Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Let's 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 Alice Levine
and today I am in Sonoma with none other than Scott Peterson of Winecraft.
Scott, welcome and tell us about winecraft and what that is and what that
encompasses. Well, Hello, thanks for including me. Winecraft is an overall
umbrella company of line where I make in consult wines. The wines that I
make for myself and Nakedwines dot Com are rocks retro, obsessive and extractive.
And to come up with that name. In October so r o x r
o X. I also have a project in Argentina Mendos, Argentina that's called
Rocks of the yandis Rumpus Sellers, which is my Sonoma Coast brand that I
moved to the northern interior. It's kind of my entry level and in my
flagship brand SP Drummer always thought name Drummer was kind of cool because I was
a drummer boy on the Clineuisberg, Fife and drum Corps and Scott Peterson's kind
of a blase name. So those are my four brands with naked wines.
Fantastic. So you said you're based in Sonoma. You're obviously making wine in
Sonoma and Argentina, and I'm curious how many cases do you produce and are
you sourcing fruit? Do you own fruit? Tell us a little bit about
that and what grapes are you working with? Thank goodness, I don't own
any vineyards. I learned that a long time ago, but I probably control
about six hundred acres, most of that in Sonoma County from my Rocks program
favorite varieties probably Sara. I make a really cool blend called Rocks All Blacks
that's based on Serra patitzeras zim Fandel Alcante Bouche. I control those vineyards.
I make a bunch of Chardonnays from different appellations, Russian rivers and on the
coast, and then sp Drummer is a signature wine that is essentially appellated from
the Pedaluma gap. I do a small amount of Cabernet from Knights Valley as
well. But the idea is to control as much as possible, dictate the
style that I want. What is my style? You know, I'm kind
of a big guy, so I like big wines, unctious wines. I
like wines that over deliver, and wines it simply tastes like more. Ah.
Well, so you've been in the wine industry a very long time.
But if you can remember back way back when, what is your first memory
relevant to wine? First memory? I grew up in an Italian family,
so my mother father drank wine every night. I was allowed a little bit
with ginger ale kind of as a kid, and it was basically around the
dinner table. My uncle tried making wine from California grapes that really didn't turn
out too well. I hoped him much later, but it was always around
the house. It wasn't really reveled as something special or were you know,
expensive by any means. That came a little bit later, but always been
around it. And so when it came a little bit later. Is there
one memorable wine? I'm sure there have been many, but is there one
sort of that stands out that was an aha moment for a myriad of reasons.
I mean, you tell me the wine and why it stood out to
you. Yeah, yeah, actually I have two. When I resigned from
Kendall Jackson many moons ago, I guess there was in ninety eight and decided
to at a very tender age to start my own consulting business and go to
Argentina. I thought my father thought I was crazy, but the character's Jet
Steele and the people that I had worked for at the time of kJ took
me out to this fabulous lunch at Mustard's Girl in Napa Valley, and that's
where I was first introduced to Cordon Charlemagne, which is still my signature chardonnay
style and the best champagne I've ever had my life. I've only had a
couple of times since was Salon. So those were two marquee lines that were
just on a plateau above and beyond, and then kind of in chasing that
style ever since, chasing and chasing and chasing. So if we were to
come to your home, um, what sort of wines would we find in
there? I mean, are you? Are you? I mean clearly if
if your pinnacles are Cylon champagne and Chardonnay, do we find a lot of
those in your cellar? Or what else would we find. Well, it
was a hot day, we'd go right to the fridge and I always have
a couple of bottles of champagne non vintage, maybe some sparkling wine from from
Cali, and then we'd probably move into crispy non New Zealand style Silvinion blocs.
