do acider club that we do four new
ciders that we'll send out.
We ship them all across thecountry through a third party
and then we also have peoplepick them up here on site.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So, as a novice, real fast, while we're talking about
ciders, explain to me what acider is.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Cider technically is a wine, so anything that is
fermented from fruit technicallywould be a wine, so an apple
wine, honey wine, and so cideris a low alcohol carbonated
beverage.
Okay, it does have silver.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And you guys were making this at your facility,
yep.
And so you say you just buy theor you did hasn't got to be a
bar to apple.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
So we started, you know, talking going back to the
frost they actually had changedthe laws around that time too
and so they classified cider asa beer because a lot of the beer
distributors were distributingyou know stellar art or angry
orchard or some of thesedifferent ciders and they kind
of are more in the beer category.
You know 5% alcohol and youknow the beer distributors are
(38:29):
distributing them.
And so they changed the kind ofclassification at the state
level that if it is below Ithink it's 8.5% it had to be
sold like by a distributor.
And so us, working with ourdistributor and linking Lincoln,
you know, had that relationship, buying beer from them and when
they wanted to start selling it, that's kind of when things
(38:50):
started taking off.
So the original cider making,you know, was just kegs only.
So you know the expansion wherethe canning line and stuff like
that, none of that was thereand so we were just filling kegs
out of you know, a really smalltank.
So that's kind of where thatgot started.
And then I believe it was thefollowing year that we expanded
(39:10):
in that building and added thecanning line and you know kind
of went full fledged with it andwe're the first, first cidery
in the state to really do it.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
So I'm just drinking an apple wine instead of grape
wine.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Is that?
Well, it's a cider technically,but yeah but okay, Tommy, raise
your hand.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
What do you got?
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Oh yeah, so yeah, we've talked about that.
The Blue Bee is a mead winethat we made, so it's some local
honey that we had, there'sfermented and then blueberry, so
it's a nice sweet dessert wineand that's new, right, you guys?
Just the Blue Bee.
We just did that a couplemonths ago.
And then what I thought wasreally cool maybe nobody else
(39:51):
does, but the ice cider issomething that I really was
excited about and we did thatlast year and we plan to do it
every year with these big coldsnaps that we get.
So a couple of weeks ago, whenit's negative 10 degrees, when
we get a tanker truck of ciderand we pull off, we took, I
think, about 2,000 gallons offof this truck and then we just
(40:13):
put them in our totes and weleft them outside to freeze.
So the totes freeze completelysolid, we bring them back inside
and then we've been siphoningoff just to really concentrated
apple cider liquid.
So generally when we get atanker truck, it's about 14
degrees bricks and that's themeasurement of the sugar content
.
And I can't remember what Adamsaid 40.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
40.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
40 degrees bricks, yeah.
So it's very highlyconcentrated and if anybody got
to try the wine, it's veryviscous and sweet.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I want to try that.
It's really nice.
We sampled.
We sampled a little bit of it,yeah it tastes like honey, it's
good.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
And I really like you know I mean it's with the way
the weather is.
You know, the last couple ofweeks after a while you get
tired of it.
But you know, doing somethinglike that, it's always kind of
cool to see them out there andyou're like what is that out
there?
You know, bring them inside.
And so that's kind of a coolproject that we did last year
and are doing this year again.
That, you know, the weatherhelped us out with that.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Right, so no question .
And might not know the answerto this, but figured I'd ask
what?
What?
Do you have any fun thingscoming up one year, three year,
five year plans, goals, anythinglike that?
You want to speak about Tim'sgoing heli skiing?
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, I might not be here.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
When you say heli skiing, what?
Speaker 4 (41:32):
He's getting lifted up on a helicopter to the top of
a mountain and goingsnowboarding down the mountain.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, that's, that sounds a little fun.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, I'm pumped.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
We're at though.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Washington, washington right, washington,
north, cascades.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So they obviously have seen YouTube videos and
stuff on it.
But so they take you up there,you ski down.
They take you back up, you skidown.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Oh, that'd be fun.
So it'll be my first time.
So, yeah, I have.
No, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So it's just a rich version of not having to wait
for a lift.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
I'm not hiking up that mountain.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
We hope you make it back.
We hope you make it back, ifthat came in.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
you're going to come get in line for the lift Now.
My heli's sitting right overhere, yeah so I got that coming
up.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So if you don't hear from me after next week, you
know where I'm at.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, for the company .
You guys have any cool thingscoming up.
Any more buildings you plan totake over or knock down or
remodel or you know nothing,nothing in the works right now.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I mean Any more wines or any cool.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
You know there's always new wines, new ciders
coming out.
You know nothing that I canreally speak of right now, it's
a secret.
But yeah, yeah, you knowthere's always fun things going
on at the winery.
But you know, especially afterthe last few years, just kind of
focusing on what we're doing.
You know, right now we'redistributing in all the state of
Nebraska and we're just intoIowa, so we'd really like to see
(42:52):
some of our brands move out ofstate.
But at the same time, you knowwe want to take care of our
distributors Right Our in state.
And right now I mean we'reyou've seen our facility and I
mean we're cranking out about asmuch as we can out of there and
keeping our partners happy withwhat they're getting, and so we
don't want to go too farwithout making sure everybody's
(43:12):
got what they need.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
So do you think you guys will ever like expand more?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Or I mean we potentially.
I mean it's not in the worksright now, but you know your dad
needs to have more babies andhave more son.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I don't think Mike was.
Yeah, and Johnny and Craig cantake care of that one.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
The next thing, yeah, I guess would be yeah, there's
nothing in the works or no plansnecessarily, but yeah, maybe if
we were to expanded, probablyto have a better facility for
production.
That's not in the country,Right?
So that's a, that's a big issuefor us, you know, getting
trucks in and out of there andproduct and so, but as of right
now, not necessarily that youknow that's good, though I mean
maintain maintain what you guyscreated.
(43:51):
Yeah, focus on what we're doinghere and grow.
You know some of the events youknow that we're doing here in
Ashland and and at the winery aswell, before really trying to.
You know, if we want to link inour Omaha location, let's see.
You know, get spread thin theway it is and it's, you know,
but that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Well, we're holding off on any expansion.
Yeah, it seems like you guyshave done great, you're at a
good spot.
So fermented Fridays with ourasking when you guys do it.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Fermented Fridays.
We usually start those in June.
Was that Memorial weekend?
Is that the first weekend, oris it labor?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Memorial.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
We start after Memorial weekend and so usually
do 12 to 14 Fridays, so it'severy Friday.
In the summer we get live localmusic, have some food trucks
come out, usually feature, youknow, local craft brew, and so
it's a family friendly event.
You know people come out, siton the lawn, bring chairs,
blankets and picnic, and so whattime does it start?
(44:48):
Usually we open the gates at 430.
Okay, they're always open, butyou know the people usually
start coming at four.
So you know, that's one ofthose things.
It's mostly weather dependent.
So last year we had a great,great fermented Friday series,
but you know the weather isperfect too, so we had great
bands and they did a real goodjob with that what was that?
Yeah, you guys website addressor any location Go to
(45:12):
glacialtiltvignorcom Awesome,and so I'm probably have to
spell that out.
I hate giving people my emailover.
You want me to spell that foryou Glacial tilt.
I can't spell it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Another quick question.
I found this interesting.
I was reading an article doingmy little prep on this, but
explain where glacial tilt yourname comes from.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
That comes from the soil, so it's not a.
