Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello, enthusiasts and welcome to another episode of wine and the bottle. I'm your wine nerd host Sarah. I recently sat down with Matt Reed, winemaker, extraordinaire, and founder, and proprietor of PWR wines here in the Napa valley for a guided tasting and interview. As we enjoy Matt's wines, we'll discuss be behind the scenes of wine making from choosing vineyard sites to making decisions in the winery, to marketing and ultimately selling the product. So listeners, to set the scene. I want you to imagine a beautiful sunny summers day in the heart of Napa valley outside the wind is blowing lightly. Birds are calling as we welcome Matt Reed to wine and the bottle.
Speaker 2 00:00:57 Welcome to the podcast, Matt.
Speaker 3 00:01:00 I'm so excited to
Speaker 2 00:01:01 Be here. I'm excited to have you on this show. Maybe you wanna tell us, uh, a little bit about PWR and yourself. What's your elevator pitch?
Speaker 3 00:01:09 Uh, that's a really tough question. I had an elevator pitch and I I've, I've attempted to throw it out the window, but I haven't written a new one, so let's see if I can resurrect older. Okay. So I'm trying to make great wine that everyone can afford. I'm an apple valley wine maker. My day job as a winemaker. This is a hobby, but it's the same hobby I do in real life. I'm not a hobbyist winemaker. I didn't think I'd get stuck in Napa valley. I thought that it would be a good place to start my career after getting my master's degree at Davis and that I move on to some place like Anderson valley or the Sierra foothills, or maybe even wallah Walla. Um, but I found Calistoga and fall in love with the town and got stuck. And that was all wonderful, except that I was making wines that I could barely afford.
Speaker 3 00:01:47 Even at my employee pricing, my friends couldn't afford them. The people I would like to be my friends couldn't afford them. So that was a problem. Um, another problem was that, you know, mostly here in Napa valley, we make Cabernet Sovi and Chardonnay. And I love both of those varieties. There's nothing wrong with Cabernet slip on in Chardonnay, but there's more to life and I like variety. So, um, creating this brand was a way for me to address both of those problems. I could work with any variety I chose and I could sell the wine at whatever price made sense to me. And, uh, I wish the price were lower. All the wines I make currently retail for $19 a bottle, which by Napa standards is really low, but still like it to be lower, but their economies of scale. And I'm currently producing 350 cases. So the economies of scale are not there for me
Speaker 2 00:02:30 Looking at it in context, average bottle of wine in Napa is 65 to $75. Right? And so the prices that you're able to offer as is for Napa standards are phenomenal. And, and that's, you know, something that I like to talk about is the accessibility of wine to the average person. Wine is community and it is family and it is exploration of taste and senses. Um, which I think really aligns with BWR.
Speaker 3 00:02:58 Yeah. I think you've gotten gotten it. That's the goal. And for sure, I want, I want people to be able to get a really great bottle of wine without spending a fortune. Um, so that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 2 00:03:07 Do. You do that mostly by outsourcing from other
Speaker 3 00:03:10 ABAs? Well, yeah, I do occasionally have Napa valley wines. This PIRE that we'll start with as Napa valley, but yeah, it's difficult to get the price point that I'm trying to get with Napa valley grapes. So I buy grapes. I don't own any vineyards. And the four wines that will taste through today are all from different sites. Napa valley vineyard in the okole VA outside of the city of Napa, uh, rose that's from, it's really frustrating. This vineyard, I love this vineyard. It it's 18 miles from my house and a straight line, but it takes two and a half hours to get there.
Speaker 2 00:03:38 This country roads.
Speaker 3 00:03:39 Yeah. It's on the ESA Ridge. Just east of okay. Lake ESA. Yeah. And you just can't get there from here. So that's another vineyard. And then the third is a rah from FINI in the Petaluma gap. And the fourth is from Sao valley at petite SRA all
Speaker 2 00:03:51 Over the place, all over the place. I love that. I've actually been to Cappe valley. I've tasted at Cappe valley vineyards. Oh, cool. They do like a sparkling Vinet and it is so unique and so good. Um, nothing I ever expected out of California wine,
Speaker 3 00:04:06 I'll look for that next time to break up my two and a half hour drive.
Speaker 2 00:04:09 What do you have for us today?
Speaker 3 00:04:10 Yeah. So the first wine is a PIRE again from okole district in Napa valley. And this vineyard is already gone. PIRE is rapidly. There's not much of it left everything. That's not Cabernet. And Chardonnay is disappearing rapidly. In fact, Merlo has gone so far down in acreage that Merlot prices are now rivaling Cabernet prices, cuz people want some to blend into their Cabernet and there's none left. Yeah. And, and I think Napa valley does a great job with both of those varieties. There's no reason they shouldn't be planted, but there's so many other varieties that can also really do well here. I hear a lot of winemakers and growers talk about Cabernet. So as a monoculture and I don't think that's really fair, you know, saying we should diversify for ecological benefits and all that. And it's not really fair because it's all the same species. I'm not sure there are any ecological benefits to diversity, but there are logical benefits to diversity. You know,
Speaker 2 00:04:58 It's really interesting to look at the history of Napa valley and how it started versus how it is today and how much has changed. And I know you started this brand in 2009 that's right. Between then and now it's been 13 years. Yeah. How has your brand developed in response to that change?
