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 Alson Levine
and today I'm sitting with Greg Morthold, the winemaker of Davis Spyinhum Winery in
the Russian River Valley in Sonoma. Greg, welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell
us a little bit about Davis Binum. Yeah, it's great to be here,
Alison. Yeah, Davis Spyinum is a historic label. Davis ended up
making the very first single vineyard Russian River pino back in nineteen seventy three and
so, but the storied history goes back even further back in nineteen fifty one,
when he was all of twenty five years old. He and a friend
who I think was also twenty five. They're up on Spring Mountain and Napa
at his friend's little family winery, I guess, and they decided they were
going to make wine. They wanted to go make a little garage wine.
So they hopped in the car, drove down into the valley and just found
the first guy that was unloading grapes off the back of a truck, a
guy who's named Robert Mndavi. Little little would they know, right, he's
probably all of about ten years older than they were, right, and not
a household name at that point, and it's just some guy. And so
they bought some petizza off of him, you know, some lugs that he
was unloading off the back of a truck. And so they took that home.
They bought it for a dollar eighty. He told me it was just
like, you know, just next to nothing, especially since you have had
a few zeros today to that. Yeah, yeah, can you imagine,
oh my god, the steal of this century. So he said that turned
out really well. You know, they fermented it and they enjoyed that.
And so a couple of weeks later, they do the same thing. Get
in the car, drive I guess further up the valley, run into a
guy named Louis Martini, you know, because those were the days, like
anybody you would run into would be nowadays a household name. Right, So
bought some cabernet off of him. Fermented that that was great too, and
so that was kind of like the start for Davis. With wine making.
So he would do that from nineteen fifty one through when he started commercial wine
making really, which was nineteen sixty five. So if we jump up to
there he was. He was in the interim, by the way, he
was a journalist, he was. Yeah, he worked for the San Francisco
Chronicle. Wow. Interestingly. Yeah, so did you write about wine?
You know, I don't think he did. But he told me a story
about hanging out with Jane Mansfield once. Yeah, So she came into town
and I think Davis was with his wife, Dorothy, and they were they
had to take her ad right, to take Jane Mansfield out on the town,
and for some reason he told me that she wanted to go to like
a burlesque club. So that's what they did. Anyway, we digress.
Yeah, I don't know what to ask to do it fine, but I
was just painting a picture here of Davis was great. So yeah, he
in nineteen sixty five, he retires from and a journalist. He was just
kind of at these crossroads in his career and he starts a winery. So
David Spineham Winery. We have an old picture. It's in Albany, California,
which is right next to Berkeley in the East Bay. And so he
started at this plumbing warehouse because it had floor drains and whatnot, and it
was kind of set up for that. But yeah, then he built it
out into a small winery. He ended up buying grapes, you know,
from here and there, and he ended up knowing the Weenties and the Spastianies
were friends, and you know, he was buying grapes from all over and
all kinds of different wines too, blending him to his own tastes and bottling
it. And so those were kind of the days. And so he bought
a vineyard up in Napa where Whitehall Lane is now. He used to own
that property, but things didn't work out. He wasn't able to build a
winery there. The residents kind of came out in a tour de force and
were like, no more wineries, like you know, nineteen seventy one or
something like this. Right, So then he has this fateful dinner in December
of nineteen seventy two, and it's with the Allen family that lived right next
to the Rocchioli's on West Side Road, and so of course this plays into
history. They had a bottle. The Rocchiolis had planted pino in nineteen sixty
eight and very early, and so they had a bottle of that homebrew pino
on the table. They were selling it for one hundred and fifty dollars a
ton to Martini and pratty So winery down the road, and it was just
going into this mixed red wine as pino noir did at that time. Yes,
right, yeah, no, varrietal wines really are no recognition whatsoever.
And so, yeah, they had dinner and this the wine just knocked him
out and asked him about it, and he said it just reminded him of
these great burgundies that he'd had, and he loved the red fruit and the
velvety tannins, and I thought, very apt descriptors even for today's pino noirs.
