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 Alson
Speaker 2: Levine and today I am in the Livermore Valley with
Speaker 2: Dane Stark, the owner and ymaker at Page Mill Winery. Dane,
Speaker 2: welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about Livermore Valley.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for coming to visit. So, Livermore Valley
Speaker 3: is a transverse valley, meaning it runs east to west.
Speaker 3: It's just on the east side of the Bay Area
Speaker 3: San Francisco Bay Area, and it's home to fifty to
Speaker 3: sixty small wineries and a couple big ones.
Speaker 4: And we found our way here twenty years ago and
Speaker 4: have absolutely loved being here. Wow.
Speaker 2: So you are one of the smaller wineries. And tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit about Page Mill Winery, the history
Speaker 2: of it, and where we are exactly today because today
Speaker 2: we're surrounded by vines. So clearly you own some vineyards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we sure do so. Pagemat Winery started in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy six. At the time my father was selling lasers
Speaker 3: around the world, and he saw these little family run
Speaker 3: wineries that were in the rhine Gow in Germany. On
Speaker 3: his day off, he would walk down through the rhine
Speaker 3: Gow and visit these small wineries that had ten or
Speaker 3: twelve barrels underneath that family house, right, and he thought,
Speaker 3: you know, he was kind of missing his kids growing
Speaker 3: up and he wanted to do something home based. And
Speaker 3: so before it was fashionable to quit high tech and
Speaker 3: start a winery, he did. At that time, there were
Speaker 3: under three hundred wineries in California, so it was a
Speaker 3: really different landscape. And the family home was on Pagemill
Speaker 3: Road in Los Altas Hills, which is by Stanford University
Speaker 3: in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And so he literally quit
Speaker 3: his job. He rented a little Bobcat tractor, took the
Speaker 3: Osceha cage off, don't tell anyone, and he dug a
Speaker 3: ramp off the driveway, knocked a hole in the foundation,
Speaker 3: and dug it all out. And it took him twenty
Speaker 3: eight days. He and my oldest brother, they dug it
Speaker 3: all out. They propped up the house, they cemented it,
Speaker 3: put drains in, and he started making wine.
Speaker 2: He put barrels below the house.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he started making wine and in nineteen seventy five
Speaker 3: he made fifteen gallons of Shennon blanc that was completely undrinkable.
Speaker 3: My uncle called it urina blanca. And with that experience
Speaker 3: under his belt, he.
Speaker 2: Just wanted to pursue it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I asked him. I was like, were you crazy?
Speaker 4: What were you thinking?
Speaker 3: You know, you made one terrible batch and then you
Speaker 3: just completely change And he was like, you know, it
Speaker 3: was it was so early in the wine industry that
Speaker 3: commercial back malalactic bacteria weren't available. Everyone would get gather
Speaker 3: together at Davis after the harvest and they would talk
Speaker 3: about how they got the wine to finish mL, you know,
Speaker 3: the secondary fermentation, and so later on you could then
Speaker 3: purchase a commercially available on mL bacteria. But it was really,
Speaker 3: you know, at such a young time in the wine
Speaker 3: industry that you know, he was he was hopeful, and
Speaker 3: he was he was smart, and he was you know,
Speaker 3: dedicated and so and so. And some of those wines,
Speaker 3: some of those early wines of seventy six seventy seven
Speaker 3: are still drinking pretty darn well.
Speaker 2: They're under your house.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, So the winery operated there on Pagemo Road for
Speaker 3: twenty eight years.
Speaker 2: So what brought you to the Livermore Valley of I
Speaker 2: mean based on where you were located, because you said
Speaker 2: you were in the south, just like Stamford. I mean
Speaker 2: you had no more known areas of nap and Sonoma
Speaker 2: right near you, I mean Santa Cruz Mountains. What brought
Speaker 2: you to the Livermore Valley?
Speaker 4: Great question.
