Latest / The Realtor Who Wines / Taking the Leap, Oregon Pinot Noir & Building a Dream Wine Business

Transcript

Taking the Leap, Oregon Pinot Noir & Building a Dream Wine Business · The Realtor Who Wines

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Realtor Who Wines podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm Rashelle Newmeyer.
• 0:03
  Your hostest with the mostest a student of life, a connector, a passionate wine enthusiast and your local favorite guide.
• 0:10
  Join me as we explore the vibrant Pacific Northwest.
• 0:14
  Savor the finest wines and champion the spirit of entrepreneurship.
• 0:18
  Each episode, I'll sit down with inspiring guests, supporting business ownership and uncovering the stories that make this community unique.
• 0:25
  So grab a glass of wine, settle in, and let's embark on a journey of discovery and connection together. Cheers.
• 0:32
  Good morning.
• 0:33
  Well, I guess it's good morning to us, right?
• 0:35
  It's good morning.
• 0:36
  But anybody listening?
• 0:37
  Yeah, it could be. Yeah, it could be anytime.
• 0:40
  But thank you so much for having me.
• 0:43
  I'd like to cheers you before we get started.
• 0:46
  Cheers.
• 0:49
  This is our Riesling 25 Riesling.
• 0:51
  So this is so good.
• 0:53
  I want to show this wine. This is truly one of the first wines that I've made.
• 0:56
  Start to finish here at RH Estate Wine. Really?
• 0:59
  One of the first people to try it.
• 1:01
  Oh, I'm so honored.
• 1:01
  Thank you. It's delicious.
• 1:04
  Yeah, it's a really refreshing, actually.
• 1:12
  Yeah, that's so good for the slurp.
• 1:13
  But it's part of the winemaking gig.
• 1:15
  Yeah it is.
• 1:16
  Will you please introduce yourself to everybody?
• 1:19
  My name is Aaron Bell.
• 1:21
  I am a native Oregonian that went to the University of Oregon and have been in the Oregon wine business since about 1999, in many different forms, but was hired in 2002 by a French family in the Dundee area.
• 1:37
  The winery, called domain.
• 1:38
  Drew and I ultimately went on to help make wine for that family, both in France and in Oregon, for almost 27 vintages.
• 1:46
  Yeah, I love that.
• 1:47
  And then we had the opportunity about a year and a half ago to purchase this vineyard, this nearly 50 year old vineyard in the Amity Hills.
• 1:55
  And we pushed all our chips in the middle of the table.
• 1:58
  Tracy Rodgers and I. Yes.
• 1:59
  And my partner in love, life, business.
• 2:02
  And here we are. Here we sit.
• 2:03
  So yeah, I definitely want to dive in to you purchasing this winery and becoming the winemaker here.
• 2:10
  But before that, can we have a little bit of history?
• 2:13
  Like, what was it about winemaking or when did you get the bug?
• 2:16
  Like, oh, I think I want to go into the wine industry.
• 2:19
  So I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona.
• 2:21
  It was 1996, and I was a server at a steakhouse.
• 2:24
  Okay.
• 2:25
  Chicago steakhouse and servers have crazy hours because you serve until,
• 2:29
  you know, 11: 00 at night.
• 2:30
  you know, 11: So our a happy hour would often be midnight, 1230.
• 2:34
  you know, 11: And there was another couple.
• 2:36
  you know, 11: So my ex-wife and I and the other couple were very interested in wine.
• 2:40
  you know, 11: So our happy hour be was we would each bring a bottle of wine, their house, our house, and we would brown bag them and we would, we would do like a blind tasting.
• 2:47
  you know, 11: Do a blind tasting. Yeah.
• 2:49
  you know, 11: And so we'd geek out and talk about the wine and try to make them from different regions.
• 2:53
  you know, 11: And I grew up in Oregon.
• 2:53
  you know, 11: I grew up in Newburgh. Organs.
• 2:56
  you know, 11: I was and I was selling organ wine.
• 2:58
  you know, 11: So I knew what was happening in Oregon.
• 3:00
  you know, 11: But working at a steakhouse, my interests were kind of taken to California, Napa calves, Napa Merlot, Sonoma Coast.
• 3:07
  you know, 11: And so we tasted these wines and I brought a Napa cab came as 1991 special select.
• 3:13
  you know, 11: I remember the bottle I brought and my friend George, he brought a bottle, unbeknownst to me, until his unveiled a 1996 domain drew in Willamette Valley Pinot noir, okay, made ten miles from where I grew up in Dundee.
• 3:31
  you know, 11: That was my kind of a moment of going, how did I had to work in Pinot Noir before that?
• 3:37
  you know, 11: That was the one that really gave me the Bing.
• 3:42
  you know, 11: Had Bacchus tapped me on the forehead.
• 3:44
  you know, 11: And so I have a degree in philosophy from the University of Oregon, and my my ex-wife had a degree in theater, so we're pretty hilarious.
• 3:50
  you know, 11: I have a degree in theater as well.
• 3:53
  you know, 11: It's good, but it's good.
• 3:56
  you know, 11: Brings the flakiness out on you.
• 3:57
  you know, 11: So we looked at each other the next day and we said, and I have my mom lives in Newburgh, and I have, you know, we had infrastructure.
• 4:03
  you know, 11: Sure. I said, why don't we go get in the wine business?
• 4:06
  you know, 11: So we did it.
• 4:07
  you know, 11: We literally two months later, we packed up from living in Scottsdale and moved home. Moved back to Newberg.
• 4:15
  you know, 11: Why did it move back to Newberg?
• 4:16
  you know, 11: I said I would never move back to Newberg because that's where I grew up.
• 4:18
  you know, 11: So I moved to Dundee. Wow. Yeah.
• 4:20
  you know, 11: Three miles.
• 4:21
  you know, 11: And we just threw ourselves into the wine business.
• 4:23
  you know, 11: We both got jobs working for the Ponzi family.
• 4:26
  you know, 11: And in the summer of 2002, I was approached by a friend that had gotten a job, hospitality wise at Domain Drew.
• 4:35
  you know, 11: And he said, you know, that was waiting tables again for the at the Dundee Bistro for the family.
• 4:40
  you know, 11: And he said, hey, I'm getting too busy to do this by myself.
• 4:44
  you know, 11: Would you want to help me do some tours and tastings at domain? Drew?
• 4:46
  you know, 11: And I was like, absolutely kidding me.
• 4:48
  you know, 11: Yeah, the reason I came back here.
• 4:48
  you know, 11: So I started that way.
• 4:51
  you know, 11: And and then shortly after I was there, there was there was a lot of cellar work to be done.
• 4:57
  you know, 11: And a gentleman named Brad McElroy, who has a winery to this day in the Ribbon Ridge, VA called Ayers.
• 5:03
  you know, 11: He was the seller master at the time.
• 5:05
  you know, 11: And he said, hey, Aaron, you seem pretty interested in the winemaking side of it.
• 5:09
  you know, 11: Would you want to be would you be willing to help a couple days a week, just do kind of cellar rat stuff?
• 5:11
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 5:14
  you know, 11: And I said, yeah, I try not to steer me around and I'll try not to screw anything up.
• 5:18
  you know, 11: And so that's kind of was my, the door opening to, to being in the cellar.
• 5:22
  you know, 11: So and they, they thought it would end at some point.
• 5:25
  you know, 11: The general manager said, you know, we probably won't have work.
• 5:27
  you know, 11: We have French interns coming in.
• 5:29
  you know, 11: But I was like, okay, any experience is great. Yeah.
