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Dry Farm Wines - Todd White - Pt. 1 May 20, 2020

Show notes

We are speaking with Todd White, founder, and CEO of Dry Farm Wines.

Yes. Dryfarmwines.com. The only health-focused natural wine club in the world. We’ll get into the intricacies a little bit later. But first, let’s get where the inspiration came from.

Well, Dry Farm Wines was not intended to be a business in the beginning. So I do remember a specific inspiration that was a specific wine like a Pinot Noir from Mosel, Germany, that I was drinking at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. That led me to the exceptionally inspired by natural wines. So I wasn’t thinking of Dry Farm Wines as a business at that time. I was just had discovered quite by accident the remarkable taste and texture of natural wines. And as a result, that kind of started me down the path of investigating natural wines and at a deeper level, which eventually led to the business.

Okay. Before your mind gets too far down the road of traditional wine thinking.

The first thought from Todd is we think of ourselves as a health food company, not as a wine club. This is a health food company first. So the second point is less than one-tenth of one percent of wines in the world are naturally grown and produced.

Why do you let your mind marinate around those two thoughts? Todd continues to educate us on the philosophy of the company.

Well, I mean, nobody. We created the category of healthy wines and sort of branded, as we think of ourselves as a health food company, not as a wine club. So we just happened to sell wine, have healthy food. So no one had really captured lab testing and quantifying wine around health quantifications. So we were the first to do it. Really were the only one to do it even today. As a result, when we started educating people on what’s really in commercial wines, not just organic wines. So organic is a farming method. You can have organic wines, but they’re not natural. Natural wine is a very specific protocol and category. And it’s very rare. Less than one-tenth of one percent of wines in the world are naturally grown and produced. So natural wine is a very specific category that has a very clear and specific understanding around the world for people who are in the natural wine business. We just happen to be in the right place at the right time in trying to solve a problem from ourselves. I wanted to drink healthier, lower alcohol wines that were sugar-free and met other criteria that were of interest to me. It turns out that the same concept was of interest to a lot of other wine drinkers. And so it’s always been my feeling that regular wine drinkers, meaning that people who drink daily as I do, people who drink wine every evening, most of them think they probably drink too much. Right. And so offering them a lower alcohol alternative that’s also natural and sugar-free, which is of interest to our customers. There just wasn’t any offer out there in the marketplace that did so, combining that with a long public speaking television appearances. You know, Podcasts that have aired to millions of people and our business just grew very rapidly. And also, as people tasted the wines, you know, they taste better. And so that’s sort of what led to us becoming one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. That concludes Episode 1 of our conversation with CEO and founder Todd White of Dry Farm Wines in our next episode.

There are 76 additives approved by the FDA for the use and winemaking, and not all of them are good for you. We’ll get into that next time. But first, it’s time. Boys and girls for our listener voicemail. Hi, this is Amber from Chicago. My question is, what’s the difference between organic wine and regular wine? I’m curious to know if it’s chemicals and is there any kind of regulation around it? What do I need to know? Looking forward to hearing your answer. Well, Amber, it’s a very complex question. Organic wine is made from grapes that have been grown without the use of artificial or synthetic chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides. But by saying it’s organic doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t have additives. And as we learned earlier from Todd, just because it says organic doesn’t make it the best wine.

Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of the Best 5 Minute Wine podcast was produced by IHSYM. If you like the show tell your friends and pets and subscribe. Until next time, pour the wine and ponder your next adventure.

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Post Winery – Altus, AR Pt. 3 May 17, 2020

Show notes

We continue our conversation with Tina Post of Post Winery and Altus, Arkansas, as she explains the depths they go to ensure quality control.

We take care of our vineyards and we harvest. We haul that. We bring it to the winery, which it’s just six miles away, which is really nice for the assurance of fruit quality. And then we process it. We package it. We develop the package. And we distribute to at four different levels. We know we work with brokers. We work in different states. We what we are our distributor. We also do retail. So we’re a business. And I think this is just wonderful. It makes it really interesting always to that take something from the ground to the table. And usually, that’s not the case. You’re one part of that, you know, in the process. But we literally do it from the ground to the table. You know, we built a distribution center that’s temperature controlled. We use the same refrigeration that we use for our cold fermentation tanks and our distribution centers. So everything is controlled. And, you know, with wine, that’s a big thing. You need sterile filtering. You need you know, we do liquid nitrogen drip on the line to everything to try and ensure the quality and the end being shelf-stable. You know, back in the 60s, it was very different. We had a bunch of wooden tanks and I hope over the years now we use wooden stays or wood chips for some of the things that, you know, everything’s stainless steel cold fermentation. Do you either evolve or you won’t get shelf space anymore? There’s too much competition to not make a good shelf, stable wine.

