Speaker 1: Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with
Speaker 1: which producers narrate their winery and their world team thirty
Speaker 1: answers discover their stories, personalities, and passions.
Speaker 2: Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine,
Speaker 2: and today I have the pleasure, the privilege, and the
Speaker 2: honor to be sitting with Greg Lafollett, the proprietor and
Speaker 2: whymaker of Marshall Wines. And while you may not be
Speaker 2: familiar with Marshall Win's a younger brand, the name probably
Speaker 2: you've heard of over the years, because Greg has pretty
Speaker 2: much been everywhere anywhere any winery you name, which we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about now. But we're sitting here in
Speaker 2: his lovely vineyard in Occidental in Sebastopol, California. And Greg,
Speaker 2: welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about Marshall Wines.
Speaker 3: Well, Marshall Wines was the idea of my now managing partner,
Speaker 3: business partner, Kevin Lee. I had a brand called Alchemista
Speaker 3: and before that Lafolllett Wines. But the same goreer as
Speaker 3: I've had for gosh, almost forty years, a lot of
Speaker 3: them have just gone with me with each project, and
Speaker 3: so I started Alchemista as a white tablecloth brand, and
Speaker 3: during the pandemic, of course, all the restaurants closed.
Speaker 2: And we're white tablecloth restaurants for a while, right.
Speaker 3: So what happened was I've been making wine for Single Thread,
Speaker 3: which is knocked the French laundry off their perch, is
Speaker 3: the top dog restaurant. They got all three Michelin stars
Speaker 3: in two years and are now rated one of the
Speaker 3: top fifty restaurants in the world. And they'd been buying
Speaker 3: some of my Alchemista wines. They called me up and said,
Speaker 3: we want you to make our house white.
Speaker 4: And two provisos.
Speaker 3: It's got to be from Sonoma County because they're in
Speaker 3: Healsburg and it can't be chardonay. Well, I'd been working
Speaker 3: on a Columbard project from vines planted in nineteen oh
Speaker 3: two that had kind of been abandoned with Clark and
Speaker 3: Bonnie Lestra, and we've been resuscitating these vines together and
Speaker 3: just doing it out of passion. When Single Thread called
Speaker 3: me up and I said, boy, I've got just the
Speaker 3: thing for you.
Speaker 4: Columbard. Who's heard of that, you know?
Speaker 3: Even though it was the most widely planted white wine
Speaker 3: grape up until the early seventies or late sixties.
Speaker 4: No one does it anymore, and so.
Speaker 3: They loved it. They loved the idea. I made the
Speaker 3: wine for them. The pandemic hit and then they quote
Speaker 3: sold me back for a song and a dance. Thirty
Speaker 3: five cases of Columbard.
Speaker 2: Who knows about that? What are you going to do
Speaker 2: with it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's so unknown that it's hip and it
Speaker 3: was all Shiner's.
Speaker 4: So I said, well what am.
Speaker 3: I going to do with thirty five cases of Columbard?
Speaker 3: And Kevin at the time he was helping el Chemista,
Speaker 3: because I don't know anything about it or computers or anything.
Speaker 3: He said, well, here's what we're going to do, Greg,
Speaker 3: We're going to start a brand. We'll name it after
Speaker 3: our wives, Mara and Michelle, so we'll call it Marshall
Speaker 3: and his thirteen year old daughter designed the label, and
Speaker 3: we're going to name some of the wines after our
Speaker 3: best friends. And I was thinking, well, if you've been
Speaker 3: in this industry for forty years and you don't name
Speaker 3: a brand after your wives and have your kids designed
Speaker 3: the labels and name after your friends, what are you
Speaker 3: doing in this business? So that was the birth of
Speaker 3: Marshall with thirty five cases of the lowly Columbard grape.
Speaker 2: Wow. And I know you still make Columbard, But what
Speaker 2: are you making today and what is your total case production?
Speaker 3: Well, I have six kids, we're stopping there and a
Speaker 3: bit we're getting grandkids now. But we make on a
Speaker 3: yearly basis around nine hundred cases. Most of our different
Speaker 3: lots of wine are between fifty and one hundred cases
Speaker 3: of wine, so we don't make a whole lot. It's
Speaker 3: very artisanal and it's hard to find, so but that's
Speaker 3: the way I like it. And my wine maker ev
Speaker 3: and Domiano, we've promoted him to winemaker last year. Go
Speaker 3: through every barrel all the time, every barrel counts. We
Speaker 3: only have about, oh like ninety barrels or so. And
Speaker 3: we are starting a custom crush facility so that we
Speaker 3: can make our own wines the way we want them
Speaker 3: and bring some of our friends on board too, and
Speaker 3: we'll do about one hundred tons this year.
Speaker 2: Great, and so of those nine hundred you've got, I
Speaker 2: know you do some traditional varieties like chardonnay and pino noir,
Speaker 2: and then you're doing weird varieties wonderful weird varieties like colmbard.
Speaker 2: What other lesser known forgotten grapes are you working with?
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: In addition to Colmbard, we make a one carbonic maceration
Speaker 3: Pino manne. And for those of you who haven't heard
Speaker 3: of pinomnie, it is the most widely planted red grape
Speaker 3: in Champagne. It's one of the three Champagneoi grapes, and
Speaker 3: very little of it's ever made into a table wine,
Speaker 3: let alone carbonic macerations, So that's really odd. For the
Speaker 3: wine officionado who's had everything that will not have had
Speaker 3: a table wine Pinomine especially done carbonic maceration. And it's
Speaker 3: really good, yes, and it's one of my wife's favorites.
