Boaventura de Caires - Brett Caires

The Caires estate offers spectacular views of rolling hills stretched out among painted skies, creating the perfect setting for growing the most delectable yet unpretentious wines California has to offer. Three microclimates and a diverse terroir, ranging from a low, cold creek bed to a rocky hillside slope — replete with an interesting clay and static soil makeup — contribute layers of complexity and depth to BoaVentura wines. BoaVentura wines are truly handmade. The grapes are hand-picked by family and friends, and Brett and Monique take pride in crafting wines that BoaVentura Baptiste de Caires would be proud of. After all, his spirit is manifested in the name of the winery, Boa Ventura, or “Good Venture.”

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with
which producers narrate their winery and their world team thirty
answers discover their stories, personalities, and passions.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello, friends and listeners of Wines Soundtrack. This is Alison
Levine and today I am in the beautiful Livermore Valley.
I'm back in the Livermore Valley and today I'm sitting
with Brett Carris from Boa Ventura de Carras. And I
probably didn't say that quite properly, So Brett, why don't
you give me the proper pronunciation of your name.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, the Portuguese like to have mushmouth, as I like
to say, so bov Intour dik katish.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
That sounds much better.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
So tell me about bov Ventura dick kirish. We're here
in the Livermore Valley. But tell me a little bit
about the winery.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
So I started this winery. My family's originally from Portugal.
So I used to enjoy going to Oakland on the
weekends with my grandparents, and they were Portuguese immigrants, and
so we always were served or a glass of wine,
a glass of milk, a glass of apricop brandy, or
some cheap port. Wine was always out of the big
old tailor green bottle, so my grandfather would cut those

(01:11):
bottles in half and make them into little gardening things.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
But anyways, I always enjoyed wine.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
And then during college I was fortunate enough to know
a bunch of the wine makers and livermore of the
Windy family and the Taylor family that owns Retslav, and
I started working in some nice restaurants, which one was
the Winy Restaurant, And I really enjoyed wine and kind
of got the wine bug and the lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
So of course here you are now, like with a
vineyard and everything, because you get the bug.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yes, yes, you know. And I didn't pay attention to
the old joke how to make a small fortune and
start with a big one.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
I didn't have a big one.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
But anyways, the wine fortunes aren't so great on a
small scale, but it warms my heart to wake up
every morning and live in a vineyard and have my
kids grow up in a vineyard and have the life
I like.

Speaker 5 (01:52):
Being a farmer.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I enjoyed working in the garden with my grandfather, so
any kind of growing of any plant makes me happy.
And I worked a chef, and I love wine.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
So well we're here, sitting in your tasing room, in
your vineyard. Well your property. You live here, you grow
your grapes here, and you make your wine here. So
tell me this property. How many acres is it?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
So I have a little over five acres and I
planted a little over five thousand vines.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Your hand planted five thousand vines.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hand planted five thousand vines. I will never forget where
I was on my thirty fifth birthday in March of
two thousand, I planted my five thousand vine in my vineyard.
And I just turned sixty in March of this year.
So they've been in the ground twenty five years, and
you know, disappointing that they were just little tiny sticks
when they came and arrived, and now they're big, thriving vines.

(02:43):
So that's nice, but it's a lot of work.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Congratulations. Well, so that means that this property did not
have vines before the vines that are here are they were?
It was fallow land. What was here before you planted?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
So my wife and I in nineteen ninety nine we
bought an old ban and in kind of goat farm
in the state sale. So it came with fourteen sheep, goats, donkeys,
kind of a meth lab and a bat cass. We
kind of cleared all that stuff up and we planted

(03:16):
five thousand vines in two thousand and.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
With five thousand vines, what does that cover? How much
acreage is that?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
So out of our five acres, we have about three
and a half acres covered in vines. And we added
a few hundred port barrietles after that, or a few
hundred grapes of port bridles. So it's just it's a.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Lot of stuff going on and growing.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
But we found out later on after we bought the
property that it used to be the can Cannon's upper
cattle ranch. And so the can Cannon family from Livermore
had a three hundred and sixty acre quarter section of
land and this is where they raised cows through Prohibition
and all that era, and then it was sold off
after the fifties and then it got subdivided down into
these five acres. So but yeah, so it has a

(03:55):
history in Livermore as far as wine families, but it
was not there.

Speaker 5 (03:59):
It was their ferry barn.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So we excavated out a lot of cowshit and our garden.
Our gardens are massive. People are like your trees grew
so fast. Well, we excavated three feet of cowshit out
and it grew soil very help. So we have every
other plant as well. I mean we've got every fruit tree.
My favorite fruit is pomegranates. Just I've got pomegranates, and

(04:23):
we've got cherries, peaches, every kind of citrus and everything else.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
And my wife likes flowers.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So not only do I farm five thousand vines, I
farm and take care of a lot of roses and
every other flower that makes my wife happy and loves
my wife is happy. I'm happy.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
I love that, and for the vines with the five
thousand vines. So you have all these different fruit trees
and such like that, But what varieties do you have
planet here?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
So on our we just went cabs. So I always
had liked cab I think it's kind of the king
of grapes as far as the reds go. And consulting
with Wenty family can Cannons growers and other farm in
the area and UC Davis, we came up with Clone
seven on a five bb rootstock, So it's a Cabernet
clone and that's what we planted. I kind of, you know,

(05:08):
when I started in the business and the restaurants I've seen,
you know, Murlow be the most popular thing. I've seen
Pina Noir be popular, and Cab has always kind of
been the king of reds, I think, and the traditional Bordeaux,
and so we went with cab and uh, even the
Livermore Valley just declared that Cabernet franc is going to
be the grape of the region. Yes, Unfortunately, you know,

(05:29):
I disagree with that because I think that the people
that have declared that, and there just seems to be
some specific people that have done that, are always declaring
which things they've they've declared a lot of other things.
They're always trying to market something is something and uh,
and I don't know that I think that's kind of trendy,
kind of like the merlou kind of like the Pina Noir.

(05:50):
My personal opinion is that Livermore has done well with
cab forever. Uh. There's a lot of cab and some
really nice Chardonnay clones and some nice Souvena and blanc clones,
and we've done really well with Petitz. I think that
we don't need to reinvent ourselves every twenty years. I
think we should be happy with what we've done. I
think we've been successful. We've been successful in the past,
and I think we'll be successful in the future. I

(06:11):
don't think change in the direction of it every few
years is what we should do.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
But I hate to say, Petit Sara is not really
growing in the charts and popularity. Not that people don't
love it, but it's not exactly a climbing grap yep.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah. But I also just don't think that we have
the space the area that we're going to just climb
and compete in that manner. I think that Napa and
Sonoma will always out charm us, just literally by how
they're set up. They also were agg and fallow for
a long time, so they had all that agriculture, they

(06:45):
have all other things. I think, you know, we are
kind of a bedroom community that has a great wine history,
but I think that history is gone by it and
I don't think that changing that direction is going to
make us suddenly compete with them and do that. And
I know that the reasoning on it, so they're not
trying to really compete, they're just trying to stake out
a claim.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
So that people think of when they think livermore and
they think something. Well, I'm sitting here and I've got
a glass of white wine.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
So tell me. You said you planted all cavernet, So
you're buying fruit as well? Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
I do buy some fruit, yes, And so in my case,
the only white that I wanted to produce was Alvarino,
and I say it with Alvarino, not to be at
Alberino in the Spanish sense. My family history is from Portugal,
so my grandfather was born on the island of Madera
and traveling in Portugal, I film with ben Verde and
the main grape of Nverti is al Varinho in the

