Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their
winery and their world. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and
passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine
and today I am in the heart of Carnaros at none other than Domain Carnaros,
that beautiful French inspira chateau that sits up on a hill and welcomes everyone
into wine country, famous for sparkling wines. But I am with t J.
Evans, the winemaker here who is actually specializing in the pinot noir still
wines. TJ. Welcome, tell us about to domin Carnaros and what you
do here. Well, Alison, it's great to be here with you.
Thank you so much. Yeah. I like to think of Domain Carnaros as
kind of like the unofficial welcome as we're situated on the road between the town
of Sonoma and the Napa Valley, so you're going to pass by us sooner
or later. I can't miss you, that's right. So we were founded
in nineteen eighty seven. It's a partnership between two families of the Taton Jerse
from Champan from France and the cop family from New York. And we've been
making wine for thirty five years with the Bubbly and as you mentioned, people
don't we're kind of the best kept secret in terms of Pino war because we
have been making pino war since nineteen ninety two, so we're starting to get
the hang up, I think. So, so do you own estates and
if so, how many acres are you purchasing fruit or a combination. We
are close to one hundred percent estate. We have six different ranches, non
contiguous, all incarnaros, and we have three on the Sonoma side and three
on the Napa side, So we're farming four hundred acres. We have two
hundred and fifty acres of pino, one hundred and fifty acres of chardonnay,
and we have five acres of pino greet And what percentage goes into still wine
About twenty percent of the grapes go into the still wine program. So in
a good year, I'll be making around twelve thousand cases about eight different pino
noirs, along with a little more low and a couple of chardonnays. And
what are your markets like, where where are your wines available? Are they?
Well, you're a big winery, so I know you're in distribution,
but what markets you and I know people can buy it here, but where
else. One of the interesting things about Domain Carnaros is, as you mentioned,
Alison, we are in you know, nationwide distribution. We're in all
fifty states, and we really focus on the vintage Brute, the Brute Rose
and the Estate Pino. But that's just three wines. Here at the chateau.
We make twenty five different wines, so and that's really league. Gives
a lot of diversity, a lot of special wines that we work on for
We have quite a big wine club and we sell the wines obviously seller door
and to the wine club. And so for all the pianots you make,
only one of them is really in distribution. Everything else You've got to come
here to taste your wines, that's correct, but you can get them in
the wine club as well. So you grew up in on the East Coast
in Massachusetts, right, sort of. I grew up in East Bay,
but I was born in Massachusetts and I went to college in Massachusetts. But
I'm from the East Bay. Okay, so I'm curious, what is your
first memory relevant to wine? You know, growing up, I always we
always had wine on the table. That was a big part of our family.
And I do you know, we all have these moments, we have
these wines that we remember. And I remember in the early eighties tasting a
Coverts Tremaner from Josephelps, and I was just I just couldn't believe that all
these flavors and aromas could come out of the glass. And so that's one
of my first wine memories. And in all the years since, is there
another, I'd say, your aha moment wine or an aha moment wine that
really either opened your eyes to a grape, a region, to wine in
general, or maybe it was some other life changing experience. What was that
wine that comes to mine? That's a tougher one. I think for me,
it's the story of my career working in Peinot noir. For you know,
I'm in my third decade of working with Peino Noir. I think it's
just it's a love affair, it's a journey, it's an exploration my career,
you know, starting at Lacrema in the nineties, I've really watched the
explosion and the evolution of Peino noir on the West coast, And for me,
it's just it's ongoing. I think every year there's a new challenge,
which is the growing season and the vintage, the harvest and ventifying the wines.
And of course, you know, Peenot noir is so global, there's
always new regions to explore. But at my house we drink a lot of
Peino noir and it never never gets old. You're just jumping right through all
my questions there. I love how you you avoided give me one specific memorable
why it's about that? Well, so I was gonna before I ask you
what you're drinking at home mother, you just gave that answer. I'm curious.
You work with Peenot noir, and you work a lot with it.