So we've got a lot of glacialtilt, not I don't know which way
you guys drove, but you'll seelike a lot of places where they
got those big quartzite, youknow, pinkish colored rocks, so
that the glaciers, you know, Idon't know how many thousands of
years ago, but it you know,crossed through here and so
there's a lot of those rocks inour area and so a lot of times
you'll find like that groundthat we're on was just pasture
(45:54):
land.
They either had cows on it andwhen we had it, you know a bunch
of cedar trees and whatnot.
But farmers generally don'tlike that type of ground just
because it tears up theirequipment.
If you're disking and stuff andright up older like that,
you're going to have someproblems.
So that's a.
That's where the name comesfrom from the soil.
Yeah, it's called glacial tilt.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yep, that's the soil.
Yep, that's pretty cool.
No-transcript.
Oh Fridays, do you guys?
I know that fermented Fridaysopens at 430.
Are you guys open before that?
Speaker 3 (46:25):
We are not out there and so the winery is a little
different, just for the sake ofyou know we do a lot of weddings
out there, so we don't haveopen hours.
And then, you know, in thewintertime, you know we had an
event that was scheduled lastweekend but, you know, tractor
broke and couldn't clear roadsand it's like all right.
You know it's difficult to dothings out there.
You know, december rightthrough March, you know, just
(46:45):
due to the conditions, but youknow the fermented Fridays we do
ticket those events.
So we sell tickets ahead oftime, got you and previous
before 2020, and COVID andwhatnot.
You know it's just kind of afree for all, which was nice and
as fun.
You know we could have, youknow, 400 people or you might
have a thousand, but it made itreally hard to plan.
(47:06):
And so it's, of course you loveto see that many people come,
but then parking and you knowyou don't want to see people
waiting in line, and so we endedup starting charging for
tickets for those events, justso we can provide a better,
better experience for people andnot have it be overly crowded.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
So Well, I know a lot of people that have been there
and I went there actually wayback in the day, but I'd love to
go.
That's why I asked what timeyou guys were open, because we
usually every other Friday, orat least once a month, try to go
out as a team on a Friday orThursday and well, I mean, if
you guys ever want to come outthere, you got my number and we
don't.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
we were not necessarily open, but I could
open for this group, Well, andit's kid.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
It's kid friendly too , like you can bring kids out,
like it gets dark out and yousee all these kids run around
with glow sticks on there, youknow, around their nicks, so the
parents can see where they'reat.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's.
It's family friendly, so it'sgreat yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I can't believe how close it.
I mean, I know I was working onmy phone but she, she knew, you
know the general vicinity of it, but I put it into my phone and
from our house is only 13 milesand I answered one email and we
were there.
So I can.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
I can believe how close it was.
He lied to me when I asked howfar away it was.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, I didn't realize how not close we were.
You're like, have you been toBennett?
I'm like, yeah, we're justpassing through there and we
were like a block from.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
I know I'm like oh, I hear a plus.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
What else you guys got Anybody?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I don't think we need to take up too much more of
your time, but thank you so much.
Perfect, yeah, I know we'vebeen trying to plan this for a
while and it was great.
Thank you all, the Murray teamfor coming too.
I know you're, I know you.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Thanks to Tom, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Thanks for Josh.
I know everybody else isgetting paid just to sit here
and drink wine, but let's, Ilike to do so.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I appreciate you pushing me out of my brass
boundaries.
I don't like this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
I had to coach him.
I'm like it'll be fine, Don'tworry about it.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yeah, you like these now.
I just don't smoke too much.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah.
He called me last night.
I was like shit, I don't knowman.
It's like I'm trying to behave.
This isn't on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Definitely live.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
We are live, oh, it's live, oh yeah, oh, I'm joking.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
I'm joking, it's not.
He'll cut that part out.
He'll cut that part out.
Yeah, he'll cut that part out.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
I got, I got to do a life insurance test before I go
on that heli skiing thing.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So do you really have to you better?
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Well, yeah, I do.
I filled out like the lifeinsurance thing, and then I was
like shit, like I like do I tellhim I'm getting on a helicopter
and getting it jumped out of it?
Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yeah, they didn't.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
I'm going through all that shit right now.
Yeah, that's why I asked.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
I'm afraid of needles too.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
They came to my house and did all the blood work.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, See, I'm not.
I can't do that.
That's the only thing I'mafraid of.
I don't care what they find.
I don't want you to stick aneedle in my arm.
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
She's the same way.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Oh, I'll be on the ground.
No joke, I will be on theground dying.
You're like our buddy Dustin,oh, like whenever you guys did
the IVs at Harrods or what,after that one thing, and
they're like we're going to dothis after this event and I'm
like absolutely not Like that,like it's like the worst thing I
could do, like I was like Ifeel terrible, but I'm going to
take feeling terrible.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Then you good, josh, thank you so much for being here
and thank you for letting uscome in and I'm excited to
seriously, I'm really excited topartner with you guys and find
a couple of wines that we canprivate label and let our guys
start giving that to our clients.
But thank you guys, everybody,for tuning in this episode of
Stay Modern with Marie here atthe Glacial Till in Ashland and
(50:39):
we'll look forward to seeing youon the next episode.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
If you have questions or topics you'd like us to
discuss, you can email them toinfoatmurraycustomhomescom.
If you liked this episode, besure to subscribe to Stay Modern
with Marie on Avalanche Spotify, or check back on our website
and social media regularly forthe latest episodes.
Welcome to another episode of Stay Modern with
Murray, brought to you by MurrayCustom Ponds, where we build
your dream home together.
Now sit back, buckle up andenjoy the ride with your host,
matt Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for joining us on theFun Friday edition.
Today we're on location atGlacial Till Vineyards in
Ashland talking with GeneralManager and a friend, tim Merman
.
Tim, thank you so much fortaking time out of your day.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, and we actually got a very good friend of yours
who introduced us to you, so wethought it'd be appropriate to
bring him on.
You've been on before Josh herewith Hair is Electric.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'm back, I'm back.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm back.
It's your third one.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
This is my third one.
I didn't even want to do thefirst one.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And I said well, josh , I didn't want to do any of
them.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, but no, thank you guys for taking time out of
your day.
We're all the way out Ashland.
We just came from Palmyra,right, Yep, been at Palmyra area
when you call that the.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, it's the Vineyard and Winery, and so
we've got our productionfacility there and then our
event center.
So a lot of weddings and eventsin the summertime, Right, I'm
sure a lot of.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Lincolnites and Ashland people who listen to
this know what's to talk about.
Like I said, I'm not fromaround here, so I'm still.
My wife drives everywhere and Ijust work, and so I still just
don't know all the littlecommunities and where they're at
.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
You're not watching where you're?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
going.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So it's like, yeah, I just don't get it.
I was wondering about that.
She chauffeurs you everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
She thinks I'm so I'm always doing everything other
than driving, working on myphone, talking, calling, so
she's just it's probably betterthan yeah.
But anyways, we started the dayout taking a tour of your
facility and first off, it wasamazing.
I was saying before this that Ifind myself, I like to think
I'm an intellectual guy, butthere's just so many things you
(01:49):
don't think about that in theday-to-day operations of life
how the food's made that you getand the production that goes
into it and everything.
And I got an invite at like9.30, 10 o'clock last night from
Josh to come there and do thatand I'm glad he talked me into
it.
I had a crazy busy day but Iwas glad I fitted in.
But just walking into there Inever just thought about all the
(02:11):
intricacies of what go intothis place and wine and
everything.
But step us through a littlebit of what we saw today because
it was awesome.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, I guess everything starts out in the
field.
