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Wine, Business & Building Something Unique — The Reality of Winemaking · The Realtor Who Wines

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Realtor Who Wins podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm Rashelle Newmeyer.
• 0:03
  Your host is with the most is 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.
• 0:33
  Isn't this a beautiful artwork?
• 0:34
  It is.
• 0:35
  Is it one artist?
• 0:36
  Every month I go to new artist.
• 0:38
  That's so cool. Who you met?
• 0:39
  Who's the wine club manager?
• 0:41
  She and her husband run an art gallery.
• 0:44
  Oh, and they used to have a physical space.
• 0:46
  McMinnville.
• 0:48
  And then they decided to just eliminate that physical space.
• 0:52
  Still represent their artists, but bring their artist out to all these other things.
• 0:57
  Cool. That's really cool.
• 0:58
  You know, having to pay rent and totally.
• 1:00
  Well, and a lot of times artists don't really have a spot to set up.
• 1:04
  And even if it is at an art gallery, sometimes they have to pay to be there, you know?
• 1:08
  So it's not a play kind of broker, and I love that for them.
• 1:12
  That's really cool.
• 1:12
  And it always adds to the ambiance.
• 1:14
  Every month, you know, clients that come here get to see something different.
• 1:18
  That's really cool to do.
• 1:20
  The did everything come pre frame to are these some other stuff.
• 1:23
  Stay.
• 1:23
  Oh yeah. Everything's ready for purchase.
• 1:26
  That's cool I love the frames over there.
• 1:26
  Those are neat.
• 1:29
  Yeah really cool. Yeah, those are different.
• 1:31
  Yeah.
• 1:32
  Well, I am so excited to talk to you today and learn more about you and your winemaking history.
• 1:38
  David, do you mind introducing yourself to everyone?
• 1:41
  Yeah.
• 1:42
  David pot, sun break wines.
• 1:45
  I'm the owner and winemaker.
• 1:47
  We started in 2018 is when I established the brand, and before that, I was 25 years with the U.S.
• 1:56
  Fish and Wildlife Service and worked mostly in Portland and also in Washington, D.C..
• 2:01
  So amazing.
• 2:02
  Second career for me.
• 2:03
  I love that.
• 2:04
  Well, cheers to you.
• 2:04
  Thank you for being on.
• 2:08
  You're welcome.
• 2:12
  That's so good.
• 2:14
  I can't wait to talk a little more about the wine, but I do want to talk about your background a little bit first before we just dive into the wines.
• 2:21
  Talk about that transition.
• 2:24
  How did you go from working fish and wildlife to wine?
• 2:28
  Well, you know, I've always loved wine.
• 2:31
  I also love to ride bicycles, but I didn't feel like I needed to become a bicycle maker.
• 2:39
  Maybe that's their career.
• 2:41
  That's something about wine.
• 2:43
  Intrigued me.
• 2:43
  And I really got the wine bug.
• 2:46
  I had friends that have a vineyard in the Columbia Gorge, and we would help them out and visit with them.
• 2:53
  And so I started to learn a little bit about viticulture.
• 2:56
  I met a lot of winemakers for them, and became more and more interested in learning how to craft wine.
• 3:04
  And it's kind of a fascinating field of kind of a mix of science and art, which I really appreciate.
• 3:13
  And so, yeah, that's kind of how I got started.
• 3:17
  Just having friends that were in the industry getting more and more about it, and volunteering at different wineries during harvest.
• 3:26
  Sure.
• 3:27
  And just becoming a totally intrigued by the prospect of, you know, learning how to make wine, potentially starting a business.
• 3:36
  So just little steps. Yeah.
• 3:39
  I saw you did a lot of apprenticeships.
• 3:42
  I did. I think that's so important.
• 3:44
  There are a lot of fields that really do require more than book learning.
• 3:53
  You know, you really have to learn for sure with others helping you along.
• 3:57
  And there's so many different aspects to just the winemaking side.
• 4:01
  And if you're also going to have the viticulture side, there's even more on that side of it.
• 4:08
  And then there's the whole hospitality part, the sales, right?
• 4:12
  Marketing, all of that.
• 4:14
  And then the other part of the business is the accounting, the website, the the books, keeping the books, all of that.
• 4:21
  So there are a lot of different aspects to having a winery.
• 4:25
  So that is for me it's it's very enjoyable because, you know, you do get to use a lot of different skill sets totally in the way it's an entrepreneur. And you have to kind of be careful and balance all of that, because it is a delicate dance for sure.
• 4:47
  I have, you know, because sometimes I get totally immersed into the wine making and then I say, oh, wait, you know, this is like a big sales season coming up.
• 4:57
  And I really had to shift over shift gears.
• 5:00
  Yeah.
• 5:01
  So I totally see that for anybody that's like super green or novice getting into winemaking that would like to seek out an apprenticeship.
• 5:12
  How did you go about finding the different apprenticeships?
• 5:15
  Where did you play online?
• 5:17
  Was it personal relationships?
• 5:19
  Yeah. For me it was personal relationships.
• 5:22
  So if you do have a winery that you enjoy and you know those folks, they typically are always looking for help during harvest.
• 5:32
  So that's when the grapes come in.
• 5:34
  And the wine making process starts in September October period in the Willamette Valley.
• 5:39
  So there are a lot of opportunities for part time short labor, but it does to really experience that well, you really need to take a few weeks, 4 or 5 weeks off so you can really kind of dive in.
• 5:56
  Some wineries might let you come in 1 or 2 days a week.
• 6:01
  As long as you know they know that you're going to be there during the whole well, especially if you're a volunteer versus paid.
• 6:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 6:09
  And volunteer work is a little difficult for sure for businesses, as you know, it can be a little because of different labor laws.