And the rest is history, right. Yeah, he bought an old
top kiln, turned it into a winery and yeah, nineteen seventy three started
making wine on West Side Road. And so Davis Bynum was traditionally a Peano
no oar house or what other varieties or I should say, fast forward,
what are the varieties that are made under Davis Binum today? It is pino
noir centric, So yeah, we do a Russian River pino noir and then
we do three currently three single vineyards. One's kind of a fanciful name,
so we can we can go from this or that, but yeah, and
there's currently a little bit extra where we bought some Bochigaloopi fruit this last year,
so it could be a fourth wine. But we also do a River
West Shardinay. It's a single vineyard Schardnay, as well as a little little
dinky Chardnay, about one hundred and fifty cases called the Gravel Lens, which
is a lot of fun. It's very floral, and then a little soft
blanc okay, and rose. We have done a rose, yeah, because
if you have pino noir, you have rose. Right, We do have
a little rose, yes, although I haven't made it in the last couple
of years, so the last finish was twenty twenty one, but yeah,
we do still have a little bit of that available too. And what is
the total case production of Davis Spinum. We do about thirty five thousand cases
total out of those wines. Out of those seven wines to are are you
know our Russian River pinots a little larger production and that river West Chartenay,
it's it's a substantial vineyard's many blocks. We still cherry picket, but we
have one hundred and seventy acres there. We make about fifteen thousand cases of
that and it's just a lovely wine. But yeah, between those two wines,
it's carrying the brunt of that, and then there's the little gravel ends,
the little soft blanc, the three little or four little pinots, you
know that they add in probably a total of like another fifteen hundred cases or
something. And aside from like purchasing a little batch of galoopi, as you
mentioned, are you all a state fruit? Let's see. No, it's
not well in a way. Yeah, when we are contracts, we're not.
We don't own all the vineyards. Let me put it that way.
It's it's so it's not a state in that sense now, but there is
you know the clauses. I think if you have contracts that are at least
it's either two or three years running in their ongoing, you can you can
call that a state like on your label. So tricky answer, but I
think the reality is the question is going to No, we don't own all
the fruit. We purchase the Dutton fruit and we're purchasing currently a little bit
of savignon blanc from the Hall Road vineyard. But we own the River West
vinyards, so the chardonnay is all owned and the pino from the Russian River
pino is probably about fifty percent off that estate. So it's quite a bit
the state. And where are Davis Bynham wines found? Are they nationally in
all markets? Are they direct to consumer? Little of both? Yeah?
Yeah, are Russian River pinot and that River West chardonnay. You can find
those nationally distributed, so they'd be in fine wine shops. It's it's actually
highly in restaurants, so it's quite a bit of a non premise brand.
It's called. And then the little pinos, you know they're for the wine
club, but you can also buy them online. Yeah www Davis Bynham dot
com. Okay, I few, we got all that that out of the
way. Now we can talk about you. So correct tell me what is
what is like your first memory relevant to wine? Well, this is maybe
more embarrassing. People have like these glory stories about all these fantastic wines as
well. So I have several stories, but the people's first experiences are not
usually with fantastic wines. The question is were you five or were you twenty
one? It was more like I think eight, yeah, yeah, And
so my parents really enjoyed like having sweet wines, and so they would buy
some Mogen David or whatever. And in particular, I remember Mogen David's actually
that sticks out in my memory, and I remember just scrambling to try to
get them to give us a little more. I mean it was just sweet
and syurpy and yummy, you know, just BlackBerry yum yum. So yeah,
Thanksgiving and Christmas that's when the Mogen David came out. And I remember
the little cups, even these little plastic cups with the little speckles on it,
you know, and they came in four different colors. So me and
my two sisters, you know, we just enjoyed that, but we were
always pining for another cup of it, you know, feeling so mature,
right yeah, right, just like sophisticated pinkies in the air. So now
let's move forward to what is one of those memorable wines. What was an
occasion what was the wine where you had one of those aha moments? Oh
one. I can remember two. I can remember one specifically and the other
one in a little more general sense. We had gone to visit a friend
in Madrid and his father worked for the OIV in Europe, and so it
was pretty high up the food chain there, and so they gave us a
grand reserve Temporaneo, and I wish I remembered the brand or had kept the
quirk and all that, and we just my wife and I had a fantastic
time with that wine in glen Ellen, you know, at a restaurant in
glen Ellen, and so it was a memory of course of their the family
and who we still are in touch with. A different one. I'll give
a shout out to a neighbor winery who does zinfandel. So Sigasio, we
hadd this lovely cortina zen like many many years ago when I was just new
in the industry, and that was a nice hook into wine too. Just
how lovely that wine was. Wow. So memorable wines because of place and
time, but also the people you drink it with. Yes, absolutely,
And then you know there's wines like when in later years going to Europe of
course and going through Burgundy. Oh yeah, There's been some really really great
ones. So if we were to come to your home, now, what
kind of wines do you have in your home? What do you and your
wife drink? Is it a lot of your own wine or wines you've collected
around the world, particular varieties, particular regions, A little both, Yeah,
I mean, so I will buy worldwide wines. The whole Foods is
close at store to us, and you know, I'll kind of chop through
there a little bit. I mean it's amazing what you can do for fifteen
or twenty dollars really and like Pickpool Blanc for instance, or Muska Day or
something like that. You know, just really sailing, you know, just
fun white wines that are I think complicated enough and just go great with certain
food especially, and just fresh and fun. But you know, kind of
bigger wines too, Reds from Italy and suave, you know, so whites,
reds just from here and there and everywhere. Yeah, Garganega and just
you know, I love exploring the world, but mostly in my cellar is
pino noir. And so you know, I've got some neighbor wineries that I've
traded wine with. I just traded with Kerath from Brullium. So I've got
some of her wines back back at home to drink a rose chardonay, a
couple of different of her pinos and I and she's got some of mine.