Speaker 3: We also make a charbono from the Freddioni vineyard in
Speaker 3: the Napa Valley, planted around nineteen twenty.
Speaker 4: We make.
Speaker 3: Some sins from the world's oldest and sou vineyard, the
Speaker 3: Bechtold Vineyard in the mccoulmay River Aba. We make one
Speaker 3: of the oldest zinfandel vineyards wines ever, the Royal Tea Vineyard,
Speaker 3: also in the mccoulmay River Aba, that was planted in
Speaker 3: the eighteen eighties, and then we make a Carinnon that
Speaker 3: was planted in nineteen hundred, so it's only one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty four years old. But these grapes all have
Speaker 3: real weird o varietals in them, like the Carinon has
Speaker 3: an almost extinct white grape varietal called Manbadon, and it's
Speaker 3: about ten percent of the Carinon is actually one hundred
Speaker 3: percent whole cluster. Manbadon, a white grape put in the
Speaker 3: bottom of the fermentner and then done semi carbonic. And
Speaker 3: when we press that wine, we have to hand press
Speaker 3: the manvad on because it has a very gelatinous parrot carp,
Speaker 3: meaning it's really hard to press. We also press it
Speaker 3: in a little wooden one ton basket press, and it's
Speaker 3: so gentle I won't pop those clusters. Shown you pictures
Speaker 3: of my wife actually stomping the grapes in the fermenter
Speaker 3: and crushing the manvad on by hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you put her to work. She has to do.
Speaker 2: The winery is named after her.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't be here without her because when I
Speaker 3: had my brand tandem, she fed our entire crew, twenty
Speaker 3: four people of the custom crush facility had then seven
Speaker 3: days a week for eleven weeks, and she ran a
Speaker 3: daycare center for my crew who had been together so
Speaker 3: long they were starting to pair up and have babies
Speaker 3: and such.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you've been in the wine industry a long time.
Speaker 2: I know that this. You've been doing it for forty
Speaker 2: years and since you've worked around the world you've done
Speaker 2: I think you said this will be your sixty ninth harvest.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious, what is your first memory relevant to wine?
Speaker 2: How old were you and what do you remember?
Speaker 3: My parents, when we lived in Europe, would drag me
Speaker 3: through every keller and shae on the continent, and I
Speaker 3: just remember visiting a lot of these wineries, but the
Speaker 3: ones that impressed me the most were the ones on
Speaker 3: the Rhine River with lots of castles around, like right
Speaker 3: around the Laurel Eye. So Schlos Johannesburg was an early
Speaker 3: memory for me. That was around seven years old.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then when you got a little older and could
Speaker 2: drink wine, is there I mean, in your illustrious career
Speaker 2: and with all the wines you make. I hate to
Speaker 2: ask if there's one, because I'm sure there are many.
Speaker 2: But what is one of those memorable wines that sticks
Speaker 2: out to you that you had in aha moment with
Speaker 2: I mean, was it at the beginning of your career?
Speaker 2: Was it somewhere along the way? Did it surprise you
Speaker 2: when you tasted that because you were so much f
Speaker 2: in your career.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, one of the most profound moments was when
Speaker 3: I was in the cellar at Domain Romani Conti and
Speaker 3: got to taste a sixty one macachet.
Speaker 2: And I guess nothing comparison to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was pretty spectacular. I really felt like I
Speaker 3: was home at that point. So that's probably the single
Speaker 3: most peak, or the first one of my life. But
Speaker 3: I have others that I've since done since then.
Speaker 2: I love that. So if we were to come home
Speaker 2: to your house now and go into your cellar, what
Speaker 2: kind of wines would we find? What do you like
Speaker 2: to drink, what do you like to collect?
Speaker 3: Well, my house burned down, unfortunately, and so my whole
Speaker 3: life's work. I had verticals of a lot of the
Speaker 3: wines that I've made over the years, like Porter Bass,
Speaker 3: dating all the way back from my Flowers days in
Speaker 3: the mid nineties, and so I now have the philosophy
Speaker 3: not to collect wine. I just drink it and I
Speaker 3: trade it. But I love drinking pinos and Chardonnays. Of course,
Speaker 3: I love these ancient vine varietals, and so I've really
Speaker 3: put my focus into ancient vines and the pinot and
Speaker 3: chardonnay spectrum.
Speaker 2: And are there particular regions in the world that you
Speaker 2: have in affinity to or is it a lot of
Speaker 2: like local wines you like to drink.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of local wines. But I also
Speaker 3: I love wines from all over the world. I used
Speaker 3: to live in Australia and I made wine there for
Speaker 3: many years, and so I love the wines from the
Speaker 3: Hunter especially what they call Hunter River Revelings, which are
Speaker 3: actually semi on. I love the pinos from the Ara Valley,
Speaker 3: where one of my kids was born. And I love
Speaker 3: a lot of the wines from Beechworth and the outlands
Speaker 3: of the Snowy Mountains.
Speaker 4: I love New Zealand wines. It's hard for me not
Speaker 4: to love any of these.
Speaker 2: So is there a wine you opened up recently that
Speaker 2: drank really well?
Speaker 4: Yes? I had an six.
Speaker 3: Peloton recently that some Assemolier brought to me when we
Speaker 3: were doing the Pino Forum and boy, that wine was
Speaker 3: still singing. The Peloton is a blend of between eight
Speaker 3: and eleven grapes. It's like a mongrel, but it's meant
Speaker 3: to be the winner of the first empty glass to contest.