• 6:23
  Definitely. So it's a little difficult.
• 6:26
  Yeah.
• 6:27
  When you first started doing apprenticeships or just dipping your toes into winemaking, what were some things that caught you off guard or that you were just like, oh, I didn't even realize that was part of the process.
• 6:38
  Oh my gosh.
• 6:39
  The biggest part that really surprised me is that 80% of our time we spend like cleaning equipment.
• 6:47
  Oh my gosh, that makes sense because the 80 is a little too odd.
• 6:50
  But you know, we have to clean everything before the grapes come in and the processing happens.
• 6:56
  And then at the end of the day, you have to clean all the equipment and then you get to start that whole process again the following morning.
• 7:03
  Yeah.
• 7:04
  Because, well, anything left on the equipment will change.
• 7:07
  Exactly.
• 7:07
  The grapes, the dynamic, the taste we want.
• 7:11
  You know, if you're if you're working in a really quality winery environment, you really want everything to be clean and pristine.
• 7:17
  And I've worked in all sorts of facilities.
• 7:19
  And not everyone has the same cleanliness standard, but it does require, after a long day work.
• 7:27
  You know, there are 15 pieces of machinery that need, and they're not always small either.
• 7:32
  Sometimes they're like the giant big press. Yeah.
• 7:35
  And sorting machines and all sorts of things.
• 7:38
  Totally. Yeah. That's so funny.
• 7:41
  So, as you were doing your apprenticeship, so what kind of things stuck out to you, like, oh, I want to do that someday when I have my own business or I'm going to not do that.
• 7:49
  Where there are certain things that stuck out to you.
• 7:52
  Well, first of all, you know, I definitely wanted to start as as a cellar hand so I could learn to use all the equipment and know how to do all the process.
• 8:03
  But yeah, after a while, you quickly want to become the manager, right?
• 8:08
  And tell other people.
• 8:08
  Do the groundwork. Sure.
• 8:11
  But I have some equipment. You can wait.
• 8:13
  If you're thinking about making a lifestyle upgrade, maybe wine country acreage, grape views, or do you want to go downtown?
• 8:21
  Let's talk. Either way, I want to help you level up.
• 8:24
  Reach out now and we'll make your dreams come true.
• 8:27
  As you were starting to think about your business and like going into this business yourself.
• 8:32
  Was there anything that you like took with you, like, as you were doing something like, oh, I really appreciate this.
• 8:39
  That's happening at this winery or oh, I don't think that's for me or I probably won't mess with that varietal. That's not for me.
• 8:45
  What kind of things stood out to you throughout your different apprenticeship journeys?
• 8:49
  Yeah, there is such a learning process and on top of the apprenticeships, I was also taking classes at Comic-Con and they have a wonderful wine studies program.
• 9:00
  They really do.
• 9:01
  And they love their wine tasting room and all of that stuff.
• 9:04
  That's great.
• 9:04
  And the industry had donated a vineyard and and help them build a winery for the students.
• 9:10
  So it's just a great learning environment.
• 9:12
  Definitely recommend that. Yeah.
• 9:15
  Every what.
• 9:16
  What I learned was that every different winemaker had different approaches to when they harvested the grapes, how they did their fermentations, how they processed, and what's kind of styles they were looking for in their Pinot noir and white wines and other red varietals.
• 9:41
  But I was really fascinated with the Pinot noir, so I was trying to learn all the differences that I could pick up there, which makes sense for those of you listening that aren't from Oregon.
• 9:51
  We are in the heart of Pinot Noir country, so it is easy to get influence and inspired by people.
• 9:57
  It's always been my passion.
• 9:59
  And so the first winery I worked at for their fermentation technique, everything they did was what we call a stem fermentation.
• 10:09
  So, you know, you take the grapes, you remove the stems, and then you're just fermenting with the grapes themselves.
• 10:16
  So the berries and what a lot of people, sorry to interrupt you, but a lot of people don't realize that all has to be done by hand.
• 10:22
  Like there's not a machine that's not going to not crush the Great Wall.
• 10:26
  Well, no, for the d stemming, we do have machines.
• 10:29
  Oh you do.
• 10:29
  I thought it all had to be because the other technique, like the third, the second one I worked in, they would do 30% what we call a whole cluster.
• 10:38
  You know, with the stems and everything, just the whole grape cluster.
• 10:41
  And then the third one, they were just using no machines, no distancing.
• 10:48
  And this would be very old world is called whole cluster from nutation.
• 10:52
  And, and and that is more of an ancient technique because really if you have tons and tons of grapes, you could try to do some by hand.
• 11:02
  And back in the old days, that's what they did.
• 11:05
  They would try to stem by hand, but it wasn't really until the advent of really nice stemming machines that don't crush the grapes too much and remove the stems, which is a little a little difficult with Pinot noir, because Pinot noir is a very delicate type of red grape, doesn't have a very thick skin. So.
• 11:27
  So that was always a big challenge in Pinot noir.
• 11:29
  And historically, if you go to Burgundy, for example, a lot of Pinot noir, they're still made whole cluster old style.
• 11:38
  So that's when you put all the grapes in a vessel, in a fermentation tank, and you're doing the foot treading just like the old fashioned way.
• 11:46
  No machines.
• 11:47
  And it's great fun.
• 11:50
  But what I discovered from that was that, you know, it was really fascinating to me.
• 11:56
  That was kind of my learning.
• 11:57
  I had no idea, you know, going into it, that just that one decision alone could influence the flavor.
• 12:04
  Oh my gosh. Yeah. The wine.
• 12:06
  And so which one would I choose for my winery.
• 12:11
  And I decided to do all three.
• 12:13
  So I'm one of the few wineries that, you know, we'll do all three techniques for the Pinot noir.