And then yes, I drink my own wines too, you know, I
always checking in and enjoying those two, so that it's mostly pino noir and
chardonnay, and I'll dip in. I'll dip my toes into cabs in a
little barbera from some friends or this or that. So is there anything that
you opened recently from your cellar or maybe picked up with the market that drank
really well? Yeah, the River West Pino. I'm really really enjoying.
Yeah, our own wine. Yeah, yeah, sorry, not fair enough,
that's what you most recently drank. Yeah, I just was. I'm
pretty happy with how that wine came out. It's a new one for us,
and I just love it. It's made mostly from the old Wenty clone
that we have. It just kind of grows up on the vineyard itself.
Has two benches. There's an upper bench up by a west side road,
and there's a lower bench that reaches all the way out to the Russian River,
and so the drop from the upper to the lower bench is probably about
forty to fifty feet. The old wenty Clone is a little bit on the
upper bench and then it goes down that slope and a little bit on the
lower bench, and it just carries this really lovely kind of red, kind
of cureche type of cherry flavored with a little floral twist, and that carries
the wine. And then I put in this vintage, this last finach about
thirty percent p mar which is a little more leathery and earthy, a little
more savory, and also a little richer and more oily. And so that
married in and a little bit of Clone one went five from the upper bench
too, making me thirsty. I just, you know, the balance and
the wine, which is always with something Davis always loved is balance, and
I think we all do, but he just really emphasized having great balance and
meaning the acid, the tannins, the richness of the warne. You know.
So obviously, like you work with pino noir a lot, you drink
some other wines. But I'm curious, what is your opinion. Do you
think there's a such thing as a perfect variety hmm. I've hmm. That's
a good question. I think pino is as tempestuous as it is is pretty
close, just because they come out so complicated and interesting that they can be
mind bendingly difficult too, you know at times, and you're just like in
the vineyard or in the winery or you know, and so part of that
part of that, I mean, is it like a rom commerce at a
tragedy. I don't know. Pino is just a little bit of all of
that, and that that whole journey that you go through with it just kind
of makes it that much sweeter when you have a good one, so perfection
through adversary, and I think I can I can think. I guess this
is a little you know, I'm gonna knock a variety here, but you
know, I have a hard time with the vignes. For instance, I've
had a few good ones, and we don't make ones. So this would
be just you know, and a shout out to anybody who can make a
really great vigne just to stand alone. It's just that that variety sometimes legendary
romans, but sometimes the wine just falls a little flat in the mouth.
And I like my whites with a little better acid, you know, a
little higher acid. So it's perhaps it's not it's perfect for some people,
maybe just not for me. Absolutely. Well, let's talk a little bit
about acid texture, and you spoke a little bit about picking up some complex
wines that are also really good with food, like Peak Pool Blanc and stuff.
How do you approach food and wine pairing. Do you think there are
hard and fast rules. Are there certain guidelines that you use, or you
just set your sights on what you want to open and you don't really care.
There's a lot of that. Actually, yeah, I'm very willing to
try probably just about anything with anything. And some things are kind of go
together surprisingly, but some things like cheese cheeses, there's a wide I mean,
the world of cheese is very wide. And so if it's more a
little more saline, really, or if it's creamier and all that stuff.
So yeah, you kind of pair up creaminess with creaminess, and so I'm
kind of getting away from cheese in particular, or it doesn't you know,
cheese is a good example for food, you know, I mean, yeah,
oh yeah, it's exture. Yeah yeah, yeah, the cream cheeses
and all that. I mean, I love manchego. I tend to like
the semisoft cheeses are more my favorites and things that are a little bit nutty
but kind of like like me made, perhaps a little bit nutty, but
like I don't know, just more more mild. I do like the stronger
ones too, But then how do you pair wine with that, because if
you have a strong cheese versus you know, a creamy cheese versus a semi
soft, well, the creamy cheese is I think I think wins with some
like Chardeny is perfect for that, but I also think Sharny and Pinoar especially,
I think Pinoar goes with a huge range of wines of foods, but
Chardonnay like especially like a higher acid Charnay like a River West. You know,
I think with a with a really soft cheese goes great. And so
you know, let's say you do the you do the green apple slice right,
so the slab of a bris on top of the green apple slice,
and then with Shardenay, I think that would be awesome. But like normally
you you pare tan and so if you have a pinot or are you're drinking
a cab or whatever it may be, and then that's why people go into
you know, bigger meats, and that protein just seems to like help wash
that wine or they they just play together. The wine helps get lost.