Speaker 3: And I didn't mean it to age for a long time.
Speaker 3: But it was tasting really good.
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, So you're working you know, you said that
Speaker 2: you love Peano Noi and chardonnay, but you like these
Speaker 2: odd ball varieties. And you've worked with so many different
Speaker 2: grapes and had such an illustrious career. I'm curious if
Speaker 2: you think there's a such thing as a perfect variety.
Speaker 4: No, no such thing.
Speaker 3: They're all perfect, all perfect in their own ways.
Speaker 4: Yes, just like the cherry blossoms in the Last Samurai.
Speaker 4: They are all perfect.
Speaker 2: So then talking about perfection in your career with all
Speaker 2: the wines, and you've worked for some big name wineries
Speaker 2: b V. Flowers, La Crema, Hartford, all hardcourts. Are you
Speaker 2: so many great wines that have gotten big reputations and
Speaker 2: big scores. What's your opinion on wine scores and critics?
Speaker 2: I mean, what kind of a role do they play
Speaker 2: for you as a winemaker and now working with a
Speaker 2: smaller brand. You know what does that mean for you?
Speaker 3: Well, wine scores are helpful, I think to the general public,
Speaker 3: especially people who don't get a chance to taste a
Speaker 3: lot of wines. But I think rather than looking at
Speaker 3: wine scores, I think listening to a critic who maybe
Speaker 3: doesn't even give scores, but instead describes the wine and
Speaker 3: talks about it.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of like films.
Speaker 3: You know, it's much better to not give a film
Speaker 3: a rating and listen to a critic that you really like,
Speaker 3: And if you have tasted wines that this critic likes
Speaker 3: and believe in them, then you can use them as
Speaker 3: a guidepost. A good example is Dan Berger. He doesn't
Speaker 3: give any scores, but he is very very good at
Speaker 3: describing wines and talking about how they're made, and he
Speaker 3: researches his notes really thoroughly. Those are the kind of
Speaker 3: critics that I really admire.
Speaker 2: So as a wine drinker, taking the critic out of it,
Speaker 2: red whiter rose, Yes, still are sparkling, Yes, equal opportunist.
Speaker 3: It's whatever my wife likes best at that time. She
Speaker 3: happens to really love bubbles, and I've made bubbles all
Speaker 3: over the world.
Speaker 4: But with Marshall.
Speaker 3: We started making sparkling wine because she loves sparkling wine.
Speaker 4: And it's a sparkling old wine Co Lombard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean not your typical but quite delicious because
Speaker 2: I've had the pleasure to drink that one as well.
Speaker 2: So sparkling co Lombard that you've never heard of?
Speaker 3: That no, And in fact Co Lombard is the perfect
Speaker 3: grape grown in Sonoma County for sparkling because it never
Speaker 3: gets really ripe, It never gets above ten and a
Speaker 3: half or eleven percent alcohol, So you pick it at
Speaker 3: the end of October just when it is not going
Speaker 3: to rot all the help and you can make both
Speaker 3: a regular table wine from it, but it's low enough
Speaker 3: alcohol that you can do a charge to it and
Speaker 3: do a secondary fermentation.
Speaker 4: And then your wife loves you.
Speaker 2: Well, your wife cooks these great meals for well, she
Speaker 2: did cook these great meals for your harvest teams and
Speaker 2: such like that. It sounds like she's.
Speaker 4: A good cook.
Speaker 2: And food probably plays a very important role in what
Speaker 2: you do. So how do you pair those combinations of
Speaker 2: wine and food? Do you follow rules? Do you think
Speaker 2: there are rules people have to follow? You know, the
Speaker 2: old saying of white wine and fish, red wine and meat,
Speaker 2: or do you have other guidelines that you suggest when
Speaker 2: selecting a wine to pair with your food or a
Speaker 2: dish to pair with your wine.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't really have any guidelines, but someone who
Speaker 3: really knows a lot about that is Randy Caparoso, and
Speaker 3: he's actually writing a new book right now that goes
Speaker 3: over that much more in depth than I ever could.
Speaker 3: I'm just good at stuff putting. I'm good at putting
Speaker 3: wine into a bottle, not taking it out and pairing
Speaker 3: it with food. I tend to leave that more to
Speaker 3: Mara my wife, are winemaker Evan and Jackson, who's our
Speaker 3: trustee every man. He's really good at food and wine pairings.
Speaker 3: I lead that up to the pros.
Speaker 2: Do you open up the wine and then let them
Speaker 2: pair the food or they pick the food and then
Speaker 2: the wine comes later.
Speaker 3: We usually have so many different wines that we're opening.
Speaker 3: I have been trying out that there's bound to be
Speaker 3: something else that goes with them.
Speaker 4: And we make so many different kinds of food.
Speaker 3: We grow a lot of our own vegetables, we make
Speaker 3: our own bread. My wife pretty much makes everything from scratch.
Speaker 3: So and there's a lot of food going on around
Speaker 3: all the time, and there's always wine. There's always good food,
Speaker 3: and we were always finding amazing things to pair with them.
Speaker 2: I love that. God, I want to just kind of
Speaker 2: hang out here all day. So for somebody who hasn't
Speaker 2: had the pleasure to taste your wines yet, what do
Speaker 2: you think they're missing out on?
Speaker 3: Well, I think I'm best known for mouthfeel, so one
Speaker 3: of the threads all of my wines are really different.
