Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their
winery and their worlds. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and
passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine
and today I am in Passo Roubles with owner winemaker a Full Draw Vineyard,
Connor McMahon. Connor, Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us a little bit
about Full Draw. Hey, thank you for having me on. I really
appreciate the time. So we at Full Draw Vineyard. My wife and I
started this in twenty twelve. I purchased the property. During that time,
I was actually the assistant wine maker and vineyard manager for a winery called Booker
Vineyard, which happens to be immediately adjacent to us. Right now. That's
convenient, very very convenient. But we strive to farm organically and produce great
fruit in the vineyard because what that translates to is great wine in the winery.
It makes our of the jobs and lives a lot easier when you've got
great fruit coming in absolutely so. So speaking of that, you said you
have your own vineyard, are you exclusively estate fruit and how many acres do
we have here with planet here? Yeah, so we are actually completely a
state. Everything that you taste in bottle is grown and produced by us.
So we have one hundred acres total, and we've got forty five of those
acres planted under vine. We are predominantly planted under Sarah and granache, but
we also have more Vedra, Claret Blanche, Grenosh, Blanc, Graciano,
Cabernet seven young, and we will have petite Bredoux next year. Wow.
Okay, and your total case production, we are only about eighteen hundred cases,
so we want to keep a small grow organically. We really like to
focus on people coming into the winery and learning about us that way. And
so does that mean you're all direct consumer or do you have any are you
in any markets? We do a little bit of distribution, very little.
Actually, we are probably let's call it eighty five percent direct consumer. Okay,
okay, So now we got the basics out of the way. So
Connor, I know you grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the
South. So I'm wondering, what is your first memory relevant to wine?
Oh my goodness, if we're talking relevant to wine, I moved out of
North Carolina when I was five, so my first memory really would be in
Iowa. So I grew up in a small town in southeast Iowa called Fairfield
and went from basically being five through high school there. And my dad and
uncle's knew that if you wanted to eat good food, you had to be
able to cook. In Fairfield, Iowa, we're going to the local restaurant
to get good food. So we're blessed to have a large family. We're
Irish Catholics, so we drink and reproduce, usually in that order. So
I've got lots of cousins. It's been a lot of fun. But I
just remember gatherings after either church or Sunday dinner with our family and friends,
and there was always wine bottles on the table, and as a kid you
didn't really recognize that. But once I was in my late teenage years,
my dad would say, hey, come try this, and normally I would
say, yeah, that's fine, whatever, And finally a bottle came across
the table. I go, what is that. I understand now you're drinking
it for the taste, and he was why else would we be drinking it?
He goes, We're not nineteen drinks to get drunk and reproduced exactly,
We're not nineteen drinking Jack Daniels and bush Light, And I said, no,
that's true, and that really just fuel to fire that I couldn't put
out and just started reading voraciously about wine and it's a long story, but
really fell in love with it. Wow. So I'm curious, you know,
once you sort of recognized that wine was wine, was there one wine
and maybe it was that wine that was one of those aha moments? Is
there a wine that sticks out to you, whether it was the place,
the time, or maybe that specific one that set you on a path or
mentality. Absolutely so it was. It was very blest, but I had
actually dropped a steel pipe on my head while I was working, and fortunately
for me, even though it was a Sunday, our general practitioner was also
my dad's closest friend at the time, and I called him saying, I'll
do yard work, I'll do whatever you need, but I'm guessing I need
staples or stitches in my head and you said meet me at your parents' house.