I can’t imagine that it’s an easy task. Running a winery, the size of yours, and the diversity that you have. So as a business, I’m sure you’re always looking to pivot to something new or changing, I think is the business.

Any business you always have to be reinventing yourself because the markets changed. You know, a couple of years ago for us in Arkansas, we had small farm winery laws and now we it’s opened up to national brands. That competition got fierce. It’s you know before it was a little easier because only small farm wineries could sell in your convenience stores chain accounts. And now it’s opened that. And so the competition is really fierce.

We’ll take a short break. And when we come back, Tina will tell us what Post Winery is working on for the future need to satisfy a hungry mind.

Every week, Your Brain on Facts brings you science. Why does Mint feel cold? History. King Charles. The 2nd of Spain was so inbred his family didn’t bother educating him music. Many hit songs and even entire albums were written for revenge technology. The first videogame was made on an oscilloscope in 1958 and every other topic under the sun. Look for your brain on facts, on your favorite podcast app or at Yourbrainonfacts.com

What have you got planned for the future? One of the things we’re doing is coming out with a line. It’s kind of a new series we’re putting together and we’re going to be doing. It’s going to be unique to us. Wines with a little higher price. We’re going to have smaller batches. It might be regional flavor, but it might be fruit from other areas. Like this year. We brought in fresh cabernet fruit from the Yakima Valley in Washington State.

It’s going to be one in the series, but it’ll you know, we won’t do thousands of cases. It’ll be a smaller lot. Well, it’s kind of fun if you’re the winemakers to get to do that.

And when you’re working the tasting bar to say what the latest is in our winemaker’s series or whatever, we’re going to name it, which is we’re working on that as we speak.

Will, somebody answer that phone? Well, boys and girls its time for our listener voicemail. This is Joseph Johnson from Texas. I’m, of course, and to you is why do people slurp wine when they drink? You begin first with the power to activate the wine. People are stupid, and it could be really annoying. Well, Joseph, maybe you should try it. Maybe it will release some magic powers. I know your mother probably told you not to slurp when you were drinking from a straw. Don’t slurp. Don’t slurp when you’re eating your Fruit Loops. But the slurping elevates the wine in your mouth and helps intensify the flavors and aromas.

Thank you, Joseph, for your entertaining question. Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of The Best 5 Minute Wine podcast was produced by IHSYM. If you like the show. Please tell your friends and pets and subscribe until next time, pour the wine, and ponder your next adventure.

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Post Winery – Altus, AR Pt. 2 May 10, 2020

Show notes

Our featured winery is as continue our conversation with Tina Post of Post Winery and Altus, Arkansas. So since you are one of the biggest wineries in the United States, just a rough estimate, how many people have you got coming through your establishment?

Oh, gosh. We have about oh, I would say 50,000 a year in retail maybe. But we are also the largest producer in Arkansas. We are as far as size, you know, where you could put all the other wineries here together and that be about not even half of what we produce. So as far as just getting an idea, I guess size, but yeah, it’s impressive.

So to paint a picture when you come into the parking lot. What do we see?

We have a retail outlet where you can take tours, do tastings, eat and the Trellis room. And just, you know, we have a gift shop in there and around the retail, we have a picnic area. And then around it, it’s kind of work into our beds around the winery, which we have. We grow everything from cucumbers and tomatoes to all the herbs we use in the kitchen. There are places to run the dogs and stretch your legs. We also in our south part of the parking lot we have Harvest’s House members that come in they can stay overnight.

Staying overnight is obviously an added bonus if you fully engulf yourself in your experience of going through everything that you’ve got at the time that we’re recording this. We’re in the middle of the Covid -19 pandemic. And I’m just guessing that to your winery is closed as well.

Yes, we have. In fact, I’m we’re just literally trying to figure out what the new normal is going to be. And then when you ask the question, what do you see? And, you know, I was. Well, that’s what you’re going to see as far as what we’re going to be able to do. That’s really up in the air, like taking a tour through the facility. Do we have everybody in a mask which our tours are really fun because they’re a basic winemaking tour and you get to see if we’re crushing that day. You get to watch a crash. If we’re bottling, you get to watch that. It’s so it’s really an interesting tour. It’s like winemaking one-to-one. And a lot of people really appreciate getting to see the distribution center and see how that works. Education is a potent part of what we do, whether it’s about wines behind the tasting bar or just about the whole process and how nature works. You know, the different seasons. That’s one thing people do like. They’ll say, you know where the grapes. But sometimes they say that in the middle of the winter, which is kind of interesting.