Speaker 3: So when you taste like a Bien Decito Chardonnay or
Speaker 3: a Lorenzo Chardenay, one of my blends, I really want
Speaker 3: that particular wine to speak of that particular site. So
Speaker 3: if people want to explore my wines, they're going to
Speaker 3: explore the different tear war that I do, and they're
Speaker 3: also going to explore mouthfeel. I did my postgraduate work
Speaker 3: on Helpergundian wine making techniques affect mouthfeel. It was actually
Speaker 3: the first person to elucidate mouthfeel and wine. It had
Speaker 3: been done in beer and milk before, but not in wine.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of my claim to fame is mouthfeel.
Speaker 2: And how do you achieve mouthfeel with wine? And how
Speaker 2: do you describe that to somebody who may not quite
Speaker 2: understand what Mauthfeeld means.
Speaker 3: Well, I actually wrote a book on it. Well it's
Speaker 3: very so horrific if you have trouble sleeping at night.
Speaker 3: But basically, mouthfeel is the presentation of how a wine
Speaker 3: feels in your mouth and how the flavor persists after
Speaker 3: the wine is swallowed or expectorated. And it involves things
Speaker 3: like viscosity, salivatory response, and how much salivation you have,
Speaker 3: fruit characters, late palette, temporal aspect. So it's quite complex,
Speaker 3: but it's all about how the wine tastes in your mouth. Actually,
Speaker 3: So that's probably the best way to put it.
Speaker 2: And so if space aliens were to land on your
Speaker 2: property right now, walk on over here, which of your
Speaker 2: wines would you say, Welcome to Marrow?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I'd probably say the Pino mine that's done
Speaker 3: carbonic maceration, because it's very light in color. It's a
Speaker 3: light red, very pretty color, but it packs a lot
Speaker 3: of mouthfeel. It just fills your mouth up with flavors
Speaker 3: and persists a long time. And I think I wouldn't
Speaker 3: want to spoil my extraterrestrial friends on some big ass
Speaker 3: Cabernet or something like that.
Speaker 2: You don't make that kind of stuff, do you.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I've made a lot of cabernets over the years, and
Speaker 3: I still consult a little bit in the Napa Valley.
Speaker 3: But and I'd like making cabernet too, But really my
Speaker 3: favorites to make are these ancient vines and pino and chardonnay,
Speaker 3: and the pino mignet has been a real delight from
Speaker 3: the Vandercamp vineyard is just one of the best places
Speaker 3: in the world to grow pino mine.
Speaker 2: So we're sitting here in your vineyard. You have three
Speaker 2: point three three acres of pino and shard and then
Speaker 2: of courser sourcing fruit. You've worked around the world, You've
Speaker 2: worked for sixty nine harvests, are coming up on sixty
Speaker 2: nine harvests, and we know that every vintage tells a
Speaker 2: different story. In your experience, especially in a place like this,
Speaker 2: do you see more variation from year to year? Do
Speaker 2: you see more commonality? Have you what is your sort
Speaker 2: of assessment of looking at vintage variation?
Speaker 3: Well, when I've worked for big companies, and I work
Speaker 3: for big and small, you look for sameness. You try
Speaker 3: to have a product that from year to year is
Speaker 3: very reliable, and that's not a bad thing. But for
Speaker 3: my own wines, which I make in very small quantities,
Speaker 3: like two to four barrels for each lot, I am
Speaker 3: looking for a story that's being told for each vintage
Speaker 3: and for each block of wine. And for instance, where
Speaker 3: we are right now, we've gone through some big swings.
Speaker 3: We've had three years of drought, which was very, very
Speaker 3: different than the last two years of copious water.
Speaker 4: And I want my.
Speaker 3: Vines to tell the story of the year as well
Speaker 3: as of the plot of land. I don't want them
Speaker 3: to be the same, but there are there are There
Speaker 3: are similarities that you find through these things. Like the
Speaker 3: Lorenzo Chardonnay has almost an oiliness to it. It's it's
Speaker 3: almost very viscous. The Haikup Vineyard has a really great
Speaker 3: single thread of vicinity running into it, and they can't
Speaker 3: you couldn't have different wines than those two. And you
Speaker 3: got to taste the Haikup from the barrel and then
Speaker 3: the Lorenzo so ah.
Speaker 2: And so are there any sort of signs or predictors
Speaker 2: that you look for that are going to tell you
Speaker 2: what a vintage is going to be?
Speaker 4: No, not particularly.
Speaker 3: I kind of take it all in as it comes,
Speaker 3: and I take each vintage as it has. Of course,
Speaker 3: you do look at the upcoming weather. You take a
Speaker 3: look at whether or not you're going to have a
Speaker 3: drought year. That's going to affect how you prune your vines,
Speaker 3: and we do prune differently. We do a vine has
Speaker 3: been throughout the year differently with different vintages. An example
Speaker 3: is three years ago when we were in drought. We
Speaker 3: actually had a freak rain right at bloom and normally
Speaker 3: I would pull my leaves right around bloom to create
Speaker 3: a little bit of shatter and make an open cluster architecture.
Speaker 3: But with the rain, I knew that that was already
Speaker 3: going to create shatter and if I pulled leaves at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 4: I would have very little crop.
Speaker 3: So we pulled leaves after the rains changed, and that
Speaker 3: changed the character of the wine.
Speaker 2: So you have to adapt with mother nature and kind
Speaker 2: of go with the flow in what you do instead
Speaker 2: of predicting something and then walking away.