So I got ten staples on the top of my head, and I
said, well, what can I do to repay you, and he said,
Oh, I'm gonna go down and your dad's wine cellar and we're gonna
pick out something fun. And my dad started laughing and they poured me a
glass. It was nineteen eighty nine Chateau to Book, a steal out of
shots and if du Pop, And that was for sure my aha wine where
I go. I love Granosh. Everything about Granash I to have to see
more. So that was definitely the wine. A head injury ye leads to
a Granosh love. And you know, some people say, were you actually
coherent enough and awake enough to know the wine? But I absolutely was,
and it was fantastic, and you remember nothing else except Granash was good,
exactly exactly. So no, it was definitely the first wine that blew my
mind to the point where I couldn't put down a book. I couldn't put
down I couldn't get off the internet reading about it. So that's really the
wine that got me into it. So so wine was a path that you
started to follow as at a young age. So obviously you said, you've
been studying a lot, and I'm curious. You have your own property here
you and your wife make wine. If we come into your home and went
into your wine cellar or your under will. You probably have a proper wine
seller. What would we find in there? Is it a lot of domestic
wines, Is it from particular regions of the world, certain grapes, or
is it a big smattering of cool stuff. It's I would love to say
it's a smattering of cool stuff. Everybody here that works for beck At and
I at the winery say I'm stuck in a rut, but I go,
it's a pretty nice rut that you'd like to be in a lot of gas.
Yeah, well, there's a lot of granagh, but we make such
I don't want to say the big wines. We do make textually rich wines,
and I'm around those red wines all day every day. So when I
get home, my wife and I really like high acid, which you'll even
see in our reds because of our limestone soils. So I like things with
a lot of acidity. We drink a lot of white Burgundy, so Charnaetta,
France Champagne. But when we're talking reds, we're pretty much cut fifty
fifty between domestic and French wines. I have some Italian wines, some Spanish
wines, but really outside of California and France, it's it's hard for me
to get out of that. So, like my employees Gary and Sarah and
Madison say, I am stuck in a rut, but I enjoy my rut
and I enjoy hanging out there, no complaints. So is there anything you
opened up recently that tasted really good? Oh? Man, a lot.
So for Grenosh, we had a two thousand and one Clode Caio Quartz,
which is out of shats enough, predominantly grenache. We've also had a two
thousand and seven Domain Marcou, which is vile Vin. They're they're high end
wine, which is one of my favorite wines because even though it is grenash
and it's made in a region that can we create massive wines. They did
a nice job of kind of harnessing that tension and bringing in some lighter characteristics
which made the wine beautiful but structured enough to be able to last a long
time. Two grenashes, I get you now, So okay, you love
grenache, you obviously work with other grapes. Do you think there's a such
thing as a perfect variety? Oh? Absolutely not. I mean the great
thing about wine is really there's something for everyone. Everything is so diverse,
and even when you want to take it step back from the world and focus
on passos specifically. I think that's one of the cool things about pastor Robles.
And I think there's something like sixty varieties planted here in the region,
and so you can go to multiple different wineries and never feel like you're stepping
on each other. Even my neighbors and myself we don't make the same wines.
We may use the same varieties, but we do different blends, different
percentages of profile, and so it's a great region to travel too, especially
when you like differing things. Instead of just getting nine percent of one variety,
you can go to different wineries and get something different everywhere. It's a
lot of fun. So no perfect variety, but people are always kind of
looking for guidance in that way. So when it comes to wine critics and
scores, what's your opinion on that? Oh, I don't know if I
have an opinion. I think that those that are looking for some guidance on
what they might like. Really what I've view a good relationship in that sense
with a consumer and with a critic, is it brings a little bit more
solidification on what you enjoy. So you may see a score taste the wine
to go. I don't understand that, and I don't agree, or you
say, holy cowt that is that's my style. I love that. So
you're able to follow that critic and kind of get a little bit of guidance
because wines you may not have the ability to go visit the winery or visit
wine country for that matter. I mean, our country's big, the world's
big. So I think that it is a good way to have a starting
point on guidance. Right, So you've talked that, you said you like
high acid wines. When you're at home. You make bigger style, a
little bit bigger style wines here. And I'm curious if you had to red
white or rose drink or drink drink, Oh my goodness, it's probably fifty
fifty red and white. I don't drink much rose. My wife actually makes
our rose, which I think is fantastic, but it's never something that I'll
say, you know what, I want rose, I'm gonna go to the
wine fridge and pull that out. We do have some, and there's a
lot of wineries here in Passo making great rose and I think we Becca has
made an outstanding one. It's just not something that I'm focused on. So
you're a red and white, won't pick one? Okay, still are sparkling
if you had to pick? Oh? Still, I mean I love champagne,
don't get me wrong. But and again probably split fifty fifty. So
you're making like a bigger style wine. You're focusing on a lot of Rowan
varieties, which you know, we know grenache or all these beautiful wines.