(07:33):
Portuguese style, which is the light, effervescent stainless steel.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
And that's what I've made.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
And it's pretty funny because on that story, I started
looking searching for the grapes. When I wanted to do
the white, I planted all my reds and I wanted
to do that, and I ran across Marcus Bokish, which
is a grower of Spanish and varietals, and at a Lodi, yeah,
at of Lodi, and we hit it off, and at
that time, twenty years ago, he would give me the
Alvarino basically because there was no.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
Market for it, and was kind of laughing and You're like,
you're crazy.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
No one's gonna buy that, you know, And so I
bought it and been selling it, and then it started
to do well, and now it's become quite a popular wine.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
And there's even.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Recently Stephen Mirasu of the Stephen Kent wine. Or you
got some Alberino, which was the last alerina that Marcus
bokush hat. And I didn't get Alvarino for that year.
I'd been buying it and we never had a written contract.
And I was laughing because he was, you know, the
wine had gotten popular and so he was trying that
and I didn't get the wine anymore. And I still

(08:31):
talk to Marcus, and I said, Marcus, you know, just
no matter what, don't forget I always need some. And
so now we always have it. But now I pay,
you know, five times as much as what I used
to part because it's become a popular wine.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Well, so I'm just looking generally, not to go too
into detail right now about your wines, but I'm seeing
that you have petite Serra. You have a an Iberian
red blend. You did say you have some of the
Portuguese grapes planted here because you make a port style wine.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Are those from here? And then you buy the petite sera?
Are you buying you have a rose? So are you
buying a lot of other fruit?

Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know, I don't buy a lot of other fruits.
So we planted a couple of hundred more port ritles.
We have Tinticao triggers now Salza, Tinta a Maria, and
I always forget the fifth one. But I've got five
port bridles.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
For my port program.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
And then I started finishing out some of those dry
in the Iberian style, and so then we have the
Iberian cab blend, which is called the Venture. And then
on the whites, I did the Albarino. But we also
then from just within it's always within sight or within
a neighbor. We will make a petite Serra, or we'll

(09:39):
make a Serrah one year, or we'll make a malback.
And we have a carbonier coming on this year which
is going to be named after my youngest child, Indio,
so that'll be Karmonir.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
But they're just all from my neighbors.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
And so the petit serra and this petite serras from
Julio Kruvas up on the corner. He's a great petit
sera grower. And I've also got his car near now.
But then my neighbors, the Gilmety vineyards, we've gotten Surrah
from them. We've also gotten malbeck from them. So whatever
red that I don't have on property, which I only

(10:13):
have cap and my port bridles will buy just from
a local neighbor. The only one that we go out
of the area for is the Alvarina.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
And what's your total case production?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
We make about two thousand cases a year, okay.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
And are your wines all direct consumer or are they
available in different markets?

Speaker 3 (10:27):
You know it's ninety nine percent direct to consumer, but
you know we're in a few different Lucky stores and
in a few restaurants.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
And stuff like that in the local area.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
In the local area, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
So you've got to come here if they want to
try these lights. So you mentioned that you were a
kid and your grandfather would make wine. I mean, is
that I always ask what's your first memory relevant to wine?
I think you kind of already talked about it, But
is there a particular memory you have as a child
of connecting what wine was.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
No, well, it's not correct on what you had just said. Unfortunately,
So my grandfather didn't make wine. My great my great
grandfather did he and he passed away well well before
I was ever born. But I my connection is just
that we'd always have wine at the meals when we'd
go to my grandparents' house. And it was funny because
I didn't think anything about it until I was in
high school and a buddy of mine went with me

(11:21):
on over on a Friday. We were playing football. We
were on the football team together, and my grandmother, my nana,
she always just loved to feed us and she'd just,
you know, she'd kind of wear a mumo. She was
kind of a larger lady, and she would just sit
in the kitchen and hum and sing and feed us.
And her joy in life was to watch us eat
and to watch, you know, to seventeen year olds eating

(11:42):
just pounds and pounds of food and she's just singing
louder and louder.

Speaker 5 (11:44):
And cooking more and more.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
And we sat down to eat, and my buddy Eric,
and then my grandfather poured us a glass of wine
and glass of milk, of course, and he's like, what's
this wine. I'm like, we're having lunch, you know, and
he's all, well, we can't have wine.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
I'm like lunchtime, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
So I didn't think anything about it. I never I
don't know, I mean just when you go to my grandparents,
that's just what they did. And it didn't see how
they orn him. And I never had wine at any
friend's house, but this just was normal. So yeah, so
I always had wine, and it was always the inexpensive wine.
It was always like, you know, a big jug of
tailor and all that, but that was just part of yeah,
that's you just had that. Yeah, And so it was.

(12:21):
And I can remember that from you know, just being
a child, and that's just the way it was. So
I always enjoyed wine, and I never kind of understood
beer like white people want to have a beer when
you could have a glass of wine, because I tasted
so much better with food and just drinking it. It
goes yeah, yeah, you know, it's natural. Of course, light
when you're sixteen just does not taste good to me,
and it still doesn't anyhow. So that's how my wine
wine came in was.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
With my grandfather.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
And my grandfather was a tool and die maker, but
he didn't like wine because his father, my great grandfather, Antonio,
got deported for making bootleg wine and my grandfather almost
didn't become a citizen. And my aunt said that he
was very mad at my grandfather because of that.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
So he didn't want to drink.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
No, Well, he liked to drink, heyould like to drink,
but he didn't want Yeah, he didn't want to get
in trouble that he's going to not be a citizen.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
So it's kind of a history of that.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
And so once you got into a little bit more
into drinking wine, and then I'm sure, because you like
wine enough to have started a winery, you've drunk.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
A lot of wine.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
But is there a particular wine that stands out as
one of those most memorable wines of wine that either
set you on a path in one direction or just
opened your eyes?

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Is there one wine that stands out? And what was
the occasion?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Well, you know it was it was fun like I
had the fortunate I'm fortunate that I know the Winty
family well, and I opened their restaurant in nineteen eighty
six and I just remember that when I literally started
at the restaurant, I was a couple of weeks shy
of my twenty first birthday. And they were.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Pretty but you'd been drinking since you were eight, Yeah,
but they're pretty strict, you know.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
That was there. They had just now gotten an ABC license.
That was their first venture into the public sales of that.
And I just remember then we were going through this
magnificent wineless that they had, and Carolyn Wenty teaching us
on the wine. And Carolyn was showing me, She's like,
you know, you should really check out this wine. This
is the wine that I really like, you know, Ciretto blanche,
an Italian semi semi effervescent wine, so quite similar to Inverde.

(14:17):
And I remember just going, god, that was magnificent. And
then you know, and then you know, she pulls out
some gervert remeanor and some all these wines that I
didn't know anything, you know, I was, I was a
young kid, so you know, Chardonnay and Cabernie, and I
had had a lot of wine with the Wenty family,
but you know, it's kind of just their step. But
now she had all these other ones that and I
just thought it was so cool that she was showing
me all these other incredible varieties from different parts of

(14:37):
the world, different styles, and uh, that just really struck
with me.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
And I just and then I just remember, you know that.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Wine makes wine makes people's mouths open up and they
talk and interact, and you know, and I'm a poly
sidelog guy in school, so I'm pretty.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
Boring on that.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
But then they just start chatting, and people that might
have these diverse opinions and cultures and stuff, they started
eating their food and drinking wine and they chat and
they can find some common ground.