• 5:32
  you know, 11: And and that conversation, I remember being in the cellar and I was doing some topping of barrels, and the general manager came down to the.
• 5:39
  you know, 11: There's a mezzanine that overlooks the cellar at Dio Domain, drew in Oregon, and he said, hey, Aaron, come up to the office.
• 5:46
  you know, 11: And I was like, oh, here it comes.
• 5:49
  you know, 11: Yeah, it's been cool on the resume. Dang it.
• 5:52
  you know, 11: And it was opposite.
• 5:53
  you know, 11: This was at the end of July of 2002.
• 5:56
  you know, 11: He he said, you want a full time job and yes, I did. Yes.
• 6:00
  you know, 11: Thank you for asking.
• 6:01
  you know, 11: Anyways, Brad went on to leave in 2005.
• 6:04
  you know, 11: I had this kind of hybrid position from 2002 to 2005, where I would help with hospitality, but then I would also happen, and it was great because it kind of taught me the front, and it's like being the chef and the waiter at the same restaurant.
• 6:16
  you know, 11: Absolutely. Both sides.
• 6:17
  you know, 11: And in 2005, Brad left to do his heirs winery full time.
• 6:22
  you know, 11: And so I was promoted to cellar master.
• 6:24
  you know, 11: And I think that's when I kind of jumped into full time production.
• 6:26
  you know, 11: And then the next step was, is they said, if you want to further your your career as far as winemaking, we want you to have a degree.
• 6:34
  you know, 11: So I went back and I did my extension two year Davis degree from UC Davis in okay, that from 2005 and 2006.
• 6:42
  you know, 11: And then in 2006, I became the assistant winemaker in charge of day to day winemaking, and I remained that until until we bought this place in December of 24.
• 6:52
  you know, 11: Did you, when you were getting your degree, was that like online and you were still doing so?
• 6:57
  you know, 11: You were still working?
• 6:58
  you know, 11: Exactly.
• 6:59
  you know, 11: I had you know, it was a blessing and a curse.
• 7:02
  you know, 11: I had a full time job because I couldn't I did have to go and do some chemistry classes in Davis.
• 7:10
  you know, 11: Sure, but most of it was all theory on online.
• 7:13
  you know, 11: Yeah, except the final exam was to graduate with the two year degree. Was with on the job.
• 7:21
  you know, 11: Priceless. Yeah.
• 7:23
  you know, 11: I mean, I wrote I mean, the drew and family is considered one of the most famous winemaking families in the world, particularly with Peter Orange Chardonnay.
• 7:32
  you know, 11: And so between Veronique drew and my boss, direct boss and her father, I had nearly 90 years of winemaking experience to ask questions to.
• 7:42
  you know, 11: So it was a really amazing opportunity.
• 7:45
  you know, 11: And I asked a lot of questions.
• 7:46
  you know, 11: Yeah, they seemed very open to having students for sure.
• 7:50
  you know, 11: I was there not that long ago, and our the gal that was doing our tasting was a student at Linfield and the wine program, and she was getting ready to go do an internship this summer in France.
• 8:02
  you know, 11: So yeah, it's like there obviously that's still something that they're very huge.
• 8:06
  you know, 11: And we had we had students, you know, interns that would come for harvest.
• 8:09
  you know, 11: We'd had between 6 and 8 interns every year.
• 8:11
  you know, 11: That would vary between 18 years of age and 23 years of age.
• 8:15
  you know, 11: And but all but all being educated all in one.
• 8:17
  you know, 11: Totally. Yeah.
• 8:18
  you know, 11: Either at the beginning of their wine program or at the end of their wine program.
• 8:21
  you know, 11: And so that was something that was very important.
• 8:22
  you know, 11: The is passing, having the education and the theory you need when you have problems in winemaking, but also passing on their experience was hugely important to Robert Drew and burnings father and also Veronique.
• 8:35
  you know, 11: And then of course, ultimately in the end you start to look back at yourself and you go, oh my God, I've been doing this for 25 years.
• 8:40
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 8:40
  you know, 11: Do you think you might bring that kind of culture here?
• 8:43
  you know, 11: Yes. Yeah.
• 8:44
  you know, 11: How do you already have any interns or you?
• 8:46
  you know, 11: I do, I have I have interns, but I have friends from all over the US.
• 8:49
  you know, 11: Yeah. That's amazing.
• 8:51
  you know, 11: Last year I had our first vintage 2025.
• 8:53
  you know, 11: I had five friends from all over the United States.
• 8:55
  you know, 11: I had friend from Texas, friend from Nashville, Tennessee.
• 8:58
  you know, 11: From from Florida. Friend from Georgia from from New York.
• 9:02
  you know, 11: Trying to broaden the spans.
• 9:03
  you know, 11: This year, I'm trying to get a friend in New Zealand to come up.
• 9:06
  you know, 11: Well, if you need a friend from Newberg.
• 9:07
  you know, 11: Okay, here I am.
• 9:08
  you know, 11: All right, all right, all right.
• 9:10
  you know, 11: I'll feed you well and drink you well, I.
• 9:13
  you know, 11: I gladly accept food and wine as payment for anything.
• 9:17
  you know, 11: To be honest, what was something as you were learning there that kind of stood out to you as like a real learning moment?
• 9:25
  you know, 11: Was there ever like a situation with yeast in the cellar or something where you're like, oh, that was a learning moment for sure.
• 9:33
  you know, 11: No, I mean, I learned a lot.
• 9:35
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 9:36
  you know, 11: I think what you my philosophy background, I think I loved how they approached wine.
• 9:43
  you know, 11: You need science in winemaking when you have problems.
• 9:46
  you know, 11: Yeah, but winemaking can be an art if you pay attention.
• 9:50
  you know, 11: And the grapes are healthy.
• 9:51
  you know, 11: So for me, it was keeping the artistic side of it at the forefront and then using science behind the background.
• 10:00
  you know, 11: That was important to me because I love that you kind of see when you start to get education, you start to the more you know, the more you know and and the more fearful you become to remember that it is an art and you just pay attention.
• 10:11
  you know, 11: So I like the probably the thing I take the most from them is the cadence, the calmness of the that winemaking is not frenetic.
• 10:18
  you know, 11: It should be.
• 10:19
  you know, 11: It has its busy moments. Sure, sure.
• 10:21
  you know, 11: Yeah. Should be about calm and just paying attention.
• 10:23
  you know, 11: And it's always in the details and very German always say to me, I would say, oh, the numbers are this and that.
• 10:29
  you know, 11: And, and she goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it's fine.
• 10:30
  you know, 11: She goes has a taste. Oh I love that.
• 10:33
  you know, 11: Sometimes your best computer is your tongue. Yeah.
• 10:35
  you know, 11: Which is true. Yeah that is true.
• 10:36
  you know, 11: So I take that if I don't know if that answers the question.
• 10:39
  you know, 11: No it does.
• 10:39
  you know, 11: Yeah that's a great learning lesson.
• 10:42
  you know, 11: So how was your relationship with this winery like how did that whole conversation come about where like did you frequent here before you purchased or.
• 10:53
  you know, 11: Okay, no, I'd never been here.
• 10:54
  you know, 11: Oh, you just saw that it was for sale?
• 10:57
  you know, 11: No. It wasn't. Ever went for sale.
• 10:59
  you know, 11: Tracy, my partner, Chris Rogers, was a long time wine club member here.
• 11:03
  you know, 11: Okay, 15 year wine club member.
