Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their
winery and their world. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and
passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine
and today I'm in the lovely town of Sonoma in this beautiful old adobe where
Three Sticks Wines is located, and I'm sitting with Ryan Pritcher, the director
of wine making for Three Sticks. So Ryan, welcome to Wine Soundtrack and
tell us about Three Sticks Wines. Absolutely, thanks for thanks for having me.
Yeah, Three Sticks is a winery located in Sonoma. Like you said,
we make primarily pino noir and chardoney. We're sort of absolutely focused on
that. We've got a couple of other wines that we make, but probably
ninety five percent of what we do is pino noir and chardoney. We have
six estate vineyards located throughout Sonoma County and produce estate wines from those. We
make about nineteen different wines from those, so it's a nice mix from across
all of these great vineyards. And we have some really notable vineyards that we
own and in some cases sell fruit to other wineries as well, so Durrell
Vineyard, Gaps, Crown Vineyard listeners may know of with other producers. And
then we have some estate properties that we produced solely what we call our Monopole
wines. Wow, so you don't source any fruit. It's all a state
fruit as of now. Yes, so we just have made that change in
the past. We actually were almost there for many years now. We've we
had two different wines that had that we purchased fruit from. One was in
Sebastopol and our Russian River Blend and then our Castagnata White, which is from
a dear friend and neighbor of Darrell. He actually was our vineyard manager at
Darrell from the beginning, so we purchased fruit from him for a wine as
well. But yeahs as of now going forward, it's one hundred percent of
state. It's great. And your total case production right around ten thousand cases.
And where can people find your wines? Are they available in markets across
the US or are they direct consumer combination? Mostly direct to consumer? Yeah,
it's primarily through our mailing list or our wine club. That's where we
sell most of our wine. We do sell a little bit to restaurants,
out throughout the United States. You might be able to find it in some
restaurants around but I always tell people not to count on it because people always
say, you know, I didn't see I don't see it. I'm looking
for it, and you know, we we have, like I said,
nineteen wines. Maybe four of them are in distribution in small quantities, so
you might get lucky and find it somewhere, but direct to consumer is really
the way we do it. Great. So I'm curious what your memory relevant
first memory relevant to wine is getting out of being a wine maker and living
in all this what do you what's that first memory? And how old were
you? Well, it's I grew up in Berkeley, California here so not
far from wine country. But growing up we weren't really a wine drinking family
per se. Um. You know, we definitely had wine at the table
sometimes. I remember it more so sort of in high school as that's when
I started to kind of become aware. Um, you know, this is
now in the eighties, so Sonoma and Napa were kind of hitting their stride
or after the Paris tasting in the set late seventies. Um, so it
was it was something that wasn't super prevalent at the table, but was definitely
around. And I remember in college was when I sort of, you know,
there was a wine appreciation course that was offered at Cornell through the Hotel
School, and all the seniors take it and everyone, you know, walks
around campus with their little alcohol. Yeah approved school approved drinking. You're yeah,
you get to take a class or you get to drink. So it's
it was. It was something everyone took. And it's actually the most failed
class at Cornell as well, but actually pretty funny. It was. It
was a it was a sort of I knew that we had the wine industry
here in California, and it was something I just kind of had an appreciation
for and wanted to learn a little bit about. Knowing that, um,
you know, it would be helpful sort of later on in life, and
um, so I did that. Um. And then I also kind of
came home and we had some family friends who live up in Anderson Valley and
they would make wine home wine every year. Uh he's a doctor and would
just you know, bring in a half ton of pino one year, or
a half ton of cabernet and and make it at home and so he would
bring these wines to Christmas parties and things, and um, they were pretty
good. So I said, this is kind of interesting. You can make
your own wine and and um and share it and sort of pretty cool.
That was That was my first AHA into oh I could I maybe could do
this? And you know, beer making was starting to happen out and you
know, out and around and so friends we're making beer. I tried making
beer a couple of times, and then I said, well, let's just
go to wine. That's that's just the Uh. It gives me one chance
a year instead of every six weeks. So I take the pressure off.