So first and foremost we'refarmers and we're growing a
specialty crop and corn andsoybean.
So that right there poses ourfirst difficulty of growing
grapes in Nebraska, wheretypically it's corn and soybean.
So just growing the fruit is adifficult task in itself.
(02:42):
And then making wine after thatis also difficult.
And you got to see the processof how we do that at the winery,
and even if every growingseason is different, so it's not
always the same, so the fruit'sdifferent quality every year,
and so we take what we can getand then we do our best to make
the best quality wines from that.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And I'll get into the details of everything about how
many acres of wine.
I found all that veryinteresting.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I saw that question on there.
He did show me the quick one.
Yes, and I hated that onequestion.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
There's so many questions that I have because
I'm a nerd.
I'm such a nerd Get into thatand being a business owner,
knowing the nuances and the insand the outs of why you do this
and why you don't grow more andwhy you buy other people's
grapes I want to get into allthat, but I think I skipped over
the foundation of this.
I thought it was veryinteresting because up until
(03:36):
even knowing Josh, I knew of youand your family's history with
this.
But I was actually at abusiness lunch on Monday and he
wanted to do another closingtoday or a discussion about a
closing today, and I said I hada podcast and he's like where
are you going?
I told him I was coming outhere and he's like he knew your
dad and knew about the historyof the company and stuff and I
(03:57):
found it very interesting.
So you were kind of hitting onit today.
But go back to the foundationof this and how we ended up in
this building and how you gotthat and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I guess we got to give all the thanks to my dad
and props to him.
He got it all started.
He was a businessman in Lincolnso he had a successful computer
software business calledPenlink and so when he retired
from there he still is workingwith us and he does all kinds of
things.
But it would have been back in2003 is when he kind of started
(04:28):
the hobby of trying to growgrapes here in Nebraska as a
hobby winemaker.
So that's kind of where it allgot started.
We purchased the land out thereby Bennett Palmyra area, started
with maybe about an acre worthof grapes and just over the
course of the years we plantedthem.
I was probably a high schoolage kid so it was a good time to
(04:49):
go out there.
We planted the vines, put upall the trellising so great
learning experience for mybrothers and I and then it's
just kind of grown from there.
So started out very small hobby.
It kind of continued to grow.
And then once my older brother,john, finished college, my dad
had a building out there.
He's still working full timeand John was like what are you
(05:12):
going to do with that?
And that was John kind of tookthat over and really started the
process of getting the liquorlicenses and all that stuff to
do in the research, buying thetanks and going full fledged and
starting the winery.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And you said he went back to UC Davis and got his
master.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yep.
So my brother and I both wentto University of South Dakota
and then, once John started thebusiness and we were probably
maybe about a year or two intooperating the business and he'd
been making wine for a handfulof years, but he went back to
school and went to UC Davis toget his masters in winemaking,
just to really understand theprocesses.
(05:49):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I didn't know that that'sawesome.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
He's one of the smartest guys I know, but if
you're to school wise, he's notthe best at books, but I mean he
can.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That was one sitting up top today, right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yep, that's John.
So John manages a lot of theproduction side of things.
So all the winemaking, cidermaking, packaging, a lot of the
field work too.
Anything that breaks he'susually just fixing stuff.
So John kind of takes care ofthat building.
And then my brother, Craig,that we met over at the event
(06:25):
center.
He does a lot of our marketinglabels, so anything that you see
visually that's Craig.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So you guys, we'll get into that too.
I think you're asking foranother round.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Sorry, I'm sampling all their stuff today.
I'm trying to get a cider.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Whatever I'm drinking , the hibiscus is amazing.
Oh, thank you.
It's like a rosé on steroids orsomething I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, you like ginger .
It's got a lot of that.
Ginger is very prevalent there.
It's good.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So not to go too far down this because I have so many
questions today.
But how'd you go to this?
You said South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, my brother and I both, we both swam, so not
many programs after Title IX andstuff like that.
Nebraska used to have a program, so a lot of people that were
swimming at Nebraska.
Ultimately there's some peoplethat went up to South Dakota to
swim in college and my brotherhad went there, and some other
(07:19):
guys from Nebraska and so that'skind of what led?
Us to South Dakota so both ofyou and I swam up there for four
years and ended up back inLincoln.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And so you buy the building out there.
Your brother comes back and youstart the operation there.
When do you become heavilyinvolved?
What was your involvement Did?
You always know at that pointyou were just going to do the
family business.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I kind of felt like I might do that, just because it
was there in an auction.
And so, yeah, john was doing alot of the wine making and stuff
like that, but he wasn't youknow the book, were taking care
of the finances, selling youknow he's making wine, but we
didn't even have a place to sellit.
So it's like, well, we got todo something and so that's about
when I came on board, you knowit would have been well, is that
(08:03):
2008 or so you know, kind offinancial crash?
You know kind of had some, youknow, job applications out there
, but at the same time I wasalways working at the winery
regardless.
So it was just, you know,that's what we're going to do
Perfect fit Family business Yep.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So where did it go from there?
So it sounds like 2008,.
You're kind of a company.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So 2008 would have been the first year we started
and I don't think we really didanything until probably the
summer of 2009.
So that area that I had you upin that tower, we used to do
like a Topos tasting.
So we used to do a wine andfood pairing up there, so we had
eight wines at that point intime.
We do like an eight coursepairing and we charged $25 for
this eight course pairing.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
That's cheap, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It was not good.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
So you know, and we had to walk food up those stairs
and basically losing money toget people's attention?
Yep, pretty much.
So in the course of the years,you know you learn things at
work.
What don't work, you know whatwine sell, what don't sell, you
know.
So I mean, still we're stilllearning.
You know, 15 years into it andyou know still still don't know
what to do.
Yeah, but we've learned whatyou know, some things that do
(09:09):
work, some things that don'twork, or what we can do better.
Yep, you know, and so probablyafter you know, that first year
of doing those tastings is like,wow, that's a lot of work for
not much money and people arelike, man, this is a great deal.
Yeah, and so you know.
And after that, you know, westarted doing larger events with
music and stuff like that, andthen I think it was probably
(09:30):
2011,.
We were talking about thisbuilding that we're in now.
And so, going back to my dadand his other business, he was
using this space to train peopleon his computer software.
So his business being inLincoln and a lot of people
flying in, whether it be Lincolnor Omaha again, ashland makes
for a really good place to meetin the middle, and so they did
(09:50):
their training programs out hereOver the years.
You know, he expanded inLincoln and didn't need the
space anymore.
And then about that time, whenwe're working out at the winery
and you know, kind of runninginto some issues, you know, as
far as you know our space andwhat we can do with it, we were
allowed one offsite locationwith the liquor commission for
(10:10):
our liquor license, and so it'slike we got that building there.
It's in between Lincoln andOmaha.
That would be a perfect fit.
Really, don't have to do muchto the space, and you know, and
that's when we opened up ourtasting room, and so that was
probably 2011.
And then in 2018 is when weclosed temporarily and expanded
(10:31):
into these next two bays thatwe've got.
How long do you have to closefor, geez?
I mean, I'd want to say it'sprobably close to a year, really
.
Yeah, I was gonna say they didit in about a year, I mean, and
yeah, it was wild to see theconstruction.
I mean I'm sure some of theneighbors probably weren't too
happy, you know, while it'sgoing on, oh for sure, and we
lucked out.
The Chamber of Commerce here inAshland really helped us out
(10:53):
and they had a building here sowe didn't want to, we didn't
actually have to just closecompletely.
Oh, that's awesome.