Yeah. But and the higher acid wines, yeah, it's kind of mouth
watering. They they tend to cleanse the palette a lot. But I mean
I really go a lot of different directions. I've seen fish, you know,
blackened cod that the whose flavors just really went you know, in a
in a whole different direction. All it took was that little bit of caramelizing
you know, on that layer to add those flavors that that that went well.
Yeah, but I'm testing it from like a white wine to a red
wine. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I'm drinking yeah big panot or you
know, a zen or a cab or something like that. But I've also
had some disastrous results too, And sometimes like you don't see it coming and
they're like, oh, okay, well, you know, either shelve the
food or the wine. You gotta pick which one you're doing that night and
try something different. Absolutely well, you know that's a whole fun of it.
Right. If it doesn't work, you learn something, Yeah, that's
right. Yeah, And then if if they're like you're having we don't make
any sweet wines. But if you're having something that's off dry, you know,
it's you have to you have to watch that sugar. Sugar and food
is a whole. You know. Usually you want to match those things up.
I know kind of famously will people will drink things like reasling and off
dry wine like that with some spicy foods, and that does seem to work.
But yeah, if you're something that I've seen at many wine dinners is
when they pair pinot or a cab or something like that dan to the dinner
with with a dessert that just is too sweet for it and it really doesn't
go that well. The thing that I have seen work well is really dark
chocolate because the tannin's the bitterness that's there that seems to work that just make
it acceptable. But I don't know what the percentage of chocolate needs to be,
but like up there somewhere like sixty seventy percent. See, you know
more about food and wine puring than you let onto, so I'm curious just
this is kind of a left field question you know out there, but what
is your opinion on wine critics and scores. Oh, sometimes it's sometimes we
dance, sometimes we cry. Yeah, you know, we've we've interestingly,
you know, we've sent wines back to wine critics before saying, really,
you know, are you sure that was whatever, and all of a sudden,
all your score is like five points higher or something like really huge.
Like they they taste, it's God, God bless them, you know,
they they taste all these wines and that can't be easy on their palette.
And I'm sure you know, they they're doing everything they can to palette cleans
and whatever. But if you happen to be kind of later in the day,
I mean, I think these things happen where they're they're doing the best
they can. But if they've had one hundred wines that day or yeah,
forty five and they were kind of bigger wines, you know, it's just
there's got to be some palette fatigue and so but yea also might be the
one of the first flight that day and just really benefit from them being ten
in the morning and them having a really fresh palette. But I know from
my own experience that that can be really tough. And so they're they're doing
a job for they're they're they're doing a service for people, you know,
putting those scores out there in the descriptors. But I do think it's important
that people look beyond just the number, and they should read the description of
what they're saying, and because that's really insight and it helps explain what they're
talking about. If they just gave you a number, it just really is
kind of bland. Well, so a DESCRIPTI will tell a lot. And
I want you to describe. If somebody has not had Davis Spinham wines yet,
what are they missing out on? Oh gosh, you know, I'd
say very food friendly and diverse, an array of pino noirs and a couple
of chardenay's there. What they're missing out on is really a wine, I
mean, something that will take you to what the Russian River I think does
best, you know, which is those Burgundy varieties. And even as diverse
as things are in the Russian River and as many varieties that are planted there,
I mean, we're really known for pino noir and chardonay, and so
tasting Davis Spineum wines, you get a little piece of history, but you'll
taste something that, in my opinion, patting myself in the back a little
bit. But you know, we strive for balance, and so our style
isn't a super high extracted style, which is a little more popular right now.
It's it's just a little more acid balanced, i'd say in general.
And if space aliens were to land on your property right now, which of
your wines would you want to welcome them with them with? Just say welcome
to Davis bind them. I'd give them, Oh, I'd give them,
Let's see, I'd probably I'd probably start them off with the River West Chardinay,
you know, let that be an introduction. If they can handle they
could handle the fresh acidity and nice creamy French oak in that wine, then
we'd go places from there. So a question for you, is a wine
drinker red white or rose or orange? Oh? Yeah, yeah, there's
that. Oh I'd say red. Yeah, Okay, still are sparkling?
Still? Okay? See easy questions. I can all a few at you.
So you know we're we drink a lot, We enjoy wine. We
attend wine festivals like World of Poenair. I'm curious if you have any tips
or trip tricks for dealing with when you drink a little too much. I
mean, yeah, well I always keep the tile in all handy. Yeah,
and this does happen in the industry especially this is this event runs on
for you know, I came down for the Texan Buzzion before Whoopin, so
I've been down here since Tuesday. Really yeah, a lot of yeah,
a little bit of all but that before that. Mostly it's just about when
you're at a wine event, making sure that you just you have SIPs of
water and all you have to do. You go around and don't drink the
wine. Like try if you're really gonna go in for the long haul.