And then of course in this in this cellar, I always have a
cash so some kick ass Chardonnay's, Peanuto wars et cetera, et cetera,
but strong of affectionado of the winds of the Rane Valley. It was just
their last summer. It's kind of my style. It's big, unctuous ripe,
etc. So you have a big smattering of domestic and international wines from
all over and grapes, Alison, if we had to hold up in my
house for sixty days, we'd be definitely taken care of. It's good to
know. And I'm surprised you didn't drink it all during COVID. I did
bust something though, that's for sure. So is there is there a wine
that you opened up recently, maybe last night or in the last week,
that just drank incredibly And what was it? Yes, Saturday, Saint quome
U twoy eighteen chatone enough to pop definitely my signature wine for a grass based
wine, and I had it with Lamb actually, which was killer. A
win win on all levels there. So you're working with a ton of different
grapes and you've expressed sort of your love for you know, Roan grapes,
Chardonnay, cabernet. Well, you're an equal opportunist for all these grapes.
So do you think there's a such thing as a perfect um? No?
And I'm kind of a fanatic, uh to blend. I call myself a
blending fanatic because I believe the summation of different blocks, of different quartels of
the same variety often is much superior and certainly blends based on different varieties together.
You know when I'm when I'm blending, I kind of you kind of
close your eyes and you go into a blending session knowing exactly what you want,
and then it's can you make it happen? Um? As it was
told to me a long time ago, go with your first intuition, um.
Because you start to second guests and you start to play with the blends.
Oftentimes you end up diluting things and it just gets complicated. So you
make a lot of wine, and um, there's you're making a lot of
blends and you're saying that there're's no perfect variety, which makes perfect sense.
He used perfect ties. There no intention there. But I'm curious about what
about perfect scores or in general, what's your opinion on critics and scores?
Are you aspiring to get that perfect score or do they not play a part?
God, that's a loaded question. Um, it's like a critic for
the ballet, for the theater, etc. First of all, they probably
have never made a drop of wine. They're not classically trained. Um.
You know, when I send out for scores, I do the shotgun approach
and I'll send it broadly to a bunch of different reviewers. Hopefully something hits
and sticks. But I'm making a wine for consumers. Um, I want
people to enjoy those wines. I want to bring the family together. I
want them to enjoy them often. So whether it's a Pinnacle ninety six ninety
eight, you know who really cares? Well, that's fair. I mean,
you submit them if you get them great, right, you stop me
on that. I was like, So for you, as a wine drinker,
you've said you like big and unctuous wines. In a quick answer,
red white or Rose red and white. I'm not basically a Rose fan.
Rose's kind of like bisexuality. It's either to the left to the right.
I mean, go with one side excepted its champagne. So if I say
you had to pick between still and sparkling to drink, probably sparkling to make
still. So with such a variety of wines, and you just said the
other night that you had the lamb with the stoneft to pop, how do
you approach food and wine pairing? I mean that was a great pairing that
you had the other night, and it obviously made both the dish and the
wine shine. Do you aspire to that every time you're cooking a meal and
opening a bottle of wine? And do follow any rules or any rules you
can share. I usually picked the wine first and then decide what I want
to eat. Um, you know basic The white and white meats and red
and red meats kind of follows in line, unless it's peanut war which goes
with everything. M. Sparkling wine goes with everything before the meal, after
the meal, during the meal, breakfast, breakfast and eggs. M.
Yeah, I mean, basically, it's it's more of a textural thing and
it's a big, rich dish. It can take a big, rich wine,
or you might want to have a wine that'll cut some of that fat,
some of the grass, et cetera. But again I usually concentrate on
the wine and then and then decide what I want to eat. So for
somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to try any of your wines, what do
you think they're missing out on? Oh? Man, wait till we wait,
till we meat. You know, I would say my style, you
know, is more towards the mid palette texture, to the textural aspect.
I pay a lot of tension to that, to the mouth feel. Um,
you know what sensory characteristics does does the wine give? Um? So,
my wines tend to be bigger in style, both aromatically and both on
the palette, whether it's so many oblanc, whether it's definitely chardonnay, you
know, I make a classic chardonay that's beryl fermented mL um, it's a
classic California. I think we go through styles up and down, and we
try to do things differently to be different. But the true winner winners for
lack of a better word, in my book or the classic French varieties,
so many oblanc, Chardonnay, PM no war, Cabernet and syra um.