So we stayed open across thestreet and did a like, just like
a pop-up.
You know people could buy likebottles to go and stuff like
that, but we didn't serveanything Like you know, there
wasn't enough space to have, youknow, customers come in and
sample and stuff like that.
So we at least still had apresence downtown here.
(11:16):
But you know, it was about ayear.
That was awesome.
The Chamber is working with you.
Yeah yeah, the community's beengreat to work with.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So the building where you hold the events at the
other location in Palmyra,bennett, was that building
always there?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Nope, so that would have been probably 2016.
2015, 16 is when we built that.
We'd been doing a lot of eventsoutside at the other building,
the winery building.
But again, weather is always anissue.
You know we'd had weddings andthings like that.
But usually when you knowpeople are wanting to book it,
they love the space but like,how are you going to do this?
(11:50):
How are we going to do that?
What happens if this happens?
And you know it's like we needa better space out here that we
can operate in, because you knowthe production building, you
know strictly, is mostly set upto produce wine inside.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So so you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but you
have 80 acres out there andfive acres are dedicated towards
growing Yep, right, and sowhat's fascinating to me is so I
don't know what you will get.
We'll get to where you are onproduction and how many bottles
you produce and everything, butso you guys do five acres and my
question was so five acresprovides you everything you need
(12:26):
for your wine?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And Not necessarily Right.
So yeah, and that's hard, andthat's the question that I was
talking about earlier, that Ihate.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
How many grapes go into a?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
bottle of wine.
You know, I mean if we werethere in the summer and I'd love
to have you back out and showyou the vines and everything
else like that.
But you know, 80-wise clustercompared to front net cluster,
you know one's about the size ofa football and the one's about
the size of your fist.
So you know, I mean you havevery small berries, you have
large berries.
So you know, like that's a verycommon question, but you know
(12:58):
it just depends, you know I meandepends on the varietal and
things like that.
But you know it's hard to saywhat.
You know there is metrics thatyou could use to say how many
grapes go into a bottle.
You know, and I know ournumbers, but you know, so for us
, like in wine, in this previousyear we did around five, six
(13:19):
thousand gallons of wine andthen we did like 180,000 gallons
of cider.
Okay, and the cider we get fromout of state where the wine,
like we were talking about, willharvest once a year.
So we really have oneopportunity to make wine where,
with the cider, we're makingthat, you know, monthly.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And that's what you guys were bottling in the back,
right you can bring the fruit infrom other places.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
The cider we bring in , you know, juice from out of
state and that's what makes youknow, helps us keep it going
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So you guys do the five acres yourself, yep, and
then and then.
So about how many acres, so tospeak, like just as a comparison
?
I know you don't buy a lot, sowe had we had a.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
This year we did, I want to say is a little over 40
tons of grapes that we processed.
Out of the 40 tons, I think wepurchased 32 of those.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So you know we we had about.
We had about eight to 10 tonsourselves.
We had a really good year outat the winery for ourselves, and
then the rest of it we boughtfrom other growers in the state.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so I would have to assume you know there's a lot
of input that goes into growingyour own grapes.
If you're already buying 32, isit worth the inputs to do your
own five acres?
Is it because the, the, the, uh, yes, yes and no there could be
?
The net is much better whenyou're growing your own.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
The net is, it can be .
I mean, you know it's thequality, you know.
So with us buying them, youknow we don't have control of
you know what goes on, you knowwhat spray programs, uh, you
know, whatever it may be.
So, and then we've got greatgrowers.
So I'm not saying that ourgrapes are better than theirs by
any means, right, but yeah, Imean we could expand where we're
(15:03):
at, but we're we would preferto purchase them from other
growers if we can.
So you, you're just becauseit's a lot of work.
You know farming.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Right and I asked you the question.
I said who?
I didn't know.
You harvest once a year, so Isaid who does it?
And you said friends, familywhoever we can get.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So whoever listens to this podcast, come on out.
Uh, you know, starting inAugust, our first grape that we
usually harvest is Adelweiss, sopretty much starting first
second week of August, you knowwe'll.
We've got eight differentvarieties, so we'll we'll
harvest, um you know, eightdifferent times between August
through.
Probably the latest we've evertaken anything out would be like
(15:41):
the first week of October.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Well, and it's a great way for like sports and
kids to dance, like to raisemoney for that.
They come out and you guys paythem a certain amount per bucket
or pound, whatever.
I mean, that's how you get it.
Like we have, we're going tohave Terran come out there.
She danced for the Polyneersand they would pay her and her
team to come out and pick grapes.
What do you guys charge for?
(16:04):
Like if, if my daughter cameout with her dance team, like,
how do you cheat?
Have to do it for free.
Yes, terran would do it becauseit's Terran.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
No, I don't, I don't really know what we.
I mean, it's always kind ofbeen different.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You know it just kind of depends.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
You know some days I mean there's been days, you know
, where we've picked for threedays straight, you know, because
we don't have enough people youknow being my dad and I and
John, and I mean the people thatwork there full time, you know.
And then there's other dayswhere we've had, you know, 40,
50 people and it gets done likethat.
So I mean that's what we'dprefer.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'd prefer those days .
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It's really fun when you're doing it, but you know if
you have to do it all day,every day, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yeah Well, and then some days nobody shows up and
it's just you and your brothersand your dad.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So I mean we've done pretty good on getting them out.
You know over the years,whether it be friends, family,
you know hired help, whatever itmay be, but I'm not going to do
it.
Yeah, you've never shown up.
You get one last drink.
I don't even ask.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
I wasn't invited like .
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Tommy.
Last time I quit inviting himto the lake too.
He doesn't go out there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I second that because every weekend I saw him out
there of Tom on Snapchat.
Oh, I don't think so when?
At your lake?
No, he never came he only cameonce.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
No, I've been out there.
He didn't come out.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Well, tom this isn't about me.
This is about Glacial Tilt andMurray Customs.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It's always about you .
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Well, tell us about the family atmosphere.
I thought it was really cool,you know, when you hear that you
know a family works together, Ididn't know it would be so
close and intimate, as it wasLike we walked into the
production, we walked upstairsand it was your brother, and
then we walked into the frontevent center and it was your
other brother, and then your dadwalked in and started shooting
(17:41):
basketball and so tell me aboutthat.
Tell me about your brothers andhow they fit in and your day to
day.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah.
I know that you said I mean,you know I love working with my
family.
You know everybody's kind ofgot their role but you know
everybody pitches in where theycan.
And you know, unlike the TVshows and things like that where
people are screaming andyelling at each other, we don't
have that.
I get along with my brothersreally well and work well
together.
I mean, they might saydifferently, but I don't think
we continue to go on familytrips and do a ton of things as
(18:15):
a family.
So it's great.
You know, at the first minuteFridays my dad will be out there
handing out the raffle tickets.
You know he's out there pruning, he's out there picking grapes
and I mean, again, you know it'sbeing an owner of something.
You know it falls on yourshoulders.
So I mean, everybody picks upwhere they can and you know it's
awesome.
Shannon asked me what my titlewas and I always just say
(18:35):
general manager.
But you know I don't, I don'tlike him.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Your other brother told me he was a general manager
.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, fighting over the position You're the
assistant oh really no, I wasgoing to say which one.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
He used to have just made it.
We all had manager on our card.
We only manage ourselves.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
But, it seems like you guys have done a very good
job of having your each segmentsand fitting in.
Like you said, your one brotherdoes marketing and you're kind
of the people person, so tospeak, and managing this.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Sometimes yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And then your other brother sounds like the
Production.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Wizard Right right.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
They're all super in.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And you know it's not just us three.