Speaker 3: Yes, Mother Nature is who we should really be listening to.
Speaker 3: And our job as winemakers is to translate the speech
Speaker 3: of the land into the glass. And it's a great
Speaker 3: honor and it's a privilege to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: And I think in order to be able to make
Speaker 3: that translation, you have to first really listen to the land,
Speaker 3: Listen to the grapes, hear what they have to say.
Speaker 3: And because the speech of the land is more powerful
Speaker 3: than any of us, I'm going to be dust in
Speaker 3: the wind in a few years. But the voice of
Speaker 3: the land is eternal. The rocks, the sun, the wind,
Speaker 3: the rain. And who am I to add even a
Speaker 3: letter to the voice of the land without first sitting
Speaker 3: patiently and listening to what it has to say, and
Speaker 3: then understanding where I need to go to partner with it.
Speaker 3: And if you do that, then what happens is the
Speaker 3: land not only allows you to partner with it, it
Speaker 3: invites you to share with it and commingle your dreams
Speaker 3: with the dreams of the land, because the land has
Speaker 3: dreams too, all the rocks and the sun and the wind,
Speaker 3: they all have dreams. And my form of moretal is
Speaker 3: to be invited by the land to commingle my dreams
Speaker 3: with it and make something that we can do together.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is beautiful, And I must say you clearly
Speaker 2: are listening to your vines. There's a reason why you've
Speaker 2: been called the grape whisper. Now I understand, but as
Speaker 2: the grape whisper, I'm curious when you walk through your vines,
Speaker 2: what do you whisper to them? What do you say
Speaker 2: to your vines? Do you talk to them?
Speaker 4: Mostly?
Speaker 3: I listen, but I do play my bagpipes to them
Speaker 3: and my penny whistle. Yeah, And mostly it's listening and
Speaker 3: then trying things out and then making sure that's the
Speaker 3: right thing to do to me, my piananoa vines. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like having a really great partner, but who
Speaker 3: is also fairly demanding. You know, there's there's some vineyards
Speaker 3: and some wines that it's It's kind of like it's
Speaker 3: an easy date. It's just as good to go out
Speaker 3: to a fancy restaurant and blow a big wad of
Speaker 3: money as get a taken baked pizza and Papa vcr
Speaker 3: in the machine and they don't really care. But Pino
Speaker 3: in particular really care. So if you're going to do
Speaker 3: something that is going to be changing things for your
Speaker 3: Pino without first really listening or really asking, you're either
Speaker 3: destined to a very short or a very unhappy relationship,
Speaker 3: or both. You have to really listen and ask.
Speaker 2: I love that. Do you in all the years you've
Speaker 2: been making wine, have you set up any good luck
Speaker 2: rituals that you do at the start of harvest?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, well, I always pipe in the first grapes
Speaker 3: that come in. I also wrote a poem called an
Speaker 3: ode to mister Coffee that is, Oh God, the methylated
Speaker 3: bromine derivative, please grant unto me, and then you ask
Speaker 3: for strength, and then you promise you're seventh born or
Speaker 3: something like that. So I read that invocation. I played
Speaker 3: the bagpipes, and I also wear a talisman from the
Speaker 3: Vandercamp vineyard that Ulysses vander Camp made for me. He
Speaker 3: took a fiddle head fern from his vineyard. He put
Speaker 3: it in a solution containing silver ions and then charged it,
Speaker 3: and the silver ions all collected around the fiddlehead fern.
Speaker 3: And that's my talisman that I now wear all the
Speaker 3: time and occasionally touch just for good luck.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's really quite beautiful as I see it now.
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. So you say you play the bagpipes
Speaker 2: in the vineyard, do you go into the winery and
Speaker 2: play music for your barrels? Do you talk to your
Speaker 2: wine once it's in beryl?
Speaker 4: Oh, I certainly do. That's where I have more.
Speaker 2: Now you stopped listening, Now you start talking.
Speaker 4: Well, no, you still have to listen, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: But I think that the wine really does enjoy music,
Speaker 3: and in fact, there's been some pretty good studies done.
Speaker 3: The Japanese did a study that was published in ajev
Speaker 3: and they had three different kinds of music playing piped
Speaker 3: through a fermentation and there was like heavy metal, there
Speaker 3: was easy listening rock, and there was classical or something
Speaker 3: like that. And with the heavy metal, the fermentation actually
Speaker 3: died really and the one that did the best with
Speaker 3: the control was the classical music was Mozart or something
Speaker 3: like that. I don't know, people can look that up
Speaker 3: and the ajav it's out there.
Speaker 2: Wow. How fascinating. So, Greg, I'm curious when you were
Speaker 2: a little boy, what did you want to be when
Speaker 2: you grew up?
Speaker 3: Well, my earliest earliest memories, I wanted to be a
Speaker 3: garbage collector. I saw those guys coming in. And then
Speaker 3: as I got older, I wanted to be a forest ranger.
Speaker 3: And then after a while, I thought when I was seventeen,
Speaker 3: I thought I wanted to be a winemaker, but living
Speaker 3: in LA, it's like, you know, who becomes a winemaker, right,
Speaker 3: It's like going to rabbinical clown school.
Speaker 4: You know, no one does it anymore.
Speaker 3: So instead I became a professional bagpiper, and I was
Speaker 3: the ship's piper on the Queen Mary. Yeah, and one
Speaker 3: of two bagpipers in the La Musicians Union.