• 11:05
  you know, 11: And we started dating in October of 23.
• 11:08
  you know, 11: And she started pouring me these red hot wines.
• 11:10
  you know, 11: I had never I honestly had never had a red hot wine, at least I can remember before, before that.
• 11:15
  you know, 11: And she would always say, oh, you know, it's not too many dream wines.
• 11:19
  you know, 11: The wines are, the wines are nice, but the place is really fun.
• 11:21
  you know, 11: The owners are great. Yeah.
• 11:23
  you know, 11: And so fast forward to spring of 2024.
• 11:27
  you know, 11: And she says, hey, it's quiet Sunday.
• 11:29
  you know, 11: She goes, Aaron, what do you want to go up?
• 11:30
  you know, 11: I'm going to go pick up my wine club shipment at Red hook.
• 11:32
  you know, 11: Would you want to go?
• 11:34
  you know, 11: Yeah, sure.
• 11:34
  you know, 11: I said absolutely.
• 11:35
  you know, 11: So we came up.
• 11:36
  you know, 11: It was a rainy, quiet Sunday in March.
• 11:40
  you know, 11: And John and Betty, particularly the previous owners of Red Hawk for 20 years, they found out that I was working at Domain Druid and they were over at the house because we live in the house that they lived in on the property.
• 11:50
  you know, 11: And they came up and we started just chit chatting, introduce themselves.
• 11:54
  you know, 11: I had met them a couple of times in passing through the industry, but I didn't know them well.
• 11:57
  you know, 11: I mean, I've had this lovely conversation over the course of two hours about the wine business, life, politics and some point at the end of the conversation, Betty particularly not directed us by any means, really.
• 12:09
  you know, 11: It was just to the universe.
• 12:10
  you know, 11: She said, you know, we're getting tired.
• 12:13
  you know, 11: Maybe at some point we'll probably look at selling.
• 12:15
  you know, 11: I said, okay, I go, it'll take the right kind of buyer having your house on the property, you know, there's total property is 23 acres with the dwelling on the on the property, a winery, a tasting room.
• 12:26
  you know, 11: And so I left going, okay, well, good.
• 12:28
  you know, 11: Good luck.
• 12:28
  you know, 11: And over the course of the next five weeks, all of a sudden the name Red Hawk is just coming up over and over.
• 12:35
  you know, 11: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 12:36
  you know, 11: People in the industry that have never blurted the name Red Hawker said the name John Petite Collier are saying this to me, so I kind of like what's going on.
• 12:45
  you know, 11: So I remember I was driving by because Tracy lived in South Salem, and so I would drive from domain drew and I would drive Wallace Road in South Salem.
• 12:52
  you know, 11: So I passed the Red Hawks on every, every time.
• 12:55
  you know, 11: And finally I was passing the Redhawk sign and I just I had this epiphany.
• 12:58
  you know, 11: I go, what?
• 12:59
  you know, 11: What if this is an opportunity that this is literally walking quite literally across our foreheads and we're not even realizing it.
• 13:04
  you know, 11: Totally.
• 13:05
  you know, 11: So I called Tracy when I was passing here, and I said, maybe we should reach out and see how serious they were about about selling.
• 13:11
  you know, 11: Well, here we sit.
• 13:12
  you know, 11: Yeah, the rest is history.
• 13:15
  you know, 11: I just believed in it because I was collecting one.
• 13:18
  you know, 11: I knew Evesham would winery our direct neighbor winery.
• 13:21
  you know, 11: I buy a magnum still to this day of of Pinot noir, which is quite literally right next to ours.
• 13:29
  you know, 11: And so every time I had the red hot wines, I was going, God, they're familiar.
• 13:33
  you know, 11: I don't know why, but super familiar.
• 13:35
  you know, 11: Well, I was drinking wine for the last 20 years from a vineyard 20ft of 20ft away.
• 13:39
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 13:39
  you know, 11: And so that was was it was exciting to me.
• 13:42
  you know, 11: The lifestyle I often say to people now is we bought a lifestyle, you know, again, living on the property, the small winery make about 3600 cases of wine.
• 13:50
  you know, 11: That's where we want to be.
• 13:51
  you know, 11: And that was kind of the so like I said before, off of Mike is that I just said we just pushed all our chips in the middle of the table and we said, go for it.
• 13:59
  you know, 11: Why not try?
• 14:00
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 14:01
  you know, 11: So because from a winemaking standpoint, the dream is to make wines from, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 year old vines.
• 14:06
  you know, 11: And that's that's pretty common in Europe pretty easily.
• 14:10
  you know, 11: But in Oregon, that's rare. Sure.
• 14:12
  you know, 11: There are vineyards at old.
• 14:13
  you know, 11: I mean, we're the second oldest vineyard in this area in some of our vineyard planted in 78.
• 14:17
  you know, 11: But, you know, the first Pinot noir planted in Oregon was 1966.
• 14:22
  you know, 11: Yeah, in the Dundee Hills.
• 14:23
  you know, 11: So having, you know, I think people forget because we are so well known for Pinot noir that we're still pretty new in the wine industry as a whole.
• 14:32
  you know, 11: Like Oregon's still very new to the scene, considering when you had the conversation about the purchase, were you intentionally thinking about keeping their label, their name?
• 14:46
  you know, 11: No, I mean, we have changed.
• 14:48
  you know, 11: It is from the French.
• 14:50
  you know, 11: I took lineage, I wanted the vineyard to always be called rock.
• 14:54
  you know, 11: So the vineyard will always be called Red Hawk.
• 14:56
  you know, 11: I think that's important.
• 14:57
  you know, 11: We're the third owners. It's nearly a 50 year old vineyard.
• 15:00
  you know, 11: So to keep that, that that going is highly important.
• 15:03
  you know, 11: Yeah, but we did want to revamp the brand.
• 15:07
  you know, 11: So we it is RH estate wines at Red Hot Vineyard RH simply meaning Red Hawk.
• 15:13
  you know, 11: But we just wanted to modernize it.
• 15:15
  you know, 11: We wanted a new logo.
• 15:16
  you know, 11: And so that was important for us to keep the lineage.
• 15:21
  you know, 11: However make it make it ours.
• 15:23
  you know, 11: Well, I'm assuming they already had wine in the barrels that you're currently selling, right?
• 15:29
  you know, 11: It was turnkey with the inventory.
• 15:31
  you know, 11: So we both 23 inventory 24 was interesting because we knew that the sale was going to go through.
• 15:36
  you know, 11: We thought it was.
• 15:36
  you know, 11: And so I gave my recommendations.
• 15:40
  you know, 11: We were at that point we were under NDA.
• 15:42
  you know, 11: And so I was kind of sneaking up here in the night to meet me here, but I just emailed it on August, I emailed John and I said, you still on the joint?
• 15:53
  you know, 11: But if I was there day to day, this would be kind of my protocol, my approach to the winemaking punch down wise pump over wise, and he followed it to a tee.
• 16:04
  you know, 11: So I made him work a lot harder.
• 16:06
  you know, 11: But he he said the results are good.
• 16:08
  you know, 11: So in that transition you know of not owning it in 24, but the wines being vintage, I do see myself in the winemaking.
• 16:16
  you know, 11: Yeah. And I did try to come up as much as possible.
• 16:19
  you know, 11: You know, it's funny, all of his kind of helpers and people that were here to harvest help, they're always kind of looking like, what?
• 16:25
  you know, 11: What the hell's the guy from?
• 16:26
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 16:27
  you know, 11: Why is he coming here for like a lot. So.