Speaker 3: So so we operated there for twenty eight years, and
Speaker 3: my parents retired in ninety six. My wife and I
Speaker 3: were living at the winery at the family home and
Speaker 3: running the winery until two thousand and four, at which
Speaker 3: point we realized, I mean we were so full that
Speaker 3: the barrels were stacked pyramid stacked, which if you've seen it,
Speaker 3: you know, barrel on barrel right, and and and we
Speaker 3: had four layers. And the first layer I had to
Speaker 3: mark the racks on the floor because it had to
Speaker 3: be centered just perfectly, because the fourth layer crested between
Speaker 3: the floor joists, and if you got it off by
Speaker 3: six inches, that fourth layer wouldn't go on, it would hit.
Speaker 4: The floor dice.
Speaker 3: So so we were really full right to the to
Speaker 3: the gills. And and so we said, okay, we need
Speaker 3: to expand, we need to find a new place. And
Speaker 3: we also it was underneath family home in a residential area.
Speaker 3: We couldn't have a dedicated tasting room. So in order
Speaker 3: to take it to the next step, we need to
Speaker 3: look for a new place.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: The unique aspect to page Mill was early on, my
Speaker 3: dad planted a couple of acres of grapes and immediately
Speaker 3: lost them to the deer and the birds and the gophers.
Speaker 3: And he said, Okay, that's really hard. I'm gonna buy
Speaker 3: my grapes. So so in two thousand and four, I
Speaker 3: was buying Santa Cruz Mountain wines. I was buying grapes
Speaker 3: from Healsburg. I was buying grapes from Napa, from the
Speaker 3: Chiles Valley in Napa, from Santa Barbara, Santa Maria Valley.
Speaker 3: I was buying passer Robles fruit.
Speaker 2: You're driving all over the state, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In harvest, I was really more of a trucker than
Speaker 3: anything else. And so I was going to those those
Speaker 3: places and bringing the fruit back to the winery. In
Speaker 3: that regard, it was a totally mobile business, right it was.
Speaker 3: It was that business model was I could move it anywhere.
Speaker 3: And so when I moved to Livermore Valley, in many
Speaker 3: ways it was closer to my to my vineyards because
Speaker 3: I could hop right on the five and go down
Speaker 3: to Passer Roboles, right.
Speaker 2: But what was the draw to this valley to Livermore.
Speaker 3: So what happened was we spent about a year trying
Speaker 3: to figure out if I could I could own that place. Well,
Speaker 3: I have three sibling so I couldn't afford to inherit it, right,
Speaker 3: So we said, okay, we need to move, and we
Speaker 3: looked in Healdsburg, we looked in Santa Cruz mountin all
Speaker 3: of the Santa Cruze Mountains, and then up in the
Speaker 3: Sierra Foothills and Livermore. What drew me to Livermore was
Speaker 3: the affordability. It was kind of an unknown hidden gem,
Speaker 3: if you will, and the ability for us to stay
Speaker 3: closer to Silicon Valley. So much of my client base
Speaker 3: was in the Bay Bay area, and so we wanted
Speaker 3: to stay close to that, and so we really came
Speaker 3: here for the tasting room and the expansion.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So today, clearly we're in a tasting room. You make
Speaker 2: your wine here as well, but we're surrounded by vineyards.
Speaker 2: So how many acres of vineyards do you own today?
Speaker 4: I wish that was mine.
Speaker 3: That's a fence. That fence is where my property stops.
Speaker 3: You park next to the petitserraw vineyard. That's our estate
Speaker 3: vineyard and it's two acres. I also farm a half
Speaker 3: acre a sera next door, as well as four and
Speaker 3: a half acres of white varietals in the southwest corner.
Speaker 4: Those are sort of.
Speaker 3: In French they call it fermage, where you where you're
Speaker 3: sort of leasing the property and then and then doing
Speaker 3: the farming and then taking the fruits of your labor.
Speaker 3: So I have seven and a half acres that I
Speaker 3: manage and operate on and the rest I still purchase.
Speaker 3: That's about seventy five percent.
Speaker 2: And what is your total case production today? And of
Speaker 2: that what is it made up of? Obviously you said
Speaker 2: petit serra and what else.