And then it comes down to food pairing. We talked a little bit about
when you were at home. You said, growing up you had to know
how to cook. How when you're cooking or going out to eat, how
do you how do you approach food and wine pairing? Do you follow rules
or do you have guidelines that you suggest or do you not care? I
mean, and I know a lot of people you're kind of shaking your head.
I know a lot of people say they don't have guidelines. But clearly,
if you're making a stake, you're probably not picking a reasoning. So
I'm just curious how you approach it. I probably do it backwards from most
people. I say, what do I want to drink? Tonight and then
I'll create the dish around that, and very similar to going to a restaurant,
I'll say I'm just craving a reasoning or champagne or something like that,
and so we'll bring a bottle by I always bring a bottle, buy a
bottle, but it's always based around what I want to drink. And my
wife and I don't drink Monday through Thursday, but the weekends of when we're
cooking and hanging out at the house and have the kids and other people over,
and we just discuss what we want to have that night, and then
we build the menu around that and other things you're looking for, Like let's
say you're going to have you know you said you do white burgundy. Is
you're gonna have a chardonnay. If you're gonna have acidity and texture, how
do you then translate that into what you're going to make. That's a great
question. And it can be that we know we want something bigger food wise,
but we want the white first. So maybe you open it at three
thirty or four and have that bottle first and then move to red with the
food. But I don't really view there as as there being anything any written
rules. I mean, if you're really craving a cabernet and you're having sushi,
you're gonna figure out a way to make it work, and vice versa.
On the flip side, I mean, you compare lighter wines with heavier
foods, but make sure to have that acid that can cut through the fat
and the savoriness. And so I don't think there's any rules. So for
somebody who hasn't had the pleasure or privilege to taste full draw wines, yet,
what do you think they're missing out on? Oh? Man, I
think you're missing out on everything. Really, what we love to show is
what we can make big wines. We like to show a little bit of
restraint on what we're doing. Is so we would like to focus on the
finesse. You've got the acid backbone from our limestone soils. You've got the
color and the density from the way that we're farming the fruit and then bringing
it into the wine or any making. And you even have wines that are
a bit bigger and structured with a little more New French oak, And we'd
really like to focus on the texture in the mouth feeld. And so when
you taste the wines, especially the suras, it's going to almost be like
you have velvet on your tongue and it just glides through your mouth. But
then you've got this beautiful acid finish that helps carry out the flavor structure.
And I don't know, I love our wines, but obviously I'm biased.
I hope you love your wines. Absolutely So, if space aliens were to
land in your property and knock on your door, which of your wines?
So you make nine different wines, which of your wines would you want to
welcome them with and say this is full draw? While I would love to
say Grenosh, we do make only one wine that's one vital specific bets Grenash.
It's called hard Point. I think our most user friendly, widely appreciated
wine is called Chopping Block, and it's usually a blend of Sara more Vedra
and Grenosh. And so you've got great fruit profile in there still because you've
got the more vet in the grenache, but then you've got the beautiful structure
and the texture in the mouth feel with a sarad and so it's it's very
widely accepted wine. And so hopefully I'd like to do that. But if
you're if you're really saying you get to choose one wine, it's hard point
and that would be our gnash. Well I'm going to get to try both
of them. So ha. So you've had your property for ten years now,
ten eleven years, and was it planted already or did you plant it?
There were thirty acres planted when I purchased the property, let it go
through one harvest, and immediately ripped out fifteen acres after. When we ripped
out those fifteen acres, it was predominantly cabernet. Wrong road direction, wrong
spacing, you type. There is a number of issues also not what I
was looking to focus on. I wanted to focus on road varieties. So
when we ripped that portion of the vineyard out, we've replanted in organic cover
crop. Let it lay follow for three years before replanting, because I wanted
to get the soil back to semi organic state before putting vines in the ground.
