So Cal with Val 6 13 25 Guest Kyle Meyer- Episode #7

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to socaw with Beal, your guide to the best
of Southern California Living Today is a really extra show
because we're joined by someone who's not only a wine expert,
but we think of him as a wine whisper. Now,
before you say I don't even drink wine, just hold
on stick with me, because today's show is not just

(00:42):
about wine, So don't turn the channel. Stick with us.
It's about a story, culture, craftsmanship, and the people who
pour their hearts into making something that's really special. Wine
really is like music, it's like art. It's kind of
like farming, and it's rolled into the land. It's shape

(01:05):
by history and crafted by real people who care deeply
about what they do. And I think that was my
first real attraction about wine was when I was charged
with the responsibility of pricing it for a charity auction
and I started looking it up and I realized that
every hillside, every wine maker, every type of grape every

(01:25):
year was all different. And I found it so fascinating
that for me, drinking wine is much more than just
the grape itself. People think, oh, I like reds, that's
not even the beginning of the story. So no one
tells the story better than our guest and show sponsor,
Kyle Meyer, who's the president and co owner of Wine Exchange.

(01:47):
He's tested over are you ready for this eighty thousand
wines No pun intended, traveled the world's most iconic wine regions,
and he loves to share his insights on media. He's
co founded one of the most popular wine websites out there,
but he's one of the nicest, most down to earth
educators you'll ever meet. So, whether you're a seasoned sipper

(02:12):
or you're just wine curious like many of us, Kyle
was going to make you feel right at home. Today.
We're going to explore a fascinating wine region, one that
isn't exactly in southern California, but it's in California, and
were drinking in southern California, so that counts. We're going
to uncover what makes the land and the grape so unique,
and we're gonna hear Kyle's top recommendations for Father's Day,

(02:36):
plus a few stories that might just make you change
the way you think of wine. So pour your favorite beverage,
whether it's coffee, tea, sparkling water, or wine and join
us for a conversation that's all about passion, place and
the magic of making something and enjoying something and appreciating
something that's really meaningful. Kyle, welcome again to so cal

(02:58):
with Val.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Hello, Val, how's it going?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Good? Good good. We are so glad to have you back.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Happy to be back.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
As with any time. What always fascinates me. I can
never get enough time with you, Kyle Myer. We wherever
we are, anybody even mentions the word red, white or wine,
and you have just an abundance of knowledge. No one

(03:28):
can even imagine how much you know and how depth
your knowledge is about the world of wine. And really
I think of the history of wine, not just in years,
but all that comes with it, and you know all
of that just more than anybody can even imagine.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Wall you, No, wine is history, you know, it's an
integral part of it. You know, thousands of years, two
thousand years, three thousand years, the Romans, the Cistercian monks,
the you know, modern history. It all kind of plays in.
It's always it's always kind of there. You know that
things come in and out of history. But what wine
is has always remained the joy of wine, the spirit

(04:10):
of wine, the canviviality of wine, the quality of wine,
the different flavors, characters, et cetera. And I don't think
it goes away for that reason. It's always it's always
going to be cool to somebody. Yeah, and wine's very
cool to me.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
So yeah, Well, and you think about even in Bible
times when Jesus turned the water into wine, so it
must have been something it was already going on, right.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, wine was a you know, you know Thomas Jefferson,
You know that you've seen that quote in the back
of some of the wine bottles. A great wine is
a necessity of life for me, you know. You know,
there's a famous Thomas Jefferson quote. But the thing is,
back in those days, when you're talking like a thousand
years ago, five hundred even years ago, wine was a

(04:56):
necessity just like beer was. I mean, think about it.
Water was bad. Think about it. So water was bad,
it was tainted. Half of you get more sick from
water than you could from drinking beer. You know, like
the monks were having the beer as well, ales fermented, ales,
et cetera. The foundation of it was water. So basically

(05:19):
they could drink water, they could hydrate, have fun doing
it and not die from it. So it was kind
of you know, wine and beer and all these sorts
of things, we're pretty much staples, you know. When you
got into heavier spirits, that's when things one of the
little sideways, you know, whiskey and that kind of stuff.
You couldn't necessarily classify those those particular types of beverages
in that kind of genre. But really, wine and beer

(05:42):
was a necessity for a lot of people in a
lot of parts of the world for a very long time.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
And did they and those days, did they fermented in barrels?

Speaker 2 (05:51):
And yeah, well, you know, yeah, you know back in
the days, well going way back, they would ferment it
in they would literally dig out the concrete. You know,
I've seen I've seen places in Spain, Old Roman, uh,
you know, just big pits that did dug out of
concrete or out of the mountain side, and they would

(06:12):
do the fermentation and everything literally on the side of
the mountain. They chipped out a hole in the mountain
and that's where they that's where the grapes went. And
then they they chipped away little canals from one section
to the other, so they had the fermentation in one
spot and then the wine would be transferred to another spot.
And so basically they they dug out the sides of mountains,
you know, just pure granite. This was something that was

(06:35):
that was quite common back in the old days. And
then you know in the Eastern in Eastern Europe, in
those areas they started developing you know, amphora. You know,
am fora never left us. You know, the amfora there
were there with the Greeks and the Romans and such.
It was a vessel for transporting, it was a vessel
for fermenting, it was a vessel for storing, it was
a vessel for all of that. So those terra cotta,
those clay amphora were also were very very intrinsic in

(07:02):
the development of fine wine and storage of fine wine,
and your wine didn't go bad, and a lot of
it was stored underground in these amphora. They would dig
them four into the ground and fill them, et cetera,
and to just pull the wine from the ground as needed.
So they had a way of you know, storing it
however they could, and creating it however they could. You know,
human beings are pretty darn resource when it comes of
stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So do you think that,
I mean, do you think they thought so much about
growing grapes at that time or was it just pretty
much wine.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think they did think about growing grapes, you know,
going there were set established vineyards. You know, two thousand
years ago, wine was a big deal. It was probably
more structured than you might want to think. You know,
it wasn't so cave man. You know, when you think
about the Romans and the Greeks, they had mathematics, they