We'll put more pressure on. It's a little bit of both. But so,
so you said that was one of your first AHA moments. What would
you say, is is there one memorable wine that stands out along a lot
of great wine drinking that I'm sure you've had And you know, I know
we were talking before and you travel to France for barrels and I'm sure you
drink a lot of great wine there. But along the way, is there
one wine that stands out in your mind? Is one of those AHA moment?
Wines are super memorable and it might have just been the occasion. Yeah,
I mean, I would say one of those was in that class.
So, you know, we it was we would basically every day we would
get to every you know, every day that we had class. Once a
week, we would learn about a new region and then at the end of
the class, we would taste six wines from that region, and usually it
was you know, there'd be a ten dollar bottle of wine and then there
was a twenty and it was a nice mix of stuff. But they also
had this incredible seller that um, you know, past alumni would donate their
sellers at some point in their life, and so we had access to some
really cool wines. And so I remember we were learning about pinot noir and
at the end of that class, the last wine was a nineteen fifty two
Jevrey chambertin and and you know, we're going from a twenty dollars pino to
a you know, I don't even know what the I don't even remember the
label, but I can't get your hands on it pino. Yeah, but
it was one of those things where you said, okay, it really showed
how wine can evolve and the nuance of wine. And I remember tasting it
just saying wow, Like the it made me really wake up and understand the
differences and kind of the magic that that wine has. You know, it's
a it's a living, breathing thing and it doesn't change until it turns completely
to vinegar. Right, that's so cool. So, now, if we
were to come to your home, I'm sure you don't. Maybe you do,
but I highly don't. You have any nineteen fifty two Jevrey Schembricham hidden
in the cellar? But what kind of things would we find in your cellar?
What do you have at home? Well, I've got a couple of
botts with three sticks in there, of course. But you know, I
love drinking. I love drinking Chardonnay pinot noir, but I also kind of
seek out things that I don't get to taste all that often, you know,
whether it's Mencia from Spain or you know, gamy from France, just
things that I don't There's not a lot of here in Sonoma County, and
so you'll probably find a lot of things that are just kind of weird and
different and not necessarily particularly expensive. But just I love trying new and different
wines from different regions around the world. So is there any thing that you've
opened up recently the drink really? Well, yes, there's a lot.
The My newest one recently was a gamey from uh Boujelais, a Crue Boujelais
and so there you know, yeah it was again it was a twenty dollars
bottle of wine Dominique Perrone I think was the name of the producer, and
they just you know, it's kind of like there's a lot of similar things
with game and Peen and noir and um it was. It's just a wine
that was pleasurable. Um, you know, you could just open up and
have with dinner. It wasn't not a whole lot of fuss, but just
delicious wine. And I've had a couple of bottles from them recently and I
just every time enjoy it. So that's that's what it's all about, right
absolutely, speaking of enjoying wine, UM you said, you know, gamme
just pop it open and enjoy it with food. How do you look at
food and wine pairing? Do you think that it is um, some think
their rules or their tips you look for. Are there some generalities that you
think about wine first, food first, or um you just go for a
pinot or a game a light bodied red and you're done well. I think
it shows probably the wines that I like to drink, both with food and
without food, are very similar. I think. I think that wine and
food pairing sometimes gets a little bit too People get a little bit too detailed
with it and a little bit too in the weeds with it. I think
that a good pinot noir will probably you know, go with a lot of
different things, right, I mean you yes, there are going to be
certain dishes and certain ingredients that will not go great with with pinot or with
maybe anyone. You know. I think raw onions don't generally work out for
me. That's all I taste for the next couple hours. Right, So
I found that perfect pairing hut. Now I'm still looking for it, but
it's you know, I think in general, you know, if you're looking
for a big, bold red, yeah, sure that that needs something to
stand up to it. And maybe similarly, like a sweet wine or something
that's really really super tart, like rip enamel off your teeth type stuff.
Yeah, you want those to be. But a lot of the wine is
sort of in the middle, I'll say, where they have maybe a mild
tannic profile or maybe a chardonnay that isn't ripping the enamel off your teeth.
I think they work with more things than people give them credit for. And
I think we've done a bunch of different tastings here where you know, well,
we paired some you know, paea with a red and a white wine
and it worked wonderfully because you had the white wine brought up so in the
citrus or you know, things within that dish, and then the red wine
there's some charizo in there and that brought out that and it really worked with
both both of those things. And it's not necessarily a dish you would say
would work with a white and a red wine, right, So, um,
I'm very open to it. I don't go in with sort of a
hard and fast sort of ideology with it, and sometimes that means I find
some duds, but but I think it works out more often than it doesn't.