So we really focused on that first. But during that time, we
planted fifteen acres in twenty thirteen and then again in twenty fifteen, so we're
up to forty five acres now. Okay, So you live, you own
the vineyard you spend time. I mean, that's your baby because you replanted
and everything. So I'm curious in the time you've been here and even going
back to prior to having this. We know every vintage tells a different story,
but do you find more commonality year to year or do you see big
variation? We don't see big variation. It was actually fun. So every
year, if you're a wine club member, which we call automatic Allocation,
we throw a party in the spring and it's a member appreciation party and it's
something that we get to have fun with. We bring in bands and do
amazing food. But what we did last year was we opened up a vertical
of every vintage of our Sara based wine called Honey Bunny. Here I said,
I didn't think that there was a big variation, but each vintage I
could tell based on my memory of the growing season that there was differences.
Now what we do is we try to farm the same every year. The
vintage is definitely going to tell the story. Sir A. We farm down
to two to two and a half tons an acre granash we take down to
three tons an acre, so we're very involved with the cropload that we're carrying
because we know that that's going to translate into what we want in the cellar
and make it easier on ourselves. So while I want to say that the
vintage of vintage doesn't play a big impact, there are definitely nuances and different
differences in each vintage and you're adapting to that. So are there any signs
or predictors that you look for that are going to tell you what a vintage
is going to be? Well, I can definitely tell you right now that
has been June gloom for six weeks and I'm ready to see the sun.
I like how June gloom for six weeks in June isn't six weeks long.
Yeah, I know it's crazy, and I understand that people in southern California
actually see this weather every year in Passo. It's not that it's normally bright
sunshine at this time. We should be seeing eighty eighty five degrees, just
beautiful weather, and it's it was missing and raining this morning, in which
I don't know if I've seen I'm sure I haven't June, but not off
memory. But it's going to be an interesting year to see when the sun
comes out and how the growing season develops. My first vintage in Passo was
twenty eleven, and it is definitely reminding me there are different There are differences
but similarities in these two vintages, at least in the growing season up until
this point. Now, only time will tell. Once the clouds clear and
see what sunshine we have, and we pray for sunshine, but not too
much like last year it was one hundred and fifteen for ten straight days,
so we can take a pause on that. So there are no sort of
predictors, but there are things that you see that you're like, oh,
too much heat or need more heat? Yeah, I mean the only predictor
really that we have is forty inches of rain versus no rain. So that
has only been a complete blessing for us, and not only us, the
entire state of California. See the reservoirs build. And I finally looked at
my wife the last storm we had and I go uncle done. I'm over
it. We've got all the raid we need. But I know that it's
only a positive thing for everyone. Now, some people did see issues with
their properties, and that's clean up work and we'll all get back to a
normal growing season. But we needed that water bad, And in a way,
this gloom is good because it's letting the water really settle into the land.
If it was if it jumped to one hundred and fifteen degrees, you'd
be burning it all out right exactly. So I mean getting into the growing
season and a little bit cooler temperatures is not worry for us. It's actually
helped our vines really grow and developed nicely this spring versus just coming out of
the gate hot, which I don't know anything different because I've only been here
for twelve years, and that's what all twelve years have been so well.
So in those twelve years, I mean, you obviously spend time in your
vineyards, and you were just talking about how your vines look now. But
when you're walking through the vineyards, do you talk to your vines? What
kind of communication do you have with them? More of a spiritual connection than
a verbal connection. That's actually not true. I curse it some vines,
I hug some vines each each We're blessed to have almost every exposure so north
southeast west, we have six different soil types on the vineyard, so really
we had to dig a lot of soil pits and really get an understanding of
how each rootstock was going to pair with the soil, what varieties to plant.
I got great guidance from mentors at the time, also some soil scientists,
because we really wanted to know. We knew what we had, but
we wanted to make sure that we were making the correct connection with the varieties
in the rootstock, because we do view our vineyard as a life source,
not only for us, but for the next person to take over. We're
only we're renting the land. Yeah, while we may be the owner,
we're just the steward of the land for our time, and we want to
make sure that we're setting up our vineyard to really be able to blossom for
a long time. We're very We think about that consciously a lot and talk
about it openly. And sometimes you have to reprimand your vines. Yes,
we definitely do. Sometimes they don't act the way I want, and that
might be the time I curse them, but it is what it is.