• 12:19
  So I have one called Colette Sun Break Pinot Noir, that is all distemper.
• 12:25
  And so it tends to be a little bit more elegant and precise and fruit focused.
• 12:30
  The Orion is the whole cluster, 100% whole cluster.
• 12:33
  And so with the stems you get more texture, you get a little bit more tannin.
• 12:37
  So you get that added layer of complexity and kind of herbal, earthy quality to it that kind of comes in, but it still shows beautiful fruit.
• 12:46
  And then the Mari Paul, easy to remember two names that kind of combine both of them back in together.
• 12:52
  So it's kind of a cuvée of the two.
• 12:54
  So that's just one of the many choices.
• 12:56
  And that's that's to me, the fascinating part about being a winemaker is that no two wineries are doing things exactly the same way, for sure.
• 13:05
  So there's a lot of individuality.
• 13:08
  So as an entrepreneur, as you're starting a business, sometimes, you know, for folks who who like to to really have a lot of artistic expression or individual expression on their work, it's, it's it's a great field to be in.
• 13:26
  Yeah.
• 13:26
  Because you really do need to stand out.
• 13:28
  There are hundreds of wineries, almost certainly in our area, almost 1000 wineries in Oregon alone.
• 13:35
  Yeah.
• 13:36
  And then if you look at it in the US and globally, thousands and thousands of wineries.
• 13:41
  So what is it about your business that's going to be a little bit unique?
• 13:46
  It always has to be about what your passion is going to be.
• 13:50
  Because in the end, you're not just the winemaker or the grape grower, but you're also the marketing, the hospitality, the sales.
• 13:59
  So you really want to be excited about what you're producing, right?
• 14:02
  So I have a passion for for sure.
• 14:06
  I think you have to have that.
• 14:07
  I think what's cool about your background with your different apprenticeships, you had mentioned to me before that one did focus on whole cluster, one focused on no cluster at all, and then one was a little bit of a hybrid.
• 14:20
  So I like that you kind of took what you learned from all different three and apply it to your own business.
• 14:25
  Yeah, I guess I'm a poor decision maker to keep them all.
• 14:28
  I think you saw value in each.
• 14:31
  I saw value in each.
• 14:32
  And I really appreciated each.
• 14:34
  And and I just thought it would be unique.
• 14:39
  And for me it was a, it was a fun way for me to just continue what I had learned from all three, instead of having to really make that decision about which was my favorite style, I was appreciating, you know, the qualities of each of the styles.
• 14:57
  So I'm going to be representing all three styles from one vineyard.
• 15:01
  So it's really fun when you taste son break Pinot, you can kind of have that experience of learning.
• 15:09
  Like what style do you prefer?
• 15:11
  Yeah, and some wineries don't talk about this very much because it's just an accepted style of the house.
• 15:18
  And so they're going to talk more about, you know, the harvest or the grapes are using or the different five wines they're making from that one vineyard, but there maybe doing all the same fermentation stuff.
• 15:31
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  The wine tasting I had probably, gosh, this is going to age me a little bit.
• 15:38
  18 years ago, maybe I was living in Missouri, which isn't known necessarily for wine country.
• 15:43
  Correct.
• 15:44
  But wine tasting that like blew my mind a really opened my whole brain to learning more and more about wine was a sardonic tasting, and they had the same exact charred grapes, but in an American oak barrel and a French barrel and a stainless steel, and then one that hadn't been fermented at all, like just just crushed and tasting the same exact grapes in the four different ways was mind blowing to me.
• 16:10
  Like, this is the same grapes is in all of these because it tasted completely different.
• 16:15
  And that is kind of what triggered my interest.
• 16:18
  And like I want to know more about this.
• 16:18
  This is crazy.
• 16:20
  Yeah.
• 16:20
  So that was another decisions like okay, what kind of barrels should I you say you some new barrels or not.
• 16:25
  And I, I've chosen to use what we call neutral barrels so that every I really don't use any new oak barrels every year.
• 16:36
  And a lot of wineries do.
• 16:37
  They'll do like 20% new oak every year or whatever their target is.
• 16:42
  And to me, I can pick up the tannins from the whole cluster part.
• 16:49
  You get a lot of tannin from the stems, so it's more like grape derived tannins versus oak derived tannins from the oak.
• 16:57
  But yeah, you're right, you could know.
• 16:59
  I could choose to do it in a stainless steel tank in new barrels, old barrels, American barrels, Hungarian, French, you know, there are all these different types.
• 17:08
  And they all in case there's even a case and they all unpacked everything differently.
• 17:14
  I'm a bourbon girl, too, and some of my favorite Bourbons are Bourbons out of set in a Pinot Noir barrel.
• 17:20
  Excellent.
• 17:20
  And that has that like crossover.
• 17:23
  But it's just amazing how just even the canister or the container that you put the one in really has an impact on the flavor and how long it sits in there, too.
• 17:31
  Yeah, yeah.
• 17:33
  I know that you have French roots.
• 17:35
  Do you use French barrels?
• 17:37
  Yes, all my barrels are French, but I really do de-emphasize the barrels because as I said, they're all neutral barrels.
• 17:44
  You know, the thing is so amazing.
• 17:48
  When we started talking about barrels, I have typically between 40 and 50 Pinot Noir barrels every year, every harvest.
• 17:55
  And this is the part of the winemaking side where you have to be a little humble.
• 18:01
  You have to take what's given to you from the vineyard.
• 18:03
  Every vintage is different.
• 18:03
  It's always changing.
• 18:06
  So that can be really exciting because you're learning every year.
• 18:09
  But I will get like I usually try to get all the different types of Pinot noir from the single vineyard.