Speaker 3 00:05:16 There have been a lot of changes. In 2009. I started out all of my wines are Napa valley wines. One of them was produced from a vineyard that I was farming in exchange for the grapes. And that's a pretty common arrangement, uh, here in the valley, cuz a lot of people here have small like home vineyards and stuff and maybe they planted them thinking they'd be home winemakers, but then realize this is a lot of work and I don't really know what I'm doing. And all I'm doing is making vinegar. You know, maybe I'll just let somebody else make this and they can give me some line back. And then I also found a vineyard producing Ciera, just south of Ville that turned out to be fantastic. I made that wine until the prisoner discovered it and I couldn't buy the grapes anymore. It's okay.
Speaker 3 00:05:50 You know, I, I lose vineyards and it's sad gives me excuse to go out and find a new vineyard and that's fun as well. So I was making all Napa wines and with the rah vineyard, 2009, we were coming off of the 2008 crash. And so the market was uncertain. I started out paying 500 a ton for those grapes. They were worth far more than that. As they reminded me in 2010, they're like, you need to pay us a little more. And then I, I kept paying more until after 2012, it was like, you can't pay enough. Well what's prisoner paying you. And they told me and I was like, yeah, I can't do that. So I had to adjust and I really love working with Sara. It's a fun grape to work with. I really enjoy it. I did actually move over to Bennett valley for Syra and it was the same kind of thing.
Speaker 3 00:06:29 A family had bought a 12 acre property. They had two acres of Sara in front and 10 acres of Sara and back, but they'd pulled up the 10 acres in back. They'd planted a TrueFire a truffle farm. Wow. So it was a mix of Oak trees and Hazel nuts that they'd inoculated the roots. They got a daily weather update from the Piedmont region of Italy. And they tried to mimic that they couldn't mimic the temperature, but they tried to mimic the humidity in rainfall, but they'd kept the two acres in front because they thought the vines looked pretty. They tried to make wine for a year and realized they had no idea what they were doing. So I came in and again, I do the farming and get the grapes and I give them some wine. Oh, it was a family, but it was adult siblings. They're all in their sixties. And they ended up having a falling out and, and bickering. They sold the place. Well,
Speaker 2 00:07:10 Let's taste
Speaker 3 00:07:10 This. So back to the Pires
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Beautiful color, nice and crystal color.
Speaker 3 00:07:14 Thank you. A lot of people when they think of PIRE or peanut Grio, they just want a poolside pounder, something that won't make them think. And so I try not to frighten the horses with this. You can drink this without thinking about it, but I try to make it interesting enough that if you do think about it, you'll be rewarded by that. You'll say, wow, this is actually interesting and complex and there's stuff going on here. So that, that's the goal that I try to straddle the line here. You can tell me if I'm successful.
Speaker 2 00:07:37 I think so. Yeah. You definitely have a little bit of that depth and complexity and right, right. I'm getting like honeycomb notes off the finish, but right up front, it's very bright, very acidic. Nice and fruity. So it go excellent with like tilapia and oh yeah. Butternut squash puree. Mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 3 00:07:52 Agreed. And I think, um, it can handle some spice too. So like classic GENI pesto or a Walnut PE or something, you know, that has some of those, the tannic notes from the Walnut, from the pine nuts
Speaker 2 00:08:02 Just sort of offset the acidity. It's so funny. It kind of reminds me of like the interior of a pair compote without the crust. There's absolutely no please or anything in this. So it's very bright and fruity, but it does make you think. And I really like that. I did listen to the previous podcast that you did in 2014, you mentioned, um, a couple of the ideas in your wine, making philosophy, things like innovation and experimentation. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting that you did at the time. I don't know if you still do is co inoculation. Yeah. Is that something that you're still practicing?
Speaker 3 00:08:35 No. And as a complicated reason, I recommend co inoculation to all you budding winemakers out there. I think it's really cool. I love the fact that, you know, the wines are basically just done as soon as fermentation's done and you can put 'em to bed and not worry about them. And that's fantastic at the time of that first podcast that you referenced. I had been making the wine at Valentine vineyards. You had custom crushing at Valentine for two years, I guess one, cause I hadn't been the 14 harvest yet. And I learned unfortunately, the hard way that colon inoculation works best in a seller that you control, not, not in a custom crush facility, just unfortunately there's too much cross contamination. And so I'm not complaining about Valentine. It was wonderful making the wine there. I did it until 2020 and um, in 2021, my day job finally invited me to make the move the wine over there. So I did it just made sense. Um, but still we do custom crush there as well. And even though I control that seller, I just think there's too much potential for cross contamination. And um, and so I've stopped co inoculating. I think when you do have total control, it's a great thing.