Do you think it's a perfect variety or do you think there's a such thing
as a perfect variety. It really depends on your taste, right you know,
we're we're sitting in Napa right now, and there are people who love
Cabernet Sauvignon and tastes differ. So for me, for my palette, um,
I love Peenot noir. I think it has Maybe you can correct me
if if you think this is an erroneous perception. But people on the production
side, they think peenot noir is challenging to grow, and I think that
replice the fickle grape and and I don't know, I work with it so
much, I don't I don't look at it as that heartbreaking or that frustrating.
I think it's challenging and it's fun, but I think the rewards are
immeasurable. And I think, you know, my goal is always is to
keep improving and develop a finer touch and just to make the wines a little
bit better every year. And that's a challenge that I enjoy. So um,
you said you drink a lot of pinot noir. So if we were
to come to your home, is that all we would find or do you
have anything else? And of those peanos, is it mostly domestic? Is
it mostly local to this region? Or what would we find in your seller
sellers? Yeah, I mean Burgundy obviously is a frame of reference. You
know, we we make peinot noir because we're inspired by Burgundy. We live
in the shadow of Burgundy. I often wonder if if history was different,
if peeno noir developed in California if they would be growing peinot noir in Burgundy,
right, because they would have they would have the burden of, you
know, comparing it to us, and so it's you know, obviously there's
a parallel universe somewhere where that's happening. But no, so I always use
Burgundy as a benchmark. I love Chambertin, I love Volnay. And you
have a lot of that at home. No, not a lot. We
drink a lot of domestic stuff. We drink a lot of coastal stuff.
I really respect the wines from Ross Cobb. I know he's been doing it
out on the coast for a few decades. I like ted Lemon's wines at
litterai Um, I like the Mandavi guys working on the Rain project. Ross
Cobb, you know, will leave you with longing and regret. You know,
he don't. He didn't see the movie the menu did. It's nicely
quoted in there. I was. I was jealous of that. That was
a great product placement. Yeah, I didn't get the quote though. Yeah,
and are there do you have any white wines at home or any other
red grapes that you drink or you're pretty penocentric no it's um, I am
not ashamed to say that I love chardonay, and chardonay is so amazing.
There's such an ocean of chardonay out there. But when it's really grown,
well, I think, Um, I'm excited about the whole the whole trend
in both peno noir and Schardney. I think there's a really focused pursuit of
balance and elegance. Um. You know, you know, for example,
Alison, I remember this. I will tell you a joke which is true,
which describes sort of like the evolution and pedo back in the nineties,
Like if you're a winemaker and I'd say, hey, Alison, you know
it's during harvest. I'd say, hey, Alison, have you picked your
pino yet? You'd be like, oh, man, I haven't even sampled
it yet, right, because we were going for high bricks, we were
going for voluptuous, high gravity, big alcohol wines. And now twenty five
years later, if I said during harvest, I said hey, Alison,
have you picked your your pino yet, You'd be like, oh, I
picked it three weeks ago, right, and so, and that's kind of
um. But I think I think there is a pursuit um to that real
elegance and balance, and you see that in Penoir and you see it in
Chardonnay. So I think I just love Chardonay. I think a well made
Chardonay is with really bright acidity, with nice, interesting layered, complex flavors.
If you modulate the oak and the things we're doing now with concrete fermenting
in concrete, you get this flinty minerality and you get the close Lee's contact
without having to, you know, bring in the oak. So I think
there's just a lot of excitement going on. So at your home, at
Chardonnay and Pino, that's correct. Back to the basic what do you drink
at home? There's a fair amount of bubbly. Not so much lately.
I've kind of not been on a big bubbly kick lately. But you know,
I've been at Domin Carnarios for fifteen years, and I think when I
first started here that was part of our mission really is we're always We're always
spreading the message. Right. Bubbly is not just for your birthday, your
anniversary, for New Year's Eve. It's a great way to start any meal,
you know, with the acid and get your stimulate your appetite. But
it's yeah, So if all things were equal, you as a drinker,
this is a quick one red white or rose. Oh, it's gonna be
red, it's gonna be pinot still or sparkling. It's gonna be still.