Speaker 5 (15:06):
And I just thought that was amazing.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
And just the amazing people that I met in the
wine industry, which is just fascinating people. I mean, it
was fortunate to meet mister Mandavi, the gallow family. Oh,
what's the guy with the little beret, oh man, Oh,

(15:28):
he used to be the Oh, Mikkel Jenko, Gurgis, Mickel Jenker,
you know, just all those guys. Just just and just
meeting some just incredible people. And the Wenty family has
showed me some just has introduced me a lot of people,
and and just the wine and the lifestyle on it.
You know, there's just so much fun about wine and food.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, so speaking of kind of lifestyle and enjoying it.
I mean, we're in your tasting room, which of course
is home to your wines only, so it's only the
Boa Ventura wines. But if we were to walk over
to your house, what kind of wine's would we find
in there? Is it a lot of local wine? Are
there particular varieties you tend to drink? Or is it
from certain regions? I mean, what would we find in

(16:08):
your wine cellar, wine fridge, under the bed, wherever you
keep it?

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, the ant, you know, And there'd be that really
nice answer that I could really tell you about this
great stuff that I collect on wines and all these
regions that I like. But not Unfortunately, fortunately for my
wife and I, we had three lovely children, and so
we have three teenagers and going out.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
I have the wine and they find it.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
No, no, no, not that at all. Unfortunately, going out
and buying wine and going to a winery is something
that we just haven't done much in the last eighteen years.
We have a thirteen year old and eighteen year old
and a sixteen year old. People bring us a lot
of wine, which is nice and we have a pretty
nice collection, but we and we get a lot of
people that bring us our own wine, which really makes

(16:52):
me feel proud that they love the wine. But I'm like,
you know, that's like, you know, taking sand to the beach.
I'm like, can't you bring me something else from someone
else's wine? Because I want to try other people's wine
we have. I think that I make fabulous wine, and
I've got some really nice scores, but god damn it,
I just don't want to drink my wine most of
the time. I want to try something new, so u

(17:13):
O in our cellar that we do have a lot
of a lot of fun wines, and uh, we we
tend to like a lot of European wines and we
just we just like a little bit more natural, you know,
and we like just different wines. You know. It's really
kind of fun. My wife is a little bit of
a bubble snob, though, so I just buy if I
buying wine, I buy bubbles for she's She's a bubbles girl.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
So is there any particular wine you opened recently that
drank really well?

Speaker 3 (17:37):
You know? Uh, we just had a beautiful mailbeck from
Argentina and I couldn't tell you the name on it,
Uh it was it was wonderful. God? What else did
we just? We did have some couple of really nice
wines recent but I couldn't tell you anything. We will
sometimes we just get in the lazy ass mode and

(17:58):
we just send our thirteen year old under that house
and just tell her to grab something that's not ours.
Because we have a couple of thousand cases for our
wine club. We put all advantage wines under the house,
but we have a stacks that's that's not ours, and
we just tell them to grab a couple and we'll
just open them up.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
You know what's down there? Are they mostly domestic wines
or it's a whole smattering and a lot of the international.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
A whole smatter. And it's just you know, like we
get people bring this stuff and then we're on a
beach in Mexico and we met a guy that grew
Melbec in Argentina and he sent us some and so
we just have smatterings of stuff we've traveled, you know
a little bit. When we do get a travel and
we try to bring back some stuff. It's just, yeah,

(18:39):
we like a little bit of everything and like to
try everything and it's just it's fun. It's it's a
mishmash if it's you know, this podcast is about music.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
When you get to my.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Music, my pandora, it's a mishmash and a half.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
I mean, you know, well, going back to varieties, I mean,
you've planted only Cabernet here, and we spoke a little
bit about that, about how you find that that's a
great that that brains king and you're drinking a lot
of different wines.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
Whatever you're given, you'll drink, you're happy to do. You
think there's a such thing as a perfect variety.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
No, No, I don't think so. I think, you know,
I mean maybe I should correct myself there there's a
perfect variety at the time. It's what the time is,
what the condition is. You know. It's like people like
you know, well, you know you have all these red
you know, what is it you drink. I'm like, well,
if it's hot as hell, I'm gonna just drink Alvarino,
you know. So that's or or I make sangrie on
the weekends. So it's just it's the time, you know.

(19:36):
I mean, if you're having something, we're having some kind
of meat and cheese, then I'm going to go to
something on the lighter side. If it's just you know,
it's cold as hell, and I and I'm cold, and
I just want something big and rich and hardy. I'm
just gonna grab a big, fat, petite serah.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
And then it's perfect for them.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's perfect for them exactly. You know, Like people always
ask me, you know, what's your favorite wine? And I'm like,
you know, well, I didn't get in this business because
I don't like wine. So and I said, most people
are get in this business. I said, I'll be like
a lot of wine. There's not a lot of it.
I don't like, you know, at the right time, in
the right place, you know. I just I think that
you know, people that get hung up on you know,
it's got to be this one. It's got to be

(20:10):
like when you're you're trying to live for some I
don't know at the moment, there's a perfect wine for
every time. I mean, you get some killer reesling or
some converts demeanor or you know, or you know, it
might go to in the summers if I can, and
when I'm out and about, if someone has a sands
Air and it's in the summertime, that's that's as bad
as good as it gets to me, because I dream

(20:32):
of making something as beautiful as you know, some just
stony cris sants air. I don't that's my that's my
goal in life of a white If I could make that,
I would be in heaven.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
So, you know, having that kind of aspiration of what
you want to make, too, is setting a bar that's
high or achievable. I mean, you're making a beautiful vino
verde style wine here, so so you're not so far off.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
But I mean France, yeah, you got to work with
what you got. But I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
You know, you mentioned you've won, You've gotten some good scores.
How important are scores to a brand like yours? And
what is your opinion of wine critics and scores. Are
they beneficial? Is it just something that's out there or
does it really.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
Help or hurt a brand?

Speaker 3 (21:22):
You know, I think that scores really help brands and
stuff that are trying to set up the brand for
selling a lot of wine and maybe they want to
sell the winery in the future or something like that.
I think that's a very popular thing. In my opinion.
I really don't think scores are great because I don't

(21:45):
know how you can justify you know, Okay, we want this.
We've invited you to enter our wine contest. You need
to pay one hundred dollars per wine. We need a
case of it. We're going to keep half of the
case for ourselves, and then we're going to send you
the stuff.

Speaker 5 (22:02):
And some of these other ones, you know, some of
these ones.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Now, some of these people that are doing scores, then
they want you to subscribe to their podcast or their
YouTube channel not this one, and pay them not this one,
to get your scores and stuff like that. And I
just don't think that's right. And then I can remember
going back going in the business in the mid mid
eighties when I was just a waiter and some of

(22:26):
the dog and pony shows that I saw for wine
writers and people, and people got amazing scores for you know,
good pedestrian wines, but how they put up the scorer,
how much food they got them, and how much they
adorned them and that, and I.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Don't see more experiential than actual the overall experience.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Yeah, and I don't think that's really fair, you know.
And I mean, you know, I could I get a
million requests to enter this contest and do this contest,
and a lot of them, you know, like, well, give
me money and give me some wine. Can do this
and we'll you're gonna get a good score and some ribbons.
And I don't know about that, you know. So I
think the scores that I have gotten personally that have

(23:09):
been the most meaningful to me. Our people would go like, hey,
you know, we were we were hanging out with you know,
ten of our wine crony friends, and we each bought
these bottles and you know, and we you know, we
brown bagged them and then we tested them and we
had this you know, great night, and we ended up
naked in the swimming pool. But but in the end,
you know, your your you know, little Livermore wine was