(07:57):
had written language, they had technology. So so no, there
were vineyards planted specifically, and back in the Roman times
they had you know, one hundred years or whatever to
figure out what grew best where. So that process is
already taking place. And and and you know, the Romans
and the Greeks they all had their favorite wines, you know,
whether it was Falernum, whether it was you know, and

(08:18):
and these wines were talked about and and a lot
of the poetry and songs and and and books from
the great philosophers, these wines were mentioned by name. And
so there was already a great wine culture. There was
a chateau margaux or a you know, screaming eagle, you know,
back two thousand years ago. It had a different name,
but there was still there were still labels, There were

(08:38):
still very popular wines at the time, and.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Of course there was a lot of wine in the
in the.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Church, right of course, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Only for enjoyment, but also as a part of the ceremony.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
So yeah, the holy communion, the you know, all of
this played into it, and and and you know, well,
you know, I don't know if I want to go there,
but I'm not the most terribly religious person, but you know, hey,
you know, having a little wine at church, you know, hey,
welcome to church.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, that whole vibe, you know, because especially when
you think about it, with Christianity first began, they were recruiting, right, yeah,
when when you're starting a religion from nothing or the
foundations or you know, the base foundation of Judas and
run offho of Judas or whatever. I don't want to
get too much in the theology, but at that time,
you're recruiting, and if you if you want people to

(09:31):
have a good time in your house, you know, pour a.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Glass of wine. Exactly exactly, very very interesting. And of
course they had the the shout that's not the shout,
that's not the right word. The goblets, right, So there
was all the chalices. Yeah right, yeah, but we know
that because we see those right from those times you

(09:56):
see it.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
It was. It was a very important part of the
culture and still is. Yes, still is when you think
about it.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
So, Kyle, you have tasted over eighty thousand wines, is
that true?

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah? The figure Yeah, maybe even more, oh three to
probably figure three to five thousand wines a year over
the last thirty years. Yeah, could be one hundred thousand.
I don't keep hard I don't keep hard count. Yeah.
I have a number up there on LinkedIn so people
can have a little perspective on it. But we taste
a lot of wine and spit a lot of wine.

(10:32):
We don't get to keep all of it. You know,
No I did, I'd be dead.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
So you remember the first one that really caught your attention?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Ah? Interesting, you know, yeah, yeah, you know you always
have some some epiphany wines. And the first wine you
really caught my attention was a wine from the late
Terry Layton at Kaalan Sellers k A. L. I N.
The wineryes defunk now, but it was a super cool
cult winery at the time in the eighties into the nineties,
really enjoyed a great heyday. And and I had a

(11:01):
Pino noir from him when I was maybe seventeen years old,
and at the time, I was working at that gourmet
grocery store, you know at the end, and that was
a bottle that that my boss gave to me to
take home, you know, sneaks snuck it to me so
I could take home and try it. And that wine
really left the mark on me. And that was the

(11:22):
first bottle of wine at that Pino noir was just
like so aromatic and fragrant and silky and glossy. You
weren't You weren't drinking wine as I knew it, you know,
like you were drinking you know, like because my folks
drank jug wine, you know, the you know Almadad and
this kind of stuff. And and and when you snuck
a little bit of those all the dead, yeah, the

(11:43):
Almadad and the Carlo Rossi, and you know, when you're
like sixteen and you're sneaking little tastes of those, and
then you go to a scenario where you have a
wine like the Kaelin nineteen eighty one, kubadd Pino noir
that you're going into hyperspace. You know, it's like Star Wars.
You're going through your little land speeder and then you
get shot in the hyperspace. And that's what happened to me.
And that was at the dinner table, just having the wine,

(12:03):
and I was like wow. And I was really fortunate
to try a lot of great wines very early on
in my career. You know, when I was in my teens,
I tried so many great wines, and so I had
wonderful perspective early on. But that came on in one
That's the first one that kind of shook my boat.
As well as those great German restlings I had. I
was fortunate to have a lot of great German reestling
from JJ Prum and Doctor Tannish and these very famous

(12:25):
producers back when I was in my teens. And those
wines let me up pretty good too, I gotta say beautiful.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
And along with that, you've traveled to so many wine
growing regions. What's one place that really changed how you
saw wine?

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oh man, that's a good question how I saw wine,
you know, because I had been to the point of
our conversations later on today, I'd already been to NAPA earlier.
But I guess the first spot where I was like,
are you kidding? Was Germany And that's because you know,

(13:05):
we talked. There's this concept, there's this concept called heroic
viticulture where you literally have to be a hero, a legend,
a rock star to work these vineyards. They're so difficult
to work. And I remember getting to Germany and going
down the Mosel and these vineyards are at slopes of
like sixty seventy percent. The vineyards are almost near vertical,

(13:28):
and I remember going up in these vineyards and I'm like,
you know, how does this happen? How do you do this?
This isn't like potato farming, you know, a big field
and you got this machine, and no, this is artisan
vine by vine dangerous viticulture. I mean, these people could slip,
they could fall. The ground is covered with all these
bits of crumbly shale. And I was up in this vineyard.