• 16:31
  you know, 11: Oh he just.
• 16:31
  you know, 11: And I would always be like, oh, he's my friend. He's my friend.
• 16:34
  you know, 11: I just want to see it on a smaller scale.
• 16:36
  you know, 11: And so it is what it wasn't too many people that are still around here.
• 16:40
  you know, 11: They're like, oh, I get it. Yeah, that was all announced.
• 16:43
  you know, 11: And that was right around things giving in 24.
• 16:47
  you know, 11: Know someone moving to Oregon?
• 16:49
  you know, 11: Send them my way.
• 16:50
  you know, 11: I specialize in relocation, and I'll treat them like family.
• 16:53
  you know, 11: Plus, you know, there's a glass of wine in it for him.
• 16:56
  you know, 11: Cheers.
• 16:57
  you know, 11: And I'm assuming you kept most of the staff or.
• 17:01
  you know, 11: No. Yeah. We retained everybody.
• 17:03
  you know, 11: We retained everybody.
• 17:04
  you know, 11: That was highly important to us that you know this is a 40 year old winery building, you know.
• 17:09
  you know, 11: So there's a lot of there's a lot of quirks to an old building so dowdy.
• 17:13
  you know, 11: For example, Daddy Williams, he's our estate manager.
• 17:16
  you know, 11: He kept him on.
• 17:17
  you know, 11: It was highly important because he's known as like, where is that plug go?
• 17:19
  you know, 11: What is that?
• 17:20
  you know, 11: What's the switch?
• 17:21
  you know, 11: Well, Annie knows the client center.
• 17:23
  you know, 11: The client and Megan, our our our tasting lead.
• 17:27
  you know, 11: She was working on and off here for five years.
• 17:30
  you know, 11: And so she knew, again, like you say, clientele.
• 17:32
  you know, 11: She kind of knew the rhythm, the the the feeling that we wanted to.
• 17:36
  you know, 11: We wanted because we wanted to keep the feeling of of the hospital.
• 17:40
  you know, 11: The hospital.
• 17:41
  you know, 11: But the casualness of this. Sure.
• 17:43
  you know, 11: Our new saying is serious wines.
• 17:44
  you know, 11: Fun times like I'll make the wines as serious as I can.
• 17:47
  you know, 11: But what I really loved about this place was the was the approachability of.
• 17:52
  you know, 11: And anybody can come and enjoy an afternoon here kid friendly, dog friendly or picnic friendly, you know, just want people to come and enjoy the view and some wine.
• 18:00
  you know, 11: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:01
  you know, 11: In fact, you even have an Airbnb here.
• 18:04
  you know, 11: Now we do short term rentals.
• 18:06
  you know, 11: It's a short term rental. Yeah. Airbnb.
• 18:09
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 18:10
  you know, 11: We have the house and it's Tracy and I and two dogs in a 4000 square foot house.
• 18:15
  you know, 11: So we took the downstairs and made it into a beautiful little one bedroom Airbnb with a full kitchen.
• 18:20
  you know, 11: And and does it sleep 2 or 4 comfortably?
• 18:23
  you know, 11: They'll sleep two.
• 18:23
  you know, 11: Two for couples or like we had we had a mother daughter from Boston last week.
• 18:29
  you know, 11: So yeah, not that kind of thing, but private entrance, little orchard.
• 18:33
  you know, 11: I mean, you wake up and you look at Mount Hood to to 200 year old oak trees and some old vines.
• 18:38
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 18:39
  you know, 11: If you're listening to the podcast, definitely go check out YouTube or Instagram to see some of the footage here.
• 18:45
  you know, 11: Because to wake up here would be amazing.
• 18:47
  you know, 11: It's beautiful.
• 18:49
  you know, 11: Great views.
• 18:50
  you know, 11: When did you decide to add the Airbnb was something we thought from the beginning.
• 18:54
  you know, 11: Just because we didn't know, you know, we we thought we don't have that much.
• 18:59
  you know, 11: We don't need that much storage. It's a lovely.
• 19:01
  you know, 11: Had a private entrance already and so early on.
• 19:05
  you know, 11: But then we we didn't kind of build it out until about four months ago.
• 19:09
  you know, 11: Okay. So it's still pretty new.
• 19:11
  you know, 11: Still pretty new. Really new.
• 19:12
  you know, 11: That's amazing.
• 19:13
  you know, 11: So if you're thinking about having like a wine getaway, you can even stay right here on the vineyard.
• 19:18
  you know, 11: Yeah, free tasting, complimentary bottle of wine.
• 19:21
  you know, 11: It just gets better and better all the time.
• 19:22
  you know, 11: Yeah, I think I might come over for a sleepover.
• 19:25
  you know, 11: That sounds fun.
• 19:27
  you know, 11: What, are you excited to make any of your own vintages?
• 19:32
  you know, 11: Or you're currently making your own vintages?
• 19:34
  you know, 11: So we just bottled all the 25 whites.
• 19:36
  you know, 11: That's what we're having now.
• 19:37
  you know, 11: So those those are my first full circle of it okay.
• 19:41
  you know, 11: The 20 with the barrels you see around us are all the 25 Pinot Noir that are still in barrel.
• 19:47
  you know, 11: I'll start deciding on different blends of these wines in the coming two months, and then blend some of them, bottle some of them in August.
• 19:54
  you know, 11: Of course, this kind of becomes a cycle.
• 19:56
  you know, 11: Sure, we'll need some of the barrels to be empty again for the 26 vintage.
• 19:59
  you know, 11: Some of them will over vintage, our reserve wines will over vintage.
• 20:02
  you know, 11: And so as I was saying earlier, it's important about Red Hawk is anything from this property will always have the name Red Hawk on it.
• 20:09
  you know, 11: It'll be RH wines, Red Hawk Vineyard, but we're buying fruit as well.
• 20:13
  you know, 11: So our little property gives us between 25 and 30 tons of fruit.
• 20:16
  you know, 11: And then we're also buying another 25 to 30 tons of fruit from different vineyards in the area.
• 20:21
  you know, 11: So I'm buying from the mountain Ava from a vineyard called the Lancelot.
• 20:25
  you know, 11: And that's that's going to be a wine that's not going to have Red Hawk on it.
• 20:29
  you know, 11: That would be an RH estate wines Dylan slot vineyard.
• 20:32
  you know, 11: For example.
• 20:33
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 20:33
  you know, 11: Or making Chardonnay from a vineyard called Pearl Stad.
• 20:37
  you know, 11: That will be RH estate wine.
• 20:38
  you know, 11: So we're going to have kind of two brands running kind of next to each other.
• 20:41
  you know, 11: Sure.
• 20:42
  you know, 11: Giving credence to the Red Hawk, this vineyard, but at the same time giving a slight, slight alter ego personality to the RH estate wines.
• 20:53
  you know, 11: Yeah. Brand. Yeah, I love that.
• 20:56
  you know, 11: So what varieties do you currently grow here at the estate?
• 21:00
  you know, 11: So here I was saying this.
• 21:02
  you know, 11: We have a portion of our vineyard plant in 1978 that's unrooted Pinot noir we have and that was planned 78.
• 21:09
  you know, 11: So then you have to fast forward to 88.
• 21:10
  you know, 11: And that was one of the biggest planting was done.
• 21:12
  you know, 11: And they planted some Pinot gris.
• 21:15
  you know, 11: They planned some more Pinot noir, and they also planted eight rows of Riesling and some Dolcetto, which is kind of an obscure varietal.