Well. So as a wine drinker, red, white or rose,
it depends on the temperature. If it's if it's hot outside, I'm probably
going white, and if it's cold, I'll probably go red. I probably
drink you know, maybe seventy percent red wine, I would say, and
you know, thirty percent white. But um, but in the summertime that
it flips seasonal and still or sparkling. Oh. I can almost never turn
down a sparkling if if it's around. So while I drink a lot more,
still sparkling when it's open is number one. So do you think there's
a such thing as a perfect variety? You work? You work primarily with
two grapes, um, but love to explore all these different wines in the
world. I mean, do you think there's a such thing as perfection and
a perfect variety? I think perfect perfection is is experiential is, and it's
it's also time bound. Um. Yes, I think you can have that
perfect wine, but it doesn't mean that it is perfect always. Um.
And I think, um, you can. It's it's who you're drinking with,
It's what you're drinking, it's what food you're having it with, it's
uh, you know your emotional state at that time. Um. And sure
there's I've had plenty of perfect wines in my life, but not perfect varieties.
I would know. I would say, there's not something that's perfect all
the time. I love peanot no orange Treny that that's what I make and
that's what I love to to drink, and I would say they are probably
more perfect than others. But but but but you know, just like um
anything, perfection is only the time you do it and you got to do
it again. You know you can if you're a gymnast, right, you
can hit that vault and you can get it perfect once. But it doesn't
mean you're a perfect gymnast, right, very that's a very fair assessment.
So you know, a lot of people aspire for that level of perfection or
kind of reaching those high levels the ten in the vault, and a lot
is gauged by wine critics and scores. So I'm curious what your opinion is
of wine critics and scores. I think that they play a really important part
in our landscape. I mean, I know that when I walk into a
wine shop and see that sea of wine that surrounds me, I first will
usually talk to somebody there and get an understanding. But that's honestly not always
available when you go into certain places that sell wine. Right there, you're
great wine chops, Yeah you they'll they'll curate that for you. But there
are a lot of places that don't, and so you need to have some
kind of third party out there that can help you along the way. And
um, you know, I think critics play that role. And um,
you know whether or not the perfect score wines matchup. Um. You know,
I've had hundred point wines that were really, really, really good,
and I've had one hundred point wines that they were They were good, but
I don't know if i'd call them perfect, But I think generally that's okay.
Um, you know that that wine on that day, maybe I didn't
have the perfect bottle version of that. And so, UM, I think
they they give you general guys and I think as a consumer, having that,
having that reviewer that you may follow, that you may you know,
trust their opinion, allows you to wade through all of this. Uh.
It's wine is kind of unlike any other product that you might see if you
go to the grocery store. I mean, it's good more and more now,
but you know, you go into the ketchup aisle and it's you know,
you've got maybe ten choices and now back in the day it was probably
two. Um. And so there's very few products that you have hundreds of
different options and and they're so varying, and so having someone to help you
navigate that, I think is an important thing for the industry. Absolutely so
for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to try three sticks wines yet, what
do you think they're missing out on? Well, I think, um,
first and foremost, it's our You know, our vineyard sites are phenomenal,
and so you know, Rob Harris, our vineyard manager, is does a
great job with our vineyards. We have these sites that are just historical and
m and fantastic in their own right. And so you you layer in great
farming on top of great sites, and then um, you know, hopefully
we're doing our job in the seller making great wine as well. Um,
I think yeah, it's it's My goal with these wines is to have fresh,
vibrant wines that are delicious when you pop them now and will age for
for years to come. We're actually later today going to do a vertical all
the way back to the first wines made here. So we're going to do
a Peano Noir Durrell Vineyard vertical today and so we'll be tasting wines from two
thousand and two all the way up through current release. And so getting to
getting to you know, revisit those and we try to do that, you
know, periodically, to go through wines and taste what the vineyards have shown
over all these years and get a sense of how these wines are doing out.