(23:32):
the number one wine and it was against Sonoma and
Nappa and these big hitters, and you're like, you know,
but we brown bagged them, and these people who wouldn't
even try your wine if we knew it was a
Livermore wine blah blah blah loved it. And that's so yeah, yeah,
that that makes me really happy. Yeah, And I'm like, wow,
that's awesome.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
That's awesome to hear, you know, And I.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Like that, because unfortunately, I think there's just a lot
of people, you know, if it's not a Rolex or
a Gucci or something like that, and they don't know
that brand name or that brand region. It it's you know,
like I always say, you know people, you know, you
have people that are like, oh, what's the greatest restaurant?
You know what, what restaurant makes the most money in
the world McDonald's. I'm not really saying that I think
that's the greatest food in the world, but I think

(24:13):
per money, that's the best restaurant in the world. Right
if you're just looking at who sells the most, because
a lot of people want to know who sells the most,
who makes the most money? Oh, McDonald's does.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
But like you said before, there's a wine for every
every you know, kind of mood and feeling, and there's
a wine for every person. And what's great to you
may not be great to me, and vice versa, and
you never you just you know, it's just not as
simple as.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
That, right, Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's not just simple trendy, you know. I mean, and yes,
there are companies that can make just very consistent, simple
trendy wines and that's great for those big companies. But
I you know, I like I like the handmade stuff
on on just about everything, you know, Like I like
handmade artwork, you know, if I.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
See another Kincaid, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
And when that big fent fat of the Kincaid artwork was,
you know, in every mall in America and people were
pain all this money for I'm all in America.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Aren't anyone young listening to this? You might have to.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Google that exactly, But stuff like that, it was a trend.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
It was a trend. I'm not a trendy guy, you know.
I am not a trendy guy. I still have shoes
that I wear all the time that I bought when
I was a sophomore in high school at Mervin's in Dublin,
and I love them, you know.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
And Mervins. You might have to google that as well
to google it.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
And I'm getting old, you know. I'm just not a
trendy guy. I don't want to be and I don't care.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
To be, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Okay, So let me ask you something. As a wine drinker,
no trends as a wine drinker, Red whiter Rose.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Like I said, it's got to be the time if
it's warm in the summer, it's going to be a
cold white, and it would be a sands there, you know,
or an almarino.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
So all of the above, you're an equal opportunist.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yes, yes, I mean you know, and then once the
sun goes down and we're eating something tasty that needs
some red, I'm gonna have some red.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah. Still a sparkling, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
I know you said your wife is a bubble fiend,
but for you still are sparkling.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Well, I'm gonna go sparkly to make sure the end
of the night is good with my wife. So I've
not got to keep my wife happy, so you know,
I got to keep her happy. So sparkling is by
far number one.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Well, you've mentioned a little bit about how you would
take wine through a meal and with a weather or
do you have any rules that you follow when it
comes to food and wine pairing. Are there any hard and.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Fast rules that you say, like red wine and meat,
white wine and fish or do you blur those lines
at all? And when you're planning a meal, what are
you looking at two pair? Do you pick the wine
and then make the dish, make the dish, pick the wine,
and how do you then decide.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
You know, I'm one of the most unorthodox people on
the planet. Probably I just dance to my own tune.
I have no hard and fast rules on that.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
You know, they're.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
A really good bottle of any good red and pepperoni
Slami pizza is like something that I cannot pass up.
It's just like the favorite thing to eat. Like, but
I want some good wine with a crispy pizza. Yeah,
I have no hard and fast rules on that. You know,
I've worked in the restaurant industry forever.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
I've cooked.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
I like to cook anything and everything. My daughter graduated
last week from high school. I had to cook a
whole Asian night. I pickled vegetables all day long for
her to make sure. She's kind of on a Korean kick,
and so you know, when the sun is out and
it's warm, it's probably gonna be white, just because I
want something cool.

Speaker 5 (27:37):
And then by the end of the.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Night, which was a long night the other night, you know,
we had polished off three or four different reds and
just some if there's something good in there that's interesting,
I like to just I might change for ritals two
or three times in a night.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, but a big red and pickled veggie is probably
not the best parent.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
No, No, that yeah, that was. That was afterwards. We
were long done with the vegetables and the salmon and
the kimcheet.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
That was.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
That was champagne, rose and Alvarina. That was nice.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
See there is a little thought behind there.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, I mean I might be quite random and unorthodox,
but yeah, there's things that just do go better together. Yeah.
But by the end of the night, it was cold,
and you know, I had to you know, I'm folliclely
challenged on the top of my head, and so the
beanie was out and h we dug out some nice
old reds and we had we had, you know, cabs.
I know that we had a petite raw and I

(28:30):
think we might have had a mouth back as well
from Margentina. So it was just a good long night.
Sunday morning sucked.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
But any secrets for hangovers, any for when you drink
a little.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Too much wine?

Speaker 3 (28:42):
No, No, Now that I'm getting old, I just try
not to drink.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
Too There no recovering from that hang on wine.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
And like, wine doesn't love me as much as it
used to.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
But that's not stopping you.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
No, No, I do do a lot more bourbon or
good good vodka when it's try to avoid a hanger.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
So if somebody has not had the pleasure to taste
your wines yet, and I'm sure most people haven't because
you're two thousand cases and they have.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
To come here to find you. Yeah, for somebody who.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Hasn't tasted your wines yet, what do you think they're
missing out on?

Speaker 5 (29:19):
Well, I think you get to try handmade wines.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
You get a nine percent of the time the wine
maker's going to be here, or my wife or my children,
who are all very vested in it. They sometimes just
get forced into lots of wine making labor and vineyard
labor and stuff that they don't want to do, but
they know about it. And you get an opportunity to
try wines and it's not somebody's stick or written script

(29:46):
about what's going on. And you also, you know, I
think that I try to or I don't try to,
but I do make wines more in a little bit
more of a European style. I make them a little
bit lighter. A big cab for me is thirteen and
a half to we might get a petite serra that
might break fourteen once in a while that's little alcohol.
They're light alcohol, and compared to the trends that have

(30:06):
been going on lately, I like it a little bit
more acid. I don't like them to be just super woody.
I like you to taste the fruit and the different varietals,
and I think that is a big experience for people,
and people that actually can ask how it's done. And
sometimes I might give them a little bit more warts
than they want to hear. But you know, I'm just

(30:27):
that it's the way we are. We my wife and
family and I were who we are.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Yeah. So if space aliens were to land on your
property right now, and you were to welcome them with
one wine, which of your wines would you welcome them with?

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Right now? If space aliens came in, you know.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
The wine that would say welcome to Boa Ventura.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
It would be the Alparino, just because it's refreshing, it's
a beautiful sunny day, there's a nice breeze, you got fruit,
and I just think the Alrena it is light, refreshing
and crisp, and who doesn't like that on a nice
late spring day.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
So we're looking out here at your vineyards and I
know your house is only probably two hundred feet away
because I can see one to my right and one
to my left. So you know, you planted this and
you've watched it grow up, and you said it's been
planted twenty five years?

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Was I correct? Twenty five years?

Speaker 2 (31:23):
So in twenty five years in a place like Livermore,
what kind of variation do you see year to year.
We know every vintage tells a different story, but what
is your experience over the twenty five years in a
region like this.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, it's interesting because when we first planted, you know,
we were all, you know, deer in the headlights, and
we plant the five thousand vines, and we consult all
of our neighbors and that have been in the area
for a long time, Winty family growers, and we put
them in and then you know, there's this story of microclimates,
and you you don't really realize how microclimates are so amazing.