And we've now come to an understanding with each other. And then I know
you're really into music. You were what top five percent of Spotify? Yeah,
I have music on all the time. So do you play music to
the line or is the music for you depends on the time of the year.
It's mostly for me, but in the fall, and I used to
catch a little flak for this. Not really. During harvest, you have
what we call night shift, and so we do punchdowns later in the evening,
so night between nine and ten o'clock, if you walk in on me
unannounced, you might hear Glenn Miller band radio. I mean, you'll hear
a big orchestra. I just I dig that. I love it during the
daytime if it's harvest, lots of rock and roll. But outside of that,
we are all over the map, e edm country, and I enjoy
everything. I think. I think each genre has a place. And do
you think the grapes enjoy the genres? Oh? Absolutely absolutely. I think
that's why we find during harvest the first couple of weeks is Saraw based and
we're really trying to get in a good mood because you've got picking, processing,
pressing, you have a lot of things happening, so there's a lot
of rock and roll, so you get that that feeling in Honey Bunny,
which is our Saraw based wine, because it's bigger, it's richer, it's
got some muscle behind it. And then towards the end of the year,
everybody's little burned out and we play a lot of country and so it's a
little more than mellow. And you've seen that with the grenache based wines.
I love that. Well, we're gonna we're gonna talk about wine and music
in a little bit. But before then, I'm curious, have you and
your team established any sort of good luck rituals at the start of harvest to
kind of mark the time. Now, by that time of the year,
I'm so fully invested in being in the vineyard and being meticulous on the days
that we're picking, the times that we're picking, we also have clients.
So I'm out in the vineyard with the clients talking about their fruits. We
sell fruit to I think six other wineries, and then it's a twenty four
hour notice. It's a let's go. You guys better be ready because now
for the next six weeks it's a lot of work. But we also know
that all of us have done a number of harvests. We view it as
a fun time. We don't look at it, Oh God, we're gonna
work one hundred hours this week you high five and say let's do this together
exactly. And so it's one of those things that it's a short time period
and that sets you up for the entire year. So, no, we
don't have any pre I guess the only pre harvest from ritual that we have
is we probably do it too close to harvest. But we have a little
bit of a party that goes a little too late at night and we're drink
too many ball but that we don't view it as a ritual. It's me
getting everybody pumped up and say all right, this is my my saying thank
you preemptively for what I'm gonna do. Kind of a ritual. Yeah,
yeah, it is kind of a ritual. It's meant to be a good
ritual. But some people go, oh, it's happening. So you fell
in love with wine and started studying wine when you were younger. Was that
always what you wanted to do or when you were a little boy, did
you have other dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up.
Definitely an athlete when I was when I was younger, so I started swimming
competitively. I think at the age of six. I really love soccer,
golf, swam competitively up until I was fourteen, and that's really when I
started to fall in love with football, and football consume my life for the
next six years. So that's that's what I focused on. And I'd love
to say that I was also a good student, but I was a student
so I could play football, and then wine was something that you pursued immediately.
I was still thinking about wine even while I was played football at Iowa
State, and my last two summers off of school, was blessed enough to
have a job at a small retail store out in Colorado. I have cousins
that own skiing somewhere bruntal shops out in Colorado, so I was able to
spend time with them, And originally it was so I could go fly fishing
before and after work. But then Ronda Black, my boss at the time,
she owns up shop called the Catherine Store. She knew that I liked
shot enough Dupap and loved the wines coming out of that region. So one
day she said, have you had roans from California? And I said,
why would I have roans from California when I could have them from Rome?
And she told me to quit being a francophile on a snob and come taste
some wines. So she opened up a handful of wines from the Passa region.
I was just floored with the density, the texture, the aromatics,
just everything about each of those wines, and I said, I have to
see how it's made, which led me into the internship at Booker Vineyard in
twenty eleven. Wow. Wow, see how it all goes from there,
from football to wine. Yeah, do you have a favorite football team?