So to get people, you know, this is how it works. This is how the process works and, you know, getting people back connected to the dirt, to the land, because at the end of the day, we’re farmers first to winemakers and we’re actually a winery who that actually produces are even we make cuttings. We make cuttings. And so we plant the grapes. We take cuttings from the vines because to propagate grapes you have you don’t do it from a seed. You don’t know what you get. So you do it from the wood of the vine that you want to propagate. So we make cuttings and it’s just pieces of that by. We cut and we propagate from that. And we also sell those vines and we sell the new cuttings. They’re called the new plants a year to three years old. We also sell those to other vineyards. And just people who want to cuttings and put them in gallon pots and sell them to people who want to have something in their backyard.

I mean; you have to get some of those cuttings. So I’ll go to the web site, post winery. com postwinery.com p o s t winery dot com. If you’d like to get one for yourself.

Will somebody answer that phone? Okay, it is time for our listener voicemail. Hi, Neal. From Ohio. My question is what are legs?

All right, Neil from Ohio. Here is your answer. Well, people tend to make a big deal about what they call legs, or as some people call them, tears of wine. But really, all they indicate is alcohol percentage. So you take the wine glass and swirl it around, and that’s when the legs appear. If the legs are thin and they move very quickly, that means low alcohol content in the wine and then obviously thicker and slower a higher percentage of alcohol. Thanks for your question, Neal. Really appreciate it.

I’m not giving you a sponge bath.

Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of the Best Five Minute Wine podcast was produced by IHSYM. If you like the show tell your friends and pets and subscribe. Until next time, pour the wine and ponder your next adventure.

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Post Winery – Altus, AR Pt. 1 May 01, 2020

Show notes

Post Winery

We head to the state that ranks number one in rice and poultry production. My wife’s favorite author, John Grisham is from the state. The state’s musical instrument is the fiddle.

You’ve got to have a fiddle in the band. What was that? You’ve got to have a fiddle in the band. Thank you, Alabama. No, we’re not talking about Alabama.

We’re talking about the only state that produces diamonds.

Arkansas is home to Post Winery, it is the largest winery in this region. It is in the top 60 as far as size goes in the United States. We produce about 268,000 gallons of wine and juice every year. My name is Tina Post and I’m one of the fifth-generation family members working here at Post. We wear several hats. Mine is managing the retail and gift shop. The Trellis Room which is our farm to table food program. I do H.R. and things like cultivating our garden for our restaurant. We’re located in northwest Arkansas really at the base of the Boston mountains Altus.

Arkansas is the site and because of where it’s located it offers some unique growing capabilities.

We actually have a recognized as a viticulture area. It’s called Altus the outer sort of cultural area and we grow 5 different species of grapes which is very unique and I think America to grow those commercially. We’re kind of where the North meets the South and the East meets the West potentially. We have the beta Spanish fruit. Like your Chardonnay and Zinfandel. Labrusca like the Niagara Delaware Concord of course falls into that category. French hybrids like save all the doll and yellow beta festivals which is the Cynthia and the great. It’s also known as Norton if you go into Missouri and they’ll call it Norton and beat us pretend to follow which are the mascot eyes. This is as far north as it grows commercially Altus, Arkansas.

So out of those 5 varieties that you mentioned do you have a favorite?

Yes. The muscadine line it’s a flagship great for us. It’s a thick-skinned grape that hangs in clusters as opposed to bunches and it is indigenous to North America. And it only grows below the Mason-Dixon line. It’s a grape that was written about oh it goes back into the 1580s when it was written about by the early colonists talking about the wonderful aroma, the Mother Vine is in North Carolina. And it is called. It’s a Scuppernong, which is a wide variety of the muscadine a lot of times people use governance synonymously with muscadine because it’s the most popular or well-known variety. It is a variety and there are white and red varieties of the mascot on and the red varieties they range in color from fuchsia to black and the white or light from chartreuse to deep bronze very nostalgic in the south and people remember picking it when they were young behind their grandparent’s horns and they literally make jams and jelly and still a lot of homemade wine.

What else does the Post Winery offer? We will touch on that in episode 2 as now it is time for our listener voicemail.

Question Hi, this is Christina from Hemet, California. I was wondering about a wine that I had at a restaurant. How do I get it? That sounds like a simple question but don’t be shy. Go ahead and ask the restaurant. They will not get offended if you ask them where they get the wine. They won’t add an extra charge on your bill and you can also check out of the App Store for the app. The ViVino App is a good one.

Love your show and I like your style. Thank you for your question, Christina. We’d like to submit a question we’d love to hear from you. Go to thebestwinepodcast.com

Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast was produced by IHYSM. If you like the show, tell your friends and pets and subscribe. Until next time pour the wine and ponder your next adventure.