(32:00):
And then by our second vintage, we realized that we
had two incredibly different microclimates, literally one hundred feet apart.
But we started then making four or five different cabs
after that because our back acre and a half two
acres is a flat sunny bench facing to the south.
It's kind of an even loamy soil. There's some nice rocks,

(32:23):
but it gets sun from sun up to sundown. And
that vineyard bud break is about a week to two
weeks earlier than our front vineyard. And we found out
that man, it just throws out this bright fruit cherries, raspberry, strawberry,
just a real bright fruit forward cap. Our front vineyard
as you drive up our driveway comes up about thirty
or forty feet and there's a massive rock bench in there.

(32:45):
We couldn't get the tractor to penetrate through the rock.
And most of that vineyards at a high north facing
angle and gets in direct sunlight well, and then the
cold air pools now going to the bottom of it,
the creek bed and all that, and then there's two
massive oak trees that cast shadows on all day. It
throws out earthy, minerally notes and just two completely distinct wines.
So we were able to figure out that, you know,

(33:06):
we have two wines. We picked them generally about a
week or two apart, and we could make a lot
more different caps because we were probably just going to
just be one red and one white, and that's what
we were going to do, but then we ended up
with four rents, you know, because we do an individual
from the back, which is our green label. All my
college days of bartending and all that I kind of

(33:27):
ripped off Johnny Walker. So we have green, black, blue,
and all that didn't reinvent the wheel. So the green
is always the back vineyard. The maroon vineyard is always
the front vineyard.

Speaker 5 (33:36):
The black is a fifty to fifty.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Then we have the platinum, which is a seventy thirty blend,
and we have the blue. But these these grapes just
grow in different styles in different ways.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
And from year to year do you see a lot
of consistency.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
We see consistency in regards to the difference of the
two vineyards, but overall things have changed, you know. The
global warming stuff, I think is a valid, valid thing.
We have seen some our butt spring has been a
little bit cooler and winter and our summers actually seem
to be a little bit cooler, except we had a

(34:12):
real heat spike two years back. I think it was
during October where we were seeing one hundred and five
in October and one hundred and ten. But the two
vineyards stated definitely keep their their separate characters, you know,
the sunny, bright fruit, the earthy fruit. But year to
year there's definitely some variation, you know, and being on

(34:34):
the small scale that we are, we get affected by that.
You know, we almost lost a good portion. We lost
a really large portion of our crop. I want to
say it's three years ago when we just had that
massive heat spike and a lot of the vineyards, the
big they just people just didn't even pick. I mean,
things just roasted. If you if you picked early that year,
you were golden. And if you are like we are,

(34:55):
we're one of the later ones. Because of where we
sit in the valley. A lot of people on this
end just didn't pick because it got so hot for
so long that we couldn't do anything. And then you
just kind keep back and then you're kind of syeap.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Yeah, you're just kind of stuck.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
So are there any signs or predictors or omens not
in an area that you look for that will tell
you kind of what to expect for a vintage.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
Are you able to kind of predict anything?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
No, I you know, I think this farmer's predicting stuff
is not I think it's voodoo. Witchcraft there. You know,
going back to that vintage, I think it was three
years ago, it was just a fabulous growing seeson. Everything
was beautiful, fruit was hanging nice. We had a nice, cool,
steady summer. The things were ripening. But it was going

(35:43):
to be a little bit picking towards our We normally
picked between October and October fifteenth, and it looked like
it's going to be more towards the fifteenth, and then
just this heat wave set in for some ungodly amount
of time. You know. I think Sacramento didn't drop below
like one hundred and five or a hundred. It just got crazy.
So everything was great, you know, and nothing that warned
you that the last take, the last ten days, it

(36:05):
all went the hell, you know. So so far this
year we've had a nice thing. It looks like I've
got a nice fruit set and things have been good.
We haven't had you know. It seems to be we
get a little bit of heat spike and then we
get a cool deck down. But man, I don't know
what it is. At the end of the year, you
just you just don't know anymore, you know. I mean,
you go back to the covid omen you know, the

(36:27):
sky was orange and the lights are coming on, and
you know, during the daytime in San FRANCISUS there's so
much smoke in the air and the fires and stuff
like that. There's been just a lot of variation kind
of it at the end of the year, which you know,
as a winemaker's you know, we're all already.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
It gives you a little PTSD. You're like, oh, no,
slipper's coming.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, we're clenching our heine cheeks because of all this
stuff that can go on. Is it birds, is it fire?
You know what's going on? And it's just been kind
of like that. It's been the hell of a lot
more of a roller coaster at the end of the year.
Like the spring and harvest, ay had rain, we didn't
have a great fruits et. What the hell isn't going
to be It could be you know, the poor people
in Sonoma, Napa, the fires that they've had up in

(37:04):
that area over the last several years, and it's just
it can be pretty crazy.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
So do you spend a lot Obviously you spend a
lot of time. Look, I shouldn't even say you personally
have a relationship with the five thousand Vines that are
planted here because you personally planted each of them. So
tell me what kind of a relation do you have
with them now today? Do you talk to them, do
they talk to you? Do you spend time communicating with them?
What kind of relationship do you have?

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah? Today, I really love them. And that's the reason
is because I have people out there that helping me
in the vineyards that are putting up wires and thinning crops.
But if my tractor breaks next week, or the wheel
falls off of my sprayer when I'm spraying with my
suit and my goggles on and all my covers, I'll
hate them. I'll just probably want to burn them all

(37:51):
to the ground.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Do you yell at them?

Speaker 3 (37:54):
No? But I do yell at the tractor a lot.
So the tractor and the spray suit and my spray
rig that fell apart last week and I just rebuilt
it new, and I should give you a tour on
that later. I have a new one that finally came
and I've been working on that for a week. No,
I love the vines. The vines make me happy and peaceful.
It's when the tractor falls apart or the spray rig

(38:15):
falls apart and that kind of stuff that makes me
batshit crazy, the farming part of it. You know, that's
the one thing that I wish the public knew is that,
you know, for winemakers that are really making it and
out there doing it, you're a farmer, and you can
get you know, you can pardon my language, you can
get screwed. Royal buy smoke, fires, gophers, tractor parts falling off,

(38:39):
you know, stuff like that. Sprayers breaking down, You got
to get up, you know. And my my chemical guy was,
you know, ragging at me. He's turned out to be
a really good friend. But you know, I'm supposed to
spray vinyards. And then we had seven windy days in
a row. Well, I can't spray vinyards in seven windy days.
And then we had hot days. Then all this stuff

(39:00):
it stops blowing and it stops being hot, and my
tractor falls apart.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
So maybe that was a sign.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yes, it's a sign that we almost didn't continue on
with this harvest because we were getting so far behind that.
You know, stuff like that. You know, you start to
get batshit crazy when just these things are falling apart,
and sometimes you're like Nature's after me. The wine markets
after me. My tractor's after me. You know. I think
I'm just gonna go crawl into the house with my
two thousand cases and drink myself to death.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
But the vines make you happy.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
They do. They do you just walk around to them.
I mean, it's it couldn't get more peaceful. It's beautiful.
They're fun to look at, you know. I just you know,
and I get people that will go, like, you know,
you want to can you show me something? You know?
And then you know, then I don't shut up. I
just turned into a black mount like this is how
it works, and this is where the bud is, and
you know, and you get the first growth here, and