You know we've got great peoplethat work with us.
You gotta meet Adam Andersonthere, adam Frederick, brian
Huggins, jack in the productionbuilding and then out at the
winery, some of our full timestaff Lisa, mallory and Aubrey
that do all the kind of weddingevents and public facing events
as well, and then here inAshland, sandy and Rhonda are
(19:38):
two managers and then our chef,allison Hill.
That's something that we did.
I see you guys got some foodover here but we did small, you
know, kind of meat cheese traysand stuff like that.
And when we did expand here wewanted to have some larger food
offerings and that's when we,you know, got introduced to
Allison.
I believe that Lisa made thatconnection for us, somebody that
(19:59):
worked for us, and that's beengreat.
You know, talking about ourpeople, you know a lot of our
great people have came fromwithin or been recommended, you
know, by Lisa.
It's like, hey, I know this gal, allison Hill, and you know I
mean she's a phenomenal chef andit's we never intended on doing
food like we're doing now andyou know she just elevated it
for us.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
So I will say you guys always speak very, very
highly of your employees.
Like you, guys are very proudof who's with you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's good.
She had a great.
My wife had a good question.
She's sitting right over here.
We got a room full of peoplehere listening His are awful
quiet.
Yeah, geez.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
How come you didn't get me a drink?
We're trying to.
What do you want?
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I want what Tom was drinking.
Tommy wouldn't get me onebecause he's still mad at me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Tom's probably drinking that one with Brandy in
it.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
That was really good.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Bourbon.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, I'll do bourbon barrel.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So this I don't know if you know, but I was on a, I
told him what do you call him?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Sober kick?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Well, yeah, sober kick, but it's been 11 months,
so is he?
Yeah, 11 months, I'm in, that'sgood.
So this is probably like myfifth to 10th drink in the last
10, 11 months Between five and10.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Don't blame me.
Don't blame me.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Nah, he's.
Blame him, blame me.
Oh, this is good, though.
Whenever Matt hangs out with me, he likes to drink more,
because he can't handle me withso many sober.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That is true.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's true for everybody.
It's a little unique going outwith the group now and not
drinking.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
That would be tough.
It is tough, it is a littletough.
Look, I might try it.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
No, don't do it.
Remember bowling night, when Ididn't drink and everybody was
drunk?
Yeah, I could have to leaveright away.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
But no, my wife had a great question on the way here
about I know you have a lot ofdifferent employees that fit
into a lot of differentcategories, but the ones that we
saw in the production in theback, she's like I wonder what
qualifications they have to have.
I'm like well, I'm sure there'snot a lot of people around
Lincoln, nebraska, that haveexperience in production and
wine facilities, so I would haveto assume that means you train
(21:57):
these people a little bit, so tospeak.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A lot of it's on the job training.
Yeah, I'm trying to think, ifanybody has any I know Jack,
he's got a chemistry degree sohe's very good with and that's
what a lot of the wine and cidermaking is a lot of chemistry.
So outside of that it's been alot of on the job training and
kind of similar to Chef orsomebody.
It's like a recipe.
I mean there is kind of aplaybook, but I mean they're
(22:23):
kind of unique in that way thatthey kind of create what they
want to do.
Sometimes it might work,sometimes it doesn't.
But yeah, again, it's a lot ofon the job training.
But yeah, like seeing thecentrifuge or cross flow filter
and some of the equipment it'snot common equipment- they're
like oh wow, you just take acouple tri-clamp fittings.
(22:44):
Hook this hose up to this, hookthis up to that and press a
button.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It looked like a science room.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, it's a whole lot of science that's going on
and I know what it does, but canI operate it?
No, so, and you saw that Adamcalled me out for that I showed
you the can, that's pretty cool,he tells you.
I know how most of it works andI know what it does and why we
have it, but I don't operate anyof it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
He put a can in the canning machine, it just blew it
right off the tracks.
But no, yeah, it was super coolJust seeing everything.
Take us through, kind of youknow the terminology you're
using with the different winesand the offerings.
I think it was pretty cool whenyou said that you guys had a
freeze right when you lost yourharvest that one year and that's
(23:29):
what led you to the ciders Kindof go through that.
So you first started doingwines and only wines.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, so we started out, you know, just doing wine
and then it would have been 2015.
We had a really bad frost inMay, so once the vines bud out,
you know, and they're coming out, so we had a frost and we lost
all of our fruit that year.
So we had I don't know how muchfruit we had, but not enough to
(23:56):
really make any wine.
And Kimmel Orchard's being downin Nebraska City, we ended up
buying a bunch of apple juicefrom them and at that time we
were doing events at the wineryand we called them fermented
Fridays and we were featuringthe local craft beers.
And so we had a goodrelationship with one of our
distributors in Lincoln, k&z,and we were making the cider and
(24:18):
we were serving it at ourevents and he's like man, this
is great stuff, you know, likeyou should let us distribute it,
and so you know that's kind ofhow it got started.
You know, the year that wecouldn't make wine, we started
making cider and then it justkind of took off from there.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So it was in disguise .
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Didn't you guys win some awards for your ciders?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yes, yeah, we've won quite a few awards, you know, in
different competitions andstuff and I don't know.
Just a couple of years ago wegot like national cidery of the
Really yeah, top cidery andstuff.
So yeah, I mean we've won quitea few awards.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I couldn't name what they are.
I should have done moreresearch on ourselves to give us
some accolades.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
But so what is the Take us through?
You know, when you were at thevery beginning, you offered, you
said, eight different wines.
Yep, If that's the proper term,Is that?
Yeah, I mean no.
When you say eight differentwines, is that so somebody
novice like me, tom, would knowmore, because he drinks a bottle
at night.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
No, I mean you could, and you could do different
wines in different styles.
So you know, take a Cabernet,you could press it right away
and you could make a Rosé.
You know, that way it's notthat full body, dark red.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So no clue you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, you could take a same grape and you could make
it different ways, you know.
So it could be completely drywhere there's no residual sugar
left, or you could stop thefermentation where there is a
little bit of sugar left, likethe Adelweiss that they're
drinking.
You know it's a sweeter wine,okay, so you could use the same
grape and make a different wine,you know.
So when I say that we had eightofferings, it might not be.
(25:47):
You know eight different kindsof grapes.
You know it might have been.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, two Frontenacs in a different style,
or you know so Okay, and ifI've learned anything today, the
Frontenac is the grape.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, frontenac is a name of one of our grapes so we
grow here in Nebraska.
They're called French Americanhybrids.
Okay, so a lot of the grapesthat you'd know, or like the
noble grapes you know, cabernet,or you know, you look at, I got
a poster up here somewhere butyou know the grapes that you see
in the store Merlot, cabernet.
You know, those are the onesthat people know, but there's
(26:22):
thousands of different grapevariety that was grown all over
the world that people are makingwines with.
It's just not as common or tosee it and know what it is.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And so you had eight wines, different selections at
the beginning, in the beginning,yeah, so where are we at now
Shoot, I don't know we'd have togo back.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Somebody go grab a menu.
We got a lot now.
I mean we've got a.
You know usually at least eightto 12 different ciders on tap
out here, you know.
And the wines, you know atleast 10 different wines you
know, and just kind of dependson you know the vintage, how
much we do of something, youknow.
Just you know how things go outthe door.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
So you have eight to 10 wines total Yep generally
yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I mean sometimes more .
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, and so go through the selection of grapes,
like what you have and thenwhat you buy.
