Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their
winery and their worlds. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and
passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alice Levine
and today I'm in Sonoma County with Martha Stuman, the founder, the owner,
and the wine maker of Martha Steuman Wines. A good eponymous nama Martha.
Welcome to Wine Soundtrack. Tell us about Martha Steuman Wines. Hi,
thanks for having me here. Martha Stuman Wines was born out of well love
and passion for wines, but kind of this international movement that's been that had
been happening as I had been apprenticing in the early two thousands, and this
international movement around bringing things a little bit more back to the source, so
back to the vineyard, a little more transparent in the wine making process.
And so I saw this going or happening in various European countries that I had
visited and apprenticed in, and I really wanted to bring that style of wine
making back to California. Wow, So tell me about where you do you
own any vineyards you're sourcing fruit. And where are you Where are you getting
your grapes from? Yeah, so, as Alison mentioned, we're here in
Sonoma County. This is where I grew up, and I feel very connected
to northern California in general. I love the the landscape, the plants here,
the smells, the proximity of the ocean, all of these things.
So I was looking in the kind of Greater North Bay as we call it
here. So Mendocino County is a big region for us. That's that's the
county just north of Sonoma. And then I work in Contra Costa County as
well, a little bit in low dye so areas, primarily where there's still
a lot of old vines in the ground and a lot of head trained vines.
It's really something I am passionate about. Yeah, And of course I
know that you work with a lot of Italian varieties but also rhun varieties.
What are the grapes that you work with today? Yeah, So, well
I didn't mention this and the and the last question the so coming back to
California, it's it's a kind of a different system here. There are some
estate wineries and a lot of those estate wineries are multigenerational or wineries that were
established in the seventies when California was a little bit more affordable. Yeah,
just a little bit more affordable to buy land. But we do have this
deep history of grape growing family and wine making families, so we've always had
a history of kind of this negotiant model, especially pre prohibition, it was
something that was very very very common where you know, uh, one family
would would grow grapes and sell it to a larger cooperative or something like that,
or you know, in modern in modern day, there's a grape growing
family that will sell their grapes to a winery and usually to supplement their estate
fruit. But in the case of younger winemakers coming into California, that can
be the sole source of fruit. So I work with I work with a
lot of wonderful multigenerational farmers and buy fruit as an negotiant. I also lease
vineyards and manage the farming there. So I don't own any land, but
I kind of have this hybrid estate negotia model and a little control with the
ones you lose exactly exactly and the and the ones I work with are our
multi year contracts they're long term. I mean I work with the same some
of the same farms since day one, and I've been in business for ten
years now. So yeah, and fruit wise, you want to hear about
it. Yeah, cool, Let's see how many grapes you can name?
Oh, I know. So that is one of the things I love about
California. I think people think, you know, the way we define regions,
like if you're talking about, okay, Italian wines, you're not going
to say this is an Italian this is what Italy does. They do this
grape and there's you know, there's differences in terms of how many indigenous grapes
are in Italy. But now we talk about region, we talk about you
know, at the very least, Okay, this is wine's from Sicily,
it's not from Italy in general. And yet in California, besides Napa and
Sonoma, I think we still often just give broad strokes where it's like this
wine's a Californian wine, and California is so geographically day verse. So I
think what I would love to see is people starting to break things down into
smaller regions. And part of my contribution to this can be working with many,
many different grapes to see what does well such as such as I work
with Naradavla. So California has some cool climate areas along the coast which are
very very there's a lot of competition for that land for various reasons. Inland
there's a little less competition, and I think in the past people have thought,
Okay, if you don't grow California pino along the coast, then you're
not growing fine or nappa, or sorry taberne and nappa, then you're not
growing fine for fine wine. But we started working with Naradavla and Negromorrow,
Pitsera, gosh, Zimfandela of course because there's some really amazing heritage vineyard.
Likewise with Karen Yon Columbard, that's a grape that's been around in California for
many many years, soon established here Shannon Blanc. Really anything with a fermentino
more recently, anything with that maintains its acidity and a warm climate for the
balance, because that's the key. That's the key. So what's your total
case production? Gosh, we fluctuated a little bit because we have a lot
of even though we're buying grapes, we have a lot of parcel contracts,
so it really depends on the vintage. But we're anywhere between. I'd say
we're around eight thousand cases right now, and that's where we're going to stay
for a bit. And where can people find your wines? Are they available
nationally? Locally, direct consumer, all of the above. Yeah, if
you're in the US, we ship to every state that allows it. There's
a few states that legally don't allow us to ship, but you can order
off our website, Martha Stuman dot com. That's the way to get the
widest variety of our wines. But we also distribute, so some of our
more common blends are available usually only through specialty wine shops or you know,
restaurants, so we don't usually sell in grocery stores. But maybe anyway.