• 18:17
  So for example, quartile Rose, we have six different clones of Pinot Noir and six different types of Pinot noir plants on the vineyard, and I will ferment those and treat them separately.
• 18:34
  So for example, the 777 block, I'll have six barrels from that lot that are whole cluster and six barrels that are d stemmed.
• 18:45
  And then when I taste all those, the wine from all six of those barrels that are whole cluster, they're all going to be a little different.
• 18:53
  Yeah.
• 18:53
  And that's like how does that happen?
• 18:55
  They were harvested the same day they were treated, made the same way.
• 19:00
  They and then once they get into their barrels, they start to take a little bit of life on their own.
• 19:05
  And so I'll taste all those and there'll be one that's just really amazingly superlative.
• 19:14
  And you're just like, blown away.
• 19:16
  And then you taste the other five and they're good.
• 19:19
  But that one barrel really stood out and it's like, well, why?
• 19:23
  How did that barrel become I call it a five star barrel.
• 19:27
  And so that's how I make my reserve wines.
• 19:30
  So how do you pivot or what do you decide to do in that case?
• 19:33
  If you have like these barrels that are good but they're not the same level as this two over here.
• 19:37
  Yeah.
• 19:38
  The good news is I've never had a bad barrel, so that's good.
• 19:42
  So yeah. So but it's kind of the, the.
• 19:45
  Yeah.
• 19:46
  The fun part about winemaking is like obviously during harvest and all the fermentations and then you're, you're doing all the elevation in barrels, the aging in barrels.
• 19:56
  And then you start tasting olive barrels and making all your decisions like, okay, which barrels you're going to make, which bottlings, which covers.
• 20:04
  It'll be the French word.
• 20:06
  And that's the other fun part.
• 20:08
  And and yeah, that's that's the you know, there's a little kind of art and magic and science to winemaking.
• 20:16
  And you kind of, you know, the science part of me says all six of these barrels taste the same.
• 20:22
  Yeah.
• 20:22
  But then it's quickly the map isn't mapping here what happened, but quickly as you taste them, you're just is like, okay, it's just they all had their own path and they taste a little different from each other.
• 20:35
  And it's not quite like a sports analogy.
• 20:40
  You know, I like to say, you know, in baseball you're really happy if you have like over 300 batting average.
• 20:46
  But, you know, I've never had like a strikeout.
• 20:49
  So that's not a good analogy.
• 20:51
  But you know, you can't have every barrel is not going to be perfect or exactly the same.
• 20:57
  You're it's not going to be your like superlative.
• 21:01
  And you wish they all could be that way. Yeah.
• 21:04
  Well and I think that's also why for wine novice that doesn't necessarily understand harvest and vintage and all of that stuff, the different years you have on bottles is important because of the weather.
• 21:16
  Like you can't control the weather and you can't control like, was it super sunny that year?
• 21:20
  Were there any fires in the area?
• 21:22
  Was there a lot of rain?
• 21:23
  And that really does impact the taste too.
• 21:26
  So sometimes you'll be like, oh, I love a 2008 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir or something.
• 21:31
  And there's a reason they're saying that it was because the weather that that was probably harvested in, what, 2006, maybe 2005, whatever the weather was then really impacted the flavor.
• 21:42
  So as a winemaker, how do you pivot or alter what you're doing based on the harvest and the weather?
• 21:50
  Yeah.
• 21:50
  Well, the you know, probably the biggest decision we have as winemakers, one of the biggest decisions is like when to harvest, how ripe do you want your grapes to get?
• 22:01
  And that's super weather dependent.
• 22:04
  And sometimes we wish we could, you know, ripen them just a little bit more.
• 22:09
  And we did that cool rain period coming in.
• 22:12
  And so you can get disease pressure.
• 22:14
  You can get different molds and and different disease on the grapes.
• 22:20
  So you have to you're kind of forces your hands sometimes to harvest a little bit earlier than you want.
• 22:27
  But actually with the shifting climate, we have had warmer and drier Septembers in October than historically.
• 22:36
  So what you're saying about vintage variation used to be very stark.
• 22:41
  In the 90s.
• 22:43
  We first, my wife and I first moved to the Valley in 1995, and we had been tasting Oregon wines before that, but there used to be a lot more.
• 22:53
  Like sometimes you'd have a very cold vintage and a nice warm vintage, and there was a lot of that kind of year to year variation was much, much higher than it is now because now, as the climate has warmed, it's really benefited the Pacific Northwest and and the Willamette Valley in terms of grape growing, because we have much more consistent like almost perfect conditions during harvest.
• 23:21
  So I haven't my my main differences that I see have been more like it's a little bit drier year or a little bit warmer.
• 23:32
  So, you know, there's a lot of water in grapes and that's the main constituent.
• 23:36
  And so sometimes some years there's the grapes are a little less water because it's been a little bit more pressure, you know, a lot less water availability that year.
• 23:48
  And so that really changes the course and the nature of the wine, like how much acidity it has in relationship to the whole wine matrix.
• 23:57
  Yeah.
• 23:58
  As we say so.
• 23:59
  So you see a lot of differences there.
• 24:02
  How hot did it get that year.
• 24:04
  Did we have some heat spikes.
• 24:06
  So did the grapes kind of ripen a little too quickly.
• 24:09
  So that kind of changes their their flavor and texture characteristics.
• 24:14
  So so depending on all of those things, there are some things we can do in the winery in terms of, you know, are we going to ferment it a little cooler, do a little hotter ferment to extract more flavor and more tannins and other compounds?
• 24:30
  So there are just a lot of different choices we can make.
• 24:33
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:34
  And you know, when you're first learning, you just don't appreciate it as much.
• 24:38
  And every harvest is a learning experience because it's never the same.