Speaker 3: So we make a wide range of wines. We make whites, reds, rosees,
Speaker 3: sparkling port a white dessert, sort of saw turn style everything. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I got my hands in a lot of pies
Speaker 3: and it really keeps it interesting. It's fun, it's it's
Speaker 3: really a way to express myself in so many different ways.
Speaker 4: And yeah, so we make a.
Speaker 3: Ton of different wines and total case production six thousand.
Speaker 2: And are your wines available just here at the winery
Speaker 2: direct consumer? Are you across the market in some states.
Speaker 3: Or out of the country, So you can buy our
Speaker 3: pagement wine in South Carolina and the Bay area, San
Speaker 3: Francisco Bay Area, and.
Speaker 2: Then right here in the winery and.
Speaker 3: Here at the tacon here in the winery. Yeah, I've
Speaker 3: still got a distributor who sells the wine around the
Speaker 3: around the bay and so you can find it in
Speaker 3: San Francis, going up and down the peninsula.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious. You said your dad started making wine
Speaker 2: in your home. Was that your first memory relevant to
Speaker 2: wine or is there another memory? What's when your very
Speaker 2: first memories of wine?
Speaker 3: So let's see, So my dad when he started to
Speaker 3: dig that hole, I was eight years old, okay, right,
Speaker 3: and so that really is my first you know, is
Speaker 3: what's going on here?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: And actually they dug they added onto the house and
Speaker 3: in a direction that went towards the pool. And I
Speaker 3: came back from camp and they were digging this hole
Speaker 3: and I was like, man, we're spanning the pool. But
Speaker 3: which would have been super cool, was it went under
Speaker 3: the house. That's not what was happening. And so then
Speaker 3: they then they built a room over that and so
Speaker 3: they had the seller and so it was really cool
Speaker 3: growing up around that. My siblings were pretty involved in harvest,
Speaker 3: and you know, all of September and October, the whole
Speaker 3: harvest happened on the driveway right in the front yard.
Speaker 4: Literally. So that's that was my first yet.
Speaker 2: And since then, you've been drinking wine. You make a
Speaker 2: lot of different wines. I'm curious if there's a particular
Speaker 2: wine along the course. It's been one of those aha
Speaker 2: moment wines for you.
Speaker 3: Well, when I lived in I spent my junior year
Speaker 3: in college in Bordeaux, France, and that's what really turned
Speaker 3: me onto wine. That's what opened my eyes to sort
Speaker 3: of the lifestyle and the way that the Europeans look
Speaker 3: at wine as part of the table and part of
Speaker 3: the meal really sort of opened my eyes and made
Speaker 3: me re evaluate my relationship with wine. And then I
Speaker 3: I said, I came back and I said, hey, Dad,
Speaker 3: you know you said if I ever wanted to take
Speaker 3: a semester off and work for you, I could, And
Speaker 3: he said absolutely so I did, and that was nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty nine. That was my first professional harvest.
Speaker 2: But was there a particular wine that went a haf
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sorry, So the wines in Bordeaux were the ones that
Speaker 3: really expanded my understanding the way that the French approach
Speaker 3: a dry rose was something that was completely different at
Speaker 3: the time. In eighty nine, you could get sweet you
Speaker 3: know rosees, white zin's here, but there wasn't that all
Speaker 3: that much dry rose and it was completely different.
Speaker 2: So not a specific wine, but a specific but it
Speaker 2: was more of a category that kind of was ah
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so now if we were to come to your
Speaker 2: home and in your cellar refrigerator under your house, what
Speaker 2: would we find? What do you d what do you
Speaker 2: and your wife drink? Do you drink a lot of
Speaker 2: local wines, a lot of Bordeaux wines? Is there a
Speaker 2: mix and match? What would we find.
Speaker 4: In my cellar?
Speaker 3: You'll find a bunch of page Moll wines, lots of vintages.
Speaker 3: I love to go back vintages and you know, revisit
Speaker 3: what has been made. The Angelo's Qva is my dry rose.