(13:51):
I'm like, and the wine that comes from this vineyard
sells for twenty dollars a bottle, and that's I was like, wow,
Like the work you're putting in here in this site,
the danger and the beauty, gorgeous, gorgeous, vineyards and I
was like, wow, wine is is really next level. Just
what some people do to produce world class wine is

(14:16):
amazing and is indeed heroic. So probably Germany, probably around
two thousand, you know, cause I've been to Italy. I'd
been to Australia before that, but those vineyards were kind
of like straight up you know what I mean. It
was a lot of oh maybe a little hillside, oh
maybe a little something something And yeah, I say Germany.
And I took an early trip to Spain in the
mid nineties. I was in pre or Rot and Spain,

(14:37):
and same type of deal. These these steep hillsides, meager
no vines, meager yields, and the effort and work put
in just to make a few bottles of wine was
remarkable to me. And after that I respected the farmers
and the vineyar os much much more.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Absolutely. And when you say it's a labor of love, right,
actually is it has to be? It is?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
It is. These these folks, great vigne your owns, great
wine makers and great growers. They wake up thinking wine.
They spend all day thinking wine, and they go to
sleep thinking wine. This is it's well, actually they think
vineyard you know, the top guys, ninety percent of the
time they get up in the morning thinking vineyard, afternoon, vineyard,
evening vineyard, and then like for ten percent of the year,

(15:22):
for one month they're thinking whine because they have to
push all this beautiful raw materials that they created and
worked their butts off over the course of a year,
and they get that into the cellar, and then you
only have one shot at it. You have one shot.
You can't mess it up. You you have to be perfect,

(15:43):
especially if you think about it, you put in, you know,
eleven months and twenty eight days into a day. It
has to be perfect. There's no margin for air, and
so they have to switch. They have to put on
their new caps real quick and figure out the barrels
and the tanks so they can They cannot ruin what
they took a year to cultivate.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
No, It's interesting. When I was in college, my roommate
was a happened to be a farmer's daughter, but I
really didn't I really didn't think about it.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
I grew up in a small town and there were
farms around it, but I really didn't think as a farmer.
And one day it rained a lot and her comment
and we were all complaining about the rain, and her
comment was, oh my gosh, the effect it had on
the soybeans.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yep, yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
And I'll never forget that day. And it was March
March Edwards. I still follow on Facebook. And what I
realized that day is what that meant to the farmers, right,
and really you're like that, You're exactly right. It's the
it's the wine, you know, it's the grapes. We were
in Italy when you're and one of those hillsides was

(16:50):
going straight up and it was a man picking grapes
who had an La Lakers hat on and he pointed
to it. He said, Tobe Brian Goby.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Bryan right, you know, you know, I gotta tell you
I had that moment too in the wine business. I
was in Austria one year and tasting it with a
very with a Dynamite Austrian producer, one of the best
in the country. And we were inside tasting and you
heard some thunder and such, et cetera, et cetera, and

(17:21):
then you heard rain, which, okay, rain, but then you
heard tack tickety tack hal oh, which hale is the
absolute that is the complete panic zone for wine makers
and great growers. Hal is the worst. In twenty minutes,

(17:45):
you can be out of business. Yeah, and I'll never
look at I'll never forget looking at the fear on
his face. We've started hearing. The rain was one thing,
but the tic tac it was like his ears pointed up,
his eyes got real big, and he ran side. And
because literally it can happen that fast. Out thirty minutes

(18:05):
of HAL and you're out of business. You have no
income for an entire year. Mother nature incredible. Scary.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, yeah, it is pretty scary. So we know you
as being very approachable, a great conversationalist, and so willing
to share your knowledge is and there are a lot
of people that know a lot about wine, but everybody
isn't as open and as friendly and as giving as
you are. Is that something intentional, like did you decide, oh,

(18:35):
I always want to share this or is it just
your wonderful personality?

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well, thank you. Probably a little bit of both. I'm
a I'm not a mean person and the thing is
to me, you know, And here's the deal. To start
your career. You tend to be insulative and you tend
to want to keep information and you tend to want
to store it. And then later on in your career

(19:00):
is when you think about the sustainability of the business,
you think about sharing, you think about releasing that information.
And for me, I started very early, so my information
release actually came much sooner. So I was in my
thirties and I was already winding the share. So I
think that was a big part of it. Because you know,
how do I put this nicely? The wine business has
a lot of people in the business that I call

(19:24):
it I know something you don't know, right, And the
people that know about wine, they know it's a potentially
interesting category to some folks, but they do want to
lower that over you. That's their one little stitch of
power that they have. And so it's like, oh, well
you don't know about that, Well you don't know, da
da da da. Oh well that's impossible. I couldn't tell

(19:44):
you that. And to me, that's no, no, no, no
no no no no no no no no. For the
sustainability of the business, for the future of the wine business,
you have to share, you have to get more people involved,
you have to create, you have to grow the business.
And the business was inclined for a very long time.
You know, the sam Alias and and and a lot

(20:04):
of retailers you know that would just they that's that
that moment where they had an ounce of power over
someone that might be more affluent than them, or more
influential than them, or you know what I mean, like
oh the shoes on the other foot, you're the rock star.
But I got you. Now you're in my house, right
And I think there was that pervading philosophy in the

(20:24):
wine business for a very long time, and and I
think it still pervades with some people to a certain extent.
The whole kind of like faux snobby appeal of wine.
You know, wine's fermented grape juice. But this the faux
snobby wine appeal, appeal of wine is it's still it's
still out there because a lot of people their business
kind of depends on it. It depends on their retention
of knowledge and then dispersing it to you as needed

(20:46):
for their profit. So I get that, but that's never
been my That's never been my jam never. Never. I've
always been very sharing.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
No, and if you were not, and I'm told this
stray before, I think, but one day I walked into
your store. I'm not sure you were even really open yet.
The first day I came in and Tristan was at
the front of this or came out to talk to me,
and you were so nice that then, I, I mean
just completely changed my outlook on wine and that you were.

(21:18):
You were so approachable and you were so nice, and
if I needed something, you would talk about it, you
would tell us about it, and it was Yeah, it's
just pretty amazing. You don't get that when you go
into normal wine stores.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Oh thank you. Yeah, No, exactly normal.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
We know that already. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Sharing is caring man, you know, like, how does it
help me for you not to have information? You know?
My thought process has always been make my make my
friends and customers smarter so that they drink better wine.
And it's not necessarily so they drink more expensive wine.
That's not what it's about. It's it's about drinking better wine,
you know, drinking something that's twenty dollars buck itself for fifty,

(21:55):
not drinking a three hundred dollar wine. And so everybody
old at three undred oar wine I'm drinking. To me,
that's not the wine business. I don't like that part
of the business. And on Instagram and these sorts of things.
To see people posting just all these bottles of Romany
Kanti and petruce and blah blah blah blah blah. It's
like that, how does that help the wine business? It
sets the wine business back, and so so to me,
it's you know, I want a great website where people

(22:17):
are posting great fifteen dollar bottles or eighteen dollars bottles.
You know, that's that's going to help the wine business,
not the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Well, the other thing is it's it's probably fair to say,
and this goes into our region we're going to talk,
but probably fair to say that the majority of people
do not have your level of wine knowledge, and most
of them are people like us. We just we want
to drink nice wine. But if you talk to them
in such a way that they don't even know what
you're trying to say, Oh, I have a great Margo

(22:45):
in my frigo, Okay, what the heck is Margo?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Right?