• 24:42
  And it's just kind of like it's almost like if you're building a book, as you start reading books and you're building your library, just think about it this way.
• 24:53
  The first book you read, you put it on the bookshelf.
• 24:55
  No decision to make.
• 24:56
  Okay, after you've read the second or third book, you have to decide where to put those books right.
• 25:02
  And you're going to reorganize your library as you keep accumulating knowledge.
• 25:07
  And then you start having different shelves of books.
• 25:10
  And by the time you got into your 100th book, you've got this whole library of knowledge that you've accumulated over time.
• 25:17
  And and you're having to constantly rearrange that bookshelf to make it all make sense.
• 25:23
  And you have to be careful that the recent book, the last 2 or 3 books you read may influence you more, and you kind of forgotten about those first five, like you had this really amazing book that you read that was super important to your winemaking career or your experience, and you had to remember what you did that year that you really, really helped you meet your goals in terms of what you were looking for in your wine.
• 25:52
  And and it's real easy for us to just kind of remember the last 2 or 3 years of what we did.
• 25:58
  Totally.
• 25:58
  And so it's a it's it's a fun challenge.
• 26:02
  Yeah.
• 26:03
  It's well and it's interesting to along with that is sometimes you read a book and you're in a different season of your business or, and you don't know what you don't know.
• 26:15
  And then in ten years you have a lot more contact.
• 26:17
  So if you really read that same book or reapplied some of those skills you learned at the beginning, it would be totally different kind of style and impact on what's happening in your current business, because now you actually have context to apply some of that knowledge when before when you read it, you're like, oh, interesting. Okay.
• 26:34
  And you put it down, but now you're like, oh, that's what they meant.
• 26:37
  And now I can do this, this, this and this with it.
• 26:39
  So revisiting the library is always a good idea.
• 26:42
  So, you know, in terms of, you know, making wine, sometimes we think, oh yeah, this is pretty similar to last year or five years ago.
• 26:51
  But you can kind of think back and say, well, you know, so what what did I do that year?
• 26:58
  So, you know, part of me is like trying to take good mental notes and take actually keep a journal, physical journal notes.
• 27:06
  But it's so busy during the harvest time.
• 27:10
  Well, there's so much going on, so much going.
• 27:11
  Lot of moving parts that sometimes you kind of you really do have to reflect back, you know, and think about all the, the good practices.
• 27:20
  And then the other.
• 27:21
  The hard thing about this business is that there are so many variables.
• 27:24
  So sometimes, you know, you've made a you like, you know, you've got this great, great bottling and this great vintage and you're not sure like was it the was it the fermentation temperature.
• 27:38
  Was it the quality of the grapes that year.
• 27:40
  Does it mean so is it good.
• 27:42
  Yes. Is the barrel.
• 27:43
  I like to try to keep as many things as constant.
• 27:46
  So I always use the same yeast, always use neutral barrels.
• 27:49
  So then I can kind of just focus on fermentation, temperature, type of fermentation, how long I want the ferments to go.
• 27:59
  You know there's so many different variables.
• 28:00
  And then once they're in barrel, how am I going to treat those?
• 28:04
  How long are they going to stay in barrel.
• 28:06
  And then once you're tasting them to that's the other big learning curve is you're tasting wine very young from barrels and you're having to decide, okay, I'm going to take these five barrels and make this one wine.
• 28:19
  And is it going to taste great to 3 or 5 years from now, this particular blend that I'm choosing to make.
• 28:26
  So and that's a real, you know, something you learn with experience.
• 28:32
  You know, it's hard as you're studying that.
• 28:36
  And also when you're doing apprenticeships, you're not often given afforded that opportunity to go taste all the barrels and start playing around with blends.
• 28:46
  And so you don't really get to do that as an intern too much, unfortunately.
• 28:51
  Yeah.
• 28:51
  So that's one of the big, big things.
• 28:53
  Yeah.
• 28:54
  Is fun, but also very much on the job learning.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:59
  And so one of the challenges, as in the wine business in general, is that we only get one shot every year, you know, to make a certain vintage and certain bottlings.
• 29:12
  And so in your lifetime you're just going to get like 20 to 40 iterations, maybe more if you started really young.
• 29:22
  And for me, this is the second career I started in 2018.
• 29:26
  So and I've been in the trade, you know, with those apprenticeships for about 12 years now.
• 29:32
  So I feel like I'm starting to to really have a lot more confidence and have a better, more consistent, high quality, you know, wine product year to year.
• 29:45
  And I kind of have more confidence about how to deal with different challenges.
• 29:50
  Thinking about moving to Oregon, don't just Google it.
• 29:53
  Talk to someone who lives it.
• 29:54
  I help people relocate smoothly and confidently.
• 29:57
  Reach out and let's talk about your next move and make sure it makes sense for you.
• 30:03
  Yeah, for sure.
• 30:04
  You mentioned early on in our conversation that you chose not to have your own tasting room, your own vineyard.
• 30:10
  So how did you go about finding a partner or having a wine tasting host location?
• 30:16
  Things like that?
• 30:17
  Yeah, it to me it was a little freeing.
• 30:21
  Initially we were looking for vineyard property, thinking about building a winery, but it was very freeing to to see that other winemakers I knew were purchasing grapes and had partnerships with different vineyards, so that kind of lowers the barrier.
• 30:39
  It seemed like this is a real estate show, so we were looking for real estate for a long time.
• 30:45
  Talk to me.
• 30:46
  Talk to me in your properties and in my budget, in my in our situation, the properties that we were seeing were not in like, the best, highly sought after.
• 30:59
  You're not going to hurt my feelings.
• 31:00
  You don't have to be that sensitive about it.