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Ports of New York Winery – Ithaca, NY Pt. 3 Apr 22, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast. I’m your host Forrest Kelly from the seed to the glass. Wine has a past. Our aim at The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast is to look for adventure at wineries around the globe. After all grape minds think alike. Let’s start the adventure. I’m the owner Frédéric Bouché and the winemaker of Ports of New York Winery. Welcome to Part 3 of our conversation with Frédéric Bouché. Can’t wait to get into it. So many fascinating stories with Mr. Bouche. Imagined having a winery with your style and the way that you’re so personable that you hear some interesting stories from your patrons had something to do.

I mean, the winery there is because we make fortified wines and expands. Not that long ago, that was beautiful fast. I had a group of Indians from India and they were all scoters. Only one of them did not speak English at all. And as we were talking about various types of fortified wines, I was using the term Madeira, which is also Portuguese. That person wouldn’t even speak English. I actually picked up on that word and get some saying it over and over again. So I asked the other guests. How come that person doesn’t speak English? Clearly knows that word. Well, this was because Madeira is the word in overdo. That means alcohol.

And that opens a completely incredible page of each story. In fact, the Portuguese have been bringing Madeira to exchange for spices.

And so it ended up being that they adopted that word Madeira to mean alcohol because, again, it’s not for this alcohol. So I understand that you do not have a vineyard on sites. You do not grow your own grapes. But this isn’t something that is new to you. This goes back a long way. The winery I grew up in, our vineyards were not on site. They were in the fall of the region, which we get them until the late 70s, early in the family. But the winery was the main building where I grew up was no more. So I don’t want to deal with going great. It’s a whole other job. So we are in the middle of it. They got along the water and it’s an open winery, one of the very first one in New York. So it was very challenging as far as laws and everything to make that happen. Well, I should mention something else, actually. We pre-buy our grapes by the ton without knowing what the harvest is, somebody quality. So in a sense, it’s as if we were growing old grape. But the final product is whatever nature is going to bring us. We’re going to deal with it. And it is truly a very different thing to own, to make the wine. Then two on top of it has to deal with a farm.

Let me see if I can get the timeline correct, you arrived in Ithaca, New York in about 1994. The thought of the winery, things started marinating, and then in 2003, there were some new laws are going to be put into effect that would affect your plans built on the land. You put the buildings up, the lights on, and you got to the equipment and everything was finished in 2006. And then four years later, you opened in 2010 and you started making the ports because that takes what you were telling me, a four-year minimum. So from 1990 forward to 2010, almost 16 years, you poured your money into this, so. Yeah. You’ve got to have some money if you want to start a wine business.

I always say to everybody, I go, you have a lot of money. Keep your job. And that’s exactly what we did. We stayed really tight to focus and invested in the know at all in this whole thing and very carefully.

I mentioned this before, but it still amazes me because I just love people that are so well-rounded and accomplished. But if you go to the Web site, it’s ports of New York dot com and you’ll see that the buildings there are Bouché has built are very authentic. And you couldn’t tell that it was freshly built.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I love building things the way we like to have them. No, we are not afraid to do it and take it down and redo it if it needed before you like it better another way.

So we take our time and do it in a way because of the types of customers. I mean, you have I mean, there are several, but they are the basic line out there one to one problem, just what they think and the one who wants to have the floor expand. And it’s very hard to accommodate both at the same time for most of the time, people who come just for pacing and are benefiting from the full extent.

Yes. Benefiting from the whole experience is the goal. Do you have a favorite scene since you’re running everything from greeting the customer at the front door to taking the grapes and doing the paperwork work in just a building, the building? Do you have a favorite to project that you like?

Well, I think I tried to. I mean, again, my wife and I tried to enjoy every step as much as possible because sometimes it’s actual work beyond what I would like to handle.

But just like anything we do, I like to handle the cast. I like to handle the grapes themselves. Like to work on the label, you know, line up everything. And, you know, after so many years, I mean, even now white, which is your age, is to take a minimum of one-year neutral guest. It’s wonderful to put it on the shelf next to you.

Are you deciding to label it? Yeah. Yeah, I’ll take that on their label.

Yeah. So you’ve you know, obviously you’ve got your art background, but, you know, that’s difficult sometimes when you try to mix that with computers.

So we are. Yeah, I’m looking at the shelf right now, actually. I should tell you, we are. We just bottle the champagne of the sparkling wine, which is going to be the new product that we will release it hopefully sometime this summer will make all the wine. And these other wines, our full private customers, we do very few of them are here every year and people we like to interact with.

So it’s not you know, we don’t say yes to anyone because it’s a long process. You know, you’re going to have to hang out with these people quite a bit. You want to make sure you’re on the same wavelength.

Ok. As we close out our conversation, I’m going to throw you a curveball. Do you have a wine picked out for your daughter’s wedding?