(39:51):
then you get this is the cane and this is
next year's fruit, and people like, are you kidding me?
Like no, Like if we were to dissect that bud there,
I get to see the leafs and the fruit for
next year in it, Like that's amazing, you know, and
like and then you chop them all back, like yeah,
and that's just it comes back. It's this little cycle
of life and it's and it's fascinating, you know, But
you know, sometimes by the end of the year, and

(40:11):
I'm sure and I know, I'm not the only wine
maker that's, you know, kind of batshit crazy when harvest
comes and weather's gone crazy and fires have gone crazy
and all this other stuff and we just want to
get it put away.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Do you have any sort of rituals that you do
at the start of harvest or during harvest, whether it's
for you personally or you and your family, you and
your crew.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
No, I don't really have any rituals. But it's pretty
funny because my wife starts laughing because you know, I
start cleaning equipment, and I've got equipment out, and then
to me, it always reminds me of like when I
was a kid and I was gonna go skiing and
then I get my gear out. My mom and get
mad at me because I put my ski boots on
in the house and I walk around and make sure
my shit's all good, and I start getting excited, and

(40:54):
so you know, like, oh, I've got a picking crew.
Picking crew's gonna be here either they're gonna be here
at ten o'clock tonight. We're gonna start picking.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
Is it kind of like cleaning the house before the
housekeeper comes?

Speaker 3 (41:03):
I don't know, No, that was.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
The crew is coming. I'm gonna get started.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Ye No, No, that's just pride for now. That for me,
it's just no. I just get excited. I get really excited,
you know, and you're just like, oh, it's it's coming.
And then you get the for you know, and stuff
starts going. The fruit's coming in.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
There's no there's no toasting a bottle of bubbles over
the first pick, or there's no uh lucky socks or
no shaving for a month or no, there's.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
There's a lot of that. I tend not to shave
a lot, but the uh I don't. I don't have
any of that part, but there is the there's some
pretty funny nights though, because we get the vineyard Cruise
and some of these people we've been picking and doing
the stuff together for twenty five years now, and we
get a lot of beers and we get a lot
tequila going late at night and has some pretty entertaining conversations.

(41:52):
There's a lot of Spanglish spoken when Spanish isn't great,
but it's not that bad. If I'm drinking a lot,
I think it's fabulous. And we just have some really
fun stuff and just laughing about you know, who's who
and what's going on? And you know what shit show
you saw at some mother winery. You know, why do
you see the welder out there in the middle of
the vinyear that like, oh, that was you know, a
mechanical air and they took up a quarter mile of wire,

(42:14):
you know, and you know, and you know it's a
gossip session, yes, yeah, and then they all and then
the vineyard guys will always laugh at me, like is
the tractor gonna make it tonight or are we going
to be out there try to push a forklift.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
Through the vineyard to get bins in, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Because we tend to have some equipment failures on the
small scale. But then that means we're all literally huffing
a bin through the through the vineyard to get it
to the crush pat.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
I'm gonna I'm gonna deflect.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
I'm gonna no, no, no, I mean, we could keep
talking about the viney, but I'm gonna go back. You
got caught by the winebug. Obviously, wine has been a
part of your.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Life, your whole life. But before you had the vision
of buying a property and planting five thousand vines when
you were little, what did you want to be when
you grew up.

Speaker 5 (42:56):
I wanted to be a tennis coach.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Okay, I just distinkly remember my seventh grade class. Everybody
had to do what they wanted to be, and I
had my friends being my students, and I brought my
tennis rackets, so I was showing them how to be
a tennis coach. I wanted to be a tennis coach.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Nice And today, what do you like to do in
your free time today when you're not working? Although, I
mean this is all consuming, I know, and three teenagers
is super all consuming.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
But what would you like to do in your free
time if you had any Well, I.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Do have a really bad passion. So I kite surf.
And so I'm walking a little slow today because I
got out for three hours the other night. And that's
what I do all summer and all winters. I kite surf.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
So where do you kite surf?

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Well, in the Bay Area here we kite serf at
Sherman Island or Chrissy Field or Widell Creek down in
Santa Cruz. And then in the winter, we know me,
we spend a couple of months in Mexico kite surfing
in love and Tana. Wow. So the whole family kitesurfs
together and it's heaven on the water. Wow. That's what
we do. You'll see equipment all over the place.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
So there's just wow wow. And we've just been joined
by your three legged, medium sized dog.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
This is all of who the Tripod wine is named after.
She had a little run in with a car during
COVID and the wine, the Red Wine needs to be
called the Red Mutt because all our dogs are mutts.
And so the Red Mutt, after all, got bailed out
by our wine club and wine members. They put together
GoFundMe and we had a sixteen sixteen thousand dollars bill

(44:34):
to get her alive. It couldn't afford it because we've
been closuring COVID, So we changed the wine to the
Tripod because so now she's on the label.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
So oh you're famous.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, So she was always famous before that because she
loves everybody, and everybody loves all her.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
She's got a tail going crazily. Her tail is almost
like a fourth leg, but.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
She uses it. It's comical because when she got her
leg amputated, you know, obviously you've lost a wheel there,
and so you're a little off balance, and now she
uses her tail as a rudder, and like when she
takes off running like it'll be to the she compensates
to one side the other side of it. And so yeah,
and she's she is quite popular around here, not just

(45:16):
for her wine, but the wine club and wine members
bailed her out and we were actually able to put
forth about three thousand dollars to someone else's dog because
because of the gofund me, I had no idea what
go funding was. I told the kids and the wife.
By midday we had a five thousand dollars bill to
keep her alive. And they're like, it's another ten grand.
I'm like, we're gonna put all of sleep. She's just

(45:37):
a she's a rescue. She's eight years old, and that's
gonna be the end of it. And Mike is do
a gofund don't know what the hell will go fund
me is And by the next day we paid three
thousand dollars for to someone else's dog.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
That's wonderful.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
So she's still here five years later.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
I love it. I love it. So So.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
If you well your kite surfers, that's an amazing sport.
You mentioned that your wife is a big bubbly fan.
So I'm going to assume the answer to this question
is that when you're planning a romantic evening for you
and your wife, the kids are out with their friends
and stuff.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Them.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
When are the kids gone? When you have three of
them and you live on a ranch out in the country.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
But for a romantic evening, is it bubbles that you're
going to open or is there anything special, anything in
particular other than bubbles.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Well, it's bubbles for my wife and a red. She
likes her red with her meal, so she likes a
big red and anything that's fishy. She my wife and
my children. You know, we're a bunch of garlicy, fishy Portuguese.

(46:51):
But she's she's not Portuguese by birth, she's portugu by marriage.
If it's fish, fish.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
And bubbles, it's a good pairing.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah, it works, fish and bubbles, you know. So that's
so whether it's Mother's Day or her birthday or whatever,
I have to make something with some kind of salmon
or some kind of smoke something and some kind of caveat.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
And some bubbles, and you have a happy wife.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
And missus Carris is very happy. And then mister Carris
is very happy, so you know, I have to be
careful sometimes we've we've had we had a couple incidences
where we got away on our anniversary to half Moon
Bay and stuff and we too many bubbles, too many bubbles,
too fast. So sometimes that ruins.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
The well, tell me, we don't want that to happen.
Makes for romantic evening, but not too fast.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
So when you when you think back in your life,
your career, your life, is there a piece of advice
someone gave you along the way that you try to
live by or have carried with you, whether in your
work or in life in general.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, I would just I would say, you know, life
in general, it's kind of like my philosophy and wine,
and it's just kind of unorthodox. I think everybody is
kind of unorthodox in the if if they let themselves be.
I think that unfortunately, people think there's too many paths.
You know, there's only one path, and there's there's only

(48:23):
you know, you're only supposed to look one way, you know,
so if you know, if you're you know you're supposed
to if you're a woman, you're supposed to have this
physique and these eyes and these lips and this, and
if you're a man, you're supposed to have this hair,
and you're supposed to have this, and you're supposed to
want that car. And nobody just gets to be individual anymore,

(48:44):
you know. And with that said, I think some people
just go too much.