Speaker 2 00:09:33 I've often heard wine making described as the balance between art and science. Yeah. Um, and I know some winemakers lean heavily more towards one way or the other. So where on that sliding scale, do you find yourself right
Speaker 3 00:09:45 In the middle? I love the art of it. I love as a winemaker. I find myself right in the middle with PWR. It's more on the science side. Not because I take the science more seriously with PWR than I do with my actual day job. But because there's less art because all of my wines are, are single vineyard wines. I'm not doing blends at this point that might change. But blending is where the art really comes in. There's certainly a role for it just throughout deciding when to press deciding when to harvest, deciding how long to mature and how to mature. Those are all decisions where art comes into the question. But mostly I think the most clear way that art comes into it is in blending and I'm not making any blends for PWR, but you know, part of the goal is I'm working with vineyards that I think are doing a great job, but if I can afford the grapes, they're not getting paid, what they should be paid. So I feel it's sort of my mission to raise their profile and help them get the money that they deserve for their grapes. And when I do that, I can no longer afford the grapes and I have to move on. That's fine. I wanna showcase the vineyard. And that means lending. Isn't really an option.
Speaker 2 00:10:43 Yeah. There's something really special about a single vineyard wine because you really do get to showcase that teir. And there's a story behind it when it comes from a single place. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, I'm a storyteller. I love when you get to really hone in on what went into making the bottle that you have in front of you, shall we move on? So this is from CPE.
Speaker 3 00:11:02 It, it is so it's ganache and it's from a cool little vineyard. I saw an ad saying that they had grapes available and I went up, there was a winery that I knew and loved called Casey flat ranch. Have you heard of them? No. They existed for about 10 years. They thought that the ESA Ridge, which is part of the Cape valley was an incredible tur. And I think they're right. And um, they thought that if they farmed it to the highest standards and made the wine to the highest standards, that they would be able to command the highest prices. And that turned out not to be the case. When it says Yolo county on the label, people just don't wanna pay what they would for Napa. They tried mightily and failed, but I knew, I knew that the wines were amazing. And so the grapes certainly had potential.
Speaker 3 00:11:42 And so when I answered this out and went up to see the vineyard, my first question was going to be, where is this vineyard in relation to where Casey flat ranch was? They beat me to it. They said, so this used to be Casey flat ranch sold I'll, I'll take the grapes. Now it's up to me to, to do as good a job. You know, there are many ways to make rose and, um, they all have their pros and cons, but this is a sin and the red is still maturing. I'll bottle it next spring. And I've already signed up to buy the same grapes again this year. So it's Gana, which is a fun, grape did difficult grape, but I think when and done, right, it makes delicious wine. And I'm super happy with this rose and the, and the red that's maturing in barrel now just tastes amazing. So that's
Speaker 2 00:12:16 Exciting. It's like, oh, here's a little teaser, right? Let's see. It's a nice pink, almost borderline salmon, but it's very pretty, very pale.
Speaker 3 00:12:25 It's very pale. I was pouring at an event recently and under bright fluorescent lights. And every time I poured it into the glass, it just looked white to me. And I was like, did I core the wrong line? What did I do? <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:12:35 It's so translucent that it blends in with its environment, right?
Speaker 3 00:12:39 With both of the wine, we just tasted this one on the peanut green earlier. I've had so many people tell me, so this is sweet, right? And I'm like, no, that actually bone dry in terms of residual sugar, there's none, totally fermented dry, but there is a real strong perception of fruit. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:51 And that's the thing that I hear often with people who are new to wine. Yeah. They're like, oh, this is a sweet wine. No, it's a dry wine. Psyched out. Your brain just thinks it's sweet. The magic of wine there is that it is very much a perception thing. Yeah. And everyone tastes differently too.
Speaker 3 00:13:06 Absolutely. That's a huge component. And to that point, there are a lot of flavors that we know are one note like vanilla comes from vanilla or vine. However you wanna say it mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's there. Or it's not now your threshold and all that might be different than mine. So I might pick up a lot of vanilla where you're like barely getting a hint, but that's all there is. There are other aromas that we both would recognize a strawberry that is not a single component. It's several. And they have to be in the right proportion for it to come across a strawberry. Well, if your threshold for one of those components is higher than mine, then I might be getting tons of strawberry where you're not getting it at all. And so it's not like you're wrong. Four of the five people you're tasting with are getting tons of strawberry. You're not, you're not wrong. You just have a different way of sensing it.