• 21:24
  you know, 11: So I think we have some of the oldest Dolcetto planted in Oregon.
• 21:26
  you know, 11: We only have nine rows of it, so we make about 600 bottles.
• 21:29
  you know, 11: But it's an interesting bridal to be chosen here and probably actually now as we've kind of gotten warmer, it does get to a degree of ripeness.
• 21:37
  you know, 11: I think in probably 20 years ago they were making rosé out of it because they couldn't get it ripe.
• 21:41
  you know, 11: But as we've we've warmed I'm lost two vintages.
• 21:45
  you know, 11: I made a delicious red wine out of the Dolcetto.
• 21:48
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 21:48
  you know, 11: You were talking about how important it was to you to have, like, a mature vineyard.
• 21:53
  you know, 11: Will you explain to those that are, like, very new to the wine industry, or don't even know how a vineyard produces grapes that, like, you can't make wine out of a three year old vineyard because those grapes are too young?
• 22:04
  you know, 11: Like the maturity of the grapes and the important that you get better.
• 22:08
  you know, 11: You could make wines out of grapes that are three years old, but you're probably not going to be much consistency.
• 22:14
  you know, 11: Sure, there's no there are cadences.
• 22:17
  you know, 11: It's much like a it's much like a child or even going into their teen years.
• 22:23
  you know, 11: Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, and they start to get their cadence.
• 22:28
  you know, 11: You start to get to know what a vineyard is going to give you.
• 22:31
  you know, 11: By them getting older, they start to give you more consistency, more, more, maybe consistent blue fruit or more consistent spice.
• 22:39
  you know, 11: And they also start to self-regulate.
• 22:42
  you know, 11: So they're not so excitable by rain or heat.
• 22:46
  you know, 11: You know, their vines, the roots are going deep enough in the ground that they just they self-regulate themselves a bit better.
• 22:52
  you know, 11: So you have a hopefully in the end, the theory is that you have just a more consistent wine and it shows you what it wants to be in that given place.
• 23:04
  you know, 11: Yeah, that's a great analogy.
• 23:05
  you know, 11: I like the idea that you're saying it's like a child.
• 23:08
  you know, 11: That makes total sense because the older you get, the more consistent usually.
• 23:12
  you know, 11: Yeah, that's the goal anyway.
• 23:15
  you know, 11: But no, that makes sense.
• 23:16
  you know, 11: Like the excitable.
• 23:17
  you know, 11: I could totally picture that it is because sometimes young vines make fabulous wines and they'll do it for eight years in a row and you're like, oh, that's going to be a blockbuster vineyard.
• 23:26
  you know, 11: And then as it gets a little older, they, they, they lose their, their their excitement a bit.
• 23:30
  you know, 11: And maybe it's not as exciting.
• 23:32
  you know, 11: And then sometimes it's the other way around.
• 23:34
  you know, 11: It's of like it's not very good when it was you know, it was ten and all of a sudden you're like whoa, 15.
• 23:39
  you know, 11: It's like, oh, okay. It's starting to show something interesting.
• 23:42
  you know, 11: But I've almost never tasted a wine from a vineyard that's 35, 45, 55, 65 years old.
• 23:49
  you know, 11: That is not bringing some complexity to it that some something else.
• 23:53
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 23:54
  you know, 11: Which is for me in working for the French is what we know about Pinot noir and really what people are specifically is it it signs where it's from.
• 24:04
  you know, 11: It goes back to when I felt like I knew this place already.
• 24:06
  you know, 11: Before you even tasting many of the wines is I was I was tasting the place right next to us and kind of yeah, they're slightly different elevations, a little different how we how we saw plants are a little different.
• 24:18
  you know, 11: But I mean, we're talking feet, not miles.
• 24:21
  you know, 11: And so there was already kind of this personality that I felt like I knew in advance of us buying this.
• 24:27
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 24:28
  you know, 11: What are some of your goals with this place?
• 24:31
  you know, 11: My goals. I have one goal now.
• 24:33
  you know, 11: I have many goals to make money.
• 24:33
  you know, 11: Please come.
• 24:36
  you know, 11: Please come spend.
• 24:37
  you know, 11: No no no no no. The goal is to.
• 24:40
  you know, 11: The goal is to have fun making the best one possible.
• 24:42
  you know, 11: All right. That's a great goal.
• 24:42
  you know, 11: That's literally the goal.
• 24:45
  you know, 11: This is not generational for us.
• 24:47
  you know, 11: I don't have kids.
• 24:48
  you know, 11: Tracy has adult done kids.
• 24:50
  you know, 11: They don't seem to be interested.
• 24:50
  you know, 11: Maybe that could that could change.
• 24:52
  you know, 11: Yeah, but it's not generational.
• 24:53
  you know, 11: I just turned 50.
• 24:55
  you know, 11: So, you know, God willing, I want to do this time, like 65, make the best wine possible, but I want to have the most fun doing it.
• 25:02
  you know, 11: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:03
  you know, 11: Highly, highly important to me.
• 25:05
  you know, 11: So we have a lot of fun during harvest.
• 25:09
  you know, 11: You know, our harvest party, for example, we all get down, break bread together.
• 25:12
  you know, 11: We all pressed everything and crushed everything and processed everything.
• 25:16
  you know, 11: So we get down at the very last day of harvest.
• 25:19
  you know, 11: When we've done picking the grapes, we have this party.
• 25:21
  you know, 11: It's called the French.
• 25:21
  you know, 11: It's called the pole, just the harvest party.
• 25:24
  you know, 11: But we just had some fun, and we had just enough fun that we ended up actually our own winery and tasting room and tasting room.
• 25:31
  you know, 11: So it goes back to the mantra of, you know, have fun, but but have fun making serious wines.
• 25:38
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 25:38
  you know, 11: For those that don't know what harvest entails for this size farm, you said you had 23 acres.
• 25:45
  you know, 11: How many people do you need to harvest that?
• 25:48
  you know, 11: So picking wise we had up to ten people picking.
• 25:51
  you know, 11: So we were only picking about seven tons a day.
• 25:55
  you know, 11: So that's you know, that's for our little operation.
• 25:58
  you know, 11: Seven tons is good.
• 25:59
  you know, 11: Plus we're maybe having a little purchase fruit come in.
• 26:01
  you know, 11: So we have no more than ever ten tons in a day.
• 26:02
  you know, 11: So up to ten people picking in the vineyard.
• 26:05
  you know, 11: We don't go and pick ourselves.
• 26:06
  you know, 11: It's we we have a vineyard management company that helps us do that.
• 26:11
  you know, 11: But then I had an army from around the country.
• 26:13
  you know, 11: So it's I had at some points I had eight people helping me, probably too much help.
• 26:19
  you know, 11: But again, just wanted to be part of the fun. Yeah.
• 26:21
  you know, 11: The community.
• 26:22
  you know, 11: Yeah, yeah, that's important to community.
• 26:25
  you know, 11: And you know, there's some locals that are wine club members or our wine club members.
• 26:30
  you know, 11: Again, I had some friends around the United States, and it was so, you know, in the end, it's about 20 of us really, which is probably too much.
• 26:39
  you know, 11: But again, be contagious and people will want to come.
• 26:42
  you know, 11: Yeah, I love that.
• 26:45
  you know, 11: What about what are some of the goals I know you your personal goals, but what about for the winery itself?
• 26:50
  you know, 11: Or like events that you hope to host sometime or things you want to continue?
• 26:55
  you know, 11: That is the success of our business.
• 26:57
  you know, 11: You know, we're 85% DTC or direct to consumer.