Make sure that you you expectorate. It's the point where of saying spit so
you get the full flavors of the wine, and you put it in your
mouth, you roll it around, you get the full flavors, but spit
it out and then take a little sip of wine. Because I guarantee you
I at work, you know, when we're tasting thirty pinos and we're going
through a blending process and we're doing this for hours, you can feel it
after a while. Wine water wine water, yeah yeah, or wine wine
water, wine wine wine water, something like that. Yeah, just little
SIPs, little SIPs will take you through the day. So how many harvests
have you worked? Oh, I've been so. Rodney Strong bought David Spinham
in two thousand and seven. I've been at Rodney Strong since since two thousand
and five, so for eighteen years of Rodney Strong. Prior to that,
I was at Chalkhill Winery for two years, and then prior to that,
I was a lab tech at a company called Vinquarry. So I've worked harvests
since nineteen ninety nine. So it's been twenty four Yeah, well and all
in the Sonoma area, all in the Sonoma area, all in the Russian
River. So we know that every vintage tells a different story. But in
your experience of twenty four years, you know in the valley, how much
vintage variation do we see from year to year? Is it? You know,
are the wines so different or is there more commonality that you find or
have things changed over twenty four years. I think if you if you take
it as a circle and then you carve out, like some pizza slice,
spectrums within there looking at like the little the little air that that range.
There's a range. So certain blocks of pino they're they're in that range.
And so now I've seen you know, hot years, I've seen very cool
years or wet years, or you know, I've seen all all kinds of
you know, drought years and all kinds of stuff, and some of these
things, you know, I'm not I'm still not sure on what the effect
is. You know, like a drought year. Of course, you know
there's there's gonna be a lot less groundwater for those fines, so we'll start
dripper derrigating a little earlier. So does that I don't know, but that
tends to be I think that you'd get smaller berries those years, and then
you'd have more concentration. At least that's something that I would expect. But
yeah, you kind of find those wines to be floating around somewhere in this
sector or that sector or whatever. So Pino Noirs from the center of the
Russian River so an area called the center Rosa Plains. They it's growing on
more clay based soil. There's a soil out there called wa Chica clay loam,
and it's got a little layer of volcanic ash that's down there, a
hard pan that's really tough to dig through. But yeah, it's this clay
loam, and the wines that come from that center area tend to be a
little more savory, i'd say, and a little more yeah, a little
more generous in the mouth, a little richer, but definitely more savory versus
the wines from the Green Valley, which is a nested appellation within the Russian
River, a much cooler area. The berry fruit tones in those wines are
just amazing, and so just a really nice bouquet of fruit and higher acidities.
So not as I mean, vined variation plays apart, but it's really
more specific to where it's grown. Yes, So the very specific like what
you'd call the meso climate. Actually, so the we have it's a misnomer
to say micro climate. So the vineyard people always like smack wine makers around
for saying this microclimate, this micro climate that. Yeah, the microclimate would
be literally like the climate like right there or in that vine you know,
So the mesle climate basically, just to get a little geeky for a sec
is is the vineyard itself? The climate at that vineyard so teary? Yeah,
and so yeah, it's it's the climate that allows us. This is
a good thing to point out. So the climate that allows us to grow
world class grapes there, and then the soils come after that, Like,
doesn't matter what the soils are. If the climate wasn't conducive, then we
wouldn't be growing pino noir there, no matter what the soils are. Now
we do like to talk about the soils because they do make a difference,
but it comes after the climate. Climate and are there any signs or predictors
that you look for that are going to tell you what a vintage is going
to give you? I look, well, so heat spikes, you know,
I start thinking that the wines will that vintage in particularly the reds.
You're gonna ferment on the skins, we'll have more tanins in a warmer year
generally, and then depending on things, yeah, I mean that might that
might influence like how much oak we use and how much time we leave them
on the skins, which is called couvason, So you know those kinds of
things, like how much tannins are you going to extract? You're gonna get
them out of the seeds in the skins. The longer you leave them on,
the more tannins they'll pick up. If you had a warm year where
there's more tannins and the berries to begin with, which tends to happen with
light exposure and temperature, then that might influence. So it gets the gears
turning in your head and you start thinking about these things. Of course,
before you're picking, you know, through harvest, you're out there eating fruit,
tasting fruit, and so I, regardless of what I thought of the
vintage at that point, I'm dialing in what I'm gonna do based on what
I'm sensing going up and down those roads and tasting the fruit. But I've
already kind of got that mindset in place from you ever talk to the vines.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, I had a like
kind of a bit of an emotional reaction actually after seeing one of our old
vineyards. We sold it and then after a walk the vineyard many many years,
it's called Jane's, and so we sold it back in twenty twenty one,
right before we bought the River West Vineyard, which is, you know,
our new home there on the West Side Road. But then they bulled
those those vines and I went over there and saw that. I was,
you know, really had a moment because those you know, they are living
things. Not get too hippy dippy here, but their plants, they can't
move a tumbleweeds, can't apologize to them. You said, I'm so sorry
this is happening to you. I had a little moment, it was I
was in church out there for a sec. Yeah. In all the years
that you've been doing harvest, have you established any sort of pre harvest traditions,
any champagne bottles, any no shaving, any, any sort of traditions
for yourself or for your team? Yeah? Sent, Well, you know
the crush brush as they call the beards that winemakers grow, the male winemakers
grow. Yeah, I mean I tend to grow beard, you know,
at that point in time, and I have a real stubbly short one right
now. But I also tend to do that periodically over the year anyway.