Speaker 5 (48:47):
To the individual.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
There's like this is what I am, because this is
I need some more attention. No, but you know, people
should let their their their flag fly on what makes
them happy, you know, and and not what not what
makes other people happy, you know, because everybody's got different things,
you know, Like I laugh, you know, like I'm funny.

(49:09):
You know, my friends and my wife and my family,
they they're like, you're just the easiest person if you
get what you want.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
I mean, everyone's easy when they get what they want.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
But like I will get what I want and then
I won't change, like you know, like I was saying,
you know, I think I made a reference earlier or
something to some shoes. I bought some shoes from mar Marvin's.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
I always call it Marlins.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Mervins whatever it was back in the day. And there
are these leather loafers and I've had them since I
was a sophomore in high school. And I love those
shoes and I've had them resold about six times. I
don't need another pair of leather lovers. I love those
leather lovers I have.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Is this a piece? Is this some piece of advice
your dad once gave you to be three me and
love what you love.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
My dad is the exact opposite human my poort of
My forefather was traumatized being a first first generation American.

Speaker 5 (50:01):
And his parents were immigrants.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
He was traumatized by having to be thrifty and stuff
like that. And I'm the exact opposite. I get what
I like, and if I like it, I keep it forever.
My dad, my dad is very trendy and has to
have the nice you know monogram this and the monogram
that you know. I still I have my beach Cruiser
that I bought when I was a sophomore in high school.
I still have it forty years later, and people will
see me riding it downtown. Are like your bike that

(50:24):
you got when you were in high school, used to
ride through the halls a you.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Know grana so so, sophomore year was a very pivotal
time in your life where you acquired a lot of
things and have not changed since.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Right, correct, correct, So there's just stuff like that. You know,
my fans like you know my when kite surfy night.
I'm sometimes somewhat thrifty on that sometimes. So some of
my friends call me asked chapless because I have a
wetsuit that has no rear end in it, basically because
I've worn it up well, it fits well and still
keeps me warm. They're like, well, your ass is hanging out. Well.

(50:55):
I like it, and it still makes me happy. So
I will just wear things out until they fall because
I like them.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
So, speaking of happy, when you look back at your career,
I can't say your family, okay, but in all your careers,
in all your careers, what would you say, is one
of your proudest achievements to date?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
My proudest achievement probably make me cry like a baby,
is starting the windering, you know, and my wife and
I did it. We don't have partners, we don't have family.
We did it. It's our winery. You know. We could
do a much better job in business in the sense
that we could sell more and be more popular. If

(51:37):
we wanted to be more popular and sell more, Yes,
we would like to sell more and have more money,
of course, but it's our winery. We do it the
way we enjoy it, you know, we get it. We
used to not be open as much. You know, well,
we have a family and we have three kids. We
have things that we do. Sometimes the wine growers isn't

(51:58):
very happy with this, I think because we don't do
every marketing opportunity and everything, and we sometimes just don't
cater to every customer that wants us to blow warm
wind up there behind, because just that's not our style.

Speaker 4 (52:13):
And everyone's welcome here, yes, everyone, everyone is welcome here.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
But but I'm not gonna just you know, blow the
warmest wind up you're behind, because you're gonna spend money here,
you know, And I'm not going to agree with you.

Speaker 5 (52:24):
And I think it's and I they just think it's.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
In the world. In our world, it's.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
Okay to disagree with people, but be nice about it.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
But some people just you know, like, well, if you
don't do it this way or you don't agree with that,
I don't like you, don't want to do business with you. No,
let's have a glass of wine to discuss it. Let's
let's all have our opinions and get our stuff out
there and let our flag fly about it and be
nice and be civil about it.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
So in your proudest achievement, it's achieving a business where
you can do that.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Yes, you know, I'm just going to bring it back
to the question.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah, going back to that question. You know, sometimes it sucks.
I shoot myself in the foot because I don't want
to cooperate with everybody and do every thing the way
everybody thinks it should be done now. But it is
nice because you know, the only one that I get
to really bitch at is just myself. You know, it's
just me and my wife and our kids. And but

(53:12):
it's ours. You know, we don't have to we don't
have to do things corporate or in a family tradition
if you're in from a big, big family, long thing
on that. So yeah, so it's nice to it's it's
our whiny. We're a little bit funky, and we admit
that we are by far not perfect, but it's us
and if you like us, you know, and you know,
like there's the silly sign. You know, people have a

(53:34):
bad attitude and I say, scream, that's my wife.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, well there are some fun signs around here. Any
friend of mine is a friend of mine. I want
to ask you. We've been talking a long time, and
I've been taking up too No, no, no, it's been
fun talking about I don't want to take up too
much more every time, but I do want to ask
you a couple of quick questions complete the sentence. For me,
A table without wine.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
Is like a bed without wrinkles. Okay, we I've.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Never heard that one before. I love it. Okay, another
another quick one.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
We're sitting at a long table, bottles of wine of
yours on the table, and an empty seat next to you. Who,
from any walk of life, living or deceased? Would you
want to share a bottle of your wine with?

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (54:21):
He's silent, man, I'm so.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
I just I would probably want to talk to Albert Einstein.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Okay, can share a bottle with him?

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Yeah, he just seems like he's kind of kooky and
eccentric and obviously brilliant. But the little bit I've ever
seen of him talk or speak, he looked like he
was just an interesting cat. Like you know, you're like
and when you talk to somebody that's that intelligent, but
looks like he'd probably talk to you about anything. I

(54:54):
just I find those people fascinating. I just people that
you know, and you know, going back to being a
brilliant cat. Bob Taylor of Retzlavinyard just pass away. But
that's a brilliant man. Talk to you about anything. I
could talk to him about anything.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
That's great. Well that's what brilliance does for you. So
another quick question, Well, no, I'm not gonna I'm gonna
ask him a hold a question. Well, no, I'm gonna
ask you this. You're sent to a deserted island. You
can take three wines with you. What would they be?
Three quick wines?

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Uh, I'm gonna have a Sansara and.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
I figured you're gonna have.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Sansera and Alvarino. I do I do love. I do
love a van Verde you know, or the Soiretto blonde.
Thank you, Carolyn went to that's uh one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
I'm gonna have a cab and from Livermore or any particular.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Place, you know. Uh, I like my a Commas cab.
That's one of my favorite calves, you know.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Uh, I think that's three My chemis cab, Alvarino or
the one from wed and the Sun's are.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's three. I think I
would do that, and I and some kind of spicy red.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Okay, you're gonna throw fourth in there, are you?