• 27:01
  you know, 11: So our business is our tasting room, is our is our wine club is our events.
• 27:05
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 27:06
  you know, 11: That's where I have to give the utmost kudos to Tracy.
• 27:10
  you know, 11: The she she's the planner of all of those things.
• 27:14
  you know, 11: Megan and Tracy, I show up and have fun and have insight.
• 27:19
  you know, 11: I have insight to the events, but I leave it kind of stay in my I stay in my lane, which is more the production side and, and we'll be in the hospitality side.
• 27:27
  you know, 11: But I just like we're talking about off off mike again about the ladies.
• 27:32
  you know, 11: We had ladies night here. Yeah.
• 27:34
  you know, 11: That's so fun.
• 27:35
  you know, 11: I wish I would have known about it and I'm guy so I'm just sometimes it's like I don't know if this is going to translate.
• 27:41
  you know, 11: I'm like, okay, we have a tattoo artist.
• 27:43
  you know, 11: We got the boutique shopping.
• 27:44
  you know, 11: There was some chocolates, there was some other things.
• 27:46
  you know, 11: And and then I was and there's 150 people here shopping and getting tattoos and drinking wine.
• 27:53
  you know, 11: And I was like, all right, I go, I'm just going to shut up, and I'm just going to sit over here and shake hands.
• 27:58
  you know, 11: Megan, do their magic.
• 28:00
  you know, 11: Yeah, I'll just try to make good wine.
• 28:02
  you know, 11: Us ladies, we like a good event where we can, like, accomplish multiple things in one spot.
• 28:07
  you know, 11: It's the best, this madness.
• 28:09
  you know, 11: It's a Wednesday night.
• 28:10
  you know, 11: Well, especially Tracy can relate to this because she's also in the real estate industry and title.
• 28:17
  you know, 11: So she has that gig and this gig and so and for me to like somebody that's like got multiple wears multiple hats to be able to like come hang out with a bunch of people at one time.
• 28:29
  you know, 11: Also do a little shopping, support local, support you guys local, get maybe a fun temporary tattoo all in like three hours.
• 28:36
  you know, 11: I feel like I just did a week's worth of events in three hours.
• 28:38
  you know, 11: It's very efficient and fun.
• 28:40
  you know, 11: Like, yeah, events like that makes sense.
• 28:43
  you know, 11: Community.
• 28:43
  you know, 11: We hit that a couple of times.
• 28:45
  you know, 11: That was that was highly important to us as well.
• 28:48
  you know, 11: Tracy grew up in Salem, was born and raised in Salem.
• 28:50
  you know, 11: So I mean, she could be the mayor.
• 28:52
  you know, 11: Maybe she will be someday, but she knows we don't go anywhere.
• 28:55
  you know, 11: Anywhere. Yeah.
• 28:56
  you know, 11: Knowing Tracy or vice versa.
• 28:58
  you know, 11: And I didn't have that.
• 28:59
  you know, 11: I worked for a larger brand that I did a lot of, you know, it had a more global spans.
• 29:04
  you know, 11: So, you know, I remember doing an event in Washington, DC for the American Heart Association, which is fantastic. That's great.
• 29:10
  you know, 11: But I just had this and this is not against June whatsoever.
• 29:13
  you know, 11: It just I was going different.
• 29:14
  you know, 11: What exactly different because there's different spans in scope.
• 29:18
  you know, 11: I was like, what is John do for the Newberg school district.
• 29:21
  you know, 11: And again not against true.
• 29:22
  you know, 11: And they just have a larger reach. Sure.
• 29:24
  you know, 11: Nothing.
• 29:25
  you know, 11: And I and so that I started when I started turning I said I love I loved what how much Red Hawk was giving to the Salem community.
• 29:33
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 29:33
  you know, 11: Donated to the YMCA events to to just everything was just they had Merced themselves and I really really my soul was kind of searching for that.
• 29:41
  you know, 11: And, and Tracy was involved in.
• 29:44
  you know, 11: So I was going, God, that's another aspect of the business that I just love is that I feel like we we support the community and it's going to be 100% reciprocal.
• 29:54
  you know, 11: And I can tell you 18 months in, it's it's 110% reciprocal.
• 29:58
  you know, 11: Yeah. In every way.
• 29:59
  you know, 11: So speaking of this area, a lot of people, when they think about Oregon wine country, they obviously they think of Dundee, Newberg, Willamette Valley.
• 30:08
  you know, 11: Will you speak a little bit to Iola Hills and why people should come out towards the Salem Eola area?
• 30:14
  you know, 11: Because there are quite a few vineyards out here and do a day of tasting out here.
• 30:20
  you know, 11: It is the new best spot to grow.
• 30:23
  you know, 11: Yeah, it really is.
• 30:24
  you know, 11: I mean it is Dundee Hills. Dundee Hills has us.
• 30:27
  you know, 11: That's that's where Pinot Noir was first planted.
• 30:29
  you know, 11: Sure has the longevity of old, old vines.
• 30:32
  you know, 11: But if you're talking about what is the most exciting place and I know I'm slightly biased now, but I think that this would be true a lot.
• 30:41
  you know, 11: I can't know the exact stat, but we're we have the highest percentage of 92 or higher scoring wines by almost double.
• 30:51
  you know, 11: Oh wow.
• 30:52
  you know, 11: That's impressive Amity Hills Ava than any other ABA in Oregon.
• 30:56
  you know, 11: So the reason I believe is that we get we get ripe during the day.
• 31:01
  you know, 11: But what we have is we have the Van Duzer effect to our west.
• 31:05
  you know, 11: So the MIT Hills opens to the Van Duzer, which is our the lowest point in our coastal mountains, which gives us wind in the evening.
• 31:12
  you know, 11: And so we get a very nice, you know, high temperature, let's say in July it's 85.
• 31:18
  you know, 11: But if we're 85 on July 15th, we're going to be 56 at night, if that makes sense.
• 31:23
  you know, 11: 72 on July 15th, we're going to be 58 or 59 at night.
• 31:28
  you know, 11: Why grapes like that is it gives them a chance to rest.
• 31:31
  you know, 11: So they ripen during the day and they get to have a rest period at night, aka the diurnal shift in temperature.
• 31:37
  you know, 11: Yeah, that's what I think makes this place quite special.
• 31:40
  you know, 11: Of course, the volcanic soils, we have some jewelry soil.
• 31:42
  you know, 11: We have mostly nikaya, but it is that the Dundee Hills will also get the cooldown, but it takes them three hours longer to get there.
• 31:50
  you know, 11: It's because we just open directly to the wind.
• 31:53
  you know, 11: And I know it because I live in it now.
• 31:55
  you know, 11: The house every night, right when the sun sets, all of a sudden the trees to start howling and it's constant for about an hour and then it just dies down. Interesting.
• 32:02
  you know, 11: It's cool.
• 32:04
  you know, 11: We have built in air conditioning.
• 32:05
  you know, 11: Yeah. Love it.
• 32:07
  you know, 11: How many do you know off the top of your head the amount of wineries or vineyards out here?
• 32:13
  you know, 11: No, but I could say I could say there's at least 40 within a 25 mile radius.
• 32:20
  you know, 11: Yeah, I was going to say it's quite a bit.
• 32:23
  you know, 11: Bethel Heights, Bryn Mawr, Pearl Stad, RH wines, Evesham would lingua franca.
• 32:29
  you know, 11: It goes on and on. Yeah.
• 32:32
  you know, 11: And your experience, do you find that there's a lot of collaboration over competition or.