So I guess I don't really have any hard and fast traditions. No,
I just we meet as a team and we kind of get a game plan
together, and I don't know, we get out there and go do it.
But yeah, you kind of get into this mindset. And for me,
I'm I'm always one that is kind of taking baby steps up to the
point, like I don't feel like just launching off into crush. I feel
like kind of lining up my ducks. I'm a little more My desk wouldn't
show you that I'm more organized as but I am, you know in my
mind and how I like to get one thing done before the next and for
the next. I'm methodical in that way. So when you were a little
boy, what did you want to be when you grew up? A pilot?
Yeah? Yeah, I wanted to be a pilot. How far did
you get into that? Well, I was let's see, my dad was
in the Air Force, so there was that. He was in B fifty
two, so he was, you know, and we traveled around. I
to this day love planes, you know, I've always loved planes, being
at the airports, flying unless it's really like really rocky. You know.
It's a couple of memorable ones, including one not too long ago where everybody
clapped as soon as we got down, you know, it was a clapper.
Yeah, those those are a little tense. But no, I wanted
to be a pilot and in the Air Force, and so I was thinking
about going to the Air Force Academy while applying anyway, and uh, and
then at a certain point I was thinking about going to like an aeronautical university
really and studying that. So I guess that would have been more like a
like an engineering you know, like a design engineering aeronautical engineering kind of degree.
But that was that was it early on. Yeah, and you ended
up in wine and I ended up in wine. Well, and that's the
next thing actually in college. So I ended up loving science. I went
to the University of Wyoming, a little unusual. My parents are from Wyoming,
so that's where we went. And so I I didn't go there to
study wine. I didn't go there. There's a few wineries out there,
surprisingly, but yeah, I didn't go there to study wine. No.
But I at one point, with loving biology and chemistry, I thought that
I wanted to be a dentist. And my friends were like, you want
to stick your hands in other people's mouths all day? I said, you
know, they work four days a week, they make good money, and
I think I could probably do that. Yeah, But I just kind of
liked the I like the science that was part of that was part of that
whole degree in that field, and I was starting to kind of go in
that direction, just barely. And then I went through college, just at
the natural sciences degree as kind of a foundation for doing that, but the
reality was that wasn't going to happen, and I quickly just turned my back
on that. Well, instead of putting your hands in people's mouths, you
put wine in people's mouths. See, it all works out, little twist.
So when you're not making wine, how do you what do you like
to do in your free time? How do you spend What kind of activities
or things do you do or like? Oh, I like other than airplanes?
Yeah, other than Yeah, I think it would be fun to get
a pilot's license. Actually I do a little private pilot's licenes, so maybe
someday there. But yeah, I like to hike, especially I'm I'm an
Eagle Scout, you know, so we did a lot of time up in
the woods. We were very active troops. So you know, that was
a long time ago I was in boy Scouts, but I still have that
in mind and just you know, going camping and backpacking. So we as
a family, we haven't been backpacking in a couple of years now, but
that's a lot of fun and I look forward to getting back out time to
get on the road. Yeah, that's right. Oh. In road trips.
Yeah, I love road trips. So I want to go to the
Southwest actually get my family down to go see the Grand Canyon and do Zion
and stuff like that. It's worth it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I like to read, so I'll throw that out there too. You
know, books are I just it's fun. Any favorite books are authors?
Oh, let's see I they're one of my all time favorite books is called
bo Jest and it's an old one. I'm forgetting the author's name. Oh,
I think it's Perceval Christopher Wren. I think is his name. So
this is just a fantastic story, not a long read, you know,
it's I don't think it's two hundred pages. It's a it's a great story
about the French Foreign Legion and some boys who are growing up in a wealthy
I think almost like a castle really in England, and a gem, a
jewel is stolen, this priceless gem, and then the boys, one by
one go off to the French Foreign Legion to draw suspicion away from the rest
of the family. As it turns out, I mean, it's one of
those things where the lights flicked off and then they came back on a minute
later. Everybody's screaming, and then but then the gem was gone. That
kind of thing. I just you know, it's a look that stuck with
you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, both just and I think they
made a movie out of it too. It's really awesome. Yeah. And
if you're planning a romantic evening for you and your wife, what kind of
wines do you open up to set the mood or set the tone? Oh
well, what makes for a romantic evening? Wine? Wife? Yeah?