• 31:02
  So we so I really was focused on the Amity Hills, for example.
• 31:07
  To me, it's my favorite Ava American Viticultural Area.
• 31:12
  And so we were looking at properties here and just how the pricing for, you know, was so was so high that then at that point I felt like I could do the viticulture, but not maybe have the capital to start the winery.
• 31:27
  Well, and just to like tie in to that part to what a lot of people don't realize is like how many acreage, like acres you need of grapes to produce so much wine.
• 31:37
  So and that's where that that price dynamic gets a little bit tricky to your point of capital is like, you would have to have such a big vineyard, or if you're making such a smaller selection than your bottle, prices go up and you were trying to find more of a quality at a great value.
• 31:53
  And the other thing I realized was, you know, regardless of whether you have a five acre vineyard or a 20 acre vineyard, you still need the same tractor sprayer.
• 32:03
  So you're all the things, your cost per acre go way up if it's a small vineyard.
• 32:08
  And so and then once you get too big, you obviously or.
• 32:13
  No, I mean a vineyard of a good size is going to require a lot of extra labor, help you do all the pruning and the harvesting so you have all those capital costs, and then you have to consider what the market is and how you could sell your grapes.
• 32:30
  So naturally, you'd want to also make your wines and control that.
• 32:35
  But it does take a certain amount of capital.
• 32:37
  And for me, finding a great partnerships, to me it was very important to find a vineyard that was formed in a sustainable way.
• 32:50
  That's a very important part of my values.
• 32:52
  I want to see, you know, a farmer of viticulture that doesn't use herbicides, no tilling, minimal kind of, you know, you know, the pesticides and insecticides we have to use kind of try to keep that to a minimum as much as possible and work with like Sam and Safe certified and all these great certifications, live certified and organic certified, if you can get that.
• 33:21
  A lot of the vineyards I've worked with were organic practices, so I can't put that on the label or the marketing.
• 33:27
  Yeah.
• 33:28
  But still, you know, I feel like they're doing a great job.
• 33:30
  Well, in the difference for organic practices, for full organic is what a lot of people that have never farmed before don't realize.
• 33:38
  Like if one row of crops gets sick, you could lose the whole field and like quickly.
• 33:44
  So organic practices is they are trying to be as organic as possible.
• 33:48
  But if one row gets sick, they're going to treat it so it doesn't impact the rest of the rows.
• 33:52
  And so that's the difference.
• 33:54
  Like there's still minimal use of any kind of products on it, but it's treated when needed.
• 34:01
  Yeah. You have it in their toolbox.
• 34:03
  They need it once every five years, but they rarely use it.
• 34:06
  Yeah. So so yeah, good about that.
• 34:09
  But yeah, you know having strong vineyard partnerships is wonderful.
• 34:14
  And then for me, I chose to also find a winery partner.
• 34:20
  So I make wine renting space at a winery.
• 34:25
  And right now that the Bjornson vineyard.
• 34:27
  And just a wonder if this is where we're at today.
• 34:29
  We're today.
• 34:30
  And and they just they just a great, great environment.
• 34:35
  Beautiful vineyard, great family.
• 34:37
  Great beautiful.
• 34:39
  So it's just wonderful to be here.
• 34:41
  I feel very, very fortunate to have known Patty and and Mark Bjornson and been afforded the opportunity to be one of their winemakers here.
• 34:56
  So it's really great.
• 34:57
  Did you just meet them throughout your time in the industry or it was a little bit random?
• 35:03
  You know, one of my classmates was was a winemaker, was one of their hired staff here.
• 35:11
  So so we we actually, as a class came out to Bjornson to just kind of learn about they were just building it was kind of a new winery and new they were building the tasting room at the time.
• 35:23
  And so Patty kind of gave a whole class session on what it takes to build a winery and everything.
• 35:29
  So I got to know her a little bit from that.
• 35:31
  And then I made wine with Vincent Freaky at his place where I rented, and it was, I love making wine with Vincent at that place, but we were all getting a little starting to grow and it was a little too small, so it was starting to get a little constrained.
• 35:47
  And so I just reached out to Patty and she said, yeah, come on over is great.
• 35:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 35:53
  And then I was lucky because I just happened to have someone who was leaving and Perfect Storm.
• 35:58
  So do you bottle and everything here as well then?
• 36:01
  Yeah, they, we handle all the bottling.
• 36:03
  The bottling is actually there's a great company called Castiel and McMinnville Castiel custom bottling.
• 36:12
  And so we we like to take our wines to, to their facility because their bottling lines are just going to be inside top notch.
• 36:22
  They also have a that's part of the flexibility of this business.
• 36:27
  You can have custom bottling come to your winery and kind of a large truck like semi truck environment.
• 36:37
  But you know, it's just it's not going to be I mean the equipment is just not going to be as nice as the place at the facility.
• 36:46
  Well, yeah, because you can only keep so much in a truck that makes it functional and usable.
• 36:51
  And then leaning towards like your labels, like, how did you do label design?
• 36:55
  Did you partner with anybody?
• 36:57
  Another great kind of fortuitous thing.
• 37:00
  I have a friend, a former colleague, Megan Laxalt McKee, and she's a designer and she makes all these labels before she designs all the labels and she does the calligraphy.
• 37:12
  It's all original artwork, using the old pens with nibs and everything.
• 37:18
  So yeah, super happy to have that.
• 37:20
  And then we have a really good website collaborator called Within Bound.
• 37:25
  So a lot of wineries.
• 37:28
  So this is a website company that just focuses on helping wineries present.
• 37:34
  And so they they know exactly, you know, all the different aspects of what you'd want on a one and what you want to share.
• 37:41
  Yeah. With the public.
• 37:42
  I tried to I started with my own website, as most entrepreneurs do.