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, but there are so many people listening to us
today and watching this, then they just want to drink wine.
They just say to me, Collery, I'm in the grocery store,
and I get these called believers or not. Some people
I just think I know a little bit. They call me.
I'm in the grocery store. I want to have a
nice wine for my customer. We just closed escrow. What
should I buy? And then I find myself asking, do

(23:11):
you know what kind of wine they like? Of course
I don't know what kind of wine they like. They're
just my customer. I want to do something nice. So
because I've heard of a few nice names that aren't
a lot of money, and we can help me. But
those are the people who we want to talk to.
We want everybody listening and viewing this show to feel
good about their knowledge level of wine. So let's do that.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Let's do it. So what region should we talk about first?

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well, I thought today we'd start a little bit of
home team. Huh. I thought we'd start with the with
the Napa Valley. Why not?

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, it's it's a it's it's one of the most
acclaimed wine regions in the world, we can honestly say that.
And and as a region with a bit of history,
and it's a region that is actually a little more diverse,
I think than what a lot of people would think.
So it's so I thought today it might be fun
to do a little minor deep dive into the Napa

(24:12):
Valley and just kind of, you know, cover in a
basic sense, the different areas and locales within the Napa Valley,
the styles of why did they create and and kind
of you know, do a little bit of that little
Napa one oh one huh.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
I think that sounds great. So let's start out by
town by defining where the Napa Valley is, because there
are people who know wines that are made in the
central coast, right, So where kind of does the Napa
Valley start? What is the Napa Valley area?

Speaker 2 (24:41):
So the Napa Valley starts in an area called Carneros,
which is the north side of the San Pablo Bay, Right,
So the San Pablo Bay where north of San Fran,
we're near like Vallejo, you know, Valley ho this area.
So you're coming out of San Fran and you're taking
the East Freeway. You know, you're taking the one going north,
but coming out of the east side, you know, through

(25:02):
Oakland and up through Hercules and this kind of deal,
you're heading up maybe the eighty or something. You're heading
up that highway and you're kind of going past Vallejo
or through Vallejo, then you hang a left right, and
then as you get to the north part of the
San Pablo Bay, you'll start bumping into the Carnaros region
of the Napa Valley. And Carneros is very distinctive because

(25:23):
Carnaros is an east west a va agricultural you know,
American viticultural area, and it's an east west part of it.
So half of it, the east side of Carneros is
in Napa and the west side of it is in Sonoma,
so it's kind of cut down the middle. And so
but as you come into the valley, the first part
you see is Carnaros. As you're going past the San
Pablo Bay and you'll see the Carneros region. Now this

(25:47):
is the coolest.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
So is Sonoma.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Napa No no Snoma's no. Snoma is separate, and Sonoma
and Napa are divided by by the by Commas mountain range.
But at the south end of the valley, the mayacomis
the mountains kind of like go turn into foothills and
then Nap and Snoma almost kind of connect at the bottom.
Oh you just like I said again, just north of

(26:10):
the San Pablo Bay and then so basically and then
you extend its extends from the San Pablo Bay all
the way up to basically the town of Calistoga. So, uh,
it's about Yeah, you can look on your way or whatever.
I'm trying to remember in the old days how long
it took. But it might have taken, you know, from
Carnarows to Calistoga. It might it might have taken an
hour at their speed limits, you know what I mean.

(26:32):
It's I forget the exact is it forty miles you know,
long north north to south thirty.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
They're basically just one road that goes up there.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
There's two main roads. There's two main arteries that go
north south in the Napo Valley. One's the main Highway
twenty nine, and then in the east of that you
have the Silverado Trail, which is another you know, it's
a it's a nice two laner. It's it's very it's
actually the more it's very scenic. I prefer kind of
going up Silverado Trail when I'm there. And yeah, and
then both of those will take you all the way

(27:00):
from the south side of the valley to the north
side of the valley. Okay, And then the valley is
it's a valley, right, So you got mountains on both sides.
You got the Miacomas on one side, and you got
like Atlas Peak and Helle Mountain and that range on
the east side. And the Napa Valley is just this
extremely fertile, you know, kind of God's country for growing stuff.

(27:25):
And basically all the way from the south to the
north you have these wonderful kind of old you know,
the alluvial soils, these nice brown, kind of loamy alluvial
soils there with different levels of rock and gravel and
maybe some clay here and some something there. But for
the most part, the base of the Napa Valley, the

(27:45):
valley itself, you can grow rocks there. Incredibly fertile area.
And it was farm it's you know, even before it
was grapes. It was farming. You know what, prunes, Prunes
were huge, any figs there. They grew a whole bunch
of crops in the Napa Valley before wine really came
on board in a big way. So it was already

(28:06):
an agricultural area of great repute prior to wine grapes
showing up, you know. And then but once the wine
thing got started, it was pretty tough to stop, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
So there's a movie at a big story about and
of course I don't have the names at the end
of my tongue beyond me where there was a contest
between a wine maker in California and the winemaker in France,
right and the guy in California one. So that was
in the Napa Valley, right, That.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Was in the Napa Valley. That was what they called
the Judgment of Paris. And this was an event that
a young wine critic, young at the time, wint Stephen
Spurry or Rest in Peace Stephen Spurry or British wine critic,
put together a comparative tasting between the wines of California
and the wines of Bordeaux because he went to California,