And I thought that was prettycool and you were explaining to
me if I was going to go out andget a high end grape like a Napa
Valley you know it might bename brand versus your guys'
grapes and what you're a locally, I guess I don't understand the
question.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
So, you guys, what would you call your guys, grapes
?
Oh, they're French Americanhybrids.
So, right, it's like a crossbetween the vanilla variety,
which, like would be, you know,cabernet, and the things that
are growing that you know you'dsee in the grocery store,
crossed with a native grape.
That way it can withstand, youknow, our climate, right?
(27:45):
So a lot of like the atyl iceand some of these grapes, you
know, can withstand thesetemperatures that you know get
down to negative 20 degreesFahrenheit and, you know,
survive.
So the vanilla varieties, youknow, would not survive our
climate, that's true.
So the cross between them is,you know, they're disease
resistant, pest resistant,climate resistant, yet have the
(28:06):
fruit quality of, you know thename, grapes like the Cabernet
and whatnot, right, but canwithstand our climates.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So probably completely different grape than
they're growing in Napa Valley,and so you were saying that in
order to with all the differentrules and regulations, in order
to bottle your wine.
A certain thing asked me wouldyou say 75% your grape or?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
what was that?
Yeah, there's a whole lot oflaws.
You know we're in a very highlyregulated industry and, yeah,
when it comes to wines, it's alot of marketing.
You know different wine regions, american viticulture areas,
you know, get labeled to NapaValley, sonoma Valley, and then,
yeah, again, there's a wholelot of labeling requirements.
(28:48):
You know.
You see the government warningson there.
All of our labels are approvedby, you know, the federal
government and you can only saycertain things.
You can't say this, can't saythat, and you know that's where
the labeling requirements comein.
But for any wine, like to sayat Cabernet, or say this you
know a Merlot or a Frontenac,it's got to be 75% or more of
(29:12):
that grape.
Got you labeled with that?
So there's a lot of regulationsto you know, hopefully, steer
the consumer in the rightdirection and not false
advertise with that.
But it's a, it's a task, youknow, getting into the weeds
with the government.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, I think we heard the same thing when they
were at the distillery that wedid in Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Oh, what was that?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Sideshow.
They're explaining how therehas to be a certain percentage
to be called.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, whether it's like a Rye whiskey or bourbon.
Bourbon's got to be two yearsand yeah, there's a lot of that
kind of stuff in the alcoholindustry that you know.
You might not know about thatit's just like whoa, yeah, it
gets a little crazy.
And then again you know all thereporting and you know
everything like that with thetaxes.
I bet Just very got to stay ontop of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And it sounds like the chief fire marshal, let's
not talk about that.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
What's up Gabe?
What's up guys?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
That's a more Murray employees walking in here, yeah,
but the reason that we'vealways wanted to do a podcast
for you actually shit.
We reached out to you maybe sixmonths ago, a year ago, to get
something lined up.
But I know you're busy, we'rebusy, but one of the reasons
that spurred this and got it onthe books was, you know, murray
does a lot of gifting.
So when you know, when we signa contract, we try to give him a
(30:34):
gift when they close on theirhouse, to try to get my
housewarming gift and you know,inevitably the way the world is,
it's usually a lot of wine.
And actually when I firststarted getting into the high
end market, I was pretty youngI'm not now, but back when I was
a high end home builder inLincoln, I was a new builder.
Not only was I new, but I wasdoing in a high end market where
it was a lot of experiencedolder generation builders the
(30:57):
Bob Schultz's and those guys andI was here, this 20-some year
old kid, trying to compete withthem, and so I had to do
something to make myself standout.
I learned very early on that alot of the wives of the families
that I was entertaining to signwith us were winos, and I
didn't even know that term atthe time Right, and so I was
(31:20):
entertaining these and I wasgetting a lot of spurring along
by the people in my group bymake sure that the wife's happy,
take her a bottle of wine.
You know, take Merlot, take Cab, and so I had to start to
understand wine.
But it is very much a thing Ithink I don't know if it's in
the high end world.
You know you have a bar in thebasement so you have to stock
the bar.
Or you know the husband andwife like sit and drink.
(31:42):
You know there's a lot ofdifferent reasons to drink wine,
but it seems like the clientelethat we are catering to always
wanted wine, and so we startedgifting wine a lot and we give
gosh, I would say, hundreds ofbottles.
And now that we're now that I'ma realtor and we have our home
inspection business there's justa lot more personal touch that
goes into advertising ratherthan just throwing a commercial
(32:05):
out and hoping that it sticks.
There's a lot of interaction,social networking.
We call it brand ambassador,and so we have three brand
ambassadors that just meet withpeople on a daily basis and, you
know, at the end of the day,it's kind of schmoozing, you
know.
I know people gift them whatthey want.
But so when we were thinkingabout it in a meeting the other
day, it was you know, if we'regoing to be giving out hundreds
of bottles every year, if notmore, why don't we have a Murray
(32:27):
label on it?
I mean shit, we have Chapstickwith our label on it, we have
pens, you know, everything,everything these days, has a
label on it.
Right, you've just got four ofthose Chapsticks.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I mean, everything has a label on it.
So we're like let's pair withsomebody in the community that
we can represent their brand andwe just put our label on it and
it's a win-win situation.
So well, we'd love to do it foryou.
So yeah, and that's that.
And you know you were asking mequestions all day, shit.
Let's wait for Shannon to behere, because he's the one
that's going to take these notesand probably pull the executive
(32:56):
decision.
But talk about that a littlebit.
I know that we had just talkedabout it in there a little bit.
There's the different ways thatwe can label the bottles and
the different varieties that wecan get.
You know whether we want to gowith an exotic, so to speak, or
a local.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can do it, but yeah,
I mean it comes down to you.
What do you want, what do youlike, what do you want to give
to your customers?
So you know we've done a lot ofbottles for weddings and stuff
like that.
You know bridal showers andthings like that, customized
bottles in the bank you knowthey do the same sort of thing
like you're going to do.
So I mean We'll do it better.
(33:31):
Yeah, I hope so.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think the answer would be I didn't want to get
into the weeds earlier because Iwanted to save for the podcast
but you know we'll have the.
We'll have this, so to speak,everyday wine that we just hand
out, just a general good flavor,good bodied wine.
That is just our hand out wine.
That's what you want to call it, but you let us know before we
walk out of here today.
Let these guys taste thedifferent wines and land on a
(33:58):
couple of selections while youguys are here, so that way we
can get pricing and get thatsolidified and start getting
some wine out to people Wouldlove to do that.
How many bottles are in a case?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
There's 12 bottles to a case.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So Tom drinks like 10 cases a month.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I know I drink one case with him one night.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
So 12 bottles in a case I haven't been back to his
house since.
So 12 bottles in a case, whatis a?
I know this is tough, but ifyou had somebody like us coming
in and say, hey, we want to buysome wine, what is medium volume
?
I mean, what if I said I wantedthis many cases?
That would be like shit.
Man, we can do that.
That's a good volume.
Is it five cases?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
I don't understand the question either.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I mean, I'd love if you came in and wanted to buy a
hundred cases.
That's not a lot of cases, Idon't think, but five cases in a
lot of cases.
So we're just average.
Tom buys that at Costco everyweek Right.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
So just average Joe to walking and buying.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I mean, you're not an average Joe, Absolutely not, so
we need to be at 20, 30 casesmaybe.
We'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll talk about it, we'll
talk about it.
Drink another glass and thenwe'll deal pricing.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I got no pricing for you, I want to know how many you
want, and then I'll give you aprice.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Man.