It's almost a twenty year nineteen year vertical because I don't think twenty twenty
twos out yet right, not yet, but we will taste it, so
we will taste it out of out of barrel. So yeah, very cool,
very cool. Um. So, if space aliens were to land on
your property right now, land here in the middle of the adobe, which
of your lines would you want to offer them as a way to say this
is three sticks? Oh, I think I think we would have to probably
go back with something that's you know, had a little bit of age but
not necessarily been out there for a long time. Maybe something from twenty fifteen
twenty sixteen, so it's got a few years under its belt, has sort
of started to get into those secondary notes. Our Durrell pinos that will be
tasting today that I mentioned, I think would be a great example. Durrell
has this great history within the Sonoma wine world here. It is kind of
one of the gron Cruise. So I think a pino or shard from Durell
would be a great introduction into the Sonoma wine scene and in our wines as
well. So when you say like a twenty fifteen, I mean in your
tasting room you're doing current releases. Do people have the opportunity to taste older
vintages when they come here? Sometimes? Yes, Sometimes we will have an
older wine that will break out. It really kind of depends on the year,
time of year, what we've got available. One of the downsides of
you know where we're at right now, is sometimes we sell through our wines.
Once our release goes out, we'll sell through our wines pretty quickly,
and so you know, if it's right at our release, you might be
able to taste certain wines, and then as as it goes on, we
run out of wines and can't can't actually serve them anymore. So sometimes at
that point we'll bring out since we don't have our current releases, we might
bring out something older or but if you're a space alien, you will definitely
get an older vintage. We'll find one for you if you're space alien.
In fact, if you're space alien, we might we might be running away.
So you were talking about your vineyards. You said you have six vineyards.
I know you're not the vineyard manager, you're the winemaker, but I
assume you spend time in the vineyard in vineyards, and when you're in the
vineyards, are you looking for any sort of side lines or predictors that are
going to tell you what a vintage is going to give you? Yeah?
I mean I think all all year, every year we are we are watching
the vine and um, I don't think that I always try to steer away
from making predictions on a year, because you know that. I mean,
this is one of the things with farming is you can have the perfect year
all the way through and then a rain may come right, you know,
a week before harvesting and wipe it all out. You know. So,
Um, I think farmers are superstitious and uh and and know not to speak
too much until the grapes are picked. And even then they they hedge a
little bit. But um, yeah, I think that's that's the best day
in a farmer's uh. You know, any any grape growers life is the
day that they drop the fruit off at the winery and can walk away saying
they've done the best they can. Yeah. No one's hedging their bets on
mother Nature. No, mother Nature. Mother nature always wins. So when
you're you've been making wine for a number of years, how many how many
harvests have you done? Who? I've done probably eighteen harvests now, Yeah,
all in Sonoma. Uh No, Actually, I mean I actually helped
make some wine out in Colorado for a couple of years. I came to
wine as a second career, so I was doing the home wine making thing
and helping out at other wineries for a few years before I jumped in full
time. So I've been in Sonoma since two thousand and eight harvests. Okay,
so you have over ten years in this valley if I did my mouth
right. Oh well, getting into fifteen, and I'm curious what you're how
you look at vintage variation? Do you see a lot of variation from year
to year? Do you see a lot of commonality? I mean, we
know every vintage is different. We don't As you were just saying that you
never know what Mother Nature is going to give you, But how much very
d see here and where do you see that coming out in the lines?
I definitely see see it. I mean every single year, with maybe a
few exceptions. You know, eighteen and nineteen in recent memory, were fairly
similar. We had fairly similar growing seasons, but there were still differences.
You know, you have temperatures may be the same, but yields may be
different, so you may have more fruit coming off of one harvest, and
that impacts what the flavors will be like in that given year. I think
in California we do have a little bit of a benefit, you know,
in that generally we get things ripe. That is not something that's not an
issue for us generally, I guess, with the exception of you know,
fires or rains or something like that. But you know, in you know,
let's say, if we're thinking of the old world in France, you
have a lot more variability where there's certain years where that just they couldn't get
the fruit ripe at all, and so that's not really something we generally have
to worry about out here. But that being said, um, you know,
you have different yields, you have different cycles throughout that year. Um,
what's it looking. I mean right now, it's been raining for for
a good long while. We're ready, We're ready for that to to slow
down a little bit. Um, but you know, so that will impact
the fruit that comes off this year, and um and so, and it
really just depends on not just when this that this stuff happens, but when
this stuff happens. So you can have rains, you know, you can
have flooding all through the year up until now and it not really affects the
fruit very much. Well, if that were to happen in the summertime,
you better bet that's affected absolutely. And so Thankfully in California we don't generally
have those problems, but we do have isolated incidents frost. We had some
frost issues last year. UM, specifically not so much in Sonoma, but
um, you know, Sierra Foothills and Oregon had terrible frost. So those
types of things definitely hit us year and something that we hope don't absolutely.