Oh, my, my, my, my. A good question. We have a long way to go, and I will have no problem doing that. That’s a really good question. Ok, let’s get your contact info out there. PortsofNew York.com and the phone number is 607-220-6317

Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of the Best Five Minute Wine podcast was produced by IHSYM. If you like the show tell your friends and pets and subscribe until next time, pour the wine, and ponder your next adventure.

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Ports of New York Winery – Ithaca, NY Pt. 2 Mar 18, 2020

Show notes

Our featured winery is Ports of New York as we continue our conversation with Frédéric Bouché Ports of New York, owner-operator.

And then what happened is that my wife and I moved to the Finger Lakes region in 94 because she got a position at Cornell University and was to join the region. So it was kind of ironic after all the years that I was away from it, I fell back into it. And so I built a lot of issues and a lot of antiques and stuff from science here. And that’s one thing that we all for this completely unusual is that I was facing some kind of a little museum of French wine equipment.

So in between, that’s a time you obviously knew your family’s history and the leanings and the influence that they had had had. You had kind of a secret interest in dipping back into that or when you went to school in high studies?

I didn’t I you know, it was a very patriarchal world, not a pleasant place to hang out. So it wasn’t much more about the work.

And so I grew up in that and I just wanted to getaway. And when I went to study in Paris, I was super happy to not be thought of that. Although as we were traveling, my wife and I had a falling fifteen years. So we kept on making our old wine. Where I go or various grapes or you go under your truth. And so I never really left that. And coming in the Finger Lakes, I got in touch with other wine real owners then. And clearly Vienna was interested to get back into it. I understood the value of it, which I had not understood when I was much younger.

You’re having your background and things. Did you bring something a little different to winemaking? Table?

Yes. Here we decided. My wife and I decided to make wines that were different from what is made in the region because there are a lot of other wineries that make all the classic reasoning for that. So we make only French by wine, which means that blended. And we make a lot of that, a wholesale style which is so renewable. We make a bottle final, which is classic. We are talking about different origins, slightly different than the North American notion of a table wine.

In France, a table wine is not necessarily a cheap wine.

Supplying that you can rely on every day and one day is generally very versatile compared to the number of food. I’ll drink it by itself. I don’t fall very high in alcohol, only 12% some currently. We would go higher than that. And when I grow up, I’ll table wines were between nine and eleven for some alcohol. So that’s what we decided to focus on, but also fill these out for our base wines. But also we make too high on the wine, which are fortified wines, all that method wines. And these are a lot truculently. The oldest one is then that is 14 years old and the youngest blend is four years old.

So I don’t know. I’m from you go with a full airline system, but it’s a blend from the intake shooting days.

That concludes part two of our interview with Frédéric Bouché of Ports of New York.

In our final episode, we’ll find out what he likes most about the winemaking industry.

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Ports of New York Winery – Ithaca, NY Pt. 1 Mar 13, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, we talk with Frederic Bouche of Ports of New York Winery. We discuss his history of winemaking and French background.

Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast. I'm your host Forrest Kelly from the seed to the glass. Wine has a past. Our aim at The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast is to look for adventure at wineries around the globe. After all, grape minds think alike. Let's start the adventure.

Our featured winery is, we travel to Ithaca, New York, home to Cornell University, and also has the highest percentage of workers who walk to work. Seventeen percent of their workers walk to work. Also home to Alex Haley, the Roots author, and Vladimir Nabokov, the Lolita author, and most importantly, home to Frédéric Bouché, and I'm the owner and a winemaker of lots of New York winery.

As you can probably guess, Frederic is from France. So just a little background on France. They produce 78 billion gallons of wine per year. And going back even further, the Catholic Church at one time was the largest vineyard owner in France. However, in 1860, France was plagued with wine maladies. They hadn't quite perfected the making. And so, they declared it a national crisis in 1860. So they called in Louis Pasteur. Yes, the same man who perfected pasteurization. And in 1866, his essay, Studies on Wine, became the foundation of modern winemaking. He had saved France's wine industry. So that brings us up to Mr. Frédéric Bouché and his family history.

So it started with my great grandfather in 1919. And that was in France, in Normandy. So basically, my great grandfather told me he had vineyards in Baldo, which is yet another region, a true wine region. But he moved to Normandy in 1919 because his wife was from there. And when he moved there, he realized there was no wine, no more. Which was not a wine region? So he saw the opportunity and brought in some of the table wine, just to put it in kind of context.

How big is wine intertwined in their culture at that time?

So in Normandy, nobody drank wine or very few people because there was no access to it. So they were drinking hard cider. And you are still very complex. Hot cider, cold calvados. And so he brought in the words and ignoring warnings from everywhere from France and then bottled them under his name, alanine, and then that's what he would sell. So he was one of the very first people to sell French wine cellar to hotels and restaurants in the region.