That's see that I think, andthe reason I'm asking is it's
kind of like I need you to saysomething before you say
something vice versa, like shit,I don't.
We've never done this before,right, so I, when you ask me how
many I need, I don't reallyknow.
I could take a shot in the dark, but I think it would largely
depend on we want to make thiseasy on you.
We want to partner with youguys long term.
(35:36):
So I don't want you to dosomething that is going to be at
a loss for you guys, but I alsodon't want to overshoot it and
just have wine stuck in my backforever.
So yeah, so whatever you, youknow, if there was incentives
for us to do this amount versusthis amount, maybe if you could
lead us down a path of that.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I'll lead you down the path, just not on the
podcast, because I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
I got none of those numbers.
I wasn't prepared to give you aprice.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
That's trying to get on recording.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
You're trying to get the price.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
How price Friday?
Right, yeah, that's awesome.
Josh, what else you got?
Anybody else in here?
Feel free to jump on.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
You know, the cider thing is one of my favorite
things.
Like just how, how all thathappened and you guys had to
force yourself to do the cidersand I love the ciders, the
ciders are delicious.
Yeah, go go.
No, go ahead, no no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
No, the cider.
No, you go ahead, no, you goahead.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
I do love the ciders.
The ciders are delicious and Ilike that.
They make new ones.
Every season there's there'sseasonal ciders, so hibiscus is
definitely one of my favoritesand that was like one of the
first ones that you guys did.
Is that correct?
Yeah, one of the originals.
I love them and I push themevery time I can.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And talking about the ciders too, you see all of our
stacks of cider out here.
We do a cider club, so that'ssomething that last week I know
I canceled.
You know, with the snow andstuff I had it go into the
winery but tractor broke.
You know the truck.
Yeah, it's been a rough coupleof weeks with snow and you saw
what our location is like.
So you saw the semi trucks thatare there and it can be
(37:01):
difficult to operating.
You know a manufacturingfacility in the country.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
When I say that we know that, I want to make sure
that you know that I'm notsaying I know that, but you have
a couple of people staring atme over there that scooped eight
foot snow drifts out of thebasement of the house.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Oh yeah, oh my God yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So and so what I was going back to, last week we also
had our cider club release.
So every quarter we've we do acider club that we do four new
ciders that we'll send out.
We ship them all across thecountry through a third party
and then we also have peoplepick them up here on site.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So, as a novice, real fast, while we're talking about
ciders, explain to me what acider is.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Cider technically is a wine, so anything that is
fermented from fruit technicallywould be a wine, so an apple
wine, honey wine, and so cideris a low alcohol carbonated
beverage.
Okay, it does have silver.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And you guys were making this at your facility,
yep.
And so you say you just buy theor you did hasn't got to be a
bar to apple.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
So we started, you know, talking going back to the
frost they actually had changedthe laws around that time too
and so they classified cider asa beer because a lot of the beer
distributors were distributingyou know stellar art or angry
orchard or some of thesedifferent ciders and they kind
of are more in the beer category.
You know 5% alcohol and youknow the beer distributors are
(38:29):
distributing them.
And so they changed the kind ofclassification at the state
level that if it is below Ithink it's 8.5% it had to be
sold like by a distributor.
And so us, working with ourdistributor and linking Lincoln,
you know, had that relationship, buying beer from them and when
they wanted to start selling it, that's kind of when things
(38:50):
started taking off.
So the original cider making,you know, was just kegs only.
So you know the expansion wherethe canning line and stuff like
that, none of that was thereand so we were just filling kegs
out of you know, a really smalltank.
So that's kind of where thatgot started.
And then I believe it was thefollowing year that we expanded
(39:10):
in that building and added thecanning line and you know kind
of went full fledged with it andwe're the first, first cidery
in the state to really do it.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
So I'm just drinking an apple wine instead of grape
wine.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Is that?
Well, it's a cider technically,but yeah but okay, Tommy, raise
your hand.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
What do you got?
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Oh yeah, so yeah, we've talked about that.
The Blue Bee is a mead winethat we made, so it's some local
honey that we had, there'sfermented and then blueberry, so
it's a nice sweet dessert wineand that's new, right, you guys?
Just the Blue Bee.
We just did that a couplemonths ago.
And then what I thought wasreally cool maybe nobody else
(39:51):
does, but the ice cider issomething that I really was
excited about and we did thatlast year and we plan to do it
every year with these big coldsnaps that we get.
So a couple of weeks ago, whenit's negative 10 degrees, when
we get a tanker truck of ciderand we pull off, we took, I
think, about 2,000 gallons offof this truck and then we just
(40:13):
put them in our totes and weleft them outside to freeze.
So the totes freeze completelysolid, we bring them back inside
and then we've been siphoningoff just to really concentrated
apple cider liquid.
So generally when we get atanker truck, it's about 14
degrees bricks and that's themeasurement of the sugar content
.
And I can't remember what Adamsaid 40.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
40.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
40 degrees bricks, yeah.
So it's very highlyconcentrated and if anybody got
to try the wine, it's veryviscous and sweet.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I want to try that.
It's really nice.
We sampled.
We sampled a little bit of it,yeah it tastes like honey, it's
good.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
And I really like you know I mean it's with the way
the weather is.
You know, the last couple ofweeks after a while you get
tired of it.
But you know, doing somethinglike that, it's always kind of
cool to see them out there andyou're like what is that out
there?
You know, bring them inside.
And so that's kind of a coolproject that we did last year
and are doing this year again.
That, you know, the weatherhelped us out with that.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Right, so no question .
And might not know the answerto this, but figured I'd ask
what?
What?
Do you have any fun thingscoming up one year, three year,
five year plans, goals, anythinglike that?
You want to speak about Tim'sgoing heli skiing?
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, I might not be here.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
When you say heli skiing, what?
Speaker 4 (41:32):
He's getting lifted up on a helicopter to the top of
a mountain and goingsnowboarding down the mountain.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, that's, that sounds a little fun.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, I'm pumped.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
We're at though.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Washington, washington right, washington,
north, cascades.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So they obviously have seen YouTube videos and
stuff on it.
But so they take you up there,you ski down.
They take you back up, you skidown.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Oh, that'd be fun.
So it'll be my first time.
So, yeah, I have.
No, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So it's just a rich version of not having to wait
for a lift.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
I'm not hiking up that mountain.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
We hope you make it back.
We hope you make it back, ifthat came in.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
you're going to come get in line for the lift Now.
My heli's sitting right overhere, yeah so I got that coming
up.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So if you don't hear from me after next week, you
know where I'm at.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, for the company .
You guys have any cool thingscoming up.
Any more buildings you plan totake over or knock down or
remodel or you know nothing,nothing in the works right now.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I mean Any more wines or any cool.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
You know there's always new wines, new ciders
coming out.
You know nothing that I canreally speak of right now, it's
a secret.
But yeah, yeah, you knowthere's always fun things going
on at the winery.
But you know, especially afterthe last few years, just kind of
focusing on what we're doing.
You know, right now we'redistributing in all the state of
Nebraska and we're just intoIowa, so we'd really like to see
(42:52):
some of our brands move out ofstate.
But at the same time, you knowwe want to take care of our
distributors Right Our in state.
And right now I mean we'reyou've seen our facility and I
mean we're cranking out about asmuch as we can out of there and
keeping our partners happy withwhat they're getting, and so we
don't want to go too farwithout making sure everybody's
(43:12):
got what they need.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
So do you think you guys will ever like expand more?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Or I mean we potentially.