Speaker 4: So yeah.
Speaker 3: But of course that ended up not being very practical.
Speaker 3: So after a short stint in the seminary of the
Speaker 3: Catholic Church or six kids later, that didn't take I
Speaker 3: did the next easiest thing and got another degree in
Speaker 3: chemistry and became a physical chemist and did HIV research
Speaker 3: at UCSF, and everybody who I worked on died. It
Speaker 3: was the early days and including when it didn't even
Speaker 3: have a name, and it really burned me out because
Speaker 3: I thought my job was to track the behavior of
Speaker 3: molecules and how they split up, and I happened to
Speaker 3: be doing it in the human body. I watched a
Speaker 3: lot of mostly young people die. I got seriously burned out,
Speaker 3: and I remembered my childhood teenage dream of being a winemaker,
Speaker 3: and I made a lateral transfer on staff from UCSF
Speaker 3: to UC Davis.
Speaker 2: And look at you now, never looking back forty years later.
Speaker 2: So when you're not working, how do you like to
Speaker 2: spend your free time?
Speaker 4: What's free time?
Speaker 3: I don't know, you and I both Yeah, Well, I
Speaker 3: really enjoy cooking with my wife. I love hiking music.
Speaker 3: I love playing with and spending time with my grandkids,
Speaker 3: and that's been a real joy for me after having
Speaker 3: raised six kids. I didn't know that grandkids could be
Speaker 3: so fun, but they really are. And I like traveling,
Speaker 3: but mostly I like being in the vineyard and winery,
Speaker 3: and especially if I've got my kids or grandkids around me.
Speaker 2: You said you like music. Do you have a favorite
Speaker 2: band or genre?
Speaker 3: Yeah, classical music, and I love jazz. I love a
Speaker 3: lot of vintage rock. My first major in college was music, actually,
Speaker 3: and so I love all forms of music, but mostly
Speaker 3: I really really like the music that my wife wants
Speaker 3: to listen to.
Speaker 2: Well, clearly, your wife dictates the happiness in your home,
Speaker 2: which sounds like great because she cooks well and if
Speaker 2: she's happy, you're happy. So I'm curious what makes her
Speaker 2: happy when planting a romantic evening in terms of the
Speaker 2: wines are going to open?
Speaker 4: Well, she leaves that to me.
Speaker 3: Actually, she literally says, just put something good in my glass.
Speaker 3: And I am the luckiest man I know, in part
Speaker 3: because my wife really loves my work.
Speaker 4: So what can I say?
Speaker 2: It's one of any wine you've made she's happy with.
Speaker 3: For the most part, there's some wines that I make
Speaker 3: for some clients that have a lot of acidity. So,
Speaker 3: for instance, I make a reasling. The one that I
Speaker 3: made in twenty two had a pH of two point
Speaker 3: nine two, so that was a little bit too much
Speaker 3: for her. But most everything, Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that you have been a mentor to
Speaker 2: many people. I'm sure you are a mentor to many people.
Speaker 2: But is there a mentor somewhere along the way, or
Speaker 2: a teacher or a parent that gave you a piece
Speaker 2: of advice that you've carried through your life and either
Speaker 2: how you live or how you work.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The best winemaking advice I've ever gotten was from my
Speaker 3: dad and from my grandpa, and they had nothing to
Speaker 3: do with wine making, but it was trying to treat
Speaker 3: each person that you work with with dignity and respect
Speaker 3: and empowering them. And my dad particularly was really good
Speaker 3: at that, And so what I try to do with
Speaker 3: my wine making is the people around me who are
Speaker 3: bloody competent. I really don't try to micromanage them. I
Speaker 3: try to empower them, and my great love is watching
Speaker 3: them hopefully make even better wine than I have ever made,
Speaker 3: because I would consider that the best sign of success,
Speaker 3: and that was fostered further by people like Andre Cellis.
Speaker 3: Jeff I was his last pupil I got to work
Speaker 3: with Zelm Long was when the first college educated woman
Speaker 3: wine maker in America, and just Dick Graff who started Shaloon,
Speaker 3: John Congsguard, Ben Zeittman and Katie Quinn were early on
Speaker 3: responsible for me at amateur Foothill Winery. So I think
Speaker 3: success has a thousand mothers and fathers, and I'm part
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. So when you look back at your work
Speaker 2: and you know, even pre wine, what would you say
Speaker 2: as one of your proudest achievements to date?
Speaker 3: Ooh, developing the AZTSSA for HIV and AZT is still
Speaker 3: used to this day, but now as a cocktail of
Speaker 3: different drugs. The other one that I was really proud
Speaker 3: of was in two thousand and six when everything was
Speaker 3: coming in all at once, and I had already sold
Speaker 3: my custom crush facility to the new guys called owl Ridge.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to use like my old d stemmer
Speaker 3: which I had modified myself, or my old grape sorting
Speaker 3: table which my crew and I had built ourselves out
Speaker 3: of scrap stainless steel, and my old dairy tanks. It
Speaker 3: was just too retro and hard for them. And they
Speaker 3: bought this new like one hundred thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 3: vibrating sorting table and magic fingers that pop things off
Speaker 3: and inclines, neoprene inclines, and so.
Speaker 4: They bought all that stuff.
Speaker 3: And so I was ready to bring my first grapes in.
Speaker 3: And since I'd sold it, all of my old crew
Speaker 3: left and the new production manager I came in and
Speaker 3: I said, I know that my contract says I have
Speaker 3: to give you twenty four hours notice, but I know
Speaker 3: it's really tough, so I'm going to give you forty eight.