• 37:47
  Yes, as we all try to do.
• 37:50
  And you're like this with AI.
• 37:52
  Maybe it's a little simpler.
• 37:54
  I don't know if you still don't know.
• 37:54
  Pretty basic.
• 37:57
  It didn't turn out too well. Yeah.
• 37:59
  And then I had this funny thing where one day, you know, I woke up and I get this message and my whole website is crashed.
• 38:06
  Oh, gosh.
• 38:07
  For some unknown reason, going under. Yeah.
• 38:09
  You know, the underlying thing was corrupted.
• 38:12
  And so I called Brian right away and he was he dropped everything and got me up and going in 24 hours.
• 38:18
  He was my gosh.
• 38:19
  So I can't all the wineries listening out there.
• 38:22
  Vin bound is just a great Ben bound shout out to Vin Bound.
• 38:25
  Yeah they're great.
• 38:26
  So that's one thing you learn as a small business is you have to have great partnerships throughout.
• 38:32
  You know, I've got a wonderful accountant.
• 38:34
  I still do all my own bookkeeping, unfortunately, but I can at least count on her to do all of that.
• 38:40
  Our website, because, you know, there's so many different aspects of the business.
• 38:43
  We've talked a lot about winemaking, but then there's the hospitality and the sales part that you do have to focus quite a bit on.
• 38:51
  Well, and deciding how to price your wine where you want to.
• 38:56
  Strategies. Well, yeah.
• 38:57
  And you want to provide a wine to the general public.
• 39:01
  But at the same time you have to be this is your living, this is how you make your money.
• 39:06
  And so finding that balance and, and and not least of which is having good distribution partners.
• 39:13
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:14
  I have have several different distributors.
• 39:17
  I'm in eight different states.
• 39:19
  And you know, we really have to view those as complete partnerships where we're both putting in the same amount of love and effort into the sales.
• 39:30
  And it's, you know, it's tough for them because they, you know, as, as sellers working out in the retail space, they represent hundreds and hundreds of wineries.
• 39:41
  So they have a lot on their plate.
• 39:43
  And it's easy for us winemakers to get a little frustrated with distribution.
• 39:48
  But it's a lot of work on both sides and we have to have a really good rapport.
• 39:53
  So that's that's really key.
• 39:53
  Yeah for sure.
• 39:56
  Let's talk a little bit of what we are drinking today.
• 40:00
  I have been enjoying the Chardonnay.
• 40:02
  Yes. So the Chardonnay is called Jay Marie Chardonnay.
• 40:05
  I like to make what I call, you know, a little bit more of a style chardonnay, where it's nice and crisp and very light, not too heavy.
• 40:18
  Chardonnay can be made in so many different ways.
• 40:21
  So this is made in neutral barrels.
• 40:23
  So no new oak barrels.
• 40:26
  So it doesn't have that new oak flavor.
• 40:28
  But we can use the oak to help build some body.
• 40:31
  Yeah.
• 40:32
  But I want a lot of minerality, a lot of fresh fruit characteristics a lot of beautiful aromatics.
• 40:39
  Yeah.
• 40:40
  So how do you like it?
• 40:40
  I actually I enjoy it a lot.
• 40:43
  So it's funny because, you know, people are very picky about Chardonnay and some are like, I only drink stainless steel or something like I only like oak.
• 40:51
  I like that yours is in the middle, because if you don't like that buttery oak taste, it doesn't necessarily have that, but it doesn't.
• 40:58
  I find sometimes a stainless steel chardonnay is depending on how they are made, or a little bit too crisp for me to dry.
• 41:06
  Yeah, yeah a little. Yes.
• 41:07
  Yeah.
• 41:08
  So I love this as a great blend of the two.
• 41:11
  So I've been obviously I've been enjoying it.
• 41:14
  I've been chatting I love Pinot Noir.
• 41:16
  So I make also a white Pinot noir so you can make a white wine from a red grape, Pinot noir.
• 41:22
  Because the Pinot noir, the pulp of the grape, doesn't carry any color, all colors on the skin.
• 41:28
  So if we press it very lightly, gently, not too hard.
• 41:33
  Pick early so the skins are a little tougher, you know, a little harder.
• 41:37
  They're not going to release as much color when they're picked early.
• 41:40
  The juice kind of comes out a little bit rosé color, salmon color.
• 41:45
  And then that color starts to drop as the wine is aged, it just kind of fades out and that's going to be a little crisper style.
• 41:54
  It's going to have less body than a sardonic.
• 41:56
  So the white wine world can be everything from very aromatic and crisp and dry to a little bit more sweetness and fruitiness.
• 42:05
  Yeah. And all across the board.
• 42:06
  And of course, Pinot noir as a white wine is used for champagne, right?
• 42:10
  Is used for a sparkling wine.
• 42:12
  That's what I was just going to say.
• 42:14
  I feel like a lot of people enjoy White Pinos more chilled than they would read Pinot for sure.
• 42:20
  For sure.
• 42:20
  It's a good summer peanut.
• 42:22
  Yeah, this could be a chilled white wine, and a lot of people tell me they've never had a white Pinot.
• 42:27
  And then I've asked them, well, have you had a champagne?
• 42:31
  You probably have had a white Pinot.
• 42:33
  And then we started that whole conversation. Yeah.
• 42:35
  About white making white wine from Pinot noir.
• 42:39
  And then obviously my main focus is the red Pinot noir.
• 42:44
  And I've got five different red Pinot noir.
• 42:47
  So the Colette is the 100% where we're just using the berries.
• 42:53
  So it's going to be a little bit more elegant, more fruit focused.
• 42:57
  We'll yeah, just just lots of, you know, lots of flavors.