So you were talking about how farmers are superstitious. I know that you are
a winemaker, you're not the vineyard manager, but I'm sure you have some
superstitious tendencies. So I'm curious, Um, two things. One, do
you have any um, you know, sort of rituals or or yeah,
rituals that you do at the start of harvest as a sort of a superstition
like this is how we have to do it. Yeah, you know,
Um, we have a bunch of things that we do and those sort of
evolved over the years. You know, we do we toast the harvest every
year, um, where we sort of blessed the first grapes that that hit
the line with a sparkling line. Um. And we actually had a French
intern last year whose family made sparkling lines who we used his, which is
which was great. Um. There are all sorts of things throughout the throughout
harvest, whether it's songs that we play at different times to you know,
to initiate some some things that are going on in the winery. We do
press offs and sometimes we'll play a song when that press starts, and we
play some jock jams during during punchdowns to get people going. Well, so
speaking of playing music to get people going, and this is part of the
other superstitition when you're in the vineyards, um, do you find sometimes we
hear about people communing with nature. Do you talk to your vines? Do
you speak to the grapes or when they're in the winery? Is playing music
a way to communicate with the grapes and what are you trying to tell them
all? Or what do you say to them? I don't know that it's
that it's trying to communicate to the grapes specifically. Usually it's more trying to
communicate to our own selves and our own emotions. And you know, so
when I'm out in the vineyards, generally I'm not listening to music. I'm
sort of listening to what's going on around the sounds mother nature, the birds,
the you know, the hawks and whatnotum in the winery. Yeah,
jock jams definitely not trying to talk to the grapes. So that's that's trying
to get the uh, the seven interns going and pumping into the day so
that we can we can jock jams. Like, what's an example of a
great chock jam that you played? Oh? Like, uh, I don't
know CC Peniston or you know any of the nineties nineties rock you know,
in nineties hip hop, um jock jams high energy. Yeah, it's just
hard to sit still if you heard this right, Music Factory. Yeah,
so you said that you didn't come to wine. I mean, obviously you
talked about earlier how you were introduced to wine and it's always sort of intrigued
you since college. But you said you had a previous career. So when
you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
And then what did you end up doing prior to wine? Yeah? So,
uh, and I was really little, I wanted to be a sports
doctor. But I think that was just because I wanted to, you know,
doctors sounded really important. Uh, And I like sports, But I
realized, you know, midway through high school that that wasn't what I was
really interested. I went to Cornell to be an engineer and or an architect,
so that was kind of my I loved buildings. I loved architecture just
in general, and wanted to potentially get into that and engineering I ended up
choosing because it kind of gave me a little bit more breadth, a little
bit more, a little bit more options. And then once I was at
school, I ended up going into operations research and industrial engineering, which was
essentially like process engineering, how do you make anything better? And so I
went into management consulting after after college and did that for a number of years,
and most of the things we were making better were you know, installing
software systems to make things, you know, more efficient and things like that,
which I liked, but I didn't love. It was not producing something
that really sort of spoke to me. And so when I learned about wine
and started really getting into it, it was that was something where you know,
yes, you could. You're constantly trying to find the best way to
to make these wines, to grow these grapes. You know, what,
what can you do better in the seller to to make these wines spectacular?