(28:55):
it was very impressed by what he found and he
felt compelled to do a comparative tasting. Now, I gotta
say the deck was a little bit stacked for California
because the wines that they were comparing the Bordeaux wines
were from very weak vintages of the time. So you know, yeah,
yeah they won, but you know, if they were competing

(29:20):
against like an eighty two vintage in Bordeaux or a
seventy vintage in Bordeaux. The results might not have been
the same, but regardless, what it did do is it
it said, yeah, we can play with the big boys,
we can run with the big dogs. And that's what
the Judgment of Paris really put in place, that California
wine could be acknowledged as premium wine. And from there,

(29:41):
you know, it made big news. Was all the newspapers.
You know, this before the interwebs, right, this is you know,
people receiving telegrams. Let's just in as das leap, when's
the judgment of Paris, you know, And it created this
scenario where, you know, California and Napa Valley wine became
much more popular overnight because it wasn't always as popular,
you know, in the sixties, you know, in Nappa had

(30:02):
a little work that you're recovering from prohibition, you know,
and you know, post prohibition, it wasn't it wasn't so easy,
you know, and it took a couple pioneering Maverick producers
to really kind of step out and do their thing
and create compelling wines in the late sixties into the
seventies that the rest of the world had to take
note of.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
So did the Napa Valley really come into its own
in winemaking in the sixties.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
It started in the sixties. There were always a couple
of great producers before then, right, so, you know, Charles
Crue was already making great wine. England Hook was making
great wine. Bolio Vineyards was making great wine. But your
second your second round of iconic producers such as Height Sellers,
Robert Mundavi, Stags Leap, Chateau Montalaena. These producers started, you know,

(30:52):
seventy two sixty eight, you know, right in that neck
of the woods is when a lot of these producers
got their art up there. And these were these were
you know, the cool kids of their day, you know
what I mean they were, you know it was Harlan
in the nineties, it was you know whoever. And so
they were they were those guys at that point in
time really breaking down barriers and creating wines that hadn't

(31:15):
been created in the Napa Valley before.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
So where did these wine makers come from?

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Well, you know, well, the thing is, uh like, for example,
take take you know Bob Dobby, the the family it
was they owned, They owned Kruge. You know, so the
it was all it was or what they call c
KM and Dobby, you know. So, and then what happened
is there was a familial split and and Peter, uh,

(31:41):
Peter and Bob the Dobby they didn't get they they
they ended up going their separate ways, shall we say, right,
And and what happened is Peter stayed on and continued
with Charles Krug right uh and uh and and Bob
Robert and Dobby went off and started his own thing.
So so he created the Robbert Madavi Winery, you know,

(32:02):
from scratch and yeah, so and that that's kind of
how that all got started, you know. And then he
made he started making great wines straight away. And then
by nineteen seventy four he was very well established. The
Madabi wines were already of serious repute at that juncture.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
So, and weren't there a lot of the I'll call
them the wineries because you don't call them the chateaus here.
But weren't a lot of them? Are am I wrong?
Were they more production based at that time whereas now
you see a lot of small wineries, small more boutique style.

(32:41):
Wasn't that kind of it seems like when you think
of the Napa Valley and you think of some of
these names you just gave us that they were more
production based at that time or were they the only ones?
Is that why we think of them?

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, a lot of those guys made quite a bit
of wine, you know, because we didn't have all these small,
parcelated ownership scenarios in the Napa Valley. And plus a
lot of the growers in that valley at that time
they did own farms and had vineyards, they generally tend
to sell to other larger concerns, whether it's Louis Martini
as an example, or Inglenook or Bolio Vineyards, or you know,

(33:13):
a lot of these guys that could take in grapes
and produce larger volumes of wine of high quality had
the wine making know how to facilitate that. So it's
only upon the success that these guys that started in
the seventies that more producers, you know, more vineyard owners, etc.
Started going, hey, I could probably do my own thing,
you know. And then from there, starting in the eighties,

(33:34):
it turned into well, I'm rich, I live in Silicon Valley.
I think helped my a vineyard, right, and then it
started this whole wine country, the whole concept of wine country,
living in wine country, wine country lifestyle. This was something
that hadn't really created, had been created until like the eighties.
You know, a lot of the tasting rooms of the nineties.

(33:57):
I first time I went to a tasting room in
Napole was in nineteen ninety three, and and a lot
of them were still Yeah, they were small. There was
still wood, you know, take bread, gurgage, just these small
little winery tasting rooms. It was free to taste. Yeah,
which is you know now it's these huge ornate tasting rooms,
one hundred dollars tasting fees. And even in the nineties,

(34:18):
they was still like the little tasting areas, like a
little hole in the wall, you know, and you got
to taste four wines and maybe you bought a t
shirt or you know, something's.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Like that's changed.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
What the map is now is a far cry even
from what it was, to say, thirty years ago, very different. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Is it the premiere wine region of the United States?

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yes, yes it is, Yes it is, and you know
it and it's worked hard to establish that reputation, and
and yeah, I don'd say yes, you know, there's other
areas that are younger, you know, that are kind of
nipping on its heels. You know, there's there's other areas
that you know, the American wine culture is still very young.
We're still talking really, you know, less than one hundred years,

(35:02):
you know, we're talking you know, post Prohibition. There was
wine culture in the late eighteen hundreds. You know, the settlers,
you know, the American settlers in Augustin Harassity and Junipero
Serra and all these guys. There were grapes being planted
in California in the mid eighteen hundreds, but there wasn't
really a severe hardcore wine culture, such as a premium
wine culture. It didn't start. Told even in the forties

(35:23):
and fifties, was still very marginal. People were drinking sweet wine,
people were drinking mixed drinks. They were drinking sherries and
ports and Scotch, and it really wasn't until like the
sixties into the seventies that there was a fine wine
culture in the Napa Valley. That being said, Napa got
a head start on Sonoma. So because Sonoma the blending,
the blend of grapes there was a little different. It