Yeah. So is there a particular wine that you've opened up in the last
week or so that drank really well? Something from your home collection that we're
not quite sure? What else is there? The Vimpino and chard That's a
tough one. That's a really tough question. U. Something that really jumps
out, I have to say. About three weeks ago, I was really
fortunate to go to a wine tasting at a friend's house and there were about
twenty people. Scott Rich was there from Talisman and some local Snoma people,
and of all things, it was a Bordeaux tasting and we were drinking Mouton
Lafitte and wines from the eighties. But the wine that stole the night for
me was an eighty six lynch bag that Scott had brought and he had saved
that for a long time, and he it was a special bottle and he
opened it with friends. And when you taste wines like that, you know,
it's that's what almost forty years old that are so long lived and still
so beautiful. Those And for me, honestly, Alison, when I drink
an old wine, I don't care if it's good or bad. It's nice
when it's a stellar wine. But I feel like it's almost like you have
to honor that wine right when it's so old and that bottle had to whatever
journey it took to make it to your table. I think there's just something,
really, I have a lot of reverence when I open old wines.
The story in a glass. Yeah, so, because wine is a story
in a glass, especially when it's older, but even when it's younger,
there's a story. Does that get lost when we talk about scores and I'm
curious your opinion on wine critics and scores. Wasn't that a nice segue?
Yeah? That was clever. Well, I mean again, the whole the
whole industry is really evolved. I remember, you know, back in the
nineties and when you had like Parker and Spectator had a tremendous amount of power,
And that's fine. I honestly think the industry needed that at the time,
and maybe perhaps still does. We need an arbiter. We need some
authority who can you know, val Placing value is problematic, but we need
some sort of benchmark. And then you know, we all witnessed the shift
to the Samelias and the Simelias are really gatekeepers to the restaurants and they kind
of put their own personal stamp on and I think all those things are good.
I think when I think about wine scores, it's almost like I remember
I used to read Pauline Kale in the New Yorker for the cinema reviews because
she's such a great writer. But I think what my point is is you
find someone is your taste like Dan Burger, then you're gonna like wines that
Dan Burger. And so when you figure out a critic that aligns with your
taste, I think you can have that can be valuable to So going back
to your love of drinking, Peino Noir and chardonay, Um, you're talking
about two exceptionally food friendly wines that are pretty easy going with a variety of
dishes. Um. Do you put a lot of thought into pairing food and
wine? Are there rules you follow or suggestions that you would give someone or
do you just say drink pinot in You're you have no problem. I don't
get that specific. Honestly, Um, I do agree with you. I
think the versatility of peanot noir is so amazing. I mean, you can
have poultry, you can have fish, you can have grilled grilled meat.
It's it's it just Um. I do love to cook. I do.
I do really like to cook. And that's been something that I really enjoy
cooking for friends and and but I would assume that with making even in your
wines, making eight different pinot noirs, um, you you would pick a
different one for a different dish depending So are there any certain, you know,
key points that you're looking for that would make you decide why you pick
one wine over another to go with a dish. Yeah, I think you
know, with peanut noir, you kind of have a spectrum in fruit profile
where on the really on the lighter side you have maybe some sort of like
cranberry and red raspberry sort of flavors, and then and that tends to go
with lighter alcohol. And then at the other end of the spectrum you get
into bluer fruits, more volume, more body, and more richness. So
I suppose, based on you know whether it's lunch or dinner, or how
heavy the fair is. You can kind of fine tune the wine selection that
way. So for someone who hasn't had the pleasure to taste your wines yet,
and let's go specific to the domain, Carnaro's peanut noir still wines,
what do you think they're missing out on? Well, it's such a great
time to be a pinot noir drinker. You know, when I started back
in the nineties, there was still a lot of experimentation and there weren't a
lot of choices. And I think now you've got choices from the Willamette Valley
in Oregon down to Russian River Carnaros, of course, the Snowma Coast down
to the Central Coast and everywhere in between. So what I love about Carnaros
and what I think Carnaros has to offer the consumer is you get this beautiful
ripe fruit of course, because it's sunny. You get this spicy character which
comes from the persistent breeze that we have here, and you get this,
you get this savoriness. Carnaros offers a savoriness And for me, I'm not
trying to make kool aid, I'm not. I don't want it to be.