They were loving this. They were there was a huge step up from cider to what he was producing. It was really high-end because you could. I mean, at that time, you could get the amazing wines for not much money and restaurants real. So we're doing custom labels for sure. Restaurants. Wow. It's quite amazing. Yeah. You think about 1999, the technology, and just what they were dealing with at the time.

You think. Oh yeah. I mean, we would print 50 labels, 40 or 50 different labels. That's it. The designer there, you know, he was not a problem. There was some work done by hand. Small quantities were an issue. But at any rate, this winery ultimately did not turn out to be to survive because the laws changed drastically as far as the appellation from region to region. In fact, the idea of bringing wine, some older regions of France in you all look in the Stone Age, then bottle them under your own name is now completely illegal. We saw that going well before. I mean, the old appellation, like champagne and all that. So basically, although it was extremely successful until the mid-70s, it was clear I went there. I left in 1979. I went to study in Paris. And that at that point, it was clear that there was no future.

So eventually it was sold in 1990. What happened next? We'll find out in part two in our conversation with Frédéric Bouché of Ports of Wine, New York. If you'd like to get a visual of what's a winery is all about, go to portsofnewyork.com

Oh, yes. Now it is time for a listener voicemail question.

Does wine go bad? When does it expire? It strongly depends on its quality. If it's a quality wine, it can be stored even for 100 years. And after opening, it will be of great quality. Well, thank you for your question. Sorry. It's good to know that if you open up a bottle of wine, it could last up to one hundred years. I wish other things lasted that long.

Thank you for listening. I'm Forrest Kelly. This episode of the Best Five Minute Wine podcast was produced by IHSYM. If you like the show, tell your friends and pets and subscribe until next time, pour the wine, and ponder your next adventure.

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Discovering Hawaiian Pinot Noir: A Journey to Volcano Winery - Pt. 2 Feb 29, 2020

Show notes

As we continue our interview with Kendall of Volcano Winery in Volcano, Hawaii, in our first episode, we learned that Volcano Winery is about 4000 feet high and is surrounded by volcanoes. And with that, it brings some special qualities to their appeal to what we call our Pinot Noir here on site. It’s considered one of our smaller batch wines. So it’s a little bit more exclusive compared to our house wines. And we take a lot of pride in our pinot noir. It’s very different from any other Pinot that I’ve personally tasted. It’s very light-bodied and super sulfuric and it’s got a lot of volcanic generality and cherry tart tones and subtle tannins. And it’s just very easy drinking. And it’s a hit with the community and from people all over the world because, you know, Pinot Noir is known for being a very temperamental grape. And there’s a lot of different regions in the world that are known for Pinot Noir. So it’s kind of fun to come over here and taste it. Hawaiian Grill and Pinot Noir Grape.

I read online were a Canadian couple came to the winery and I guess they bought more wine and it was allowed for them to get back into Canada with. So they had to make arrangements probably give it away or something. It was so good.

Man, that’s a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. We are a small production here. So when it comes to shipping back to other places, there are a lot of our customers. We do ship to the majority of the United States to ship to about 39 states in that shipping via alcohol license things and kind of matching them up with the other states. Unfortunately, we don’t ship to everybody and we don’t distribute. We only distribute within the Hawaiian Islands because you’re at 4000 feet. Is that an advantage or disadvantage if you’re here during our follow winter season and you’ll notice that the vines look a little sad. I don’t want to say that, but they’re actually dormant. So there’s no greenery. There are no grapes on the plant physically at this time during the fall and winter season. And that’s just because they’re kind of gearing up, getting ready for that spring and summer season when they will be flourishing and they’ll be green and they’ll be pumping out the great the grape plants. So it takes about eight years for the grape plant to produce fruit. Once it’s planted, once it’s producing fruit in order to produce a healthy grape. It has to go into a state of dormancy. And that’s pretty much for half a year in that dormancy is achieved by the plant being in a location that reaches temperatures below 40 degrees. And that temperature has to remain below 40 degrees consistent enough. So a majority of the day for come and maintain that dormancy.

That’s the trigger. Yet that’s the trigger that luckily that’s our biggest advantage of being at this elevation, allowing us to have those mountain winds in those cooler temperatures through the winter season, which in turn would have that natural dormancy for our grape. So that’s a big plus for us here.

Wow. Some good stuff with Volcano Winery in Volcano, Hawaii. Thank you, Kendall. If anybody wants to get a hold of you, obviously, how can they do that?

Not only can you give us a call anytime during our business hours roll. Happy to help you with any kind of questions or shipping or orders on the phone. We have (808) 967-7772. On our web site, you’ll have a list of all of our wines, all the states that we ship to. You’ll have descriptions of all the merchandise that we have available for shipping.