Well, if we're talking college, Iowa State because I played there. But
really it's hard for me to watch football anymore because of the time of the
year. It's it's harvest. And if I do have a Saturday or Sunday
off, I'm definitely spending that time with my family and my kids and doing
something fun because they don't know that I'm getting my ass kicked at the winery,
so I still have to put on that chip or face and play friend
and Dad and all that fun stuff. That's how you spend your free time
is with the kids. Yes, almost exclusively. Yeah, if Iowa State
were to win a championship, which of your wines would you want to have
them celebrate? With Oh, they're definitely celebrating with Honey Bunny, the Big
Bad Wine. So that's the wine they're going to do. And if they
get to a championship, you can guarantee it that I'll be there. So
you don't have a lot of free time because obviously running a winery is a
big bus and having two small children is very time consuming, and you and
your wife work together. But when you're trying to create a romantic evening for
just the two of you, not an average evening. What sort of wines
set a romantic evening for you guys or you're just going to tell me every
time you open wine, it's just that's what it is. That's what it
is. Now, we're definitely opening up one of our favorite Champagne's, one
of our favorite burgundies, and if it's that kind of romantic evening, probably
two or three more bottles after that. But it'll go all over the spectrum,
depending upon the time of the year, the location of the food as
we're discussing earlier, but it will always start with a great bottle of champagne.
Always, absolutely. Now, you mentioned having some mentors, and you
know we all have teachers and mentors and parents who give us advice along the
way. Is there a piece of advice someone gave you at some point that
you try to live or work by. Oh, man, I'm gonna have
to think about that one. For me, there's a lot of good and
bad advice, not bad, good advice for the time, and then it
translates into something different that that was a wrong choice of words. I apologize.
I think Eric Jensen at one point just said, keep your head down,
work your ass off, and if you know you're doing the right things,
whether they're your as long as you're making your decision, you're following your
heart, the wines are going to come out great. And he also said,
never choose to make a wine based on money. Make the wine that
you want to make, because that's going to translate in the model. And
so I think that now thinking about it, that was one of the best
pieces of advice I got what kind of goes back to the critics and scores
in a way, like, you've got to make wine for yourself, not
for so I mean it is for someone else, but it's for the people
coming. We make wine for the people that are coming to our winery to
taste and the great thing that my wife and I have done, I believe,
is given every wine it's own personality. So there's so many different flavor
profiles of what people enjoy out there that we really wanted to say, Okay,
here, we're giving you a handful of red wines that you never really
feel like you're going to cross over into one another, because if you join
our membership, you're getting two six bottle shipments a year, and so we
don't want to have anything overlap. We want you to enjoy each of the
wines as their own, versus saying, Okay, well I've got five suras
and here you go. So I think that really coming here to the winery
to experience that is the best way. And you differentiate these wines, each
with their own unique labels. Yes, the labels are definitely a fun way
to do that. My wife and I started thinking about what we were doing
for labels. Our first vintage, which was twenty sixteen, so we knew
we had about two years of time in that window, and so for the
first twelve months we were saying, oh, well, we could do this,
this, this, And we were in a small town of Colorado walking
through and there was an art gallery that had a painting of an airplane,
which is now Honey Bunny. We went into the gallery and I just said,
this is going to be one of our labels. This is amazing.
And the owner of the gallery and I start talking, and I finally said,
Okay, if I owned the rights and I own the piece because it's
an original, I get put it on a label. He said yeah,
that's fine. I said, all right, well how much he was thirty
five? I said thirty five on bad and he goes thousand, and I
felt my heart draw to the floor. I go, We're at a different
galaxy. I'm out of here. So I actually tracked down the artist who's
from Huntington Beach. So if you have ever been in In and Out Burger,
you see all the retrocar on the walls. Michael Brian was the original
artist for In and Out and he was actually the artist for the airplane.