Well, see I always go to Penonora, but I would love to give
something else here, because how about just to just to get out of like
the world that I love the most, But because I do love all these
other wines, I would say, I would say it would end up with
a Barbera that would be a lot of fun. Yeah, some one of
our neighbor wineries. Barbaros would be a lot of fun domestic ones. And
then how about like starting the evening off with an Assertico from Greece. It's
a really fun, lively, crisp white wine. Oh that's fun. So
when you look back at your career, is there a piece of advice or
in your life? Is there a piece of advice that someone once gave you
that you carry with you and how you approach life or work. It could
be a mentor a family member, or a teacher, a friend. Oh
my Grammy, you know, before she passed away some a few years back,
she told me to enjoy life. And you know, that is just
one of the and she she just you know, we were in her kitchen
and we were getting ready, getting breakfast ready, and we're just having a
deeper conversation and she, you know, she knew she isn't going to be
around too much longer. She was in her nineties, passed away at the
age of ninety five. So and she, you know, she just told
me to enjoy life and that those were kind of and she lived for another
year or two, but she those were kind of her parting words to me
is to make sure that whatever you do when you're out there, if it
doesn't feel right, then something's not right. And we all go through times
when a few things are uncomfortable in life, of course, but like if
you can feel if you're on the right track. And boy, when I
got into wine making, it just was really something that that sunk in and
I you know you just you just really love it. You know, all
the winemakers that I know just really love it as I do. I love
that. So when you look back at your career, what would you say
is one of your proudest achievements to date? Oh, well, there's a
particular wine I can think of it I'm super proud of. Yeah, there's
there's none left, So please don't call the winery asking for it. I'm
just gone, right, geo, any gone there. I don't have any,
and I'm the winery doesn't either. But let me throw a little shout
out to the gravel end Shardenay that we make from the River West. So
we make a River West Shardnay and then there's this little sub block. Very
proud of that little that little block and the wines that it makes. And
I'm you know, it's very floral. So it's planted to a selection of
Shardnay called the Spring Mountain Clone or selection, and and it just makes a
wine that has lovely balance. But we make it. We pick it early,
so it's got brightest city that just kind of cuts through that the richness
that the wine has. In twenty eighteen, this is the wine it's talking
about twenty eighteen. That vintage was the best shardonnay that I've ever made,
and I think that our wineries made, or at least in a long time,
because I couldn't say, you know, going back prior to my tenure.
But I think it's the best shardinay we've made in eighteen years, really,
and it it When people got a hold of that, it blew out
the doors. And of course now you have to live up to that.
Can you do it again? Can you meet it again? See? It
ruins you in a way, right because now you set the bar and that
you know, there's pinots like that have done that for me too, and
the soft blanc as well. That the twenty seventeen sod Blanc, you know,
Virginia's Block suab Blanc. It was amazing, you know, and you
always strive to get. But I'm so appreciative of having those vintages because then
you know how good it can be. Like something just extra happened that year,
you know, and it might have been mother nature really providing you know,
the different compounds that ended up in the wine. But in all likelihood,
you know, the little dance that we do making these wines. There's
we just we made all the right moves. That's perfect harmony. Yeah,
perfect harmony. Didn't step on her toes or anything, and it just all
worked out. I love it so complete. The sentence for me, a
table without wine is like, oh gosh, the table without wine is a
desert island. We're going to come back to that one. So I've got
to. Now we're at a point where I'm just gonna ask you some silly
questions, but they're a little thought provoking. So we're sitting at a table,
there's an empty seat next to your wines around the table, Who from
any walk of life, living, deceased, famous, not famous, personal?
Would you want to be sitting there sharing a bottle of Davis Binham wine.
Oh, I'd love to share a bottle with my grandpa. Yeah,
who's gone now too, but I would love to. He was a cowboy,
you know, literally out in Wyoming, and I think I know he'd
be so proud of, you know, what I'm doing nowadays, which I
wasn't doing when he'd passed away by you know, he passed away back in
the early nineties. But just to kind of see what I'm doing and how
it's made. I mean, he would be really intrigued by kind of the
nuts and bolts of the process of growing grapes, because that would be something
he would be a little more tuned into. But then the wine making itself,
and I think he'd just be really, really amazed by the process.
I'd love to explain that to him, yeah, and taste him through it
it. Okay, now we're going to get back to the deserted island.
Okay, So if you were going to a deserted island, what three wines
would you want to take with you? And they don't have to be your
own, they can be your own. They could be anything you want.