So, Martha, what is your first memory relevant to wine? Oh?
Gosh, So I was introduced to wine after my I graduated from university.
I went to work on a small farm and learning center that also had an
aggretorismo component to it called Spinochia outside of Sienna, and each intern was put
in a very like in a different part of the farm, and I on
my application when I saw that there was a vineyard and olive orchard intern I
was like, that is the one I want. I got it. I
was so happy, and yeah, just first, I mean, memory is
the whole experience of waking up when it was foggy outside, riding my bike
from what was converted like a converted stable that was made into intern housing,
down the dirt road and into the vineyard or even the olive orchard, and
just you know, doing the doing the green pruning, seeing getting to see
the season, the kind of the pace of the season, and then being
in the small you know, cantina and seeing that transformation happen where you start
to see things ferment and bubble and the smells and the tastes, and that
was just made such a big impression on me. Yeah, I felt I
felt like a little kid. It's great. So, you know, you've
obviously spent time in Italy and worked in wine for a while and loved to
seek out these you know, old vineyards and obscure grapes that more people should
know. But I'm curious what was one of those, what was the one
of the most memorable wines you drank, and what was the occasion. Yeah,
one of the most memorable wines I drank was when I a few years
into my apprenticeships, I decided to go back to University of California, Davis
to get a degree in my master's degree in viticulture and analogy. And my
group of friends, one of them was interested in these more naturally made wines.
I hadn't actually heard this term at the time, although I had been
exposed to it a little bit and apprenticeships. But he brought a coasts and
uh and another wine from Mountaina. But the Coast wine from Sicily just absolutely
struck me. And it was one of those things. It was allowed party,
people were having fun and drinking, and it wasn't necessarily the type of
thing where you think you'll have a moment to really ref flect on a on
a wine, and it just pulled me out of the situation and I loved
it. And I later wrote the owner, one of the owners, do
still Indie if I could come work there and Uh. He responded that I
could. So it was. Yeah, it was, and that has many
touch points in my life later on as well. That's amazing. So your
your aha moment wine was the start of well, not the start you were.
You were pursuing wine at that time, but really took you on a
path to a job at everything else. Totally, Yeah, exactly, and
that wine was that was the chair Sola Divitoria kind of they're classic wine that
they've made since day one. So if we were to come into your home,
I'm in your home and your wine cellar wherever you hide wine away from
your three year old, what sort of wines would we find here in your
cellar? What do you and your husband drink? Yeah, we we've we've
shifted a little bit so over the years. We used to drink primarily European
wines because I think there was kind of that lighter sensibility, food friendliness,
and Europe was ahead of the US in terms of that idea of going back
to the basics and just really trying to showcase what the fruit was giving from
the vineyard. But now we have about a fifty fifty split. We have
a lot of friends in California who have, you know, started their own
wine projects. Actually, there's a lot of wonderful young women who've started wine
projects as well, So we definitely do a lot of trading. There's one
in particular that I'm really excited about a label called Ambe and she's doing wonderful
work and she's been on this podcast over Cool so you can go listen to
that one. But anyway, continuing with you, I'm curious, is there
a bottle of wine you and your husband opened recently or maybe you were in
another situation that drink really well? Was it yours or another wine? Yeah?