So I tracked him down. We had bunch together and he said he needed
to taste the wine before he would let me put any of his artwork on
the bottle. And I said, why, because I'm gonna let you put
one of my beautiful pieces of art on a piece of show wine. I
said, we're gonna get along great, You're going to enjoy it. So
he actually commissioned that piece for us, which is hung in the winery,
so anybody that comes to the facility gets to see that. It's a longer
story, but basically, my grandfather on my mom's side of the family was
in the Pacific Theater and I started reading a lot about World War Two in
my early teen years, just because I was interested in that era at that
time. So I started asking my grandfather questions, not necessarily about his time
because I know he wasn't going to talk about that, but what the general
feeling was in the country on the West coast where he was stationed in the
world, and we just got into some good conversations, and one of those
stories happened to include the Flying Tigers, which is the airplane that is on
the bottle. Because when I saw that painting, it brought back all of
those memories and emotions came flooding back, and I wanted to keep something personal
to us. And each label that we have has some sort of a story
like that behind it. It's beautiful. So you got to come here to
learn all the stories. So when you look back at your career so far,
what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date? Oh,
my goodness, building a beautiful family. That's first and foremost for me.
I start in your career because it's because I know it is a career,
right, I mean, you choose, I know, but it's always
fair. Children are always like you prays acomplishment. Well usually it should be.
But that's why I sit in your career. No, I know,
man, greatest accomplishment in my career that you feel so far, it could
be a big thing, it could be a very small thing. I mean
just being able to step away. Both my wife and I in twenty sixteen
had full time positions and just to start full draw. We knew it was
going to take both of us, so taking that leap of faith and jumping
off a cliff head first and going all in both leaving our full time positions
to start full draw. I think that was the biggest moment in our career,
is just having the faith in ourselves to be able to started making wine
at six hundred cases and just praying that there was water off after you jumped
off that cliff. So well, I think it's quite an achievement because you
have a beautiful facility here, You're you've tripled your production and it's been sixteen
to twenty three. You know, you've got a good nine years on you
so far and going or seven years. Yeah, five vintages and bottles,
so yeah, yeah, and yeah, So we're things started to snowball quickly
after we really started wine, which we've been blessed and fortunate enough to be
able to recognize and see that, and people have really liked the wine.
So building the facility, having our own home and taking another leap of faith
in a short amount of time was something that we were excited to do.
I love it. So we're sitting at a big table here, your bottles
of wine are on the table, and there's an empty seat next to you.
Who, from any walk of life, living or deceased, would you
wish you could share a bottle of full draw wines. That's a good question.
Wow, that's not hard. Winston Churchill, Oh yeah, definitely.
I mean he has one of the greatest quotes. He has a ton of
great quotes. Well, one of my favorite quotes of Winston Churchill is magnum
of wine is the perfect size for two people having lunch, especially if one
is not drinking. That's a great quote. But again, going back to
me being a historian and buff and World War two, it's just hard for
me to think of anybody else that I would want to share a bottle with.
Good answer, so complete the sentence for me, A table without wine
is like Friday night by yourself. I don't know, man, that's another
good one for a table without wine. Like a glass without water, they
go, they go hand and there you go, there you go. So,
you know, we were talking a little bit about all the rain we
had in this last year, being in a drought for a number of years.
You think we'll be making wine and drinking wine and three hundred years time,
Oh absolutely yeah. I mean who would have thought that some of the
greatest wines in the world would come out of California. I mean it was
less than one hundred years ago that that came to be. For a long
time people were wondering if wine could be made out inside of France or Spain
or that area. Is So I think that we will for sure be seeing
wine in three hundred years and as long as we cannot have a short term
memory loss of the drought and everybody using more water than they need than we'll
be all right. Well, if we weren't and you were being sent to
a deserted island, you know, I had to lead up to that one.
What three wines would you want to take with you? I'd take hard
Point, which is our hundred Pconnash. I would take Oh, man,
you don't have to be here wines. I know that that's what it would
be. Uh, she's probably a coach jury Marceau, the perriers from from
Burgundy. And then we're Champagne. Man, so many good I guess I
just have to be Salon. Just go straight, go straight at the top.
It'd be Salon. Any vintage, I'd be good. I do love
how of all the wines you've talked about that you said you love Burgundy,
which you picked white Burgundy, said you love Champagne, you picked one,
and instead of picking a shot enough to pop, you picked your own.