• 32:38
  you know, 11: Yeah, I was going to say most winemakers I've talked to, especially in the Willamette Valley, only a couple have been like, oh, I haven't found that.
• 32:45
  you know, 11: But most of said collaboration over competition is the community.
• 32:49
  you know, 11: That's what's that's what's nice about Oregon.
• 32:51
  you know, 11: You know, we're not we're not California.
• 32:53
  you know, 11: And then and you see it, you know, maybe there's a little more competition in the Dundee area just as a more established wineries.
• 33:00
  you know, 11: But coming to the hills was quite refreshing because everybody just wants to help everybody.
• 33:05
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 33:05
  you know, 11: Like I'm loaning my tractor this afternoon to another vineyard that their sprayer went down.
• 33:10
  you know, 11: And so they're going to come government tractor and spray tomorrow.
• 33:13
  you know, 11: Yeah I love that.
• 33:14
  you know, 11: So it's yeah it's you know because you never you never know.
• 33:16
  you know, 11: It's it's again it goes back to reciprocation.
• 33:18
  you know, 11: Never know when you're going to.
• 33:19
  you know, 11: You'll need that favor. Yeah.
• 33:21
  you know, 11: Well and helping them spray isn't going to ruin your business.
• 33:25
  you know, 11: You know like and that's just the kind and right thing to do.
• 33:29
  you know, 11: Your home might be worth more than you think.
• 33:32
  you know, 11: Curious what your equity looks like.
• 33:34
  you know, 11: I'll run the numbers for you.
• 33:35
  you know, 11: No pressure, just clarity.
• 33:37
  you know, 11: Please reach out any time.
• 33:38
  you know, 11: Let's look at this together.
• 33:41
  you know, 11: If someone wanted to become a wine club member, what would they expect from their wine club?
• 33:46
  you know, 11: On club, it's a commitment of 12 bottles a year.
• 33:48
  you know, 11: We have a case club as well, which is a case of three cases a year.
• 33:52
  you know, 11: So we do three wine club shipments a year, one in the one in the fall, one in October, one in the winter months, February, and then one we just we just had a couple weeks ago in May.
• 34:01
  you know, 11: And that's it's a commitment of 12 bottles kind of our choosing.
• 34:04
  you know, 11: And that's an assortment of Pinot noir.
• 34:06
  you know, 11: We're drinking the Riesling.
• 34:07
  you know, 11: We just had actually had that in the wine club.
• 34:09
  you know, 11: Release Riesling.
• 34:11
  you know, 11: We can you can switch out ball.
• 34:13
  you know, 11: Some people don't like whites and people like only whites.
• 34:15
  you know, 11: So there's a lot of flexibility.
• 34:16
  you know, 11: It's two exclusive events.
• 34:19
  you know, 11: You know, we had a music weekend over the last week, Memorial Day weekend.
• 34:22
  you know, 11: So that was kind of free entry to the to to listen to music and drink wine.
• 34:27
  you know, 11: Yeah. For wine club members we'll do a blending party.
• 34:30
  you know, 11: That's for wine club members only.
• 34:31
  you know, 11: I mean they are, they are.
• 34:34
  you know, 11: They deserve the most because they are our best customers, if that makes sense.
• 34:37
  you know, 11: And they're ambassadors of the brand and so does that include tastings to like if they were to bring a guest or free tasting with a with a wine club membership, we also offer sometimes people just want to come up and have a glass of wine.
• 34:50
  you know, 11: So they come up.
• 34:50
  you know, 11: They can have a complimentary either a tasting or a complimentary glass of wine.
• 34:54
  you know, 11: Yeah, that's I think that's that's becoming more and more rare that, kind of that, that kind of perk and wine clubs.
• 35:01
  you know, 11: But it's something we'll hold true to.
• 35:03
  you know, 11: Well it is nice because like if you do belong to a wine club, you had their tasting unless they have a new year out or a different variety come out, you might have had their tasting multiple times.
• 35:13
  you know, 11: But if I want to bring a friend that's never had the tasting be like you, do the tasting.
• 35:16
  you know, 11: I'm just not going to have a glass on my favorite, you know, because yeah, which is amazing because then they still get to enjoy the full tasting, but I just get to have my favorite while they're doing it.
• 35:26
  you know, 11: Let's wrap up.
• 35:27
  you know, 11: You opened a red and I'm excited to taste.
• 35:30
  you know, 11: Yeah, I don't like maybe it's easier for you to pour.
• 35:33
  you know, 11: I know I always joke like the very first time we recorded, I was not as good at pouring or sipping with the mic, but it's become a talent.
• 35:46
  you know, 11: I've only spilled one bottle so far.
• 35:48
  you know, 11: I've spoken.
• 35:49
  you know, 11: I mean on the podcast.
• 35:51
  you know, 11: I felt wine in my life for sure.
• 35:53
  you know, 11: I spoke coffee is supposed to spill at all.
• 35:56
  you know, 11: I spent a lot of wine in my 28 years in my business.
• 35:59
  you know, 11: Yeah, I'm sure this wine is.
• 36:01
  you know, 11: I thought it'd be fun to have.
• 36:03
  you know, 11: It's the 1978 unrooted, so we have the fortune of making six barrels of this.
• 36:08
  you know, 11: Well, we were given six barrels as far as what the vineyard gave us.
• 36:12
  you know, 11: I bottled four of them as this wine that makes about 1200 bottles.
• 36:16
  you know, 11: It was called in the past, Particle Family Vineyard.
• 36:20
  you know, 11: I was really struggling with what to call this wine when we were renaming blocks and things, and I was walking around the corner with our venue manager, and for some reason, I wanted to tie a name to it because it already had a name.
• 36:32
  you know, 11: So I was like Belle Rogers.
• 36:33
  you know, 11: I was trying to come up with something and not have a pencil out walking around the corner with a ravine manager, and he goes, oh, and Aaron, here's a very special 13 rows of Pinot Noir.
• 36:43
  you know, 11: And I said, one, you're brilliant.
• 36:46
  you know, 11: You just named it just the genius is in the simplicity.
• 36:49
  you know, 11: This is what we now call our 13 rows block of Pinot Noir.
• 36:57
  you know, 11: Fresh, good texture, slight firmness that will give you on the finish.
• 37:03
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 37:04
  you know, 11: So Smith in January, it smells great.
• 37:13
  you know, 11: And it tastes even better.
• 37:17
  you know, 11: We were fortunate to have such a beautiful vintage in the transition of 24.
• 37:20
  you know, 11: Just beautiful wines.
• 37:22
  you know, 11: Great texture, good volume, good yields, good.
• 37:25
  you know, 11: Good quality of fruit, good good health of the fruit.
• 37:27
  you know, 11: And then 25 I was 25 is a blockbuster.
• 37:32
  you know, 11: I honestly in my career I, I had never seen more more beautiful fruit.
• 37:36
  you know, 11: I mean the fruit was pristine but not only pristine in its cosmetic looks, but it's chemistry as well.
• 37:41
  you know, 11: So do you think that's because we had a little bit more mild like year all around?
• 37:45
  you know, 11: We didn't have as many fires or any kind of like craziness in 25.
• 37:49
  you know, 11: Goes back to cadence.
• 37:50
  you know, 11: But yeah, kind of got a nice summer, hot summer, but it got hot and then it cooled off, got hot and then it cooled off.
• 37:56
  you know, 11: And so it goes back to that, you know you know, got some ripening time and then it got a little time to rest.