Okay, what was it recently? So? I haven't had these wines
that much recently. I worked for a winery called brock Sellers and in Berkeley,
which was for me coming back to California, you know, and when
I was in school around twenty ten, these were like benchmark, just delicious,
easy drinking wines. And we brought it to a neighbor's house who they're
not really wine, you know, totally into wine, and the bottle was
gone in like two seconds. So it was fun to revisit brock Sellers and
be like, oh, yeah, these wines are just as good as I
ever thought they were. It was an older vintage, now it was a
younger vintage. It was just it was a co ferment from fox Hill Vineyard,
which is this amazing site up in Mendocino County that has about sixty different
grape varieties, primarily Italian, and so what was this one? A blend
of This was a blend of gosh, I'd have to check, but I
believe it was. There was some fiano in there. I think there was
some want calciano, you know, I'd have to look it up. But
a nice field blend, I guess exactly. Yeah, a red white field
blend, which I think was very cool. So you work with a lot
of different grapes, and I'm wondering, do you think there's a such thing
as a perfect variety? Oh? Boy, No, but I do think
there are some that are much more well suited than others. And I'm not
just talking geographically, although I think you need to start there. Okay,
So, but I also let's take Vermentino, for example, which is a
grape that we've started working with here and some of my growers have started planting,
and I think it hits. It ticks so many of those like perfect
grape boxes, you know, starting in the vineyard. It for us is
heat tolerant, which is really important maintains beautiful acidity. I think growing in
a warmer climate. You have to also consider, like the financial aspects of
it, and it's a larger buried grape, so it means that even in
really intense drought years, the grower still gets a yield, good, good
juice. Yeah, so the grower can still make money and the winemaker can
still make wine. And then from a you know, complexity standpoint, I
think you can make so many different styles from it. You can make it
skin contact, you can make it fresher style. And I've noticed just from
the two or three vineyards that I've I've tasted and worked with here in California
that it really I feel like it shows terwar too. It's funny because I've
heard a few other winemakers talk about Fermentino is the grape the next one,
So maybe it is the closest thing to perfection. Yeah, there's a lot
out there though. If you I make gosh, probably about last year,
I think I made twenty differ wine, so you can you can tell that
I'm not set on one single grape. So you're a small producer, and
obviously your approach is kind of the well, very much embraces the slow wine
movement and very much about you know, minimal intervention and patience. I know,
patience is a key. So obviously you're not out there, you know,
trying to get the big scores and you know, trying to to you
know, get those ratings. Yet at the same time you are sort of
a darling among some critics or writers. So I'm curious, what is your
opinion on wine critics and scores and how do they play a role in wine
or but for you, Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any
perfect system to assessing a wine, and we all have different tastes, you
know, but I do think that wine critics and scores. Initially, I
didn't seek out that because I knew the climate in California. The wine critics
were really you know, they're human, they get they're jazzed, and they're
focused on a certain thing that really speaks to them. And it doesn't mean
that what you're doing isn't great. But I think when I started making wine
in twenty fourteen, a lot of the you know, domestic wine critics were
really really focused on Napa cabernet, and the wines I was making were absolutely
not those not even clothes. Yeah, And I would just hear some things
about like some of the just some of the ways that critics would would talk
about grapes that weren't you know, quote unquote noble. I think you have
to understand that as humans, we all have preconceived notions. We are never
absolutely objective like, and so I think there's a place for it. But
I have seen critics, you know, have more interest in recent years with
different types of grapes, and you know, a lot of the grapes I've
been working with for the past ten years now, actually there's some interest,
and you know, from not just critics, but you know, wineries and
NAPA who are like, hey, we want to plant something for the future
that's more climate like Vermontitomo. I've had a lot of people ask about nared
Avla because I, you know, I have been saying for years now,
this scrape could really be beautiful in California. I think it is really beautiful.
It's just not very widely planted at all. Interesting. So quick answer.
As a wine drinker, red white or rose oh boy age, drose
oo still or sparkling, sparkling, anything in particular or specifically champagne or just
if it has bubbles, you're happy. I do love champagne. I will
I do love Champagne and with the grower Champagne's that are out now. Yeah,
so you know, making such a broad range of wines. I mean,
obviously you have a style and your wines are very food friendly across the
board. But do you think that there are rules to follow when it comes
to food and wine pairing? Do you follow any rules? Are there any
tips or guidelines you can give or do you just sort of see what your
mood is? Yeah? I do like actually if I can. I don't
always do this because I'm not I'm not good at planning ahead, but I
do like opening a you know, a bottle maybe the day before and having
a little sip if I'm going to make something and invite people over. I
don't think there's any hard and fast rules, especially if you have wines that
are you know, something like a chair of swallow or something that's like bright,
kind of easy drinking lower tannin wine than you know, it doesn't matter,
right because you can take that red wine with lower tannins that's bright and
fresh and put it with fish, oh totally without Yeah, put it put
it with fish or put it with I mean, I know a lot of
my friends and people around me. Are you know they're not just cooking from
the European cannon anymore. They're cooking. You know, my husband's been really
into walk cooking, so you know, he'll do these high heat walk dishes
that are not necessarily you typically think of having wine with them. So yeah,
I always try to have a bunch of options on deck that are you
know, the acidity or the tannin or if there's any sort of bitterness component.