I love that. Yeah. No, I mean I think that our Grenasha
is great. I really do, not comparing it to anybody else's, but
that wine is one of the harder ones to really nail, not because it's
hard to make in the winery, but in the vineyard you want to see,
like I want to see three to three point two five tons an acre,
and we get very meticulous about how to get there. Grenache bines want
to give you eight tons an acre. So what we have to do is
immediately green harvest fifty percent of the fruit. Then we wait for the barrios
a swell up and start to go through creation. And then I work meticulously
with our crew on going through, looking at each individual cluster with your hand
and seeing if it's the crack size. If it's not, you're taking off
the tip, you're taking off the shoulders, something to help reduce the size,
because we're looking at color concentration, flavor concentration, acid concentration. And
so when we taste the wine in bottle three years later, if it puts
a smile on my face, it's because I remember all the hard work and
all the meticulous attention to detail it took in the meneward to get there.
I love it. Well. Speaking of that, why don't you pair that
wine with a song or a genre or musing the grenache the hard point nineteen
hard point, I'm gonna have to pull up Spotify from the name of the
song, but it's definitely going to be Well hard Point. That's going to
be by the Turnpike Troubadours. It's called bird Hunters and or the bird Hunter
and partially because of the label having a German short hair pointer on it.
But that song always remembers me of my childhood. Reminds me of my childhood
and that takes me back to grenosh and bird hunting with dogs and family and
friends, and so it's a very happy memory for me. So definitely that
song. Okay, let's jump over to your grenashe Blanc. Well, actually
your Drift, which is a blend of Claret Blanche with twenty percent Grenash Blanc.
That is going to be paired with oh man, sorry, bear with
me. I gotta have a little cheat sheet there. Yes, that's going
to be Moonlight Serenade by Clon Miller. Yeah, because that was also the
first song at my wife's on my wedding, so also another my memory there.
What about your Sunshower your grenash moved Sarabland. You're definitely wanting that buy
a pool, so you might need an e DM song, So Sweep a
Psycho the remix by Morgan Page. And what about your chopping block, which
is also a GSM but a reverse of Sara moved Grenosh, Yeah, that's
gonna be paired with a Greta Van Fleet song. Let's just call it Highway
tune. Okay. And last, but not least, the one you would
give to your team if they won, the Honey Bunny, which is Sarab
with movet that's gonna need to be Burden in my hand by Stone Temple Pilots.
Very good. Wow, I wonder your rank so high. Yeah,
I do enjoy music. Well, Connor, I have one more question for
you, and we're almost finished. This is it. You've been so much
fun to talk with. What wine region in the world is at the top
of your bucket list to explore? Oh, that's a great question. Northern
Roan. I've done shots enough, I've done Champagne, I've done Burgundy,
but I have not done Corot San Joseph. So the Northern Ran region also
because I want to go to Leone and eat at the amazing restaurants there.
But definitely Northern Rone is the next next one. My wife and I have
been blessed to see a majority of the wine regions in the United States on
the West coast, and then like I said, majority of the regions in
France, so yeah, northern rons next. And for our listeners coming up
to pass A Robelists, how can they find you and explore Full Draw wines?
Where can they find you? What can they find when they find you?
Yes, so on all of our labels we do have. I believe
our website, I shouldn't say that no knowing, but reach out to us
directly at info at full Draw Vineyard dot com. Our phone numbers eight O
five seven one two four four one two. We would love to host you
for a tasting. You can find our wines in some restaurants in Paso Roblais,
which would be Lapati can I in Bloom and bl Brasserie. Outside of
that, the best way to find us is coming here to the winery.
And when you come here in the winery you have these little lounges set up
where people get tastings with like a dedicated server. Yes, so we like
to set up our tastings flight style, so you'll have all the wines poured
out for you beforehand, so when you sit down someone we'll be able to
sit down with you, explain the stories behind the labels, talk about the
wines, but also be there to have fun, maybe give me recommendations on
winers ye've been to, restaurants you haven't been to, and just generally have
a lot of fun. And it's great. It's a modern, very cool,
sustainable winery set surrounded by the vineyards, so you can't really beat the
view, or the scene or the wine. So Connor, thank you for
joining us on Wine Soundtrack and I think it's time to go drink some wine.
Absolutely, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me
here. Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For
details and updates, visit our website wind soundtracks dot com.