Fruity is simple and boring to me. When you have the nice ripe
fruit complimented by some savoriness, some vice, some earthiness, I think that
makes it a really complete tasting experience. So, if space aliens were to
land here on the property right now, which of your wines would you want
to welcome them with? Well? Would I welcome many people? People who
have not been to Carnaros before, and they're like, if you ask me,
hey, TJ, what does Carnaros taste like, I would serve you
the Famous Gate. So the Famous Gate encompasses all that flavor profile that we've
been talking about. When you have a bottle of Famous Gate, that wine
has the DNA that goes all the way back to nineteen ninety two to the
germination of the Pinot noir still wine program at do Maincarnaros. The Famous Gate
and if you are driving up here, you see the Famous Gate, right,
that's the one. So you've been here a long time, and you've
been in the valley for you said, now you're on your third decade of
vintages, so we know that every vintage tells a different story. And you
said earlier that you really love how you know you're looking for that vintage.
That's the difference every year from year to year. And you're working. So
as you wander through the vineyards, assuming you wander through the vineyards, you
do you look for any kind of signs or predictors that are going to determine
what a vintage is going to give you? Yeah, of course, I
think every season, and now with climate change, the seasons are becoming more
dramatic and the seasons are becoming different. Um We've we've battled a lot of
things over the last few years, fires, drought, and this year atmospheric
rains right our twelfth atmospheric river. It's really been amazing. And so I
think from a winemaking standpoint, approaching the vintage, you're you're following the entire
growing season and we're trying to understand it. So it starts with things like,
well, what's the accumulated rainfall this year around different parts in Sonoma.
We're between thirty two and thirty five inches, which is remarkable. We normally
get twenty to twenty two inches. And now, so what do we know
going forward? We know we have a full saturation of the soil profile.
We'll be looking for bud break which has just started over the weekend, and
then we'll be watching to see, you know, how the ambient temperature affects
the growth. We had some issues with leaf curl last year because we had
a we had a very cold snap right after bud break, so we had
a situation where the foliage was behind the cluster development, but it grew out
of that. So yeah, there's a lot of markers, and you know,
by looking at these different markers, we're really trying to develop a deeper
understanding of the growing season and what opportunities are going to be presented, and
that's going to inform the strategy of how we want to make the wines dring
harvest. So, in looking back over the last three decades, do you
and taking in consideration these extreme sort of weather things that have happened, do
you see a lot of variation from vintage to vintage and the wine or do
you see a more commonality? Well, yes and no. I think when
you look at a place like Domain Carnaros, which has estate vineyards, there's
a built in thread of commonality that links all those wines together. And that's
going to be the vineyards and the blocks and the clones and the winemaking style.
But you know, when I look back at some of the vintages,
they're just so starkly different. Like when I think about twenty and eleven,
that was a historically cool vintage, and the you know, the dominant personality
of those wines was a was a lower alcohol even picking in October. And
then you skip ahead a couple of vinages to twenty thirteen. Twenty thirteen was
an extremely peculiar vintage because all the all the water for that vintage accumulated in
December of twenty and twelve, So in the entire calendar year of thirteen,
we had no rainfall. And so what that meant is you you have more
firm tannins. I mean, it's a drought vinage, and the wines were
bigger and they're still drinking beautifully. Now. The thirteens are amazing. They
took a while to come around, but even the bubbly show that extract and
that power. So yeah, there is still tremendous variation. And I'm really
excited about twenty three. I mean, just in twenty one we had a
we had a drought in twenty one that was pretty severe. So and so
when you are walking through the vineyard, do you have a tendency to talk
to your vines and encourage them or reprimand them, or do you do more
of that kind of in the winery when they're in barrel. Well, I
I think I'm talking inside my head, but a lot of people say that
I talk to myself a lot, so I'm sure, I'm I'm sure I'm
probably talking or mumbling. But that's one of the great that's one of the
one of the biggest joys of being involved in grape growing and winemaking is being
out in the vineyards. It really ties you to the season. It really
it really draws you into the beauty and the power of nature, and it's
it's just it's one of my favorite parts of the job. Are there any
sort of rituals that you've established at the start of harvest, either for yourself
or for your team? Well, I mean me personally, I like to
be well rested for harvests. So, you know, for us with the
Bubblies, we typically start the first week in August, so we'll pick bubbly
for about three to four weeks and we're usually done by the end of August,
but we're usually into the penut noirs, the early ripening peanut oars by
by mid August. Noah sabring a bottle of bubbles over the first pick.