Those are my benchmark. So you know, we know that you're never supposed
to ask a wine maker their favorite wine because it's like picking their favorite child.
And you make a lot of different wines and have different labels. But
if space aliens were to land on your property right now, which of your
wines from all the wines you make, would you want to welcome them with?
Oh, I'd bring a boatload of chardoney. It's just so I make
about five of them. I make a they get five bottles. Oh yeah,
I mean we don't we want to divide and conquer, right, We
want to appease these guys. But you know I like the big cabernets too,
because cabernets are very much a food wine. But if aliens were to
come down, load them up with chardonay any particular one sp drummer and rocks
so two actually there's three rock chardneys. Well you've been working in the wine
business for how long? How many vintages? Well, if you saw me,
you would say, wow, like maybe eight but I think it's a
little bit more than that. I've been on my own for twenty years.
I went to Argentina after resigning from kJ and prior to that Shadow Sat Michelle,
I ran the California properties. This was my thirty third vintage in Cali
and my eighth vintage in South America. So that's forty two. Okay.
So you've spent a lot of time in the vineyards and you have witnessed many,
many vintages, and you've seen them on two hemispheres, which is actually
pretty cool. So I'm wondering, how do you look at vintage variation and
between the two hemispheres. Do you see not between the two hemispheres, but
do you see more commonality from vintage to vintage here versus in South America?
Do you see more variation? What have you noticed over your decades worth of
working with different grapes. That's very interesting question, Alison, because where I
produce wines in Argentina and Chile are between the thirty third and the thirty seventh
parallel, maybe thirty eighth parallel, whether it be south or north continentally or
Argentina is a continental climate, so it's more like Eastern Washington, et cetera.
Chile is a mirror image of California. So, you know tradition,
I thought California had kind of an easier time because a lot of images were
essentially perfect and the same, you know, until still about five years ago,
until we got the fires and all the Shenanigans, etc. Fires,
droughts now rainstorms. Yeah, and in thirty two years, it's ever been
more difficult. It should be getting easier. But I think Argentina is very
different, you know than California, because they get their precipitation or the bulk
of it in their summer months, whereas California is very dry during the summer.
Again, it used to be very easy making one to California, and
I'm into easy, but yeah, it's should challenge both ways. Just no
more fires, please. So are there any sort of signs or omens you
look for that are going to help you determine what a vintage will be?
Yeah. Cane growth. So cane growth is directly related to the amount of
moisture in the springtime, whether it be the north or the south. Are
the cane shorter than normal, are they longer than normal? That will be
indicative of the crops, set the balance of the crop. Really, I
look for about a meter to one point two of cane growth and I want
a perfect balance. I want the vines to look like a garden that manipulation
starts early in the vintage year. In the north, it starts, say
in May and June, and then we'll make other passes in July and August.
But harvest time should be kind of an easy time to decide when to
pick because it should be homogeneous, it should taste really good, it shouldn't
be able to ripe, and it should have this kind of and I did
it last week in Argentina. I like almost this crunchiness in the barriers.
So what we call crocante in Spanish, and just keep walking it walk and
talk and and just be a tune. So when you're walking through those vinyons
and talking, are you talking to yourself? Are you talking to your vines?
Talking to the angels? Manu? Yeah, yeah, they're talking.
No, I'm talking to the angels, yeah, who are controlling the vines
more or less everything. In all the years that you've been making wine,
have you established any sort of rituals that you do at the start of harvest
or during harvest, get some sleep, wake up early, and you only
do that during harvest basically. Yeah, Rich, that's kind of neat because
you always um, you know, I go into the vineyard kind of I
like pearl jam a lot, So I'll go into the vineyard kind of blasting
music, and you're all amped up and you're excited, and then we start
the sample maybe three weeks before we decided to pick, and realize that you're
you're making you know, twenty ton decisions on a sample. It's probably weighing
about a pound and a half or two pounds. So it's it's walking many
passes. It's it's looking at the vines, it's looking at the fruit.