There's refrigeration if you want, their ice cubes if you want. I get
those questions all the time. So just what three wines would you want to
have if they were the three last wines you could have on Earth? I
think I would I would definitely want like a Shassania Montrachet. It would definitely
like a white Burgundy, like a really nice, crisp, lovely white burgundy.
I would love to I think going back to Spain, you know,
having just a grand reserve like a Rioha, you know, really high shelf
and a third one. Oh gosh, oh something, you know, I
maybe a Nebiolo. It's just to get out of even a a wall.
I'm for sing myself. I'm forcing myself to do that because I love Pino
noir. So yeah, if we went back to yeah, I would.
I would love to have some pino, but forcing myself off that. Yeah,
and nebuola, and probably after drinking nebiola, probably live a long time
on that desert island, just like Italians live forever, right from all the
tannems and those wines they drink. Though, you'd probably be that that desert
island for a long time. Well, you'd have a lot of nebuola to
drink. Yeah, little little bit that's good for you. Okay, So
you've been talking about a lot of the wines you make, and you've given
these beautiful descriptors about these wines from the Gravel Gravel and Shardonay and the River
West Pino Noir and the Chardenay. And I'm curious. Now we're gonna play
a little game where we pair it with music. What kind of song genre,
singer, particular song you can be as generic or a specific you want.
Makes you think is a good sound for the description of the wine.
So let's talk about the gravel in Chardonay, the one that nobody can can
have because it's all sold out. But yeah, maybe I'll that one.
I would say. Nina Simone, Yeah, I love Nina Simone just you
know, some her music. She has I think the best voice or as
an amazing voice, as amazing as anybody I've ever heard, just you know,
and and the way she plays the piano and sings. I mean it's
yeah, the river West pinoore m. Pearl Jam. Yeah, I like
to rock well with some pearl Jam. Yeah, I bet, especially from
the album ten, you know, going back to like high school. Yeah
that that'll that'll take me there. Your Sauvignon blanc. Mm's a couple of
things, well, I kind of classic rock. I love classic rock.
Foreigner comes to mind. I don't know, there's there's I like a wide
range of music, but yeah, Foreigners, a lot of fun. Or
Neil Young. I love love Neil Young. Okay, and last but not
least, you're a state peano oar. How about like it's almost like if
we get a little more contemplative about it. Uh, you know, I
like Simon and Garfunkel. So there's a song called El condor pasa, you
know, and if you sat there, it's just a really lovely kind of
song that whistles along. And you know, I could I could sit there
and drink my peanot with that in the background. We could keep killing.
But I've taken up too much of your time, So I'm going to ask
you one more, two part question. The first is what wine region in
the world is at the top of your bucket list to explore. I I
really would like to go to Italy. I've never been, Yeah, So
I'd like to go to Tuscany, yeah, and and really explore area.
And I've had friends come back and said it's just really the deep end of
the pool. So I've been Don't you want to go to Piedmont and drink
Nebiola? Well I would. I would probably wonder up that way too.
Yeah, But you know, just I think that all the sandroo VESI is,
you know, I think that would be a lot of fun. I've
heard the regions just beautiful. But I've been to Burgundy three times, I've
been to Bordeaux once, and I've been through Champagne. You know, briefly
once, so I'm kind of steering away from there. But there's a lot
of other areas in the world too that would be great to go to.
But absolutely Well, my last question, Greg is if people want to visit
you and Davis Binham, where can they find you, what can they experience?
Where do they go? They would go to Rodney Strong, Rodney Strong
Winery which is in Hildsburg. So yeah, you can actually fly into the
Snowma County Airport. You can fly into San Francisco. It's a bit of
a drive up, but not too far. It might take you about an
hour and a half, probably a little more with traffic, especially maybe two
two and a half. But yeah, I've bet Rodney Strong since we bought
Davis spinem back in two thousand and seven. And of course you can go
online www. Davispyinehem dot com and get the wines. It's like the little
w and yeah, come visit us at the winery. We would love to
see you. We have beautiful flights for that and a terrace actually, so
especially in the nice warm months, you can sit outside in the shade of
the trees. There's a fountain in the background and it's full service down there.
Yeah, be a lot of fun and then maybe you'll put on a
little Simon and Garfunkle and people could be contemplated while they supurr sty. You
don't know our Yeah, I love signing a guncle. Yeah. See it's
a range. You've got Pearl jam and Simon, Garfunkle, Nina Simone.
That's just but yeah, I like all of it. Yeah, thank you
so much for joining us on Wine Soundtrack. Go check out Davis Binham in
the Russian River Valley and let's go drink some pino. Yeah. Absolutely,
thank you, Alison, thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack
USA. For details and updates, visit our website windsoundtrack dot com.