(35:44):
wasn't king cabernet cabernate didn't do as well on the
Sonoma side. It was closer to the closer to the water,
it was cooler there. It was not protected by the valley,
so the cabinet had more difficulty ripening. So that's why
pino noir and chardonnay and such found its way to Sonoma.
So Napa Valley had all the proper elements prior to
climate change that allowed them to ripen cabernet fully and

(36:04):
create world class cabernety savignon. Which cabernety savignon that was
the that's the big name. They call it King cab
for a reason. You know, Bordeaux, you know, in Australia,
et cetera, Cabernet does does very very well. So that's
that's kind of how it all started up. And then
and then nap But did a pretty good job of
making wine. You know. I got to say they they
reinvested in themselves and and uh and made a pretty

(36:26):
pretty damn fine job of making wine. They still do.
The prices are another thing, but the quality of the
wine is is the best it's ever been so of all.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
This places in the United States from Oregon to Washington,
to the Central Coast in California and other places. Still,
Napa Valley is kind of the king of wine making
in the United States.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, nap is the highest profile area. You know. Again,
there's lots of other great areas. I love or I
love the Willamette Valley for Penoir, I love Walla Walla
for Cabernet in Washington. I love Sonoma. You know, I
love the Santa Rita Hills, you know, close to our
you know, our home team. The Santaurita Hills is fabulous
for pino noir and chardonnay, and all these areas are coming.

(37:06):
And you know, who knows, in fifty years from now
could be pin noars what we're talking about in Cabernet
no one cares about. You know, then all of a sudden,
Santarita Hills is going to be the new Napa Valley
or what have you. So, but the time is still
determining that it takes a while for all this to
click in the place.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Right, Yeah, so tell me, so, what do they grow
in the Napa Valley? What wine will we find in
the Napa Valley?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Well, Napa Valley, it's all about cabernet, and it didn't
used to all be about cabernet. But basically it was
mostly cabernet. You know, granted even in the but in
the eighties it was mostly cabernet at that juncture. But
even the sixties and seventies, there was lots of pino noir.
There was chardonnay, There was a ton of infidel growing. There,
there was charbono, there was you know, all these different
grape varieties were growing in the Napa Valley. And over

(37:50):
a period of years, as the price of grapes of
cabernet savigno grapes escalated because the producers get more money
for their cabernet savigno wine. Right, So if I you
can get a hundred dollars for a bottle of cabernet,
but you might only be able to get fifty dollars
for a bottle of pino noir. What are you going
to plant your vineyard? What are you going to grow?
What are you going to create? If your farming costs
are essentially the same, You're gonna cabernet. It's gonna be Caabney, Caberney, cabernet.

(38:12):
So what happened as Caberney savignon slowly started overtaking, you know,
started forcing all these other grape varieties out of the
Napa Valley. So nowadays it's it's you know, i'd have
to look at the number as I don't know, but
what is is in Napa Valley like eighty percent Cabernet
now or something like that, you know, along with some Merleau, Caberne,
franc pa Ti Verdeaux, Malbek, the classic Bordeaux blending varieties

(38:33):
for Cabernet savignon. But beyond that, there's only maybe eight vineyard.
I think there's eight vineyards left in Napa that are
one hundred years old or more. Everything's newly planted.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
So so is the price of wine from the Napa Valley.
Oh is it a wide range?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, that's a tricky question. You know, I guess the
problem and is it a problem? Yeah, well now it's
a problem. Twenty years ago it wasn't a problem. Is
Napa was very golden ring oriented. When I say that,
I mean they were reaching for the golden rings. So
in Napa Valley, if you thought you can get fifty
dollars for your wine, you charged seventy. If you thought

(39:15):
you get one hundred, you charged one thirty. If you
thought you get two hundred, you charged three hundred. So
it's always And then what happened is starting in the nineties,
you had the cult of what we call the cult cabs,
right the Screaming Eagle, Harlan Bryant Colgan, these wineries that
that kind of they were groundbreaking for a number of reasons.
The quality was through the roof. The wines were a
very new, powerful, super ripe, exotic style of Caberniy savignon,

(39:38):
and they priced accordingly. They made it in small quantities,
and they and they kind of fermented the whole concept
of maning list purchases and directed to consumer purchases and
created the scenario where where they became these wines. Everybody
wanted to be a cult wine. You know, I want
to sell for two hundred dollars, I want to sell
for one hundred and fifty dollars. I want to sell
And then was keeping up with the Joneses. And then

(39:58):
when you have a lot of people in this very
small area that have a lot of money and a
lot of ego, does that lead to downward pricing or
does that lead towards upward pricing. And the answer is
pretty obviously it leads towards upward pricing. Where everyone was
looking at each other, neighbors are looking at each other. Well,
I'm a mile from Harlan, I'm in Oakville, so I
can he's getting a thousand. If I charge three hundred,

(40:21):
my wine's a deal, right, And so so NAPA kind
of lost touch with the sustainability of a long term
play and a grape growing area, and that was that's
probably the most tragic flaw with NAPA. The wines are
better than they've ever been, but the fact that they
lost and they're like, oh, we have to charge it,
so we won't make it. Well, the other ninety nine
percent of the grape growing world doesn't charge that, and

(40:41):
they're fine, you know. So it's kind of like.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Can you buy a twenty dollars bottle of wine in Napa?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Not it's getting very I'd say just about no. And
it does say NAPA on it. It's going to be
twenty five percent from other places. So I think you're
allowed to use you know, Lake County or whatever up
to a minimum percentage and then call the wine NAPA
and then you can also plan to use a little
more from different grapes and call it Napa County instead

(41:08):
of Napa Valley. It's a little sneaky thing, and but
I'd say it's it's darn near and possible and make
twenty dollars nap a caberne. Now the great prices, even
now they're going down, but still i'd say the base,
the base is probably you know, thirty bucks. I'd say
thirty bucks. You could. You can find Napa cabernet for
thirty bucks if that's pretty tasty. But the problem is