Aren't like that they're a little more food friendly. But then I do
think you can find these amazing pairings with those like wines that have more distinct
characteristics and do have tannin, So just make sure you have some fat in
your food for those. So you've talked a little bit about your style of
wine, But for somebody who's never tried Martha's Steman wines, what do you
think they're missing out on? Oh, it's a fun question. I think
I do believe that there is you know, I think they're missing out on
this other expression of California, honestly, and I'm not saying I'm the only
one who's doing it, but you know, we offer I think I don't
even I can't even count how many wines we've made over the years, but
I really only release something that I think is super high quality, so,
you know, an expression kind of minimally made wine, the slow wine that's
a you know, a unique expression of this one place. And I don't
always offer the same wins every year, too, So I only I approach
wine making like I think a chef would approach buying produce from a farmer's market.
I've already committed to the grapes, yes, but I haven't committed to
the wine I'm going to make in my mind ever. So I'll see how
the season's going, I'll the side when to pick, and honestly, sometimes
I don't have a fully formed idea of what I'm going to make until the
grapes are in the winery and then I kind of see how they're doing.
I really get a lot of information from the grapes and the flavors as the
wines being made. So it's a very kind of improv type of a situation,
and I think it really I try to honor the grapes and the flavor
that they give well. So because you make so many different wines and it
varies every year for that matter, in twenty different wines last year, twenty
different bottlings. I'm curious if space aliens were to land on your property right
now, which of your wines would you want to say welcome. I think
the Negromarro Rosato. I make a non vintaged aged rose rosato. It spends
overnight on the stems and skins out of negromarrow and then I age it and
I think it's just I think it's a unique, pretty singular wine. I
love it. So, you know, we know that every vintage tells a
different story. And you're working in three areas. You said that you source
grapes, contracoastemino, and low dye. You've been doing this for ten years
plus in turning and working in wine for a little longer. And we know
every vintage tells a different story. But how much variation do you see year
to year? And do you see bigger changes from one vintage to another?
Do you see more commonality? Yeah? There used to be this saying that
California doesn't have a bad vintage because we have sunshine, we have warm weather.
We're seen in the past, I would say, starting in twenty seventeen,
and a lot of this has to do with wildfire, but it also
just has to do with drought and other things that I am noticing that.
There are definitely vintages that are great and vintages that are not as great.
It's not the kind of you think Europe You're like, is it a cold
vintage or warm vintage? And for us as like, is it a warm
vintage or too hot vintage? Kind of is what we're dealing with. So
yeah, there's definitely wines in vintages that I don't think are as great.
I usually just make fresher winees that are released early that are are a little
you know, we're not going to age for for a long time. Yeah,
so you adapt to it. Are there any signs or omens or predictors
that you look for that are going to tell you what a vintage will be?
Oh gosh, I think honestly, maybe by the time I'm ninety,
I'll be able to figure this one out. But it is so complex and
when you predict you know, you you think, okay, well it was
a rainy year, so I think we're going to have you know, I
think there's little markers along the season where you can confirm or deny what your
previous prediction was and you know, how much rain did we get that winter,
what's the weather like during flowering? What was the heat like during the
summer? And then like you know, what do we see in fall?
And it kind of yeah, it's like one of those pasts like we get
to this and now based on this we go left or right. But it's
not a street line totally. It's like when you're doing one of those personality
quizzes and it's like yes no to this question, yeah, and then it
leads you to a different part of the quiz. Yeah. So in the
time that you've done this, have you set up any good luck rituals that
you do at the start of harvest to kind of kick it off for you
or for your team. Oh, that's a fun thing. Well, I
don't know if this is a good luck ritual, but I think it's an
important ritual. We you know, we've kind of adopted the Italian and European
idea that we need more time off from work, which is very counter American.
So it's not the whole month of August, but we do take a
quote unquote fer Gusto, which happens in July because our harvest is earlier here.
But yeah, we take a two week break where the business completely shuts
down and nobody is allowed to work, which may not sound crazy for you
know, Europeans, but anytime I say this to Americans, they're like,
whoa, that is unheard of. So we have those two weeks, which
I think really recharges everybody, and then people can take you know, their
other time off. I think that's great, But what about the vin It's
like you're not checking on them because I know, you literally take off.