Speaker 3: That's that's the one it's the only wine you have
Speaker 3: to like because it's named after my wife, Angela, which
Speaker 3: is a whole other story. But that's what you'll find
Speaker 3: mostly on our table. But then I also really enjoy
Speaker 3: the local wines, and I've got a couple of favorite
Speaker 3: wineries that are out of state and we and we
Speaker 3: dabble in in the European wines. But man, there's so
Speaker 3: many great wines here and little more of that.
Speaker 2: So is there a wine you opened up recently on
Speaker 2: your dinner table that tasted really great or maybe picked
Speaker 2: up at a restaurant.
Speaker 3: So I like to, like I said, revisit older vintages
Speaker 3: and wines can really evolve over time and reach this
Speaker 3: state that you didn't think they were going to get to.
Speaker 3: And my twenty one San Francisco Bay Chardonnay reached a
Speaker 3: state in the last six months that is just exquisite.
Speaker 3: And so I've gone through my last case of that
Speaker 3: just in the last couple of months because because that.
Speaker 4: One, oh my god, it's off the charts great.
Speaker 2: I love that. So you work with a lot of
Speaker 2: different great varieties. You've been making wine for a couple
Speaker 2: of decades, and I'm curious do you think there's a
Speaker 2: such thing as a perfect variety.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: I think that each variety has their own attributes, the
Speaker 3: things that they bring to the wine. I love to
Speaker 3: do blends, and when you're blending, you know, you can
Speaker 3: really sort of dial in things by, you know, pulling
Speaker 3: out the great things in each varietl So I don't.
Speaker 4: Think there's a perfect one. I think they're all perfect.
Speaker 2: They're all perfect. Well, speaking of perfection, I mean oviously,
Speaker 2: there are people who like to put scores to wines,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious how what the role of wine critics
Speaker 2: and scores play in your mind to the wine industry
Speaker 2: or to a brand like yours.
Speaker 3: I detest them sincerely. I you see metals on the
Speaker 3: wall and scores and all that stuff, But I send
Speaker 3: that out because the public. It gives the public sort
Speaker 3: of some buying information and and and they and they
Speaker 3: like that. Every time I ship it off, I hate
Speaker 3: it because we won best mer Low in the Valley
Speaker 3: maybe four five years ago or something like that, and
Speaker 3: we were at the at the banquet and they said, okay, Dane,
Speaker 3: tell us why yours is the best? Marlew And I'm
Speaker 3: in front of you know, three hundred people or whatever
Speaker 3: they're having dinner, and I said it's not and there
Speaker 3: was silence in the room and everyone went and you know,
Speaker 3: the winemaker next to me was like shocked, right, And
Speaker 3: I said, I said, it's not the best mar Low.
Speaker 3: It's the best Marlaw if you're having duck Alrange, but
Speaker 3: if you're having just a glass of Merlew And I
Speaker 3: turned to Ronda Wood at Wood Family, I said, you
Speaker 3: want a glass of Wood Family Merlew. And if you're
Speaker 3: having you know, maybe Asian food, you definitely want them
Speaker 3: a grail Merrilew right. And so putting all these merlaus
Speaker 3: side by side and saying one is the best, I
Speaker 3: think is.
Speaker 2: You know, it's subjective and it's personal, and so on
Speaker 2: a personal level, red white or rose.
Speaker 4: Rose for sure, still or sparkling still.
Speaker 2: Very quick. That was easy. So I'm curious. You just
Speaker 2: mentioned like your Merleau with duck Alrange and another wine
Speaker 2: on its own and something like that. So how do
Speaker 2: you approach food and wine pairing? Obviously, you know, if
Speaker 2: that merleau goes so great with a dish, why is
Speaker 2: it that it goes so great with that dish? And
Speaker 2: maybe wouldn't work with something else. And when you're at
Speaker 2: home or going out to eat, how do you approach it?
Speaker 2: Do you do you pick the wine first, pick the food?
Speaker 2: Do you not care how to pair? Or do you
Speaker 2: have a do you have certain rules you follow?