(41:29):
nobody in Napa wants to make thirty dollars cabernet. Sure,
Oh oh you make Oh that's that's the Oh yours
is thirty dollars, so that's cute a mine three hundred, yeah,
you know, and then you kind of walk around It
is the.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Cost and I hate to get into capitalism here, but
is the cost of producing really different as it as
it relates to the cost of the bottle or is
it so like, is it really a three hundred dollars
bottle of wine because it's worth where it's harder to
grow at, you know whatever, or is it just because

(42:00):
it's kind of the class.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
The this is not speak Yeah, it's because what they
can get for it. So now there's but see that's
not all true because from a basic grape growing scenario,
even a top vineyard with quite low yields and using
the good glass, good capsule, good label, et cetera, et cetera,
your cost of goods is, you know, twenty dollars, you know,

(42:24):
twenty five you know. But what happened is in Napa,
especially with some vineyards owned by a couple very very
repidile growers, they started charging exorbitant amounts of money for
their grapes. We're talking twenty thousand dollars a ton, thirty
thousand dollars a ton, when maybe ten years earlier it
was three thousand a ton, so the great prices were

(42:46):
ten times. So when that happens, people are kind of
forcing the charging a higher amount for their bottle. Not
to mention the fact a lot of these growers made
these folks charge an ex certain amount of for their
wine based on the reputation their vineyard, so they wouldn't
let you buy grapes from them, put their name on
your label, and then have you sell the wine for
thirty five dollars because then their reputation is shot and

(43:06):
they can't sell their grapes for twenty thousand dollars a
ton to the next guy. You see, it was a
bit of marketing and it didn't have to do with
the cost of the farming per se. It was it
was how do we get more? You know, Nappa for
the last twenty years been how do I get more?
How do I make more? How do I charge more?
How do I get more? Instead of what can I
do for the customer? And that's that's a big difficult
problem in Napa as they're continually making outstanding wines. You know,

(43:29):
the wines are really great.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
So if i want to go spend the weekend in
Napa and I want to go wine tasting, and I'm
not the one hundred dollars a bottle buyer, where can
I go? WHI should they do?

Speaker 2 (43:42):
You have to be careful. It evolves research in the
Napa Valley. Whatever you do. Don't like fly into town,
rent a car and just pop in the wineries. That
doesn't happen anymore to a lot of places. A lot
of them are appointment only a lot of them they're
wines are three hundred dollars bottle, So they're going to
charge you seventy dollars to taste. They're gonna charge you

(44:04):
ninety dollars to taste. They're going to charge you one
hundred and twenty five dollars to taste. Right, this is
real money. It can get real expensive, real fast in
the Napple Valley. It's you got to be very careful.
So I would I would tell people do your research,
research to wineries, look at their tasting fees, see what
their appointments are, see what they offer. Because the old

(44:24):
days are just driving up, parking the car, going into
the winery and saying, can I try some wine? I
think I think a few places still do that, but
not as many as you think. Most of are are
already bespoke, you know. It's the experience is curated and
you're going to have an experience with us today, right,

(44:45):
so now a lot of an app has changed. So
that's the advice I would give it is just be
very do your due diligence so you can plan financially
your trip to the Napa Valley, because it could be
shocking to you if you don't do that due diligence
prior it can.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
If someone wanted to go there and we're looking for
a smaller price, lower price range, where would they go?
Would they go over to Sonoma?

Speaker 2 (45:06):
The Mountain Cinema, Go to Sonoma. Sonoma's fun. It's beautiful,
pin noir, Chardonnay, old vines, infandel. Get that experience and
it still won't be cheap cheap, but I think it'll
be much less in the Sonoma side to go have
that experience than it is in the nap aside.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Right now, well, we'll have to go do that too,
and that's certainly for another day. Well it's almost Father's Day, yep.
So tell our families what they should be buying for
their fathers and their husbands and their sons.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Wine wise, well, you know, for for the for the guys,
I know what I want. You know, it's you know,
it's a it's gonna be maybe steak. You know, it's
one time I get the grill a really great piece
of me. I live with a couple of vegetarians, so
it's that one moment for me that I get to
put that ribbi on the grill. And so if I'm
doing that, then I'm doing you know. And if you're
buying Napa Valley, then you know, maybe I mean I

(45:58):
brought a couple of things. But you know King Kabernick
and that's the Stag Deep Wine Cellars. They do great work.
And this wine's fairly reasonable in the hierarchy of Cabernet.
It's like eighty dollars for Napa cap that's reasonable. So
something like this guy'd be great. Or you know, we
make our own wine. We produce a wine called the Architect,
which this is a blend of marrilw and Caberny Fronc

(46:19):
from up on Spring Mountain, a very reputable part of
Napa Valley. And this is a wine that getting back
to can you find Napa Valley for thirty dollars, Yes,
if you're willing to, if you're willing to throw yourself
on that sword, and we throw ourselves on that sword.
So this is fifty to fifty merlw and Cabinate Fronc
from Spring Mountain. Fabulous wine, and we sell for thirty bucks.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Great. And if somebody is really price conscious and they
don't mind if they don't have Napa Valley, then what
do you have for them this weekend?

Speaker 2 (46:51):
You know, I'd say cabernet. Why is one of the
most impressive wines I've come across recently, is the especially
for daily drinking is from shannon Ridge. They're They're they're
north of Napa Valley. Uh in this small an appalation
north of the Napa Valley. They make a cabernet. I
think I sell for around eleven dollars and and this
wine's super impressive. So shannon Ridge, they made great cabernety, savignon,

(47:12):
great Patitzara, and they charge a very reasonable price. That's
one of my house poors here at the store for
the for for just daily drinking for folks.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Is it available in your wine bar?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Not in the machines? No, No, it is available for sale,
So I don't have it in the machines. You know,
we change up the machines all the time. Val So
if our wine bar, there's new wines happening all the time,
so nothing really sticks for a long period of time there.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
So for people who don't really like me, don't don't
really understand wine peering, and they want to buy something
they know their dad is going to have steak, So
what do you what does that have to do with
wine and food pairing and all that tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Well, just just real quick, because I think we went
a couple minutes, but the we have five five, all right.
So Cabernet savignon is kind of just considered one of
the one of the iconic wines that have with with meat,
you know, with red meat. The tannins and structure of
Cabernet savignon and pair perfectly with the with the richness
and the flavors of red meat. But you know, from