Speaker 2 00:13:46 That's why I love comparing tasting notes with other people. Yeah. It's like, oh, well I I'm getting this. What are you getting? Oh, I'm getting this. Oh yeah, it's there. But I barely see me. So it's, it's really got a neat experience. Again, speaking to that whole community aspect of wine, right? Like it's much more enjoyed with other people share it. I get kind of watermelon, strawberry hints. But I also getting almost Parad drop, which my brain will sometimes interpret as banana.
Speaker 3 00:14:15 Oh yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 2 00:14:16 Yeah. I've often found that I interpret Parad drop as banana and violet as crushed crayon.
Speaker 3 00:14:23 Interesting.
Speaker 2 00:14:23 So when I smell that, I know I'm like, okay, most of the other people around me are gonna say violet or Parad drop, but I'm gonna say banana and crushed crayon. Well,
Speaker 3 00:14:31 Tell me about crushed crayon. Is that sort of a, are you getting a waxy note?
Speaker 2 00:14:33 It's like a sense memory. It's almost like Plato. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's not necessarily a waxy okay. Thing, but it's just more that like scent profile just reminds me of like melty, crayon. That's
Speaker 3 00:14:45 Cool. I'm gonna have to start thinking
Speaker 2 00:14:46 About it. It's really weird because sometimes when it's really strong violet note, like on an Oregon Pinot noir, I'm like, oh, well, yeah, that smells like violet. Sure. Like straight out of the gardens. I
Speaker 3 00:14:56 Think you could stick with crushed.
Speaker 2 00:14:57 Kay, nice and light on the pallet. You still get all of the fruit and a little bit of fruit development there. Right. That's really neat. Yeah. I'm not usually a rose person. I find that a lot of them remind me of jolly ranchers and I hate jolly ranchers.
Speaker 3 00:15:11 I hear that you mentioned water ING earlier, which is definitely a jolly rancher flavor. Mm-hmm <affirmative> but yeah, I think it's a little more subdued.
Speaker 2 00:15:17 I'm intrigued. I didn't find any floral in this or the Pinot GRE.
Speaker 3 00:15:20 Yeah. I hadn't thought about P in terms of the rose before, but P with the Pinot GRE makes a lot of sense. Mm-hmm <affirmative> sort of more poem fruit than stone fruit even, but maybe a little stone fruit, maybe
Speaker 2 00:15:30 A little bit speech,
Speaker 3 00:15:30 But
Speaker 2 00:15:30 Yeah, it's light it's in there. I always find rose to be a summer wine. Yeah. Everyone loves to drink it in the summer. So I think this would be a really nice barbecue wine. Oh yeah. One of those like 4th of July, let's grab a bottle of
Speaker 3 00:15:43 This. Yeah. And it's not sweet, but I think it has enough sweet fruitiness. Mm-hmm <affirmative> to stand up to like a sweet barbecue sauce or
Speaker 2 00:15:51 Something. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like an apricot based barbecue sauce. All right. Well, let's get into this rah. This
Speaker 3 00:15:56 Rah is from the Petaluma gap. Ava, a vineyard club. Lakini I was first turned onto it by my friend, Scott semore, who had a brand called waxwing wine sellers. He just closed it down. Oh, um, sadly he was making wine from Sonoma coast and Petaluma gap all the way down. He was based in San Carlos. So all the way down to through Santa Cruz, I loved his FINI sirrah. He thought that I would like to make the FINI Sera as well. So I, I accompanied him on a vineyard visit one time and met the FINI here, old school, Italian farmers in the middle of the petal gap, right on Lakeville highway in the middle of, of that ABA next to some really famous vineyards and all this one hasn't gotten famous yet, but it will. I think I just couldn't make the pricing work. Well, 2020 comes along.
Speaker 3 00:16:38 We've got all the fires. They had buyers who dropped out and they lowered the price. And I was like, well, did you have smoke? Oh, sure. There's smoke right now. Okay. Um, if the wine I make is smokey, we give money back. Nope. <laugh> okay. I'll take it. I only bought a ton. So I made 62 cases. It's got the smokiness of sirrah, but not the smokiness of ashtray, which is what smoke TA is. So I'm confident. There's no smoke TA in this, every time I taste it in barrel, you know, I was afraid like, is it gonna taste bad? Now? It just kept tasting. Great. So I'm really happy with it. I, I hope I've done it justice, but this is unfortunately one off because now that there's no fire, let's hope, uh, prices back prices
Speaker 2 00:17:18 To go back. So this is, this is a limited release.
Speaker 3 00:17:21 Right. But I'm really happy to have had a crack at it, cuz I always wanted to. And now I had my chance and I'm so happy with this wine and I'm really, I, I hope you like it too.