You just trust it and if you get weather warnings you just ignore them.
Yeah, I mean would try to do it at a period of time where
you do have to understand that, like there's only so much you can do,
and you've done all your work in the spring and you've tried to set
the vine up to have a great year. But the kind of idea of
like what will be will be and you have to just let it because I
don't know. I mean, even if there was some crazy event in this
July break, you know, there's nothing you can really do. No,
there's nothing, and so stop worrying about it, go relax. I feel
I love that. I think that's a really that's a really healthy motto.
Well, you know it's aspirational. I can't say I never worry during these
times, and I can't say I'm always patient, But these are things that
I think when you make them, you're a north star. You will start
to learn how to be that way. I love it. So, you
know you spend time in the vineyard. You were talking about how you have
a communication with your grapes. They kind of tell you what wine you want
to make with them. So I'm curious talk a little bit about that communication.
Do you talk to your vines when you're walking through the vineyard. Do
you talk to the grapes when they're in the barrel? You clearly talk to
them when they come into the winery and tell you what they want to be.
Yeah, yeah, I guess in my head, I definitely do talk
to the grapes. I don't think I always do out loud, although I'll
make I've started making little like video notes for myself when I'm in the vineyard,
just to you know, you think as a winemaker, because you are,
I'm one of those people who like deeply focuses on one thing at a
time. Ask me in a multitask and I'm a mess, but like I
can very deeply focus on one thing, and I feel like I can observe
nuance because I'm so deeply focused. But knowing that, I was like,
oh, I'll remember what happens each vintage, and I don't. It's been
you know, this is tenth vintage of Martha Steman wines, and I'm like,
good thing. I talk notes, and I wish I'd taken better notes,
but now the video notes kind of are helpful because they give you some
visual context as well. So I'll walk through the vineyard and I'll take some
notes and I'll talk about the grape and the flavors and stuff as it's maturing.
And then I can look back on those and let's talking to the vines
in a way exactly and similar. When I'm in the winery, I'll sometimes
take some video or some notes, and because I have an assistant winemaker now
who I've been training, you know, for many years, and who really
has very similar sensibilities to me, we'll take those notes so we can,
you know, tell one another if we can't both be there. We always
try to both be there in the vineyard. But I love that. So
when you were a little girl. What did you want to be when you
grew up? Oh, well, there's a couple iterations. But the thing
I remember most is I wanted to be an architect. I thought after that
dream kind of fade. I mean, I was like when I was a
little girl, I remember going to sleep at night and like designing furniture in
my head, which is kind of crazy, and like houses, Like I
designed my own little lego houses and stuff. So I really loved like visual
and like the hands on aspects of those. But later I thought maybe I
wanted to be a chef because I loved cooking. And then I think I
realized how high stress it is and the tempo, and I'm just a little
bit of a slower person. It's like, okay, winemaking is like that.
It's like, you know, one night of being a chef is like
a year of being a winemaker. Yeah, I think that's my pace.
And of course, you know, being outside and more hands in the dirt.
But you were following more plants right before you got into grapes. Yeah,
I was. I had done my bachelor's degree in environmental studies and I
had studied, you know, different tree families, and I really my mom.
My mom's a gardener and garden designer, and so I remember as a
little girl she had these huge topebags with like flash cards on a ring,
you know, the actual leaf of the plant taped on it and what the
characteristics were and wh anytime we went camping or something on a road trip,
she would be quizzing herself and she'd be pointing out the window. And so
I think some of that wrapped off. Yeah. Well, and also a
designer the architecture. It all makes sense now, yeah, exactly. Yeah,
my dad's a builder, very hands on. We're all very hands on.
So when you're not working, and aside from the fair ghost to you
take in July, what do you do in your free time? What do
you like to do? Oooh? Since I had a child, I like
to hang out with him. See children, you know, they need the
nurturing. But before that, I really love I love reading. I love
hiking. I mean being in Cinnama County, like most weekends we'll try to
go out to the coast. We'll hike in them, you know, the
coastal mountains. Luckily, my son now that these three seems to elect to
hike two he hiked five miles the other day. I was very proud of
him, not without I mean, my younger brother told me he's like,
the trick is bring a bunch of candy bars and each time they like go
you know, a certain distance. Not only does it give them the sugar
and the energy to keep going, but it's like a little carrot along the
way. So the five miles in pressing, Yeah, those little feet,
those little legs, I know, I know he ran the whole way down.