It's looking at the fruit zone. You know, are there any yellow leaves
or dying off? Are the vine started to put her out. They're also
working with the vineyard managers. You know, the vineyard managers that I work
with have all been growing fruit for a generation or two or three. I'm
not sure if I would call that any sort of rituals, although I guess
walking the vineyard is the ritual, but I hope you're working with the growers
all the time regardless. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, even though they sometimes
you would say that I'd not, but absolutely so when you were a little
boy before. I mean, you've worked in the wine industry a long time
and wine has been your life. So I don't know if you can go
back before them. But what did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you always know you wanted to be a wine maker? No,
I think I wanted to do something in the sea. I didn't really realize
I wanted to be a winemaker until I made that migration from the East Coast
to the West Coast and started to work in restaurants. My dad was a
professor and a scientist. No, when I was a little kid, I
think I wanted to travel and eat cool people. And as a winemaker,
you get to travel and travel and meet cool people. So you're living your
dream. Absolutely so when you're not working, not traveling and live in the
dream, what do you do in your free time In the winter months,
I ski loved a ski, um summer months, the ocean, et cetera,
and getting exercise five six days a week. Like to swim. I
swim a bunch in the summertime. Um, yeah, and travel and eat
cool people. So you mentioned before that you had gotten a little advice when
it came to making wine, and I'm wondering if there is another piece of
advice that has stuck with you in how you live your life or or approach
your work, and if so, what is it in who gave it to
you? I'm not a loaded question, Allison. Um. You know there's
this this simple saying of live every day like it's your last, because one
day it will be. Don't take advantage of what you have. I think
my father told me that, um, yeah, O, no, no
A short words. Well, and you gave me too. And if you
could give advice to our listeners, what kind of advice would you give to
them about wine? Have an open mind, learn as much or as little
as you'd like, trust your first intuitions. And wine, to me is
something that you can always learn. I mean, I've got forty two vintages,
forty three vintages, I have a degree in it, so I'd make
god probably about forty different wines. I'm always learning something. There's something to
learn, there's something to expand upon. You never will master it, which
is which is cool. I hope I never reached a plateau of making a
certain type of wine. Yeah, it's just ongoing. Yeah, it's it's
if if you always want to constantly be learning, keeping absolute Absolutely so,
when you look back at your illustrious career and forty some odd harvests. Um,
what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date, it's
a date because it's still in the future. Right, you have a whole
life ahead of you. Yeah, it's still in the future, even though
you're living each day as if it's your last turn. It up a notch.
Um, Yeah, let's let's see. Um proud of accomplishments again.
I'm making wine for the consumers. I've been very, very fortunate to be
a part of some programs were very successful that accelerated. UM. I was
hired on as the founding member of Textbook Wines how about fifteen years ago.
That has been an international and a national success that my partner just sold three
years ago. I've got four consulting clients. They're small and I think kind
of family run, which is cool and very prideful going through the three term
system. I like that, and I like the fact that, you know,
I think anybody can do a couple hundred cases of something stellar. But
can you add another zero at another zero and bring volume with quality remaining the
same. I think is a gift basically, you know, can you do
something that's five thousand and eight thousand cases that tastes like it's two hundred cases,
something that people don't think that they're special, and you know it's a
broad base. Again, I'm making wine for consumers and people to enjoy.
This is not food, shelter and housing. You know, one is a
luxury product. It's meant to be enjoyed with friends and family. Well,
speaking of that, if you were sitting at a table like we are now,
and there's an empty seat at that table, and we've got your wines
on the table, who from any walk of life, living or deceased would
you desire to share a bottle of your wine with to show what you've done?