Speaker 2 00:17:30 Yes, absolutely. The, I famously have said, uh, recorded to have said <laugh> that CAH often tastes like Turkey blood <laugh> and, and you just have to find the right one. Yeah. That doesn't taste like Turkey blood. And I found a couple, um, Hudson vineyards does a really good CAH. Yes they do. Um, pricey, but really good. Yep. A lot of the times for me, um, it's just a little too lean I'm I, I know that you like the, uh, coat rot. Yes. Uh, style of cau. I can't wait for you to you say, oh yeah. Oh, this is so right. Okay. I'll put it on my list. Do you have any producers out there that you particularly
Speaker 3 00:18:10 Like? It's also expensive <laugh> yeah. That's the problem. I would name this George Renee. Who's actually not in co rot, but he does produce a co rot. He buys grapes and he's dead. Now I did get to meet him. Oh, oh cool. But my wife and I were in, we were on a tour of France and we were going down the RO valley and we, we didn't know anything about tasting wine in France. There aren't tasting rooms. You don't just, you know, walk in and taste, but their dresses are published by the time we got into the Roan valley, we knew this, but we also didn't. This was pre-cellphone we didn't have any way to make an appointment, you know? So we were just like, we'll just take our chance
Speaker 2 00:18:41 To wander
Speaker 3 00:18:42 In. Yeah. So, so we wander in and you know, we, we ring the doorbell two or three times at demand, George, George, Renee. And we were just giving up and about to leave when a car pulls in and, and it was George Renee pair and Christine ver Renee, his daughter-in-law might have been somebody else, but I think it, it was just those two. And um, and they're just like, what are you doing here? And we're like, we were just hoping we could taste some wine. They're like, well, this is not how you do. It's like, yeah, we know. We know, but, but we were just passing by and thought, we'd try. So my wife spoke French. It was funny. As soon as we started talking wine, I could understand French, but anything else, I was just like,
Speaker 2 00:19:17 You
Speaker 3 00:19:17 Know of. But, but so my, my wife and, and they were talking and so Georges figured out that we were from California and he's like, oh, so you know, Randall Graham. And we're like, well, yeah, we've met him, but we don't know him, you know, but he didn't really get the, that part. He's like, oh, you're friends with Randall. You know? Sure. We're friends with Randall. I mean, this is ancient history. Now this is like the back to the early nineties. But Randall Graham imported a bunch of Ruan and did air quotes for all of you. Can't see my fingers. He thought it was Ruan. Everybody thought it was Ruan. Uh, it turns out it was Vnet, but he sold it to lots and lots of other people who then found out it was Vinet and sued him. And it was a big kerfuffle back in the nineties.
Speaker 3 00:19:55 Oh, wow. Yeah. And, and I won't get into any of that, but George Renee, um, is convinced that Randall Graham saved Vinet that, that, that was the moment where conu, which is the Rowan Appalachian AOC, where Vinet is the only great permitted. There were fewer and fewer growers every year people were giving up, they were just gonna be done. And then Randall Graham made, Vinet trying to make Ruan made Vinet populated in the United States. And that saved hon U. And so he was like, and you guys, you guys are his buzzing buddies. Like not really, but
Speaker 2 00:20:26 Sure for today's purposes. Right.
Speaker 3 00:20:31 So it worked out, we had a great, we ended up having a great tasting. The wines were fabulous. He was wonderful. She was wonderful. Um, it turns out, um, she and I have a mutual friend, so we reconnected over that just recently. Oh wow. And, um, and it was, it was neat. And I, I, I wrote, I told her all this story again, you know, cuz I wasn't sure how much either of us understood at the time. So I told her my perspective and she was like, oh thank you for sharing it. That was really
Speaker 2 00:20:53 Nice. Aw. Yeah. The world of wine is so small. Yeah. I mean the whole world is small when you really look at it in context, but yeah. But that is, that's just crazy. Yeah. How, how it's all connected and who knew.
Speaker 3 00:21:06 So I, I mentioned earlier that I love SRA. I love working with it. It is one of my favorite varieties to drink, but it's also, it is my favorite variety to make. Okay. Um, and I think there are two reasons for that one is that like varieties like Ling and Pinot noir. If they're not plated in the right place, you cannot make good wine period. Just done. Yeah. And similarly, I think if they are planted in the right place, you make them right. And you've got a great wine, you screw up and you've got a bad wine. I think Sara is really cool in that it can be in a grown, in a cold climate, medium climate, a hot climate, and it'll make a different style of wine and you might prefer one or another, but it's still a decent wine. Right. It's not like, you know, hot climate Ling. Like nobody wants that. Whereas a hot climate rah becomes Shiraz and lots of people like that. Yeah. You know, it's not my favorite, but,
Speaker 2 00:21:54 But a lot of people like that
Speaker 3 00:21:56 <laugh> so, you know, so there's that. And then also to the second point, SRA is much more forgiving in one sense, but also allows a lot more creativity because you can push it in different directions personally. I don't think you can push P R in a lot of directions. You, you gotta do what it wants to do. Rah, you can. Well sure I'll do that. You know? And, and so it's really fun. You
Speaker 2 00:22:15 Can play
Speaker 3 00:22:15 With it. You can play with, so this is about 50% whole cluster. Um, I love the whole cluster element to rah. I do like the flavors it adds, but I also really like the playfulness of it because when you have even 50%, whole cluster, you have to get in the tank and tread on it. There's no other way. It's so much fun to tread on whole poster. Fruit doesn't matter what the variety is. I've done on Pino as well. But, and about the time that you don't need to do that anymore is about the time that it becomes dangerous when there's enough CO2 coming off, that you might pass out and die.