• 38:00
  you know, 11: Well we didn't have like a major freeze.
• 38:02
  you know, 11: There's been like some years where we've had like all of a sudden in the Valley we don't get a ton of snow and ice.
• 38:07
  you know, 11: And then we've had some years where it's like, is this snow?
• 38:10
  you know, 11: We only get ice.
• 38:11
  you know, 11: What's happening?
• 38:11
  you know, 11: So yeah, 25 it felt like was kind of mild.
• 38:14
  you know, 11: We're early, just I guess kind of end up on that note is it will it'll be one of the earlier harvests on record.
• 38:19
  you know, 11: We had a very you know, we had really no winter per se.
• 38:22
  you know, 11: We had one little tiny snow event.
• 38:24
  you know, 11: Yeah. We had the warmest April on record.
• 38:26
  you know, 11: We hit 90 in April.
• 38:29
  you know, 11: So we're probably normally this this vineyard would historically would start around the 22nd, 23rd of September.
• 38:36
  you know, 11: We're probably going to start on the third.
• 38:39
  you know, 11: So we're about three weeks ahead of schedule, which is not a bad it's not a bad thing.
• 38:41
  you know, 11: It is what it is.
• 38:44
  you know, 11: But it on the fridge. It's ready. Exactly.
• 38:47
  you know, 11: You got to pick.
• 38:48
  you know, 11: So you said you have a company that comes out and helps you with harvest.
• 38:52
  you know, 11: Are they so is that hard to book since, like, you're kind of watching the fruit and waiting for it to be ready?
• 38:57
  you know, 11: Or do you kind of give them a heads up like we think we're going to pick around this time?
• 39:00
  you know, 11: I control what I can control.
• 39:02
  you know, 11: Yeah, totally. Kind of.
• 39:03
  you know, 11: I'm kind of a control freak in that way. Got it.
• 39:05
  you know, 11: So I but I can start to do that.
• 39:05
  you know, 11: I've done this long.
• 39:07
  you know, 11: You can start to do some basic math of when harvest is going to be.
• 39:10
  you know, 11: So I like to be in the front of the front of the line.
• 39:13
  you know, 11: So being how to be in front of the line is to get the information to who you need to first. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense in July.
• 39:19
  you know, 11: I'll already be kind of saying, hey alderman leaning towards September 3rd cause there's some numbers, you know, here from flowering to sorry from bud break to flowering is somewhere between 45 and 55 days.
• 39:33
  you know, 11: Okay. Average. Sure.
• 39:35
  you know, 11: And then from from flowering, from mid flowering until harvest is anywhere between 99 days and 104 days. Oh.
• 39:43
  you know, 11: So I can start to do some pretty, pretty good math again.
• 39:47
  you know, 11: It's not perfect what it means all the time.
• 39:48
  you know, 11: We can have a heatwave at the end of August and that means everything up by five days.
• 39:52
  you know, 11: Or it could cool off, but it's a good idea.
• 39:55
  you know, 11: But it is a general idea. Good idea.
• 39:57
  you know, 11: So I like to give him a forecast of I did well.
• 39:59
  you know, 11: 25 was my first vintage.
• 39:59
  you know, 11: I gave him a forecast in August.
• 40:02
  you know, 11: I go, this is kind of what I'm thinking, and I because I dug through all of John Petioles.
• 40:07
  you know, 11: We had a harvest book, and so I kind of knew the blocks.
• 40:10
  you know, 11: And when there seemed to be a consistency on how he harvested the blocks just based on how they ripened.
• 40:15
  you know, 11: So I was kind of made an educated guess of, of, of the series of how we would pick.
• 40:21
  you know, 11: And so, yeah.
• 40:22
  you know, 11: Have the pinnacles come to visit. Yeah.
• 40:25
  you know, 11: She's Betty's going to have her 60th birthday here.
• 40:27
  you know, 11: Oh I love that. Yeah.
• 40:28
  you know, 11: So no there they're, they're happy that it, it's the bottom was passed to somebody that kind of has the same dream they had.
• 40:37
  you know, 11: Sure.
• 40:37
  you know, 11: And wants to like keep the same kind of feel and vibe and everything.
• 40:43
  you know, 11: That's exactly right.
• 40:43
  you know, 11: You want to keep the vibe the same.
• 40:45
  you know, 11: Well and you have the relationship or like she wants to come however birthday here versus like, oh no, it's new owners.
• 40:51
  you know, 11: We don't really friendly passing baton and they still live local.
• 40:53
  you know, 11: They still live in West Salem.
• 40:54
  you know, 11: And yeah they, they they Betty pops up more than John, but they lifetime Wine Club members.
• 41:01
  you know, 11: They just honorary member.
• 41:03
  you know, 11: Yeah, that makes sense. Really fat discount.
• 41:05
  you know, 11: Always sure they deserve it. Yeah.
• 41:07
  you know, 11: And no it's been lovely.
• 41:09
  you know, 11: And John has 20 years of this vineyard and making wine.
• 41:13
  you know, 11: And so if I have a question or what would you do in this situation?
• 41:16
  you know, 11: I mean, I have my ideas, but you know, he did it on this property from these grapes for 20 years. So he's a he's a good sounding board.
• 41:23
  you know, 11: So I like to wrap up conversation sometimes with just a little piece of wisdom or advice for any business owner out there, whether they're in wine or real estate.
• 41:35
  you know, 11: The idea of you said you guys just pushed all your chips in, what gave you the confidence to do that?
• 41:43
  you know, 11: Or what would you tell somebody that are like, oh, I want to push all my chips in, but they're hesitating.
• 41:49
  you know, 11: I think that for me and for Tracy and I, I think we both had a skill set that we could bring to this business that could further this business to the next level.
• 42:01
  you know, 11: And we had the I guess, quickly we knew that we had the trust in each other, that we could do it.
• 42:09
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 42:09
  you know, 11: I feel like a pretty dynamic duo from what she does in her day job and her connections to Salem and my kind of winemaking.
• 42:17
  you know, 11: Yeah. Is that.
• 42:18
  you know, 11: But it is a it is. You do have to jump.
• 42:21
  you know, 11: You do have to jump.
• 42:22
  you know, 11: That is you have to because that is a it's you know, that was, as they say, it's the number one factor of people not doing something is fear.
• 42:28
  you know, 11: Yeah.
• 42:29
  you know, 11: Well and that's just because of the saying no risk, no reward.
• 42:32
  you know, 11: Like sometimes you just have to be willing to take the risk and you have to be and and you have to be willing to fail.
• 42:37
  you know, 11: So we thought of that many times.
• 42:40
  you know, 11: Maybe this doesn't work, but we still get to wake up here.
• 42:45
  you know, 11: That's not the whole, you know, it's the, you know, and that's not the but you have to but you just gotta put your chips in the middle table. Yeah.
• 42:50
  you know, 11: I mean, if you're going to go, go if you, if you want to play, you got to play.
• 42:53
  you know, 11: If you're going to go, go. Yeah, I love that.
• 42:55
  you know, 11: Thank you so much for sharing your wine with me.
• 42:58
  you know, 11: Sharing your story.
• 42:59
  you know, 11: If you're listening, please come check them out.
• 43:02
  you know, 11: The wine is delicious first and foremost, but the atmosphere is amazing and the views are breathtaking.
• 43:08
  you know, 11: Cheers to you! Thanks for the conversation.
• 43:10
  you know, 11: Yes, thank you for listening and watching and I'll see you next time.
• 43:14
  you know, 11: Cheers.