Speaker 3: And he looked at his schedule and he says, you
Speaker 3: could bring in your first grapes in eight days. So
Speaker 3: I stormed into the new owner's office and I said,
Speaker 3: you let me because all of my old stuff was
Speaker 3: still sitting out there in the junkyard. I said, you
Speaker 3: let me use all my old stuff. I promise I
Speaker 3: will not bring a single berry across your threshold. I'll
Speaker 3: do it all outside. I'll do it all with my
Speaker 3: old equipment. I just want you to stay the hell
Speaker 3: out of my way. And so the first day the
Speaker 3: grapes came and my crew was myself and my wife
Speaker 3: and my six children, the youngest of whom was five
Speaker 3: or six, and a friend. And in two hours we
Speaker 3: had processed twenty tons of fruit and looked beautiful. In
Speaker 3: two hours, the professional crew of eight had processed four
Speaker 3: tons and it looked like crap. By That was a
Speaker 3: very proud moment for me. I was so proud of
Speaker 3: my children. And the end of that year they had
Speaker 3: stopped using the magic fingers and vibrator. Of course, that
Speaker 3: sounds like a cheap Midwestern hotel. And the next year
Speaker 3: they sold it off after one use, and they had
Speaker 3: been using all of my equipment ever since.
Speaker 2: And the great thing is is that you get your
Speaker 2: equipment back, because that's where you're moving your new custom
Speaker 2: crush facility into. You're moving back.
Speaker 3: Yes, al Ridge unfortunately had to close their doors, so
Speaker 3: I leased a portion of my old lease, and I
Speaker 3: bought back a lot of my old equipment that we'd
Speaker 3: made ourselves, and so it really feels like it's coming
Speaker 3: full circle.
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that so complete this sentence.
Speaker 2: For me, A table without wine.
Speaker 4: Is like a day without sunshine.
Speaker 2: First thing that came to mind.
Speaker 3: I'm a slave for commercialism. A week without wine that
Speaker 3: wine makes one week.
Speaker 4: How's that?
Speaker 2: So we're sitting at a table, Your wine's are on
Speaker 2: the table, and there's an empty chair next to you. Who,
Speaker 2: from any walk of life, living or deceased, known or unknown,
Speaker 2: do you wish you could share a bottle of Marshall wines.
Speaker 3: With Andre Cellis Jeff He's He was probably the most
Speaker 3: influential mentor of my life, and I still think of
Speaker 3: him all the time. I think of what he would do.
Speaker 3: And there's a great movie out about him right now
Speaker 3: called Andrea the Voice of Wine, and nothing that you
Speaker 3: can ever see or read would ever come close to it.
Speaker 3: But if you watch Andre the Voice of Wine, I
Speaker 3: think you'll really catch just how passionate and powerful this
Speaker 3: man was. And at one point he was having dinner
Speaker 3: with my parents down in La while I was making
Speaker 3: wine up North, and basically he said, you know, Greg
Speaker 3: drives me crazy. He asks all these questions and he's
Speaker 3: he's always.
Speaker 4: So demanding, picky on things.
Speaker 3: He said, but this is the reason I think that
Speaker 3: he will make a really good wine maker. And he
Speaker 3: used different words than that, but I think he wanted
Speaker 3: to make my dad feel proud of me.
Speaker 2: So that's wonderful. I love that. I love that. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, he knew your talent, so you can only
Speaker 2: imagine what he would think of your wines, especially at
Speaker 2: Pino Mine because or the Columbard, Well, all the wines
Speaker 2: that I've had so far pretty darn good. So, as
Speaker 2: I have said before, and you have mentioned, you have
Speaker 2: worked many harvests, You've seen many vintages. You said that
Speaker 2: you have to listen to nature because nature lives on
Speaker 2: beyond us. Do you think wine will live on beyond us?
Speaker 2: With climate change and everything going on? You think people
Speaker 2: will be drinking wine in three hundred years?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, greapevines are survivors. We've been drinking wine ever since
Speaker 3: before history, and we may be drinking wine after history.
Speaker 3: If we bomb ourselves off the face of the planet.
Speaker 3: Whoever's ever left wine is probably going to be there
Speaker 3: along with cockroaches and wine makers. Wine makers and cockroaches
Speaker 3: are hard to get rid of.
Speaker 2: So if you were being sent off to a deserted island,
Speaker 2: what three wines would you take with you? Any three
Speaker 2: wines you could have, which would be your last three wines.
Speaker 3: Whatever three wines my wife likes the most at that time.
Speaker 3: The simple answer, yeah, well, I think well it would
Speaker 3: have to be in the pino spectrum. Well, pino and chardonay.
Speaker 3: Chardonnay is like a blanc canvas. I think that you
Speaker 3: have to make shardonay when you make pino because pino
Speaker 3: kind of makes you a crazy person, and chardonay is
Speaker 3: like a blanc canvas. You know, it's very It's like
Speaker 3: a gumby toy. You can push and pull and stretch
Speaker 3: it different ways. Of course, you want to really listen
Speaker 3: to it and make it the best that it wants.
Speaker 3: But yeah, pino, chardonnay, pino mine.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious. I mean, I have one more question
Speaker 2: for you, but I do want to jump aside and
Speaker 2: play our little game because we have come almost at
Speaker 2: the very end of this little podcast interview, which I
Speaker 2: don't want to end because I love listening to you talking,
Speaker 2: you're a wealth of knowledge, but and your passion comes through.