Speaker 2 00:22:42 That sounds like so much fun. Yeah. I like that. This is right in the middle of those two styles of that we were talking about. It's not super lean. It's not super bowl. It's right in the middle. Right. Um, yeah. I'm getting floral notes off of it now, but yeah, I am getting, you know, rose petal and, and cranberry raspberry, like red fruits, but there's also sort of Bramble leaf going on. There's a lot of complexity in this wine.
Speaker 3 00:23:04 Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not picking it up so much right now, but in general I think what the stem spring is some, an olive character mm-hmm <affirmative> um, sort of almost saline.
Speaker 2 00:23:15 Yeah. Um, there's a little bit of that on the palette. Yeah. Um, I'm not getting it as much on the news
Speaker 3 00:23:20 Either, but
Speaker 2 00:23:21 No, definitely savory characteristic. Yeah. Which is rise so well known for that savory characteristic, little gaminess, but not Turkey, blood. Thanks. It's a compliment and it's mid body, so you're not feeling like it's too heavy and it's not super light. Right. This is probably a wine that you could consume with just about any meal. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:23:40 I agree. I agree. Uh, you know, anything from pizza to, to like, you know, lamb shanks it's flexible.
Speaker 2 00:23:46 Absolutely. Yeah. So my question for you is do you notice any difference working with FINI vineyard than with the Ville
Speaker 3 00:23:54 Vineyard? Definitely so Ville and particularly the site, which is right at the base of WPA hill. That's cool climate by Napa standards, but this is much PMIC gap OFIA is, is much cooler. And I think this is more aligned with my goal of cot.
Speaker 2 00:24:09 If you had to tweak this to make it more coat rot, what would you have done?
Speaker 3 00:24:13 Maybe a hundred percent, whole cluster. I worked under a winemaker whose philosophy was whole cluster is either all or none. Like none of this 10%, 90%, 50%, like just do it or don't do it. And I see his point, but I also don't see his point. But at the same, you know, in terms of this wine, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have hedge. I should just gone all in
Speaker 2 00:24:32 The things we think of in hindsight. Right. Right. I noticed on your website that you proudly state that all of your wines are vegan friendly. Yeah. I assume that means that you don't use any animal product in your finding processes. Are any of the wine making processes, was that something, um, that you decided early on or did you kind of come into that? How did you make that decision?
Speaker 3 00:24:51 So I happen personally. I'm vegan friendly. I like, I like vegans. I'm not vegan myself, but I'm, I'm, I'm fine with vegans. Uh, they, I think they're cool people, honestly, that was just, to me, it is just a no brainer. I was getting questions. People were asking me, are your wines vegan friendly? And I was like, that hadn't occurred to me of, but yes they are. I mean, isn't wine just made from grapes. And I thought about it. It was like, oh right. People add horse protein and cow protein and eggs. Then I was like, yes, they are they're my wines are vegan. I don't like finding at all. I'm not anti filtration, but finding to me, that's what you do to correct your wine, making mistakes. And I don't make anyone making mistakes. I okay. Of, you know, there are things that I wish I hadn't done I guess.
Speaker 3 00:25:30 But mostly you find in red wines, you find to reduce tannin and I am on top of my fermentations. I don't let my wines get too tannic. I don't find at all. It's not like I'm finding, I have experimented with, uh, veggie call, which is a potato protein based finding agent. Cuz I was just curious about it. I wanna see how does this work and what does it do? I actually don't like the flavors that it adds to the wine, uh, the whole point of a finding agent is that it, it pulls itself out. It shouldn't add anything, but I didn't like what it did to the wine. So I opted out, I didn't have a finding need anyway. I still don't feel like I need to find my wines. So it's not like I'm all the wines are vegan friendly and I'm cool with vegans and that's great, but it wasn't like, this is important to me. I'm going to do this on purpose. It was just that I don't feel the need to find anyway. Well therefore my wines are just made from grapes. So they're vegan, friendly. People care about that. Why not let them know that this is the case? You
Speaker 2 00:26:25 Know? Well, I want our listeners to know just how beautifully inky this wine is and petite sirrah is just so well known for being bold and dark and tannic. So I'm really intrigued to see how you worked around all of those things and integrated them into this wine and made it your own. Oh, I hope you like it, Sarah.