Oh, two characters, Robin Williams passed away and Eddie Vetter pearled yah
together together creating something for me. I feel like you were prepared for that.
That came so quickly, Wow, so complete the sentence. For me,
a table without wine is like a swimming pool without water and ties in
because you're a schimmerc Yeah, I got it. Yeah, Ascott. I
have a question for you because you were talking about we talked earlier about vintage
variation, and you talked about, you know, sort of the rough go
that California has seen in the last few years relative to the last few decades.
And I'm curious when you look at that, you think will still be
making and drinking wine in three hundred years or more? Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, absolutely with climatic warming. It is here. It's real,
man, Um. You know, there's same vineyards or same areas that I've
been harvesting and making wine from for several years, and they're getting right for
sooner. Um. You know, the highs are higher and the lows are
lower. It's for real. So three hundred years we might be making wine
in Alaska, you know, I don't know. Um, It's something I
think we all need to really really in our generation for the next generation and
the next and the next um start to look at and how can we slow
things down. I'm not sure we can reverse them, but we got to
slow things now. So if if you unfortunately couldn't slow down and you were
sent to a deserted island, what three wines would you take with you?
Well, you know that's another interesting question. If you're on a desert island
and who's going to actually you know who you can allowing the boat you want
to fermenter because they're ferment fermenting. Guy, can't ferment freaking anything. You
get three lines and you don't have to worry about refrige ration or ice or
temperature outside. But three wines would be your last three lines if you had
it. If you had to pick h my benchmark Salon Champagne, maybe just
three bottles of that, okay, if we couldn't have three, and if
you have three different ones, guy, you're pressing it um. Then I
would like, uh, let's see what is the NAPA. You know there's
some great stuff from the Tokolon Vineyard, Schrader and and et cetera. That's
pretty cool, but out of my price bracket. It's your island, so
you can take whatever you want. You're taking Salon after all. Yeah,
yeah, things are looking up. I would take probably a really really good
French Burgundy Roumanique County, something like that, and then I dig, you
know, Cali, Sara, New World, Sara m Radio Quatreaux or actually,
you know, Shafer makes a really good saw out of Napa real endless.
There we go. See you did it in the edge. Well I've
got it's time. Now I've got one more question, one more challenge for
you, and that is to parent wine with music. You know the game
we play here at the end of wine soundtrack every time it's an opportunity to
talk about some of your specific wines and also what kind of music it makes
you think of what you'd want to listen to, and then maybe we'll all
try it at home. So I'm going to start with your Rumpus twenty twenty
Sauvegnu Blanc. You said these are your value wines, your entry level wines,
the rumpus wines. So what about this wine. Yeah, that's kind
of est wine. It gets things moving, So that might be poolside.
It's my mom's favorite wine. So as we come into the party, you
know there's a bunch of kids running around, jumping in the pool or rambunctious.
We'd have to turn it up a notch. Maybe something from the Beastie
Boys Sabotage. You guys know that one. And this is a avenuon blanc
that is not new Zealand style. So is it a little more sun Sarah
like, Um, how would you describe it? Uh, Scottie Peace style.
UM. I would think, you know, kind of a California definitely
new world. UM. It's again unctuous that has weight on the palette and
it's about eight percent U Beryl fermented its age sur lee for about five months,
so there's weight, texture, lots of ripe melons, UM picked over
two different UM picking dates. It's it's a bigger style. Yeah, okay,
what about your UM rocks the California, the Sonoma Rocks and UM Cabernet.
Let's see music, okay, X kind of getting into the UM.
So now in this imaginary barbecue, we went from Sylvinia Blanc. We missed
Chardonnay by the way. Maybe we'll come back to it. Okay. So
then this was this is kind of um. You know, the kids are
probably in doing the video game things. So we're outside. It's still warm.