Having other kids doing it too is it's helpful. But so we do
a lot of that and then slept really well at night. Yeah exactly,
I know, I know, run them out. So so on those nights
that you can get him to bed really early and you and your husband plan
a little romantic evening or maybe you get a babysitter. What sort of wines
get opened to set a romantic evening for you guys? Yeah, Well,
for us, the most romantic evening is one where we don't do any work,
so we're not cooking. We've kind of you know, we used to
love cooking together, but we've tried to go out more, especially because there's
some really amazing restaurant that have popped up. But there's this Georgian restaurant called
Piala and they have an amazing Georgian wine list. So yeah, we've been
going there and just the owners super knowledgeable and he kind of takes us on
whatever journey with the Georgian food and wine. We really loved that. Wow.
So just getting not happy to do any work or thinking is really the
key for us at this phase. Yes. So you were just saying a
minute ago that obviously you were influenced by your parents, a builder and a
garden designer. And I'm curious when you look back, is there a piece
of advice that one of them gave you, or a teacher or a mentor
somewhere else along the way that is something that you carry through life or try
to live by. Yeah. I mean my parents definitely told me I could
do whatever I set my mind too, and I think that's a really good
thing to nourish in a child. Although they were realistic too. I mean
my dad said, okay, you want to be an architect, Like your
day to day is probably going to be at a computer or at a drafting
table. So if you you know, if you like think about not just
the big idea of it, or what attracts you to the big idea,
But what will your day to day actually look like, because that's really what's
gonna inform your life. Absolutely. Oh it's interesting. So if you were
to give a piece of advice to our listeners today, what would you say
to them? I definitely say follow your heart initially. You know, I've
heard advice too that I guess I could be the advice that I ignored as
well. I've heard people tell me that don't make your your like most passionate
hobby, which for me was winemaking into your career because you will change it.
And that is true, you will change it. But I have no
regrets, you know, doing that. You know, I've heard people say,
choose the thing you love the second most and make that your your career
so you can preserve the thing you love the most. But I think know
that you're relationship will change with it, but you still get to spend you
know, most of your time, most of your day thinking about this thing
that you love, and the magic romanticism of your love has not gone away
because you work in it. It's changed, Yeah, it's changed, it
hasn't gone away. But it's definitely changed. And honestly, I try to
think about, well, it probably would have changed anyway as I aged.
You know, as you nothing stays static in life, so be comfortable with
that. But but yeah, I definitely maybe I know a lot more so
I know the reality is positive and negative. But that's the thing. It's
like, it's like a marriage versus versus you know, when you're first dating
and both are beautiful in different ways, right, And the great thing is
is that you know, wine is an evolution. I mean, making wine
is one thing, but there's so much to taste and learn. It's like
a never ending process. Oh, absolutely, which is one of the reason
we love going You know, we loved going to this George and restaurant.
Is just because you've studied something like sometimes you can just let go and let
somebody else guide you on it who's also studied it or made it a part
of their you know, their life's passion, but in a different way,
and you get to still you get to still kind of enjoy the newness of
it. So when you look back at your career, what would you say
is one of your proudest achievements to date? I think honestly just even starting
a business in California at the time that I did. You know, again,
it's a it's financially really a very fine needle the thread. And you
know, after ten years, i'd say, we're still figuring that out.
But yeah, I think against all odds, against people telling me that it's
not a smart thing to start a wine business in California, you know,
in twenty fourteen when we did, and still still doing it, but also
not in a way that was totally naive. I mean, I'd apprentice for
ten years and I think I understood that you actually don't need, you know,
fancy equipment to make good wine. You need really good grapes. And
I think I had seen that in the ten years leading up to it.
So following my heart and understanding kind of where I could be scrappy and still
achieve things. I feel very proud of that combination of things. I love
that. So we're sitting at a table, your wine's on the table,
and there's an empty seat next to you. Who would you want to share
your wine with? Who would you want to be drinking your wine with?