Now time for our listener voicemail. Let’s I’m going to find some listener voice here. Where did I put that? “What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residents warehouse farmhouse here to our alpha dog house in that area.” I’ve searched like Tommy Lee says, I should have found a listener voice mail from my Danny from Lomita, California. My question is, is buoying dryness or sweetness due to great variety? Your cell phone cut out the middle there. Danny, could you repeat that for me? Oh, come on. Are you sure you can’t repeat it for me?

I believe, Danny, you said is a wine’s dryness or sweetness due to grape variety speaking with the experts. These tell me that just about any great variety can be made either dry or sweet or any stage in between that by stopping the fermenting process at a certain point. So the grape variety, it doesn’t matter.

Takeaways:

The Volcano Winery's unique location at 4000ft creates distinct qualities in their Pinot Noir.
Dormancy in grapevines is crucial for healthy fruit production and occurs seasonally.
Cool mountain winds help maintain the necessary temperatures for grape dormancy during winter.
Kendall discusses how Hawaiian-grown Pinot Noir offers a unique tasting experience compared to others.
Shipping restrictions apply, as Volcano Winery can only ship to 39 states in the US.
The sweetness or dryness of wine can be influenced by the grape variety and fermentation process.

Links referenced in this episode:

www.volcanowinery.com

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Lava Tubes and Cork Trees: Inside Volcano Winery Feb 29, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast. I’m your host Forrest Kelly from the seed to the glass wine has a past. Our aim at The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast is to look for adventure at wineries around the globe. After all, grape minds think alike. Let’s start the adventure. Let’s start the adventure. Our featured winery in this episode.

We find out America’s Southern Most Winery. Do you have a guess? Let me give you a hint. Aloha. Oh, you guessed it’s Volcano Hawaii is where we venture to.

My name’s Kendall. And I’m the assistant manager and my associate here at Volcano Winery. Well, hello, Kendall. When you first come into the parking lot, and you look at the winery, what are we looking at?

Yeah. So when you first take a glance at Volcano Winery, the first thing that’ll definitely jump out to you is that we grow grapes here. We have rows of grapevines, Japanese tea plants, olive trees, and a one of a kind Hawaiian grown cork tree.

Now, what is also a cork tree?

So it’s a cork tree, but it’s harvested. You harvest cork from it. So the outer layer of the tree is how you harvest the cork. And it regenerates every seven years.

And that’s what you used to cork up the wine, as you know, cork says, what we up in that bottle. They keep it nice and sealed up. We also have a small tasting room. And in addition to that, we offer a free vineyard and production room tours in the backdrop. You’ll see Mauna Loa volcano on the left and Monacan volcano on the right. And then we’re heavily forested up in this area.

We have tons of native forests and lava tubes on the property here. Lava tube? What is that?

The volcano system on this island. They are not the explosive volcano that you would expect to see. They’re called shield volcanoes. And so, a shield volcano, instead of exploding out, it houses the lava in a big crater. And then when it goes to release the lava, it shoots it out, kind of like a plumbing system. It shoots it through all the lava tubes which are under our feet.

So you’re just outside of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I imagine you get a lot of traffic coming from the park.

Yeah. So we’re about two miles from the national park entrance. So a lot of the time, we have customers that are hiking during the day, and then they come to check us out for an afternoon tasting or kind of the opposite. People come in first thing in the morning and do a little tasting so that they can go hiking with a little by little wine.

Right. It’s sort of that mountain. That volcano doesn’t look so big when they’re taking it.

Yeah. In reality, those are the two biggest mountains in the world. If we measure them from under the ocean to the tippy, tippy top of those mountains, taller than Mt. Everest. Yeah. Wow. So I was reading on the Web site where you’re very passionate about sustainability. So I imagine over the years, you’ve had to do some experimenting to make that happen.

We’ve experimented with a lot of different great varietals here, and we’ve narrowed it down to four varietals that work well for our microclimate here in the volcano. And those would include a great cold symphony, and symphony is a hybrid. UC Davis, California, actually created this grape in the 40s by doing a cross of the Mascotte grapes and the Grenache grape. So it’s kind of a cedar white grape. And we tried to blend it through a lot of our wine since it’s the main grapes that we’re producing here. We also do a grape called Cayuse Awaits. And that was created at Cornell University for the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. So that grows really well here. And then for red wine to do a Pinot Noir and Syrah, those two grapes do well here. We can produce well-rounded wines that really embody what you would imagine wine tasting like from Hawaii. They’re fruity, they’re light, they’re juicy, and a little bit on the cedar side. But yeah, that’s kind of what you expect coming from a Hawaiian wine.

That is it for part one in our next episode as we continue speaking with Kendall of Volcano Winery. We learn about their sustainability goals and their fundraising.

It is time now for a Listener Voicemail Question.