Yeah, no, we do that, We do that. We blessed the
grapes. Absolutely. Yeah, We've been doing that every year on the first
load of grapes. Thank you. So when you were a little boy,
what did you want to be when you grew up? How did you what
did you think you would be or what were you prior to being a winemaker
or was this something you knew from a young age. Definitely not something I
knew from a young age. I guess I really wasn't sure what I was
going to do. That's the great thing about this industry, and I think
you'd degree Allison, is it's as this sort of magnetic pull and most of
the people that I know in winemaking kind of like wandered into it from another
career or stumbled across it and then just got captivated by it. I think,
So, how did you stumble into it? I mean, I just
I don't know. Did I stumble into it? I don't know I had
an interest in wine from a from an early age. In fact, as
you mentioned, I did go to college in Massachusetts, and I eventually studied
at UC Davis, but I was I was thinking about it back then.
I was actually thinking of transferring to Davis while I was in college, but
I was having so much fun in Massachusetts that I decided to stay there.
So when you're not working, how do you spend your free time? So
in I live in the town of Sonoma, and I have a nice group
of friends. We'd like to do a lot of bicycle ridings. We do
a lot of road riding and a lot of gravel riding, and there's just
so many beautiful places out here to ride, not only in the Sonoma Valley
and over into the Napa Valley, but we do a lot of rides out
on the coast, out in Moran and further north on the coast. So
you have to work off all the wine you drink. You develop a big
thirst when you're out on your bike for a few hours, for sure.
And if you were planning a romantic evening for you and your spouse, what
sort of wines set for that romantic evening? Are we starting with bubbles.
Are you going right to pino? Is it Domain Carnaros or is it something
else? Oh, there would certainly be an appetizer course. I mean,
I love bubbly. Bubbly is such a great way to start. You know,
here at Domain Carnaros we have such an array of bubblis. I encourage
people to visit if you have the opportunity. One of the my favorite classes
of wines we do is the late discorged wines. So if you look at
a Domain Cornaro's bubbly and there'll be a banner in the left hand corner,
and when you see that little banner, it says late to scorge. So
we do a late discorge brute. In fact, we just did the dosage
trial this morning for the seventeen and it's just it's it has this beautiful toastiness,
a little bit of integrated sulfide. This is the seventeen vinage, so
you know we tarage that in eighteen. It's on the lease eighteen, nineteen,
twenty twenty one, twenty two five years in the bottle. There's just
a lot of mouth feel and beautiful creaminess and richness. I mean, that's
a great and We do that with our vintage brute rose. Also, people
don't think about aging rose, but the rose just becomes really ethereal that rose
petal becomes more potpourri, just becomes really fragile and delicate and beautiful. So
so that's what you'd start out a romantic evening with. Yeah, you know,
I've been drinking a fair amount of cider lately too. I think there's
a lot of people who are doing. Um, I really like a nice
paracider. I just think it. The fruit is just so beautiful. But
yeah, I think bubbly is a nice way to start for sure. So
when you look back at your career, what would you say as one of
your proudest achievements to date? Wow, that's that's tough one. Um.