From any walk of life, living or deceased. Oh, I honestly think
I have some of the most fun drinking wine with one of my mentors,
Jiusto Ocupinti, who I mentioned. I feel like he's got a great sensibility
in terms of just like when to drink and have fun and when to be
more analytical. And yeah, I love, I love, I love drinking
wine with him. Well, you're lucky you've gotten to drink wine with your
with him. Yeah, exactly, exactly, so complete. The sentence for
me, a table without wine is like oo a room without air. Maybe
that's too extreme, but why not? Why not? So, Martha,
we've almost come to the end. You've done great. This has been really
fun and I love listening to you, and I love her wines. I'm
curious you're very focused on dry farm wines, slow movement, working with older
vineyards and family vineyards. Where do you think we'll be in two hundred,
five hundred years. Do you think we'll still be making wine, still be
drinking wine? What do you think? I hope so, I really hope
so. But I don't think we'll be able to do it the way we
are today. Farming is the great farming and the environmental piece is my biggest
passion. So well, I just said, you know, a table without
wine is a room without air. If it has to come at the cost
of the environment, then I don't think get belongs on the table full stop.
So there are things that we're working on, and that's going to be
in a much longer podcast, I'm sure. But but like, yeah,
changing how we farm, and I don't you know, we have everything we
need to farm in a more environmentally friendly way. We have been doing that
for you know, hundreds of thousands of Yeah, a long time, hundreds
and hundreds of years before before we put all the crap in there, we
were doing it the organic way. Absolutely, it's only been in this past
century that we've changed things. So I think on the timeline of winemaking,
that's a very small blip. I feel like that's kind of a pimple we
can just pop and remove and move on with the pimple on the timeline.
Yeah. So well, if if if we had to, if you were
being sent off to a deserted island today now we're living here, which three
wines would you take with you? Boy? I would take I think some
of the wines that from the places that I worked because they're so they have
such deep meaning to me. So uh, definitely a wine from KOs which
one the chair swollow or something else? Oh, I think the chair Swollow.
Yeah, it's I love that wine. I love a lot of their
wines. But yeah, I would take a wine from Leon Barral, where
I worked in the south of France. Any of their wine, but honestly,
the you know they're they're fajer or their typical based wine. I think
it's really beautiful. Those would be two reds. So I definitely want a
white or rose, maybe m something something fresh and fun. Uh. I
think I also worked in the Mosel in Germany, and maybe I would take
one of those you know writer whites so at at him and Lovin Stein.
Ah, well, there you go. So we've come to the end.
It's time for our fun little game of wine and music. Obviously it's called
wine soundtrack music conjuror's emotions like wine does. So I want you to relate
a song, a musician, a genre to your wines. So I want
to start first with your your Negromorrow non vintage Rosatto that you were talking about.
Oh, I'm gonna go Genres here. I mean, I think that
that would have to be classical music, Eric City, something from eric City,
really beautiful, calm, just kind of I think of those music.
That music is timeless. And what about your Vermentino ooh, that's a little
bit more like Italian a tala disco, something a little more funky and fun.
It's not a funky wine, but it's a fun wine, I think.
And what about your Negromorro Negroma Zato. Yeah, I think we oh
no, no, no, uh sorry, red wine, oh, red
wine the Naratavla near Naradavla, all good. I was thinking Neroda yeah,
and Naradavla. Okay, I'm gonna say, going way to another side of
the music genre, uh the Gambler, Yeah, which is you know,
the classic you got to no one to hold it, no one to fold
it. I feel like that wine. It's all about like knowing when to
stop and not overwork things either. You know. It's like when you're painting
you mix too many colors, you make brown. It's like so kind of
the less it's more philosophy. Okay. And last one a favorite wine of
mine, your long Elevage carrying on. Oh, that's gotta be something kind
of like that evokes this coastal California. Yeah, maybe something a little more
folksy, like from I don't know, Bob Dylan or Crosby Stills, Nash
and Young or Neil Young kind of this more like that spirit and that phase
of California. And yeah, a nice eclectic mix of music for your eclectic
mix of wines. Perfect well, Martha, thank you so much for joining
us on Wine Soundtrack. And before we go, if you can just remind
people if they can visit you where they can find you find your wines.
Yes, so right now we don't We don't have a tasting room, so
check our events page if you want to meet us in person. We have
kind of roaming events a lot in California, but in other places in the
nation as well from time to time. And then the best place is ordering
off our website Martha Stiman dot com. Lew ship to most states. Fantastic.
Well, thank you for joining us, and let's go drink some wine.
Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for listening to new episode of Wind Soundtrack
USA. For details and updates, visit our website Wind soundtracks dot com.