Speaker 3 00:26:45 Um, yeah, so petite is really fun. I feel like with any variety other than petites RA I'm building something up, you know, the grapes bring me this material and I shape it into the wine petites. RA I feel like brings me a block of granite and I gotta chisel it into the wine that I want sort of a different approach. The Tera is big and bold tan. I want it to stay true to itself. I also want it to be drinkable
Speaker 2 00:27:09 Drinkable now too. Not just like leave it in your cellar for 18 years and maybe it'll be drinkable later. Awesome. Well, let's take a look here. Blackberry plum SIS right off the nose. Yeah. All these big bold black fruits.
Speaker 3 00:27:25 Yeah. Yeah. And so this vineyard is one I discovered at, I worked for Keota vineyards in here in Napa valley in the sag loop district, which specializes in petista. And when I got there, they had their second vintage of what they called pretense in the cellar. So I hadn't made it, but it was in their cell waiting to be bottled. And it was from this vineyard. And the idea of pretense was that it was gonna be a cheaper version of their estate petite straw, which was like at the time it was 70 bucks is probably a lot more now. And then they realized that, huh, making a $25 petite straw. That tastes really amazing when you're trying to sell a $70 petite straw, that also tastes really amazing. Isn't really the best business plan. So they, they ended the pretense program. And one of my first tasks at Keho was to call the grower and say that weren't gonna buy the grapes anymore.
Speaker 2 00:28:08 They made you the bad
Speaker 3 00:28:09 Guy. They made me the bad guy right
Speaker 2 00:28:11 Off the bad guy
Speaker 3 00:28:11 <laugh> they did, but I had tasted it in the barrel and I knew it was really good. And I knew that I could afford the grapes. I called up the grower and I said, Hey, you know, I've got bad news. Coyote's not gonna buy your grapes anymore, but I've got good news. I'll buy your grapes. So it, it all worked out. And that was a, a long, long relationship, um, really happy. And then, um, I turned on some friends to this vineyard and so they started making pizza off from it. And then they started making some Gana, not from this vineyard, but from the same grower. And I was like, I didn't know. He made Grenage like, oh yeah, we're taking it all. It's like, I turned you onto this and you didn't like what <laugh>. So like I called the grower. I was like, why why'd they get the Kardash? And he is like, you can have it when they stop buying it. They did stop buying it eventually. And, and I got it and it was great,
Speaker 2 00:28:56 But you know, you're onto something good. When that happens. I would say that's a Testament to your taste. I really like this. It's nice and bold and yes, there's a lot of tannin, but it also provides this beautifully long finish mm-hmm <affirmative> and the whole time that you're sitting here and chatting, you can taste all of those flavors and still feel the texture. And it's not gritty tannin. It's nice and smooth. I think this would be a standalone wine. Like drink it by itself by the fireplace.
Speaker 3 00:29:21 I agree. Oh yeah. It pairs well with fire.
Speaker 2 00:29:24 That's a really awesome wine. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:29:25 Thank
Speaker 2 00:29:26 You. So when you're out there and you're looking for maybe new grapes to source from what are the parameters that you're looking
Speaker 3 00:29:32 For? Well, I want great grapes that I can afford two really different things. Yeah. Usually it's people who are pouring their heart and soul into it, but just haven't gotten the recognition yet. For several years, I, I made a Zandel out of Mendocino county, right outside of Hopland from a place called the poor ranch. The POS are amazing people, but they had been selling their entire vineyard to Fetzer and Fetzer. After the 2012 harvest gave them the check and was like, we're done. And that's how things began with me. They contacted every winemaker in Mendocino county and said, we've got grapes, friend of mine, Mendocino county sent it to me thinking I might be interested. I was, I made an appointment to go out and visit. They gave me a great tour. It was really neat to meet them and all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 3 00:30:13 I think I'll take two tons. They're like, we wanted you to take the vineyard. Like I can't do that, but I've got friends <laugh> I didn't find them. And my friends didn't buy all the fruit, but, um, they bought a lot of it. And so as they raised the price, they kept my price low, but eventually it got to the point where they were able to sell all the fruit at the price that it should be sold for. And I was like, you know, I'll get other grapes. This is fine. So we parted ways, but they're super cool people. And one of their buyers is a friend of mine who has custom crushes at, so I still see the grapes and it's so fun. I see. I meet them when they deliver them. And I was like, this is great. And then I smell differents like, oh, I remember that smell, you know? Um, cuz that is, talk about ARD. They've got a distinctive site
Speaker 2 00:30:59 Qualifications for sourcing.