You know, like I mentioned earlier, I think I think that the industry
has really changed and evolved, and I think I think I'm maybe I'm I'm
pleased about the fact that my winemaking has evolved, just continuing it. You
think it's so it's you know, it's like when you say, oh,
TJ, you've been making wine for three decades. It sounds like a lot,
But I've only done thirty harvests, right, and so you really have
to capitalize on those on those moments, and it's it's been fun. Um,
I think I'm making the best wines of my career now. So and
in five or ten years maybe you'll be saying, now, I think I'm
making the best lines of my career. Right. It's evolution. Yeah,
I got a few vintages left in me. So that's so when you look
back at your you know, we all are get advice throughout our lives,
whether it's in our childhood from our parents or teachers, or in our career.
Is there a piece of advice someone gave you along the way that you've
carried with you, you know? Um, yes, there's so many.
There's so many. I had so many great mentors. I remember very clearly
when I was working at La Crema, Dan Goldfield told me, he said,
TJ, nobody remembers how much wine you made. They only remember how
good it is. And that really stuck with me. My dad was such
a great mentor to me. He didn't really give me a lot of advice,
but sort of the example that he set. He was very precise just
in the way he did things. Did did jobs like the way you prepare
for a project and complete it, just the way he worked so hard,
you know, and so you internalize those things. I think. So,
I guess the short story, I got my work ethic from my father and
being really proud of doing a working hard. So when we think about all
the advice and the people that have been special to us. So we're sitting
at a table and we've got a bottle of your wine that you made sitting
on the table in an empty seat next to you, Who, from any
walk of life, living or deceased, would you love to share a bod
of domain Corner's piano wire with? Wow? That's an interesting question. Obviously,
I've never thought about that. I don't know. I mean, it's
an interesting question to ponder. I'm sure I'll come up with an answer tonight.
But should we just linger and wait? But I mean, who would
I really want to share a battle of wine with? Wow? You know,
my grandmother, my mom's mother, passed away right when I started getting
into wine, so she never really got a chance to taste any of my
wine. So that would be one person for sure, And I'm sure you'll
think of others. But I think that's a good answer, so complete this
sentence. For me, a table without wine is like, that's going to
be a sad meal. So what we always say at my house is like
when we're getting ready for dinner, it's what are we going to open?
Right? So never never have an empty table? Right? So? Um,
you know you've talked a lot. We've had some extreme vintages, and
you were talking about variation. You think that we're gonna be making wine in
three hundred years. You still think we'll be making and drinking it, not
us, but you know, yeah, I think so. Um. I
think it's it's hard to sort of contemplate that far in the future, but
I'm I'm sure we will be. So. Um. If if unfortunately we
were not and you were sent off to a deserted island, which three wines
would you want to take with you? Wow? Where were you coming up
with these questions? You should have told you I have some tricky thought provoken
one only three wines? Right? Because you know as that that's especially challenging
because as wine drink we love, we love to explore, right, We're
not. That's the funny thing when you think about you know, beer drinkers
and spirits drinkers right there, loyal, What do you drink? Oh?
I drink Johnny Black or whatever. But for us, we always want something
new, So I only get I get three wines, not just one.
Three. See, I'm letting you explore a little. Yeah, I mean,
well that's easy for me. I mean I would, I could.
I would take a bubbly, probably something on the leaner fresher side. I
would take a chardonnay, probably something on the leaner side, very vague on
where it might come from or who made it. And then there would obviously
be a peanutoir. But yeah, I mean I wouldn't want to say which
ones. But I think I could do okay with three wines. I mean,
if you made it one wine, that would be really hard. Peanut
oir problem. Well, well, we have come to the very end where
we play our last game. She's pairing wine with music. Um, you
know because it's called wine soundtrack. So okay, this is the soundtrack of
your wine life. Wine conjures up emotions in us when we drink it,
and so does music. So looking at some of your wines, um,
I want you to tell me what genre or artists or specific song it represents.
To you. So, um, let's start with the famous gate Peanot
War. Okay, so the famous Gate. I have to pair the famous
Gate with music. Well, that's tough. Um. I have to say,
I have been listening to a lot of Rayla Montaigne lately, and I
would I would, I would probably put the Famous Gate with ray La Montaigne.