Um, we've had a nice meal, or maybe we might be in
the middle of the Argentina. Sado got ahead Sado every day last week,
so wonderful. UM, something kind of brooding. Maybe. One of my
favorite artists is Thievery corporation. Um, and there's a great track called Sweet
Tides that I really dig. Um, you know, go to Spotify and
do Thievery Corporation. They play in northern Cali quite a bit, so that
goes with the cabernet from Rocks. But then let's go down south to Rocks
of the Andies and a quintessential Argentine grape malback. Yeah, Um, they
have might Okay, I have a good artist there. I was listening to
a little bit earlier today. Um, and I just turned my buddies,
my Commandante's in Argentina to this. Last week was um, I just got
oh yeah, yeah, yeah. A guy who also lives in Oakland.
I think he's from East Coast, but from Oakland called Citizen Cope. Kind
of a balladeer, singer, a songwriter. We'll go tour solo and we'll
also tour with a band. But he's got some nice riffs, good sense
of humor, optimism. Um doesn't like to be controlled, So I think
that kind of puts the Ardentine thing all wrapped up. And then we'll finish
with your sp drummer wine and we'll go back to Chardonnay. Your quintessential California.
Chardonay. You almost have it there, Alison. You know, when
I'm in the UK, it's like, I love the way the women say
chardonay. That's why I make it um. So yes, let's see.
So I have to go to a necessarily a new genre, but it would
have to be something, you know, kind of mellow, nice melody.
What have I been listening to? M drawing a blank here again, moving
to the to the Thievery Corporation and trying to think who was at Bottle Rock
or who's going to be there? You know, there's kind of a cool
Mexican band called Kinky that has some great riffs and some great rhythms. And
then might kind of because Chardonay would be our second one still beyond Blanc,
then Chardonnay and then Rocks, Cabernet and the Andi. So we're still a
little rambunctious, kids are still running around. So try try the band Kinky.
You had some young Mexican guys I think out of Mexico City that have
some great moves. Cool. Okay, well there you go. We now
have a new playlist. So Scott, my final question for the day is
what wine region in the world. I know you just got back from Argentina
and you split your time between there and here, But what wine region in
the world is at the top of your bucket list to explore? Interesting because
we had this round robin discussion literally Friday night when I was in Mendoza,
Argentino, and it's where would you like to make wine? Are your number
one wine destination? We all we're thinking, and you know, Prima Donna's
were like Burgundy and then Champagne and blah blah blah. But I think kind
of the Northern Rohan because it's rugged. I dig saraw Avignon. That's not
Northern Rome, but it's more of the Southern Rohan. That's where I would
like to, uh, to have a project that's to make wine. What
about to visit same thing. I've already been there a couple of times,
but yeah, I love visiting there. The same thing. Well, so
if somebody wanted to visit you or find your wines, part two of this
question is how can they find your wines? So most of my wines are
available through Nakedwines dot Com, direct to consumer m I folded my two brands
into their portfolio in twenty fifteen, so eight years ago. So I would
strongly suggest that you go to Nakedwines dot com. Check it out, look
look up Scott Peterson. You can see me a couple of podcasts and uh,
you know for what that is. And then if you're we're in northern
California, we do have a couple of cooperative wineries. One is in Kenwood,
one is in the southern part of Napa. Contact anybody or email me
directly if you're in town. If I'm in town, I can meet up.
We can taste some wines in the barrels, hang out pul aside.
Maybe, yeah, I'm around northern California. Sounds good. So if you
head up to Sonoma and you want some unctuous big what does rock stand for
again? Retro, obsessive and extractive. Yeah, so if you want some
rocks, then find Scott Peterson. Checkout Nakedwines dot com. Look him up
and check out his wines. We've got rocks, rocks of the andies,
rumps, rumpus and sp drummer. So, Scott, thank you for joining
us on wine soundtrack. I hope you had a little bit of fun.
Thank you so much. Alison, what a pleasure. Cheers Choo, cheers,
thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details
and updates, visit our website wine soundtrack dot com. Um