Speaker 5 (56:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
So, as I warned you at the beginning, we do
play a little game when we repair wine with music.
So just really quickly, we'll do just a couple of
your wines. And because I've been sipping on your delicious Alvarino,
I would love you to tell me a genre, a song,
a musician that you think represents sort of the style

(56:42):
of this wine.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Mungo Jym Summertime, Summertime is the song is something now
of the seventies, okay, making love to a summertime, Summertime,
Mungo Gym. It's a I'd have to look it.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
Up, okay, but I get it Summertime when it.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Comes up on my Pandora. It's a super famous song,
a one hit wonder in this in the early seventies.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Okay, seventies, with the summer you described the Alberino in.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
I get it, Mungo. It's by the artist side, because
Mungo Jim something like that. Summertime. No, no, no, anyway, your
Google one you could find it. It'll pop up.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
The next one is you talked about your tripod because
of your doggie.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
So tell me about that wine and what you what
song you'd pair it with?

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Oh man, that's just that's all love. So it's a
sad one. It will make me cry. It makes me
cry every the time telling the story. So what would
I pair that with? You know, and and the wine
is perfectly paired. I think it's just a bright red.
It's a light bright. It's a mutt. It's you know
the story of it. You know, it used to be
our red mutt, and then you got the tripod after

(57:47):
all of it got hit. But just a bright fruit
forward red. Because you know, all of is not the
smartest tool in the shed. She'd still go in front
of a car if she thinks she's gonna get petted
forward or some kind of extra attention. But just a
love leap right friendly red so song, Oh man, the
song on that or you know, probably just you know,

(58:08):
you be forty or you be forty red red wine.
You know, I mean I think that's probably it, you know,
and you know, all it is always out here and
she's you know, we always laugh. She's kind of our
little little lawn horse. She just lays by every table
on her back, three legs up in the air tail wagon,
you know, and just drop food down. You know. It's
kind of like little Yogi bear. She lays there with
her mouth hanging over like pet me and I love you,

(58:30):
and she'll go home with anybody that loves her and
pets her. You know.

Speaker 4 (58:32):
It's just kind of red red wines and you be forty.
Red makes you smile so perfect and all.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
It makes everybody expt when she chips people in the
taste room because she lays behind them.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
And then, I mean, you have so many different cabernets,
but I'm gonna pick your black label, which is the
blend of the two parts of your vineyard.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
Yeah, what about that?

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Was the song song on that?

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Man? What is the song genre on that? That's uh,
that's just that's just that's just a very balanced wine.
It's it's a balance of our property. It's got the both,
you know, I man, I don't, I don't know. I
don't know how I would say it. It's like it's
something where it's just gonna be a happy song. It's

(59:19):
it's not. It's it's just a good kind of classic
rock and roll, maybe maybe the Eagles. Hotel California. It's
kind of rock, it's kind of country. It's just kind
of in the middle. It's not nasty on one end,
and it's not over bright on the other end. It's
you know a little bit about this, a little bit.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
About equal rock and roll.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
I like it. Yeah, it's just kind of a good, classic,
sweet song, you know, but it's not it's not it's
not Tonal Richie on one said death Pedal. On the
other side. It's kind of right there in the middle.
I think. I think it makes all sites happy. I
think people that like rock and roll, everybody likes Hotel California.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
It's just kind of and you can never leave exactly exactly. Okay,
last question. I mean, this is this might be my
longest podcast so far, but here we go. No, no,
it's been so much fun talking to you. But I
have one more question.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
I don't like to Bill Belichicket Wines. I don't generally
talk to people, but if I talk and I want
to talk, I'm going to talk.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
But you have a lot to say and you have
fun stories.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
So there you go. But here's my question for you
on your bucket list. You said, you haven't traveled that
much with your three kid having three kids, but when
you can travel, it's one wine region in the world
that's on your bucket list to go to.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Oh you know, I was fortunate enough in nineteen ninety
seven to travel with Carlwinty to France. That was fabulous.
I would like to do that again. I would really
like to see Argentina. I haven't had the pleasure of
seeing that. One of my bucket list is when we

(01:00:50):
go kitesurfing to Mexico, I would like to go down
through what is it not trace is Yeah, yeah, by
they go out of loope, just outside of Ensinata somewhere
I would really like to see. But and I would
really like to go back to Portugal. You know. I
got to do a little bit of wine tasting in Portugal.

(01:01:13):
You know, but this is when my wife and I
on our honeymoon in two thousand and three. We got
to stay at a cool palace and they you know,
got talking about wine and we got to go see
him make some wine. I would just I would really
like to just go back to some small, small, the
small wine makers. And you know, and now that I
have the experience of living that life for the last

(01:01:34):
twenty years, just see how their stuff was, you know,
Like Carl went and I have a comical story in
Australia when he was down doing an internship and I
got to go hang out with him. We went and
there was some man down outside at Wangoretta and we
wanted to go see his wine because we heard this
fabulous stories about the Sharnay that never makes it to
America and it's just beautiful. We go down this bumpy
dirt road. We get there and there's this old man

(01:01:56):
at a loading dock and he did not want to
taste his face us on his wine. He wanted us
to taste his peaches. And he had this incredibly heavy accent.

Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
Oh my peaches are fabulous.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
You got to try the peaches that you want to. Well,
finally we had to give in and we try the
peaches and they were they just ran down your face
and they were incredible, you know. And these oh yeah,
I've been making this shod day for thirty years. But
the pages and we ate the peaches and I and
I remember, just don't Carl, I want to be that
kookie old man, but I just want to go I
want to go to pretty much any winery other than mine. Explore, okay,

(01:02:31):
but be the and see the people that make it
and see how they do it, and and uh, just
be it because I love the wine business in the
non corporate sense of it, like making it and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
So so on the reverse, what if somebody wants to
come visit you? You don't want to visit you, but
what if someone wants to come and visit you? How
can they find you? And where can they find you?
And what will they find if they come here?

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
So you know, with that said, you know, like my
wife will always you know, she rolls hery. She she's
not she was raised in a winery and doesn't like
being out on the winery. And I thought I was
such a smooth canoe that you know, hey, I've started
the winery, you know where we started whining together.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
And that was not what she wanted to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
But anyways, that's another whole nother story. But she's like,
you know, you can never give like a five minute
tour or a five minute tasting because you won't shut
your mouth. But I'm passionate about it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:22):
I like it. I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
If somebody calls me and they want to you know,
they call me during the week, you know, the weekend.
It's tough because I'm in the tasting room and there's
a lot of other people to it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
Well, So when is the tasting room open.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
We're open on every weekend, so Saturday and Sunday from
twelve to five.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
But during the week we might do a stain appointment
only if someone calls.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Yep, and it's on the it's on the winery web line, yep,
and then has my direct cell number. If you're trying
to do a day of tasting or.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
Want some private tour or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
You know, and like my wife always says, you know,
you just won't shut up if they start asking about
the wine and we get in the ball room and
we get in the vineyard because obviously, you know you
kind of laughing and co your longest podcast. And I
told you I don't talk a lot, but if I
started talking about wine and I enjoy wine, I won't
shut up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Well, I will say that if you have made it
to the end of this podcast, congratulations and now you
know you too. Now I hope you've listened, because I
think it's been very interesting and I think Brett, I
think you're full of stories, and I know you have
more to tell because I heard a few before we
started this. And I think that anyone who would visit
here would get a really you know, personal experience, full

(01:04:31):
of stories, too personal. But you would see the chickens,
you'd see the three dogs running around, you'd see the vineyards.
You just see a family place. And I think it's
a really lovely experience in Livermore Valley. So I recommend
that everyone come out to Livermore Valley and come out
here to Boa Ventura Dakiris, but in Portuguese, Scottish and Brett,

(01:04:55):
thank you so much for joining us today, and I'm
going to say cheers.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
I like Jack, that's a politics.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Well let's go drink and talk exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA.
For details and updates, visit our website windsoundtrack dot com.