Um. You know, his music is kind of folksy, it's a
little bit rustic, but it's it's very it's not overly produced, right because
he has this haunting voice which is like the ethereal fruit. And then he
has this beautiful guitar work which is slightly rustic, and I think that might
be the earthiness of the pinot noir. But I think that might be a
good start. And then you were talking about your late discooragement. I know
you don't make this wine, but late discooragement root Okay, that's a classic.
I might be going with something like maybe some Etta James or maybe some
Ela Fitzgerald, maybe a little Sarah Bond something like that. Now, I'm
going to pick a wine I'm a fan of which we're sipping right now,
which is the Pinot Claire. And you know you know, I'm a huge
fan because this is a white pinot noir, so peanot noir that you have
taken off the skins and it looks like a white wine. Yeah, this
is We started making this in two thousand and eight and it's been a really
really fun, fun journey. We've made this wine out. You know,
we grow twenty different types of pinot noir here to Macarnaros, and I always
use as a foundation, I use some Pomard. But we've made this with
Martini, with Bodensville, We've made it with Swan and it's just it's such
an interesting wine. It's fun to blind people on it because your expectations are
that it's going to be have a profile like a chardonnay. But the entrance
is just so juicy and so oily, and then the finish there's so much
the acidity is so firm that it finishes really it's almost it's it really invites
you to take another sip because it's because of that freshness. So I think
it's a I'm surprised there aren't more white Peanos out there. I agree,
So I'm glad you're a fan. Oh I have to do that. I
have to do the song thing again. That's a tough one. I don't
know about that. I don't I really don't know. That's a tough one.
What about you, Do you have any I don't know. Well,
as I'm sipping it, I mean, there is faint classical music playing in
the background, but I have to say I don't think it fits the wine
because this wine has a little more texture to it and it has a little
more intensity to it while still being you know, fresh, acidity and bright.
So I don't know, maybe a little maybe a little Amy winehouse maybe
who's got that sexy soulfulness to it. I like that. I like that.
I mean, you have other pinot noirs we can go do, but
I think we're going to leave it on that a little Amy winehouse and white
pinot noir. You know, it's a rare thing, not something most people
would think of. Well, TJ, you've done it. You've made it
to the Underwine soundtrack. I have one final question for you, and it's
a two parter. The first part is where in the world is at the
top of your bucket list to go explore? What why area, wine region,
wine country. My wife's never been to Italy, So we really want
to go to Italy, specifically Sicily. I'm always I'm really intrigued by those
wines. Also want to get to Portugal especially and to northern Spain, to
Galacia. So three spots on your list, and I'm sure more so.
The second part of that is for somebody who wants to come visit you,
you know it's coming up to the Sonoma and Napa area and they come to
Carnaro's, how can they visit you? What can they experience? Well,
domain Carnaros is open seven days a week. We strongly encourage reservations and also
I do we get pretty busy in the summer on the weekends. So if
you can come on a Monday or a Tuesday, you can have a really
nice, peaceful tasting experience. You can sit out on one of our patios,
enjoy the sunset. Um. But I invite everyone to come and visit
us. I think we we offer something really special, real a real special
taste of Carnaros, and you do tastings, but also pairings and tours and
other things. Yep, we have we have some we have a tour,
we have some special bites available, we have charcuterie selections. We have cheese
plates, we have a caviar tasting which is really special, and we have
we have a bubbles and bites, so it's um, it's it's light fair
sort of like it's not like a big meal, but it's a very special.
You can taste four bubblies paired with and we change it. We the
cuisine changes quarterly. So we've done morocc and we've done Asian, We've done
and so it's it's a fun, especially because the bubbles are so great with
food, So it's a really fun opportunity, right, But you can also
come here and just do a Pinot no Wi tasting. You can do that
well. DJ thank you so much for joining us on Wine Soundtrack. I
hope you had fun. I had a great time. Those were some challenging
questions. You did well, so cheers, cheers. Thanks, You're gonna
have to fill your glass. Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine
Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visten our website Wine soundtrack dot com.