Speaker 2: But having tasted some of your wines, I want you
Speaker 2: to you know, wine soundtrack, pair wine with music, what
Speaker 2: it kind of conjures up. And since I've tasted it,
Speaker 2: I'm going to play you know, I'm going to know
Speaker 2: if you're right and wrong. But this is a guide
Speaker 2: for those listening who haven't yet tasted your wines to
Speaker 2: maybe get a sense of their what they remind you of.
Speaker 2: So whether it's a genre, a specific musician, a specific song,
Speaker 2: whatever comes to mind. But I want to start with
Speaker 2: your Columbard.
Speaker 3: The Columbard, Well, that's zippy and minerally high acid. I
Speaker 3: would say that's probably a fun, high octane as riff.
Speaker 3: But because it is a classic and oldie, I'd say
Speaker 3: maybe take five.
Speaker 2: Okay, And as we've been talking, we've had the bien Mesuito, Vineyard,
Speaker 2: Santa Maria Valley Chardonay, So what about.
Speaker 4: That one fanfare for trumpets?
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh, you're gonna make this. This is I'm gonna
Speaker 2: throw them out. Okay, let's do your Pino munet.
Speaker 3: Oh that would be Samuel Barber's dagio for strings.
Speaker 2: Okay, and what about your pino noir from this home vineyard.
Speaker 3: Well, that would probably Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony because that has
Speaker 3: elements of call and response to it, or maybe even better, Well,
Speaker 3: Takata and Fuguen d minor by Bach is maybe a
Speaker 3: bit dark, so I would say Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about us, since.
Speaker 3: Oh, people who know ghosts and so that's really fun
Speaker 3: and been a little bit rustic, I would say something
Speaker 3: from Aaron Copeland, like the Grand Canyon Suite.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, you're charbono.
Speaker 3: Oh Charbono is gosh, Well that's big guns, So I
Speaker 3: would say Beethoven's Ninth.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to do one more. We didn't talk
Speaker 2: about this wine, but you make a late harvest dessert
Speaker 2: pino no ar, kind of a port style wine that's
Speaker 2: actually quite quite tasty.
Speaker 3: So what about that, Foxy lady.
Speaker 2: You're good. He did not pre plan for any of this.
Speaker 2: That was really on the spot, and I'm pretty impressed.
Speaker 2: But I guess since you did study music at some
Speaker 2: point in college, you had an advantage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, foxy lady, is that wine is good in
Speaker 3: almost every orifice you can imagine. And my wife and
Speaker 3: I used to shovel out those dairy tanks together late
Speaker 3: at night at two o'clock and we'd also when you
Speaker 3: have all the lees, you war paint each other and
Speaker 3: then you put on Foxy later, lady, and then it's
Speaker 3: all over.
Speaker 2: So well, I love it. It's left quite an image
Speaker 2: in my head. So I can only imagine. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to look at the pretty vines, the sunshining. So Greg,
Speaker 2: it has been such an honor and a pleasure to
Speaker 2: talk to you today. But I have one final question
Speaker 2: with a two part answer. Two part question, I should say.
Speaker 2: The first part is you have made wine in five
Speaker 2: continents you've traveled the world. Is there one wine region
Speaker 2: in the world that's on your bucket list that you
Speaker 2: want to go explore?
Speaker 3: Still a bucket list, I would say Mount Parker and
Speaker 3: Franklin River in southwestern Australia. But really the place that
Speaker 3: I want to make wine is wherever my family and
Speaker 3: grandkids are.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, And if people want to taste Marshall wines,
Speaker 2: how can they find you? Where can they find you?
Speaker 2: How can they taste your wines? And can they meet you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You can get on our website at Marshallwines dot com.
Speaker 3: That's m A r c h E l l E
Speaker 3: Wines Plural dot com and there's a section on there
Speaker 3: where you can sign up for a barrel to bottle
Speaker 3: tasting or you can order wines from there. That's probably
Speaker 3: the best way because we're not in very many places.
Speaker 3: When you only make fifty cases of something, it's not
Speaker 3: easily found. So look at our website, drop us an email,
Speaker 3: come and taste with us. We have a tasting room
Speaker 3: in Calistoga that's shared. But more importantly, if you come
Speaker 3: to our winery, either our winemaker Evan or I will
Speaker 3: guide you through a barrel to bottle tasting.
Speaker 2: And that would be a pretty special treat. I mean
Speaker 2: it's not it's really special. When Greg Leffalette the man,
Speaker 2: the myth, I mean these wineries that you might have
Speaker 2: heard of, he laughs, But he is the grape whisperer,
Speaker 2: the greepe whisper. No, but to be able to spend
Speaker 2: time and to listen to more of the stories is
Speaker 2: a real treat. And Greg, I can't thank you enough
Speaker 2: for spending time with us today on wine soundtrack, and
Speaker 2: I say cheers to.
Speaker 3: You cheers, my friend, and I have to say that
Speaker 3: I've already said to you. You are a favorite winemaker drug,
Speaker 3: You're a heroine. You tell the stories of wine, and
Speaker 3: without gals like you, I just wouldn't go thirsty for
Speaker 3: a couple of years.
Speaker 4: So thank you from the bottom of my heart for
Speaker 4: doing what you do well.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and thank you, and I hope everyone enjoyed
Speaker 2: listening to this and cheers.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA.
Speaker 1: For details and updates, visit our website windsoundtrack dot com.