• 43:02
  Still has a little bit of tannin from the skins and the seeds because again, I'm using neutral barrels, the older barrels.
• 43:09
  So I don't have the oak flavor similar to the white wine neutral barrels.
• 43:13
  And then the Orion is a whole cluster wine.
• 43:16
  So 100% just using that, that whole cluster fermentation process with the stems that bring in the tannins and earthy and herbal flavors and all of that.
• 43:27
  And the Mari Paul is a blend of those two styles.
• 43:30
  And then I do a reserve Mari pulse or my five, three, 4 or 5, depending on the year.
• 43:36
  Favorite barrels of the vintage?
• 43:38
  Yeah. Awesome.
• 43:39
  And then what about these to you guys over here?
• 43:41
  Yeah. So I do a couple other things.
• 43:43
  I've got three different vermouth.
• 43:48
  I brought two of them here to showcase today.
• 43:51
  So vermouth is actually a wine that's been fortified and infused with different botanicals.
• 43:59
  So dried flowers, dried fruit, dried herbs and bitters and very traditional, you know, used to be back in the Middle Ages.
• 44:08
  And before that, these are all medicinal plants.
• 44:11
  And this is the way medicine was administered through elixirs and vermouth kind of came out of that culture.
• 44:18
  And as a lot of these were produced by monasteries in Europe.
• 44:25
  But as they started to lose their royal funding after starting in the 18th and 19th century, they started to develop commercial products.
• 44:35
  Right.
• 44:36
  So you see beers that are made by monasteries and, and spirits and all sorts of liqueurs and chartreuse maybe being the most famous, you know, these two monks that have the recipe in their heads, they don't write it down.
• 44:50
  It's never been written down.
• 44:51
  It's always been an oral tradition.
• 44:53
  So I was trying to recreate that because in my growing up in France and spending summers growing up in France, and I did two years of high school in France to these were always part of our, like, Perry teeth wines or dessert wines.
• 45:08
  And I really enjoyed all the flavors from it.
• 45:12
  And I thought it would be kind of something fairly unique.
• 45:15
  You don't see a lot of it in the land.
• 45:17
  So one is a Pinot Noir base.
• 45:19
  It's been infused with 20 different botanicals, and then the rosé is actually a moscato, a muscat wine.
• 45:26
  So more kind of Italian style.
• 45:28
  In Italy, they would call it a Moroni, maybe heard of a Moroni.
• 45:33
  And that has 17 different botanicals, some of which we grow at our property at home, and the others are.
• 45:41
  So everything is either organic or no spray, and all the no spray botanicals or the ones that we grow.
• 45:48
  Yeah.
• 45:48
  And is this something that people can taste here at the tasting room or.
• 45:52
  Okay.
• 45:53
  Yeah, I usually have it open for tastings.
• 45:57
  Yeah.
• 45:57
  They just they're beautiful.
• 46:00
  Either I wanted them to be good on their own, not just for cocktails, but they make great cocktails as well.
• 46:06
  But I really wanted them to be good on their own.
• 46:09
  Yeah.
• 46:09
  When someone comes here to do a tasting, do they get to try Bjorn and yours or is it different flights or how does it work?
• 46:18
  Yeah, I'm available by point, so you'll find my information.
• 46:22
  Sun brake wines.
• 46:24
  Com you'll see my contact info, email or text.
• 46:28
  And also there's a little form you can fill out for a tasting request because I'm not here every day a week.
• 46:35
  But when you're. Yeah.
• 46:36
  So the Bjornson are very kind.
• 46:38
  And letting me use their tasting room by appointment.
• 46:41
  And then while you're here, you can also do do both.
• 46:45
  I mean, it's a beautiful setting.
• 46:46
  We have great views and terraces.
• 46:48
  You can bring food. They have food here.
• 46:50
  So that's a really important part of the experience.
• 46:53
  And for for those that are listening that are not in the Willamette Valley area, there's lots of great lodging opportunities here.
• 47:01
  So I'm on the board for the Amity Hills Ava, and we just put out a new map.
• 47:08
  You'll see on the Ava website, there are 26 different B&Bs and lodging opportunities right in the Ava.
• 47:15
  Like some of them are actually on vineyards right next to vineyards.
• 47:19
  So true.
• 47:20
  And so there are a lot of places to stay to.
• 47:22
  And we have some a couple vineyards that have amazing chefs and food offerings at Bryn Mawr, for example, or Antica Terra.
• 47:30
  And all the wineries, including like Bjornson, now have some really good food offerings as well that they provide.
• 47:36
  And some like as I said, some wineries have actual chefs, so.
• 47:40
  So yeah, you can make a day of it.
• 47:42
  You could stay here and do two different wineries and one spot.
• 47:46
  Yeah. Bring a picnic order food.
• 47:49
  Yeah, yeah.
• 47:50
  And then if to your point, for those that are listening or watching that aren't in Oregon, can they purchase your wine online?
• 47:57
  Do you ship to other states? Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:00
  We have so yet another partnership lesson from today.
• 48:05
  Partnerships are important.
• 48:07
  A company called Vino shippers.
• 48:08
  So when you go to a website, you know every state has different rules about how alcohol is regulated.
• 48:16
  And so and so we have a company called Vino Shipper that has set up permits in most states across the country.
• 48:25
  And so you can go to our website and order wines.
• 48:30
  And having shipped and if if your state is not there, I have a second provider that I can use that covers a lot of states that some states that Shipley doesn't cover.
• 48:40
  So absolutely.
• 48:41
  Yeah.
• 48:42
  Well, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing with me.
• 48:46
  I've really enjoyed getting to learn more about your background.
• 48:50
  Cheers to you and thank you for listening or watching.
• 48:54
  I'll see you next time.