I mean it's not in the worksright now, but you know your dad
needs to have more babies andhave more son.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I don't think Mike was.
Yeah, and Johnny and Craig cantake care of that one.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
The next thing, yeah, I guess would be yeah, there's
nothing in the works or no plansnecessarily, but yeah, maybe if
we were to expanded, probablyto have a better facility for
production.
That's not in the country,Right?
So that's a, that's a big issuefor us, you know, getting
trucks in and out of there andproduct and so, but as of right
now, not necessarily that youknow that's good, though I mean
maintain maintain what you guyscreated.
(43:51):
Yeah, focus on what we're doinghere and grow.
You know some of the events youknow that we're doing here in
Ashland and and at the winery aswell, before really trying to.
You know, if we want to link inour Omaha location, let's see.
You know, get spread thin theway it is and it's, you know,
but that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Well, we're holding off on any expansion.
Yeah, it seems like you guyshave done great, you're at a
good spot.
So fermented Fridays with ourasking when you guys do it.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Fermented Fridays.
We usually start those in June.
Was that Memorial weekend?
Is that the first weekend, oris it labor?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Memorial.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
We start after Memorial weekend and so usually
do 12 to 14 Fridays, so it'severy Friday.
In the summer we get live localmusic, have some food trucks
come out, usually feature, youknow, local craft brew, and so
it's a family friendly event.
You know people come out, siton the lawn, bring chairs,
blankets and picnic, and so whattime does it start?
(44:48):
Usually we open the gates at 430.
Okay, they're always open, butyou know the people usually
start coming at four.
So you know, that's one ofthose things.
It's mostly weather dependent.
So last year we had a great,great fermented Friday series,
but you know the weather isperfect too, so we had great
bands and they did a real goodjob with that what was that?
Yeah, you guys website addressor any location Go to
(45:12):
glacialtiltvignorcom Awesome,and so I'm probably have to
spell that out.
I hate giving people my emailover.
You want me to spell that foryou Glacial tilt.
I can't spell it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Another quick question.
I found this interesting.
I was reading an article doingmy little prep on this, but
explain where glacial tilt yourname comes from.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
That comes from the soil, so it's not a.
So we've got a lot of glacialtilt, not I don't know which way
you guys drove, but you'll seelike a lot of places where they
got those big quartzite, youknow, pinkish colored rocks, so
that the glaciers, you know, Idon't know how many thousands of
years ago, but it you know,crossed through here and so
there's a lot of those rocks inour area and so a lot of times
you'll find like that groundthat we're on was just pasture
(45:54):
land.
They either had cows on it andwhen we had it, you know a bunch
of cedar trees and whatnot.
But farmers generally don'tlike that type of ground just
because it tears up theirequipment.
If you're disking and stuff andright up older like that,
you're going to have someproblems.
So that's a.
That's where the name comesfrom from the soil.
Yeah, it's called glacial tilt.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yep, that's the soil.
Yep, that's pretty cool.
No-transcript.
Oh Fridays, do you guys?
I know that fermented Fridaysopens at 430.
Are you guys open before that?
Speaker 3 (46:25):
We are not out there and so the winery is a little
different, just for the sake ofyou know we do a lot of weddings
out there, so we don't haveopen hours.
And then, you know, in thewintertime, you know we had an
event that was scheduled lastweekend but, you know, tractor
broke and couldn't clear roadsand it's like all right.
You know it's difficult to dothings out there.
You know, december rightthrough March, you know, just
(46:45):
due to the conditions, but youknow the fermented Fridays we do
ticket those events.
So we sell tickets ahead oftime, got you and previous
before 2020, and COVID andwhatnot.
You know it's just kind of afree for all, which was nice and
as fun.
You know we could have, youknow, 400 people or you might
have a thousand, but it made itreally hard to plan.
(47:06):
And so it's, of course you loveto see that many people come,
but then parking and you knowyou don't want to see people
waiting in line, and so we endedup starting charging for
tickets for those events, justso we can provide a better,
better experience for people andnot have it be overly crowded.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
So Well, I know a lot of people that have been there
and I went there actually wayback in the day, but I'd love to
go.
That's why I asked what timeyou guys were open, because we
usually every other Friday, orat least once a month, try to go
out as a team on a Friday orThursday and well, I mean, if
you guys ever want to come outthere, you got my number and we
don't.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
we were not necessarily open, but I could
open for this group, Well, andit's kid.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
It's kid friendly too , like you can bring kids out,
like it gets dark out and yousee all these kids run around
with glow sticks on there, youknow, around their nicks, so the
parents can see where they'reat.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's.
It's family friendly, so it'sgreat yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I can't believe how close it.
I mean, I know I was working onmy phone but she, she knew, you
know the general vicinity of it, but I put it into my phone and
from our house is only 13 milesand I answered one email and we
were there.
So I can.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
I can believe how close it was.
He lied to me when I asked howfar away it was.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, I didn't realize how not close we were.
You're like, have you been toBennett?
I'm like, yeah, we're justpassing through there and we
were like a block from.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
I know I'm like oh, I hear a plus.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
What else you guys got Anybody?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I don't think we need to take up too much more of
your time, but thank you so much.
Perfect, yeah, I know we'vebeen trying to plan this for a
while and it was great.
Thank you all, the Murray teamfor coming too.
I know you're, I know you.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Thanks to Tom, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Thanks for Josh.
I know everybody else isgetting paid just to sit here
and drink wine, but let's, Ilike to do so.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I appreciate you pushing me out of my brass
boundaries.
I don't like this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
I had to coach him.
I'm like it'll be fine, Don'tworry about it.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yeah, you like these now.
I just don't smoke too much.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah.
He called me last night.
I was like shit, I don't knowman.
It's like I'm trying to behave.
This isn't on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Definitely live.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
We are live, oh, it's live, oh yeah, oh, I'm joking.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
I'm joking, it's not.
He'll cut that part out.
He'll cut that part out.
Yeah, he'll cut that part out.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
I got, I got to do a life insurance test before I go
on that heli skiing thing.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So do you really have to you better?
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Well, yeah, I do.
I filled out like the lifeinsurance thing, and then I was
like shit, like I like do I tellhim I'm getting on a helicopter
and getting it jumped out of it?
Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yeah, they didn't.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
I'm going through all that shit right now.
Yeah, that's why I asked.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
I'm afraid of needles too.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
They came to my house and did all the blood work.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, See, I'm not.
I can't do that.
That's the only thing I'mafraid of.
I don't care what they find.
I don't want you to stick aneedle in my arm.
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
She's the same way.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Oh, I'll be on the ground.
No joke, I will be on theground dying.
You're like our buddy Dustin,oh, like whenever you guys did
the IVs at Harrods or what,after that one thing, and
they're like we're going to dothis after this event and I'm
like absolutely not Like that,like it's like the worst thing I
could do, like I was like Ifeel terrible, but I'm going to
take feeling terrible.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Then you good, josh, thank you so much for being here
and thank you for letting uscome in and I'm excited to
seriously, I'm really excited topartner with you guys and find
a couple of wines that we canprivate label and let our guys
start giving that to our clients.
But thank you guys, everybody,for tuning in this episode of
Stay Modern with Marie here atthe Glacial Till in Ashland and
(50:39):
we'll look forward to seeing youon the next episode.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
If you have questions or topics you'd like us to
discuss, you can email them toinfoatmurraycustomhomescom.
If you liked this episode, besure to subscribe to Stay Modern
with Marie on Avalanche Spotify, or check back on our website
and social media regularly forthe latest episodes.
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