(48:10):
from a wine pairing standpoint, we don't get too you know,
we don't get too hard into it. And you drink
what you like to drink, eat what you like to eat.
You can drink Cabernet with chicken, sure, why the hell not?
You know? Uh? And I tell you another grape that's
super versatile is Merlow. You know, you can. You know,
people will talk about how bad Marlow is. Burlow is amazing,

(48:30):
and Merleau goes with red meat, Marlow goes with chicken.
Mer Low goes with everything, and it gives you that
kind of like Cabernet experience. So I would say, you know,
just maybe not Cabernet with spicy food. You know, if
you're having like really spicy Vietnamese cuisine. Maybe you know
roller reeseling, roll a bougelet or something. But we're not
too pregnant, you know, we're not too deep into wine

(48:52):
and food pairing. Some stuff goes better than others, but
we really want people to enjoy and experiment and have
that experience.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
If you were in front of a group of people
who said, we tell us everything you know about Napa Valley,
is there anything we haven't covered today that you would
want them to know? Tons give us three minutes worth
of tips.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well, just be advised that the Napa Valley's a big place,
and there's multiple wine growing regions within the Napa Valley.
And what I would recommend as a general recommendation for
in Napa Valley wines. This is general recommendations, so not
bagging on the valley floor. But I'm a personal fan
of the wines from the mountain sites, so Spring Mountain,
Howl Mountain, mount Vet these are the mountains to me

(49:34):
tend to tend to produce some of the most compelling
caverny savina wines in the Napa Valley. The Hillside vineyards,
the east side Oakville, those hillsides there very compelling wines.
The center of the valley. The wines can be sometimes
a bit samey, you know what I mean, Like they
all kind of it's like one big vineyard there. And hell,
mountain you get peppery character spring mountain can be spicy.
Mount veter is you know, structured and a little tobaccoly

(49:56):
and the beautiful. And so I'd say, as a basic
head to the mountains.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
And will there be a variety of pricing also.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah, well the mountain the mountain wines tend to be
a little more expensive because they're smaller production, more difficult
to grow up in the mountains. So but yeah, there'll
be variety of pricing. But I'd say, you know, it's
nap a valley. So I'd say the mountain wines start
in that, you know, seventy five dollars range and go
up to five hundred valley floor. You can find some
wines that are thirty five dollars forty dollars, not many nowadays,

(50:29):
but you can find those wines there. So, yeah, the
mountains are maybe a touch priceier, but at the same
time they deliver a little more complexity.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
And how much difference does the wine maker make, in
the wine production, in the outcome of the wine.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Big big, you know, getting back to it. You spend
a year growing these grapes, and bad wine making can
ruin it just as fast as the hailstorm can.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Yeah. The winemaker's influence is quite strong in the Napa Valley,
you know it's the winemaker's influence is quite strong. You'll
you'll you'll see different hands producing different styles of wine,
and you'll feel their tan instructure. You'll feel the concentration
or the richness, or or a particular flavor profile or
a particular barrel producer. The winemaker does have an impact,
but I unfortunately maybe less and less nowadays than before.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
So for a great Father's Day wine, is it the story?
Is it the flavor? Is it both? Is there something
that you say, this wine has a great story. Got
to have one of these.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
The flavor, the story. You don't use spend a million dollars,
we advised. So it's not all about you know how
much it costs. Uh, the experience and experience and the
people that you're drinking it with. That that that's that's
one of the most important things for me because wine.
Wine is a greaser. So it's the stories and and
and the conversations you have when you're having a great
glass of wine that is the real gift of wine,

(51:55):
if you will.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, yeah, we were some friends that you know, he
had shared experiences at a wine auction and we always
thought we should have all signed the quirks because there's
a story. Some people sign the menu when you go
out to dinner together, but who you shared that bottle
of wine with is also some many great moments. So
do you have any Father's Day stories for us, anything

(52:18):
that brings wine in a Father's Day event together?

Speaker 2 (52:24):
You know, real quick? You know, my dad wasn't much
of a wine drinker, you know, and he was a
Scotch guy, you know, Bourbon and seven, you know this
sort of deal and h And there was one year though,
pretty early on in the business that that you know,
for me it was special because you know, I brought
wine for Father's Day and everything, and he wasn't much

(52:46):
of a drinker of that kind of stuff. And and
but you know that I'm trying to it was back
when Okay, I'm going to get trouble for saying this,
Back when Camus was good. You know, Camus is very
good nowadays, but back back in the nineties, Camus was
very fantastic winery in Napa Valley, and I brought a
bottle of Camus and it was fun seeing my dad
a Father's day have his kind of wine moment when

(53:09):
he never had it before. So we reported hat at
the table and he was like, yeah, I could see
the gears grinding. You know, that's what my father says.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I get this great. Well, our time is up. I'm
so sorry, but the good news is that as one
of our sponsors, you're going to be back again. We
probably won't be back as often as we'd love to
have you, but we do look forward to seeing Against all,
we want our viewers and listeners to tell us what
they'd like to know from you. Yeah, always walk away
from our time together feeling a little bit smarter, a

(53:39):
lot more curious, maybe a little bit thirsty. So, whether
you are a seasoned wine enthusiast or you're just starting
out your journey, Kyle reminds us that wine isn't about snobbery.
It's about story, it's about place, it's pleasure, it's experienced
a little bit of history. So you can find more
about Kyle and the incredible team that store at wynex

(54:01):
dot com and don't forget to check out their YouTube
channel the Extract with over nine hundred and fifty videos
and counting, and of course tune in next week. Thanks
Friday Afternoon for another episode of SoCal with Val, where
life gets better with every sip, every story, every bite,
every discovery, and every adventure. Happy Father's Day to our

(54:23):
listeners and our viewers. Thank you, Kyle Meyer.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Thanks