Speaker 3 00:31:00 Love that word of mouth. Right? Like, you know, so I, I helped a lot of people find that vineyard and they're really grateful to me. So they find a cool vineyard and they're like, Hey, you know, they've got a few extra tons of whatever and check this out. What I'm currently buying is the ganache that we already discussed and temp Neo from Scribner bend in Clarksburg. Ava and I got turned onto that. My, a friend of mine was the winemaker at Elise and Elise sold and he had to move on and he didn't find a job in Napa valley. So he ended up moving out to the Delta and, and he became the winemaker creamer band I went to visit. I tasted his wines out of barrel. They were amazing including the Nia. And I asked if there's any fruit available and there was
Speaker 2 00:31:39 Been that vein of lifting people up. And, and that mutual relationship that you have with, with your growers, I saw on your website that you are vine based supported. Yes. So what can you tell me about vine base and, and how it's impacted your production?
Speaker 3 00:31:55 So, but so vine base is really cool. I just learned about them recently. I'd say within the last six months I read article in Napa register, the Napa register article was talking about how vine base was like the Etsy of small wine producers. And it may be, that's what got me excited about vase. That part of it hasn't really materialized for me. Like I haven't gotten any orders from people who just came to vine base and then found me and ordered some wine. Okay. But that's okay. Um, in time. Yeah. Right, right. I actually, on this past Thursday, um, wine base had a winemaker dinner gathering over in Santa Rosa, which was super fun. You know, we all just brought wines and they provided dinner and, and we had a great time together. A few of the winemakers there I'd met before, but most of them were new to me. And, and it's great opportunity to share ideas, vineyards, sales techniques. And this is hard for all of us winemakers make wine. That's what we do. And we're good at it. Selling wine is not what we do. We need to do it. But <laugh>, but it's hard.
Speaker 2 00:32:53 Marketing is
Speaker 3 00:32:53 Hard. Yeah. And none of us have a clue. I mean, I can read all the things that I should do, but I can't do those things necessarily. You know, just like I could tell a random person how to make wine, that they couldn't do it necessarily, you know, it's not my wheelhouse, my skillset. So that was super fun. Wine base is a great community. The people are cool. They take care of so much. They took over my website and they made my website so much better. Your average listener might think that a winemaker just sits around buying grapes, making wine. And then in the off season drinking wine, then we have so much paperwork to fill out so much. There's so much reporting. There's so much legal compliance and stuff. And vase makes that very easy. They also have an in-house marketing team and every week they push out like three new ideas.
Speaker 3 00:33:36 You can do this, you can do this, you can do this. And when I write back and say, wow, you know, I get number two. I'd really like to do, I don't have the bandwidth this week. They're like send us some pictures and we'll take care of it. I wanted to also talk about vena shipper, which before I found vena shipper, I was legally able to ship to eight states with licenses. And then there are a few like DC and Florida don't require licenses. So I could ship to like 10 places. But the fact that I could do that didn't mean that it was easy. I had all that reporting to do, like whether it's monthly or quarterly or annually, there's, there's a lot of work involved in all that vena shipper has licenses in almost 40 states. I think it's like 38 at this point. And they handle all of the paperwork. They handle all the licensing. They'll handle almost all the reporting. Some of it I still have to do, but it's so much easier. The first of every month was always like, okay, now I gotta sit down and do all this stuff. And now I don't. And it's just great.
Speaker 2 00:34:28 That gives you more time to do the things that you love to do. And not that you have to do exactly. It's those behind the scenes. Things that I don't think that a lot of people think about alcohol regulation in the United States is still so bonkers. Cuz none of it really is uniform. Every state has its own regulations and yeah. Makes it really tricky for someone like you. Who's trying to run your own operation right. And ship across the country when maybe the state won't let you.
Speaker 3 00:34:54 Right. Yeah. And you know, every December we celebrate the repeal of prohibition. And what people don't understand is that prohibition wasn't repealed. It was sent back to the states. Alcohol is the only industry. That's not subject to the interstate commerce clause. So every state can make its own rules and they do.
Speaker 2 00:35:08 They certainly
Speaker 3 00:35:09 Do. It's a pain,
Speaker 2 00:35:10 Matt, thank you so much for coming on the podcast before we go, how do people find you and find your wines?
Speaker 3 00:35:15 My website's the best way to find me PWR wines.com. And I'm at TW wines on Facebook and, and Instagram email, text my phone numbers on the website. I don't have a tasting room, but if you're coming to Napa valley even would like to meet with me, taste with me. If the timing works out, I'll happily host you at my home. Or if it makes more sense, come to wherever you're staying. I'll you know, bring wines. Then we can have a little tasting it's fun.
Speaker 2 00:35:39 Right? Well listeners, thank you so much for being wine enthusiasts along with us. And until we share the next glass, cheers.