And and you had this product that was just sort of such a fabric of
culture and food and and and it changed with time too. So even when
you know, normally when you make something, you look at it and you
say, yes, it did a great job, and that's great. Well,
with wine, you now need to worry about that wine for the rest
of its life, right, And so it's kind of like raising kids or
you know, you're never really done never ever ever. So speaking of that,
I know you have kids and you were saying they're they're on spring break
right now. But when you're when you're not working and not busy on spring
break, what do you do in your free time? It's it is it's
spending a lot of time with my family. You know, we I spend
a lot of time at the winery throughout the year. So when when I'm
at home, I'm I'm spending time with them. We're going to soccer practice,
We're, you know, taking trips as a family. That's that's where
um, I spend most of my time outside of work and something that I
love. And you mentioned that you were a sports fan because you were going
to be a sports doctor. M Is there a particular sport or a particular
team that you're a big fan of. I mean, you are from the
Bay Area, so I have a few guesses. I'm an Oakland A's fan.
It's been a rough it's been a rough go for a number of years
here now. And you're a loyalist. I'm a loyalist. And as long
as they don't move to Las Vegas, then I don't know if I can
do it anymore. But well, if they stay in Oakland and they eventually
were to win a championship, which of your wines would you want to give
them as a congratulations who I'm trying to think if there's any like play on
words with any of our wines that would go, but I don't think would
be. I would have to go with our cuve eve Marie. I think
that's that's sort of our barrel selection. That is our wine. That is
the the you know, the genesis, the top of what we do.
I think, um, And it's a wine that is shows both place and
a selection of that place, a very small selection from that place. So
we do a barrel selection on the wines that come from the One Sky Vineyard
and and some some other vineyards that will will soon be I'm I'm hedging right
now because right now that wine is specifically from the One Sky Vineyard. In
future releases, it will be from all of our vineyards, the best barrels
from all of our vineyards together blended together. So um, that would be
that would be one if if they win it next year, then they'll get
they'll get the Couve Marie from One Sky. Well, let's hope that they
win. I'll save a bottle for him. So when you're planning a really
romantic evening for you your wife, when you know you got the kids off
and you you actually have time to sit down, I'm sure you have wine
often, but what kind of wines make for a romantic evening versus just a
Tuesday night. Well, I think you got to go back to sparkling again.
Champagne. You know, people ask sometimes, you know, what's your
favorite wine that you've ever had? And I think one of my favorites at
least I don't know if I could ever say which one was the favorite.
But my wife and I on our tenth anniversary wedding anniversary, we went out
to an old restaurant that we had gone to and you know, prior to
being married, and uh, and brought a vintage dom Perignon and it was
just perfect, you know. And um, I think, like I said,
it's it's who you're with, what you're celebrating, and the wine itself.
And you hit perfection and we did sparkling. Sparkling. Uh, you
know, great great champagne is is hard to hard to miss on. So
when you look back at your career and maybe your previous career, although you
know as much as you said you enjoyed it, it didn't great give great
satisfaction. But is there something you look at along your career that you say
is one of your proudest achievements to day proudest achievements over time. Um.
You know, I think sometimes it's not necessarily the best wines that you make.
Sometimes it's the wines that you've struggled through or the things that you've You've
taken something that wasn't didn't, didn't, you didn't have a high expectation for,
but you worked really hard at and um and were able to sort of
turn that into something really really good. Maybe it wasn't the best again,
but it was really really good. I think those are the ones where I
tend to look to and say that's those Those are proud, proud moments where
where you've you've turned something from good to better and when you know, another
question, another thought provoking question, is you have children, so I'm sure
you're giving them advice all of the time, but I'm curious if there's a
piece of advice someone gave to you along the way that you know you like
to you try to live your life by, or how you approach winemaking or
work or or anything. Yeah. I remember my one of my aunts one
time came to me and was talking about my dad and saying, you know,
like, you know, I'm really love that your dad followed his passion.
My dad as a photographer and or is a photographer, and um,
and I that really stuck with me because you know, it's not necessarily the
you know, you don't necessarily go after money, you don't go after fame.
You just go after what you love. And that's what he did,
and um, it's eventually what I did. And I would say the same
thing for for my kids is just do something you love. Do something that
you love to do every day and and it doesn't really feel like work.
If if that's what you doing, and if you are good at it,
and you, um, you know, you spend the time to do that
to the best of your abilities, it will more than likely work out.
Now, there's probably people out there now who are saying, you know,
I did the same thing and I'm still making nothing. It's not working out.
But but you know, I think there are there are ways to make
a livelihood out of the things that you love to do, and I think
it's worth worthwhile, absolutely so complete the sentence for me, A table without
wine is like an empty table. We talk a lot about we talk a
lot about table fellowship here at Three Sticks, and UM, it's you know,
it's gathering around the table and it's sharing wine, sharing food, sharing
relationships. And I say that empty table in jest. You can obviously have
those those relationships and meaningful experiences without it, but to me, it's it's
one thing that that ads and completes that that process and so um, you
know, it's something that I love to do. But I've had some great
conversations without wine as well. Well. You're saying that it's at a table,
it's a place to gather and to share wine, and there's an empty
seat next to you and your wine's on the table. Who from any walk
of life, living or deceased would you love to be sitting in that seat,
sharing a bottle of wine, gathering with you and chatting about wine and
life. Um, there's I think any of the people that I think about,
they probably would. I don't know if I would be so excited to
actually have them. You know, someone like Abraham Lincoln across the way probably
scare me pretty I don't. I don't know if i'd have that that great
of a time. But although once he has a glass of wine his hand,
you never know. Right now, you know, there are so many,
so many people from history, and you know that that sharing these bottles
of wine would be phenomenal, but um, quite frankly, it's doing it
with family. Um, that's who who I would love to you know,
I wouldn't be scared of that. So you know, my parents, Um,
you know, my grandparents. Being able to share that with him would
be would be wonderful. Um, we've talked about a little bit about vintages.
You were talking earlier about vintage variation and some of the extreme weathers we've
had, and um, where do you see Where do you see wine in
three hundred years or something or beyond? Do you think we'll be making wine
and drinking wine? Well beyond our lives? I yeah, we have to
be. I mean, it's it's one of the oldest, oldest beverages in
time now, it's been hundreds of years in the making. And uh,
and it will I think will certainly continue. I think, um, it
will definitely look different. We probably won't be in the same places. But
I think that's another great thing as well as as we learn more and more
about wine and learn more and more about what grows. Well, you know,
even in California we're sort of still at the infancy of winemaking, and
so um, you know, we're going to be really good in three hundred
years. And it may be you know, we may be doing it in
Alaska, but but it'll be It'll be happening somewhere for sure. Um.
And if unfortunately, you know, the world were to end tomorrow and you
were sent off to a deserted island, or the world didn't end, but
you were sent off to a dessert, which three wines would you want to
take with you? Oh? Three wines. I would have to probably have,
um, a a Sheblis on that island with me, because you know,
a desert island was Sheblis is kind of perfect. Um A particular producer,
um, not specifically. I love Le Clo vineyard is one of my
favorite vineyards from out there. So I've had some great wines from a number
of different producers that that do that. Um, So that would probably be
a fun one to have out there. Um. I would say we'd have
to have a three sticks pino along with that, because after all your hard
work, you want to remember it. Yeah, I'd like to see how
that wine ages on a deserted island. And then m oh, I can't
say sparkling because we've already talked a little bit too much about sparkling, but
it would be pretty pretty nice out on that island. You always say sparkling,
Well, you know, yeah, sparkling. Sparkling would be great.
But you know, I think to round it out, you know, maybe
there's a maybe there's a ron a rone blend out there as well, just
to kind of mix it up a little bit, have something with a little
bit more weight, um and maybe i'd maybe there'd be like a stake that
floated in one day and we can we can have it with Ryan. You've
been a great sport, but I'm going to challenge you one more time looking
at your wines. We're coming to the end here, and now we're gonna
based on some of the wines you're making, and a great way to express
your wines to pair them with music sort of what you'd want to be listening
to, what it reminds you of. Now, you've spoke a lot about
the Durrell Vineyard pinot noir, so maybe we can start there. So Durrell
specifically, Durrell has sort of like an earthiness to it and fruit, So
I think in terms of music with that, I would go with something like
a little bit more a little folksy or something like that. You know,
it a little bit of a little guitar, maybe a little banjo, a
little babe, you know, stand up bass with it. We do these
destination Durell where we have a big party in the vineyard every year, and
so that's that's typically kind of music and the vibe that we have there it
and it fits. It's kind of like it's not quite country but a little
folksy. Um. Yeah, So I'd probably go with that for that.
And then you know, you go to something like a GAP's Crown or something
that's a little bit farther out in the Sonoma coast, and then you get
into these more like ethereal um, I don't know, like electronic music,
maybe like an ambient electronic where you've got this like fog rolling in and just
kind of this just just soundscapes around you. I think is something that that
would work well with Gaps. I like it. I like how you gave
me two two wines there. So what about your Chardonay Russian River Valley M
Chardonnay. This is um what I have in front of me a lot of
vineyards. So it's a single vineyard. M chardonnay, what about this one?
Yeah? So Alana is another one of those sort of Sonoma Coast It
is amongst the redwood, so it's you know, it kind of almost reminds
you of the e walks in Star Wars, right, like the these big
redwoods and then you've got these little sort of clearings throughout that area, and
that is where the Alana Vineyard is. And so it's kind of similar to
that GAP's crown that I was saying. But it's but I don't know what
the what the Ewoks music is, but there's there's a there's a song they
sing and maybe that would work. And then um, what about your Sonoma
Mountain Pino noir? Yeah, our Sonoma Mountain Pino. So that's where our
couve ever Marie comes from. That's really high atop the Sonoma Mountain. It's
um, you know, above above the valley, above the clouds. It's
kind of super airy and light. Um. That would probably be like a
big sort of orchestral um. I don't know something, it's just something something
big, and you know, the violins and the and the cellos kind of
just go uh and it's just it's it's bigger than life. And um,
you know, may be a big, big drum or a French horn thrown
in there as well, but it's uh that that vineyard is really spectacular sitting
above. You know, they grow cavernet down in the valley below, but
you go up this mountain and we're at fifteen hundred feet, so it's it's
soaring up there above everything else. Wow. Well, I won't put any
more pressure on you for for music of wine, so I have a final
two part question for you. First is I know that you're going to France
in two days, so I mean, I know you're traveling into other wine
regions, but what wine region is at the top of your bucket list to
explore? Well, I've got um, I think New Zealand is the place
that I really want to get to, both from for a wine and for
a vacation kind of spot it. You know, everyone I've ever talked to
who's been down there, I've I've never been down there, So it's it's
something there. Peanut noir and chardonnay and obviously they've got so many and blank,
but I would be a little bit more interested in the pino and shard
side of it, But just the spectacular beauty down there, the u and
the wines that I've had from there have been spectacular as well. So,
um, that's that's kind of on my bucket list. And we'd probably go
to Australia as well if we If we made it down there. It's a
long trip, but both deserve equal like long trips. Yeah, you can't,
you don't want us. We were just I was at the aquarium with
my son and they were we were watching a movie on Australia and I was
just like the vastness of it, right, and it was so vast and
like to go there you would need weeks and weeks, like you just can't.
You can't pop over there for a five day trip, right, No,
But New Zealand really is one. I've been there and it's really one
of the most beautiful places I've ever been. And there are a lot of
beautiful places, including Sonoma where we are. And Um, the final question
or a part of that is if people want to come visit you, how
can they find you, How can they find your wines? And what kind
of experiences can they have here? Yeah, So the easiest way to find
us is just go to our website three Stickswines dot com. You can call
us to make reservations to come out to our Adobe. We have a tasting
room right off the square in Sonoma, which is great. It's a historical
site. It's the second oldest residence in the town of Sonoma. So Sonoma
has this rich California history with it being sort of the birthplace of California,
and and you come to the Adobe and you get a little bit of that.
You get a real sort of intimate, sit down tasting. We do
just a couple of tastings a day and a couple of different spots where people
sit down and it's a sort of a curated experience. We've got wine and
food pairings you can do. We've got different experiences based on the different time
of year that you might come. So we've done oysters, we've done caviar,
we've done you know, it's a potato chip, hot porn. It's
depending, yeah, depending on the time of year and sort of when you
come. We offer different experiences and really just a chance to taste our wines
in a beautiful setting and hopefully allow people to sit back and relax a little
bit too well. Fantastic. I mean, right now, the sun is
shining and there's the outdoor and indoor, and it is just off the square
and it's very peaceful. So if you're heading to Sonoma, definitely come to
Three Sticks Wines. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on Wine
Soundtrack. I hope you had fun. It was great and a lot of
good thought provoking things that I'll have to mull over here for the future.
Well, thank you for joining us, and cheers. Thanks for listening to
a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our
website Wine soundtrack dot com.