Hi, this is Peggy from Long Beach, California. What is the standard tasting poor when we go to a wine tasting? Thank you. Good question, Peggy. Doing my informal poll and speaking with different wineries, it varies. Some wineries pour one ounce, others two to three. Obviously, it’s at the discretion of the winery. But remember, they love it when you buy their wine. So they. Let’s just sample. Keep in mind, if you’re planning on buying. Don’t hesitate to ask for another sample.

Sure. Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of the Best Five Minute Wine podcast was produced by his IHSYM. If you like the show, tell your friends and pets and subscribe until next time, pour the wine, and ponder your next adventure.

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Unveiling the enchanting world of wine in Volcano, Hawaii, the latest episode of the best five minute wine podcast takes listeners on a delightful journey to America's southernmost winery. Host Forest Kelly, with his engaging style, invites listeners to explore the unique offerings of Volcano Winery, where sustainability meets innovation. The episode features an enlightening conversation with Kendall, the assistant manager, who shares insights about the winery's breathtaking scenery, including the majestic Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea volcanoes that frame the vineyard. Listeners are treated to a vivid description of the landscape, which is rich in native flora and includes a one-of-a-kind Hawaiian cork tree. This episode not only highlights the beauty of the winery but also emphasizes the importance of sustainability in wine production, showcasing their commitment to experimenting with grape varietals suited for the unique microclimate of Volcano.

The discussion dives into the fascinating grape varieties cultivated at the winery, such as Symphony—a hybrid grape designed to thrive in Hawaii’s climate—alongside Cayuga White, Pinot Noir, and Syrah. Each varietal contributes to the winery's distinctive flavor profile, producing wines that are notably fruity, light, and slightly sweet, embodying the essence of Hawaiian viticulture. The conversation between Forest and Kendall is laced with humor and wit, making complex topics such as sustainable farming practices and grape hybridization accessible and enjoyable for listeners. Throughout the episode, the chemistry between the host and guest shines, creating an inviting atmosphere that encourages wine enthusiasts to consider their next adventure in tasting Hawaiian wines.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

Volcano Winery
UC Davis
Cornell University

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Vintage Wisdom: The Art of Aging Wine in Arizona Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

This episode brings you insights from Ken Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards, as we explore the intriguing world of wine production in Elgin, Arizona. Callaghan shares his experiences and expertise accumulated over nearly 30 years, emphasizing the importance of understanding wine aging through a unique library tasting event. Listeners will discover the distinctions between wine grapes and table grapes, highlighting the complexity and variety inherent in winemaking. Ken's achievements, including accolades from prestigious competitions, showcase the quality and craftsmanship at Callaghan Vineyards. Join us for a delightful journey into the art of winemaking, where every vintage tells a story and every sip is an adventure.

Our featured winery is we return to Elgin, Arizona, for part two of our interview with Kent Callaghan Vineyards. Some of the events that they put on at the winery is a library tasting where they share a library worth of wines and they take you to a behind the scenes special event. You get to sample wines from their earliest vintages back when they started in early 1990 to the wines that they are producing now. So you get to compare the two.

I think it’s interesting for them to see, you know, the library historical data to see how the wines age, what’s done well, you know, and how these images are different, because we definitely have vintage variation in Arizona in general, and particularly in Sonoita, the monsoon rainfall that we would get.

So when you’ve been working with the vines for close to 30 years, as Kent has, you tend to get recognized in the wine industry with some awards, most recently a governor’s dinner in 2017 San Francisco Chronicle, probably a competition that people in California can relate to. And we got Pinot 19 in competition got Best of Class. Got the craft in the last competition and 2020 launches happen in January. Man, I have been there a white one best of class. So they tend to do pretty well in the competition. If you’d like to inquire more about what’s going on with the events or even visit the winery in Elgin, Arizona, at Callaghan Vineyards, how can people get a hold of you can go to the website Callaghanvineyards.com

All right. Thank you very much for your time. It has been very enlightening. Yeah. Thanks for us. Thank you.

It is time now for our listener voicemail question.

My name is Jolene Erickson and I’m from Flagstaff, Arizona. And I was wondering when making wine do you have to have seedless grapes? If you could answer that question. That would be awesome. Thank you.

No, you do not have to use seedless grapes. However, there is a difference between wine grapes and table grapes. There are over a thousand different varieties of grapes made for winemaking. They’ve converged them over the years. Plus, wine grapes have a very thick skin, unlike the table grape, which has a very thin skin. So it’s easy to eat and the differences go on and on. That’s what makes winemaking so intriguing. The layers are endless.

Thank you for listening. I’m Forrest Kelly. This episode of The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast was produced by IHYSM.

If you like the show tell your friends and pets and subscribe. Until next time pour the wine and ponder your next adventure.

Companies mentioned in this episode: