Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Let's listen to the passion with which producers narrate
their winery and their world. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities,
and passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison
Levine and today I am sitting in Passa Roblus with Steve Gleason of For Lanterns
Winery. Steve, welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us a little bit about
Four Lanterns. Well, thanks for having me. First of all, I've
had a lovely morning sharing coffee with you. So for Lanterns it's it's really
a mom and pop shop. It's my wife and I. Yes, we
have a handful of employees that work in the taste room when a couple of
people helping me make the wine. We're on forty six West and Passa Roblists
about three miles in from the one oh one. We make predominantly roan in
Bordeaux wines. But I'm a big, you know, color outside the line
person, so you know it's not infrequent. All make other styles. Okay,
And do you own all your vineyards or are you sourcing fruit or a
combination? Predominantly a state grown. I don't like to prohibit myself from maybe
buying some cool fruit I find from a really nice vineyard, but buying large
we're ninety plus percent a state grown. This year will be one hundred percent
unless I find some really cool fruit that I want to make. And what's
your total vineyard planting? It's influx right now, and we when all of
the fruit comes in because we have two very old vineyards. And as most
people know, at some point in time the yield and the vineyard starts to
diminish. Sometimes they are diseases that buys can get, so you have to
replace them periodically. Hopefully periodically is every thirty years or so. So these
are older than thirty year old vineyards, and so we're in the process of
updating them, changing some of the ritals in them, giving me a chance
to plant some cool grapes that we may have not had before. So in
all in all, we have two vineyards, ones on a twenty acre plot,
the others on thirty five acres. The thirty five acre property has twenty
two planted, twenty two acres planted, and the twenty acre property has sixteen
planted. Okay, and your total case production about two thousand cases. And
are you one hundred percent direct to consumer in distribution in various markets? Where
can people find your wines? Pretty much at our place? So we're a
DTC winery. We do sell quite a bit of wine online. We have
wine club members all over the country, and you know, you can from
time to time fine wine and a nice restaurant, but that's usually the chef
for the owner or the smalier come into our tasting room really like the wine
and they want to have it in their restaurant. So other than that,
you won't find it anywhere else. A hidden gem that I'm exploring for everyone
here. So tell me see what is your first memory relevant to wine?
Wow? Okay, So I grew up in upstate New York in the Finger
Lakes region, and I guess my very first memory is not as significant.
But we always had wine at the table for big you know, Christmas East
or whatever, and my parents always made sure that the kids had a little
glass. I could still picture those little tiny glasses we had with little wine,
which we didn't particularly enjoy, but it was part of the event.
But then when I got a little bit older, and I'm probably dating myself.
But when I was growing up, the drinking age in New York was
eighteen years and you know, it was a flexible number. So my girlfriend
when I was in high school worked at the old Gold Seal Winery on Quk
Lake, and I was, I don't know, sixteen seventeen years old,
and I would go up and sit at the end of the bar while she
was pouring for all the customers, and she would always make sure my glass
was full. So that's kind of my real initial memory of drinking wine.
Well, so when you were legally allowed to drink and obviously moved on behind
beyond the what someone would pour in your glass, is there a particular wine
that stands out? One of those memorable wines? It was an AHA moment
for whatever reason, it was an AHA moment. But what is that wine?
And what did it kind of awaken you? So I've got two of
those, and if I'm rambling, just cut me off and I'll go on
to your next question. So the first, I mean, there's always wine
around. And I was fortunate at an early point in my career to work
in Tokyo and we were at a business dinner at Spago's in Tokyo. And
again, I'm a kid from upstate New York. So somebody gave me the
wine list and said pick a wine, and I picked the cheapest wine on
the list because it was expensive and I'm just a upstate New York head.
One of the other guys said give me that. He takes the wine list
away and he ordered the wine, the most expensive one. I look,
it wasn't the most expensive, but it was a very nice wine, and
it was Italian wine. I don't remember the brand, but that was an
AHA moment. I was like, oh my gosh, because I mind had
been around forever, and of course Upstate New work wine at the time was
a little rough. I just was astounded. I couldn't believe how wonderful the
wine was, and the food was wonderful and it was great. So that's
kind of the first one. The second one wasn't an AHA moment in terms
of oh my god, wine's great. It was an AHA moment for me
as a consumer. I had read an article back in the day The Wall
Street Journal used to have a wine section. That was before they had their
weekend section. On Fridays, they had one article and it was a great
article. It was written by a couple, but I think predominantly the wife
did most of the writing. I think she's still doing it today. And
she wrote about Barolos and you know, the King of Wines, and just
these flowery, wonderful article about Barolos. And I'd never heard of Barolo before.
This is probably in the early nineties. So on the way home from
work, I went but there was a really nice wine store on the way
home, and I bought a bottle of Barolo. Just couldn't wait, right,
So it's a it's a it's a great story because in my mind and
at the time, we predominantly drank napacabernets, which were much less expensive back
then than they are now. But it was so for me that was red
wine. It was napacabernet in that taste profile, and I was just locked
into that wine. Brolos not that at all, which you know, and
I can see you smiling and nodding your head here your listeners can't see.
But so we get home and I opened up this bottle and I'm thinking,
this is going to be the biggest, baddest Napa cab that I ever had
in my life. But it comes from Italy, and we my wife and
I made this great meal and we sat down to drink the wine and I
took a sip and I was like, huh, this is terrible, right,
Well, it's not terrible, Pearls one of the great wines of the
world. But I couldn't get out of my own way mentally, but I
didn't say anything. My wife sipped it and she said, oh my god,
this is the best wine I ever had in my life. And I
looked at her, like, are you crazy. By the time we got
to the end of that bottle, I was like, she's right. And
the problem was my preconceived notion about what that wine should taste like initially ruined
it for me. And if my wife hadn't had an open mind and made
me rethink how I was thinking, I would have miss well. So,
if we were to come to your home today, what kind of wines would
we find in your cellar or in your closet or in your refrigerator. You
would find a lot of different wines. You would find some Barolos, definitely,
we have some an array of French wines. We have a lot of
pastoroblus wines because we live here in Pastorovlis and our friends make wine too,
and so there's there's quite a bit of wines in there. What you may
not find much of which is kind of strange as white wines. Both of
my wife and I love white wine, but we never seem to buy it
when we go out. If we're at a wine or, we will buy
white wine, but it doesn't get into the wine cellar. And when it
does, they'd get we'd drink them before we can replenish them. Where the
reds, you know, you get them in there, you want to save
them for a long time and all that. So there's a bunch of reds
there, but we're just a little short on white wine, and it always
seems to be the case. Well, it sounds like you're d a lot
of them. So I'm wondering if there is a particular wine you opened last
night or recently that drink really well. And maybe it was the white wine
you finished off in your house, I don't know, or maybe it was
a red Yeah, it was well last night, it was a red wine.
It's a little chilly here in Passo this time of year, so I
tend to drink more reds when it's cold, and it was our GSM which
you tasted yesterday. It's actually an MSG. So for people, if I'm
throwing jargon around, GSM stands for Granash, Sarah and move Vedro, which
is a very common blend here in pastor Ovlis, and it mimics the classic
shfton of the pop blends, which are predominantly those three grapes. The one
we drank that I made several years ago is an MSG, meaning that the
highest concentration of the three grapes is move vedra. Right, we're not speaking
about that sodium thing that they put in food an Yeah, and what was
the vintage of the wine? Was a twenty nineteen Okay, So I'm wondering
do you think there is a such thing as a perfect variety? I mean,
you're just talking now about doing a blend. Do you think there's a
perfect variety. I'm more in like a lot of different varieties. At the
short time you've come to know me, you know, I'm like all over
the place, and I don't like to be constrained, and I like to
try new things and do different things. So I'm and you could tell our
vineyards. I mean, economically, it doesn't make perfect sense. But we
have probably fifteen different rials on two small vineyards. That's a lot. So
several of the blocks are an acre and a quarter. Right, So I'm
sure the commercial winemakers that listen to that go, that guy's a nut.
Right, you should have five ten acre blocks and just go at that.
Well, I make a lot of different skis because I like to make a
lot of different wines, and so that's how I planted it. Yeah,
so perfection is not the key in one variety. It's it's about the beauty
that you can get through blends, different grapes and everything. So my question
for you is this, if space aliens were to land on your property right
now, which of your wines would you want to welcome them with? I
would probably go are they friendly or evil? Let's go friendly, okay,
because if they're evil, I'm sure you're not sharing your wine. Yeah.
Well, if they're evil, them I need to bribe them so you know
they get terribless. So if they're friendly, I'd i'd walk them through the
list, you know, I would just take them back in the barrel room
and we'd work our way through so they could try everything to see what fits
their palette. If they were evil, I'd give them this one that I
just gave you, which is we call it keras, which is a Greek
word that means grace. And it's a blend of Sarah, Cabernet, Cabernet
Frank and temporneo. So um, it's complex, it's deep, it takes
a little bit of time to think about. And so if they're evil,
maybe that'll slow them down a little and let the rest of us run away
or something I don't know, maybe flip into our side. Right. So,
um, you know I asked you a second ago about perfect variety kind
of thing. We're talking about wines that you know you would want to entice
a customer with. And I'm curious. You know a lot of people are
driven by scores. That's how they kind of find wines and things like that.
What's your opinion on wine critics and scores? Um, boy, it's
it depends on what they gave me. So that here's the here's the problem.
The good thing about scores they make it easy as a consumer. My
brother in law, he's like, if it's above ninety and below fifty bucks,
that's in his wheelhouse. Right. The problem is you people should and
one of the fun things about wine is discovering what your own palette is and
what resonates with you. That doesn't necessarily mean it resonates with the person who
scored the wine. And you have to recognize that if it's a big publication,
they really need to have wines that their customers can find, right.
So we don't really fit into that category because we're not You're not going to
walk into a store and you know, Texas or Florida and find find our
wine. So they those big publications need to have wines that their customers.
It does you no good to read about it and when you can't get it
right. So they want to have things that their customers can find. So
they provide a great service to the broad array of the wine making community.
But at some point I think you have to start defining your own palette and
understand what you really like in You need to be adventuresome. You got to
go out and taste new things and try different things. Like my example about
drinking the barrawl. It was a great one, right. I had it
in my head what wine's supposed to be, and that kept me from really
understanding what turned out to be one of my favorite wines in the world.
So absolutely, well, you know you said wine has to resonate with you
and to be an open mind. So taking out what you make you as
a wine drinker, one answer, one word question answer, red white rose,
all still are sparkling. Both everybody answered the same way. How many
people feel that way? I mean, you know it's a I limit yourself,
right, and it's what's the weather, like, what's your mood,
like, what's your wife's mood? What food are you eating? You know,
how how great was your day at work or how bad was your day
at work? With that all different wines. Well, speaking of what you're
eating, how do you feel about pairing food and wine. Do you think
there are hard and fast rules that one should follow white wine and fish,
red wine and you know meat, or do you take a little more come
what may in different approach or a more systematic approach. So the hard and
fast rules are there, and they're useful, but of course I like to
break the rules. So fish salmon with a really nice grenache or peanot noir,
and yeah that one of those are white wines, but they're fabulous with
a salmon or a swordfish, right, So, and there's the other you
know, like foods from like places. So if you think about a really
nice Italian meal that Italian wines go with, then you know why. Well,
it's because for centuries they've been going along together and figuring that out right,
So you can take advantage of that knowledge base. There are other things
like acid and food and acid or acid or lack thereof, and the wine
that's worth thinking about when you're pairing. So yes, the rules are helpful,
but you shouldn't be afraid to break them. So for someone who hasn't
had the pleasure to taste for lanterns wines, yet, what do you think
they're missing out on? Balance? The wines are very balanced. We work
very hard at them. We're very diligent about them. And we get people
coming into the winery and they you know, they drink the wine and they
go it's you know, you're an artist, and I it's you know,
maybe an artisan, but an artist is different. Um, A lot of
making wine is just pure hard work and being diligent and paying attention to the
minute details. So I think all of that, the passion we put into
it comes through in the wine. So you talk about balance and being really
attentive to detail, and you own your own estates state vineyards and you live
on your property or very close to it, And I'm curious, you know
you spend time in the vineyard. What do you feel We know every vintage
tells a different story, but do you feel that you see more similator similarity
year to year or more different creation from year to year? What do you
kind of witness as you've been spending time in your vineyard over these years?
Well, passo, Well, I guess all wine regions are like this.
Year to year can be significantly different. We had a huge heat spike.
Writers are going to harvest last year and that has a significant impact on wine,
how you make the wine when you decide to pick the grapes. Um.
This year, we've got a huge amount of water, so that's going
to change how we treat the vines in the vineyard as it comes closer and
closer to fall. Um. Some years we might get an earlier frost and
you've got to make sure you get your fruit in before that happens. M
So And I'm sorry, Yeah, early frost and harvested early frost in the
spring is okay. Late late frost in the spring is a disaster. So
um so it's it's different every year. Um. I think one of the
nice things about Passo and probably California as a whole, is that, by
and large, even though we focus on the minutia, that the weather patterns
are not horrible. It's it's not like you're in Bordeaux and there's a hailstorm
in the middle of the summer that wipes out half your crop. Um So,
yeah, it could, but it just hasn't yet. So yes,
we're all very sensitive to the differences vintage to vintage. But I think we're
pretty fortunate here that some of the major weather issues that other regents face are
kind of mitigated by this nice little area that we live in. And when
you're walking through your vines and your vineyards, do you talk to your vines?
What sort of relationship do you have with them? I? Well,
yes, but it's more. I remember when we first bought the vineyard,
there were a lot of kind of scraggy lee trees out there because the prior
owners just you know, as time went on, they had less energy and
they put less effort into taking care of those little things. So when I
bought it, I had to go and kind of catch up. So when
you're taking a tree out of a vineyard, you've got to drop that tree
perfectly between in the rose or you're going to wipe out a lot of vines.
All right, So if if I wasn't quite perfect and I kind of
smashed a couple of vines, I would apologize, Sam, really sorry.
Guys, don't we feel bad? You know? So you have a little
rapport with your vines. Yeah, they don't talk back much, you know,
but yeah I talk to them. That's good. And are there any
good luck rituals that you have established that you do at the start of harvest
or maybe at the end? I don't know, m I don't think really.
I mean, there are things we do, like we completely powerwash and
clean everything. But I think that's a normal thing that people's a ritual.
It is kind of a ritual. It's prepping. I must think of you
know, you think of surgeons be where they go in they wash everything,
their hands and everything like that. We wash everything. And so one thing
we have done recently which is kind of fun um they're say company out of
France that has isolated some of the native yeasts that people talk about when they
talk about natural fermentation. There's there are yeasts that kind of initiate a fermentation,
they can't finish it because they are relatively intolerant to higher alcohol levels.
So you need I don't want to be too geeky, but sacrimica servesia to
get you know, past four or five percent alcohol. But there are other
call them local or yeasts that are more sensitive to alcohol. So they actually
isolated those and propagated those. So the nice thing about that is that that
can help crowd out spoiler yeast and spoilers bacteria. So the last few years,
after we clean and sanitize everything, we'll go through and spray it all
with the yeah, a little yeast party. Yeah yeah, So it doesn't
make the you know, the stainless steel looks a little smudgy, but I
think it's actually better that way. So see, when you were a little
boy, what did you want to be when you grew up? Thurman Munson
so for those of you don't know, he was catcher for the New York
Yankees because and when you realized you couldn't be another existing person, what did
you want to do. Yeah, I couldn't hit the curve. That was
the problem. But I did play catcher. So what did I want to
be? So I had a whole different career. This is this is really
a second career for me. I started out as a little junior trader on
Wall Street, and then I became a bond trader and a bond salesman,
and then I worked for a big company, Pimco's money management firm. So
I had a whole different career. And then you know, at thirty years
ago, and that's enough, and I decided I want to do something else.
And here I am working with your hands. Yes, And I'll tell
you so, people who are familiar with the financial world know that a large
portion of your pay is at the bonus at the end of the year.
And I would always wear you know, this is a very the place that
were you know, cufflenks, buttoned down white shirts, ever, very formal
suits. And I would always wear a blue shirt. Yeah. Well,
my boss said to me, he goes, you know, every year you
wear a blue shirt, And I go, yeah, I don't want to
forget my blue collar roots because if this doesn't work out, I know where
I'm going. So when you're not working, how do you like to spend
your free time. I don't have much. We just went skiing. I
love to ski. And that's kind of nice because if you for winemakers,
you're you know, you're ramping up through the summer to get ready for harvest.
Then harvest happens and that's a seven day a week, you know,
twelve to sixteen hours a day for three or four months, which kind of
you know, you get everything barreled down right as you're going into the holidays.
Um, and so you finally get to take a breath around early January,
just in time a great time to go skiing. Oh my gosh.
It's so it's it's kind of like we always have this, my wife and
I. You know, we're gonna go skiing, and you know, at
the end of harvest, you know, we get to the house, we're
gonna go skiing, and we always look forward to that as a way of
you know, it's not that I don't love my job, but at the
end of harvest, you're just tired and sore. It's time to do something
else. Absolutely. So, you mentioned that you were a catcher and you
had wanted to be a baseball player. At one point, Um, do
you still are you still a big fan of the Mets? Did you say
Yankee? Sorry? Oh big New York football. Sorry, there's people in
the background cringing here, didn't mean offend, But are you still biging?
Is there another team that you're a big fan of these days? In another
sport? So? Actually, for me, I stopped playing baseball and switched
to lacrosse because I'm from New York and lacross is a big sport in New
York and my high school that was kind of the big sport in my high
school. So I played lacrosse in college and so completely left the whole baseball
thing. And I was a big Yankees fan, but you know, I
haven't lived in New York in a long time, and it's just not loyal,
even though you've left the coast. Well, if anybody's gonna win,
I wanted to be the Yankees, but I really don't spend much time watching
baseball. And we'll think about the World Series in the middle of harvest.
I can't watch the World Series, right. Well, let's say the Yankees
were to win the World Series, which of your wines would you want to
gift them with, oh, sparkling wine. Of course your do you make
a sparkling wine? And what tell me about that wine? It's kind of
fun so the as a lot of your listeners, I'm sure know that the
three dominant grapes in champagne are Chardonnay, Peino noir, and yeah, I
hope I pronounced that correctly. Well, I don't grow any of those,
but enna is kind of similar to chardonnay in terms of you know, acidity
and heft, if you will. It's not a really great wine word,
but I just used it anyhow. But anyhow, I thought, maybe I'll
make a sparkling Vienna. And we did, you know, the method Champinwah.
We did the traditional way of making it. We aged it for two
years on the lease, and interestingly zero dosage, meaning we didn't put any
residual sugar, which a lot of people know that Normally in a in a
bottle of sparkling wine or champagne, there's probably five to fifteen grams if you're
in the brute or extra brute range of residual sugar. So ours is zero,
so very crisp clean. You get a little bit of that Riochnis from
the slee Aging US. It's a really pretty wine. So so um,
speaking of sparkling wine and just thinking of pretty things. I know you said
you came back from a ski trip with your wife and you have very little
free time. But when you are planning a romantic evening for the two of
you, what kind of wines make for a romantic evening? Lots? Um,
you mean consuming lots of wine. We frequently will have Let's say we're
doing this at home, right, because some restaurants you get multiple wines with
the different food you're have, but we'll you usually have two different wines.
Um, normally a white to start. Frequently it even starts before that.
So it's you know, you get home and you're pulling all this food out
of the refrigerator and you're thinking about what are we going to make and blah
blah blah blahu. So it's it's always fun I have a glass of wine
while you're doing that. You know, it's kind of the anticipation and the
fun of prepping for dinner and thinking about what you're gonna make, and so
that usually goes with a glass of white wine. Um. For us,
it's either peakpool blanc or vigna mostly, um, it could be sparkling wine.
And then if we're doing some kind of appetizer, we may continue with
that same wine or we may switch to another one. Out for your people
who are listening, they're like, oh my gosh, how much money you're
gonna spen on wine or anything. But you've got to realize that, you
know, we get done at the tasting room and there's all these half empty
bottles from the day, so we can choose, you know, any one
of those to take. We're swimming in wine, and you know, if
you've got a third of a bottle to get two glasses out of that to
just sip on while you're figuring out what you're gonna eat, it's great.
And then, um, of course, if it's back to your early question,
if it's a meat or a heavier food, will switch to rat at
some point. Now, well, it sounds like any night you come home
with open bottles from the tasting room makes for a romantic evening. Yeah,
it's kind of nice. And we do. I mean, we have so
much fun just coming home and baking and cooking and doing that. Well,
I'm not baking, cooking not baking, but it really is fun. So
I'm wondering, when you look back at your life in your career, is
there a piece of advice that someone once gave you that you sort of carry
with you and how to work, how to live, how to enjoy.
I keep saying, oh, I shouldn't do that, but I'm not sure
it's a piece of advice. But I have a good friend here is a
chef in town, and we have this, you know, this ongoing joke
that comes up all the time because people always ask him for recipes. I've
never seen him look at a recipe. The guy is a rock star,
but I've never seen him look at a recipe. And but people, you
know, they'll have a meal that he's made for some event or something and
they'll ask him for a recipe, and he says, it's it's a lifestyle.
It's not a recipe. That's pretty much it right there. So it's
the same with us. And people ask me about you know, they I've
heard people say recipe and referring to wine, they say, oh, they
change the recipe, and I'm like, it's not really a recipe, it's
a lifestyle. And so you know, it's the ideas you live the life
that you want to live, and then things like the you know, the
lack of financial reward for running a winery don't matter anymore because the reward is
and how you live. So it's a lifestyle. So be present and enjoy
life as what you have, not what you want. Well want what you
have. I mean that's true, Yeah, very true. So when you
look back at your career, and it could be at any point in your
career and in previous lives, what would you say is one of your proudest
achievements to date? It's a long story. So I worked with in my
prior I can tell you a wine story I told I think I told it
to you yesterday actually, But in my prior life and my financial life,
I worked with a and I don't want to say who it is, but
it's a large union's retirement plan. Okay, so national, very large pool
of money. And as we were going into the financial crisis, the real
estate crash, I had convinced them, convinced the board to move into kind
of a new and different financial investment and better than lucky than smart, it
actually paid off extremely well in the real estate crash and in the middle of
the crash. I went to them and said it's time to sell this and
they didn't want to because everything else was going down, you know, and
they were having a very difficult time financially, and you know, they're responsible
for paying pensions for all these Oh I can't say what the workers did,
but for all these workers. So anyhow, I convinced them, not just
me. I brought other people from our firm into to switch into a portfolio
that actually contained mortgage backed securities, which was a dirty word in the investment
community at the time. And they did, and we all know in hindsight
that polarised mortgage backed securities did extremely well coming back on the backside of that
recession. And the two of the trustees took me aside and they said,
who saved our plan. So when I think back about that and all all
those people that you've saved in a way, well, I didn't save them,
but I helped them retire a little better. And that's that's kind of
a nice thing. So that's my that's not my wine story, but that
stuff. But when you look back in your life, I mean, you
know, proudest achievement, and I say it has to be worker life because
most people say, oh, my kids are, oh my successful, you
know, marriage or something, which is an achievement in itself. But I
don't look at my kids as an achievement. They are who they are.
So you want me to tell the wine one. Yeah, I know.
I told you I ramble at um and I told it to you yesterday that
there's a woman that comes into the winery who's just staff favorite. Everybody loves
her. She's eighty early eighties. Her kids are wonderful, her grandkids are
wonderful. They all come into the winery from time to time. And we
have this reserve wine that it's a reserve Merlau. We have a couple different
reserves, but the reserve Merlou. So she came in, and of course
I'm going to any wine we have, I'll pour for her. So I
opened it up and poured it for her, and she broke into tears.
But let me see if I can get you to cry. I could if
I tell you that Storry. Okay, we're sitting at a table here,
and there's an empty seat at the table. Who from any walk of life,
famous or not famous, would you want to be sharing a bottle of
four land terns wine with alive. It's up to you. Well, okay,
let's exclude family members, because that would be a layup anyone, any
walk up life. I don't know. I'm going to say, like a
weird but yet obvious Einstein, because that's freaky hair, right, and I
give him, Actually, this wine would be great for him that I gave
you, um just because it's like a weird and different wine, and just
I haven't gone this is good. So I want you to complete this sentence
for me. A table without wine is like a sauna without a shower.
I don't know what what do you want me to say? Wow? You
without sunshine? I mean, I'm like, let's Steve. I mean,
I really don't know where to go after that answer. No, but you
have been great. We are almost finished. I've got two questions left for
you. One is the little game we're gonna play, as I warned you
about at the beginning, because we know that wine and music pair well together.
They fit moods and they change our sort of mood. And I'm curious,
based on some of your wines that we've spoken about and that you produce,
if you can pair them with music. So to start with, you
said, you make a sparkling Vonnie, tell me what would you want to
listen to? Probably like a classic rock female singer. You know, maybe
I don't want to say Joni Mitchell, but yeah, in that Joni Mitchell,
Linda Ronstadt, somebody like that. Yeah, that'd be kind of like
so well, Linda ron said, the voice is just like wow, but
it makes you feel you know, you can it almost resonates inside of you.
It's kind of cool. What about you mentioned that if you were going
to start a meal with a white wine, a lot of times it's a
peak pool. So what about Peopol peak pool? I would probably like a
little kind of funky jazz thing. I'd go with that, you know,
a little would pop behind it, a little syncopation, a little bubbly feeling,
even though we're not talking about sparkling anymore. And what about your MSG
wine? Who MSG would be like a eighties country Whale and Jennings type of
thing. Okay, And last but not least, the bottle that I've got
sitting in here, the Kerass, which is the unique blend of cabernet,
Cabernet Frank Sarat and temperaneo, so that one, I'm not sure what the
genre would be, but it'd be quiet and it'd be in the background,
and you'd be sitting by a fire and just sipping the wine and thinking about
life's great things. So I'm gonna sit back, sip the wine by a
fireplace. But meanwhile, I'm curious where in the world. I'm in Pasorobis
so I'm traveling right now, but where in the world is on the top
of your bucket list to go explore wine wise? That's easy because my wife
and I are going to Piedmonte in about five weeks, so we're gonna actually
go taste the barolo in Barolo. That sounds pretty amazing. Last question,
deserted island, three wines? What would you take? Okay Um, I
would take our sparkling just because it's a deserted island Garash, I love just
a light, beautiful garnosh. And then does Kognac count? Sure Cognac because
you're gonna need it. Well, Steve, you've been great. Thank you
for joining us today on wine Soundtrack, And just before we go, if
you can remind listener where they can find you and how they can taste your
wines. Well, if you're lucky enough to be in Pastor Robless, we
are on forty six West, so if you get off the one on one
you head towards the ocean, we're about three miles in. If you want
to look for us online, it's for Lanterns Winery dot com. Well great,
so head to pass Robles or go online and Steve, thank you for
joining us today. Oh that was I was nervous, so a lot more
fun than I thought it was going to be. That was great. Thank
you as good to know that. Thank you. Thanks for listening to a
new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our website
Wine soundtrack dot com.