Speaker 3: So I've done a lot of food and wine pairings
Speaker 3: over the decades, and the best ones are ones where
Speaker 3: we spend a lot of time and go back to
Speaker 3: each pairing, we come up with sort of the menu
Speaker 3: right and decide, Okay, this is what we're pouring, this
Speaker 3: is what we're gonna try and pair with it, and
Speaker 3: then we go We create the food, create the wine,
Speaker 3: you know, bring the wine in, taste them together. Because
Speaker 3: what's going on in your mind may not necessarily go
Speaker 3: on in your palette.
Speaker 2: You know, But what are you looking for? Are you
Speaker 2: looking to match acids? Are you looking to contrast? Do
Speaker 2: you think there are rules of white wine and fish,
Speaker 2: red wine and meat? I mean, do you follow those
Speaker 2: basic rules or is it really just what your imagination
Speaker 2: takes you to?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, no rules, No, throw all the rules out the window.
Speaker 3: For me, a great pairing is one where the bite
Speaker 3: of food cleanses the palette for the wine and the
Speaker 3: wine cleanses the palate for the food. And so there's
Speaker 3: this interplay and going back and forth where they perfectly
Speaker 3: marry with each other so that someone doesn't, you know,
Speaker 3: outweigh the other.
Speaker 2: So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure of tasting
Speaker 2: page Mill wines, yet, what do you think they're missing
Speaker 2: out on?
Speaker 3: Let's see if I can be accused of having a style,
Speaker 3: I suppose it would be old World.
Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is.
Speaker 3: These wines are a little bit more restrained than your
Speaker 3: typical California wines, which I love, you know, the over
Speaker 3: the top jammy fruit bombs. But coming from France and
Speaker 3: learning about wine in France, I like a more restrained wine.
Speaker 3: As a good example, we do a saft turn style
Speaker 3: late harvest soovinium blanc that is about half the sugar
Speaker 3: of a regular saw turn and it's also lower in alcohol.
Speaker 3: And that's because I don't want it to be dessert
Speaker 3: in a glass.
Speaker 4: I want it to go with dessert.
Speaker 3: And so I find that if it's you know, a
Speaker 3: full saw turn, it really is dessert in a glass,
Speaker 3: whereas you know, if it's a little more restrained, then
Speaker 3: it goes with the fruit and cheese, and that pairing
Speaker 3: is it.
Speaker 4: Can be beautiful.
Speaker 2: So you have how many different wines do you make?
Speaker 2: I know all the categories you mentioned, but are we
Speaker 2: talking you know about twelve different skews? Twenty different skews.
Speaker 4: It's twenty, it's twenty plus.
Speaker 2: Okay. So if all those wines, if space aliens were
Speaker 2: to land on your property right now, knock on the
Speaker 2: door and say, you know, give me one of your wines.
Speaker 2: Which of your wines would you want to welcome them with?
Speaker 3: Well, it would have to be the GPS because they
Speaker 3: were lost, right, So I make a Roane style blend.
Speaker 3: When I landed in Livermore, I said, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a great location for the rhone vrve Sarrah grenache, and
Speaker 3: I want to do a GSM style wine. But I
Speaker 3: wanted to say page my winer. I wanted to say
Speaker 3: Livermore Valley. I wanted to be my location wine, and
Speaker 3: so I took out the m the Morvedra in a GSM,
Speaker 3: and I put in Petit serra because that's what I grow,
Speaker 3: and so then it really should be called GSPS.
Speaker 4: But I was going to say, is it.
Speaker 2: Or Grenachetitasra it's grenash Petit.
Speaker 3: But I took liberty with the letters, and I put
Speaker 3: my marketing hat on and I said, well, if this
Speaker 3: is my location wine, it should be called GPS.
Speaker 2: That's perfect. Perfect for the lost aliens, although they may
Speaker 2: have intentionally come come here, I don't know. So you know,
Speaker 2: you've been making wine now for how many years, like
Speaker 2: thirty years.
Speaker 4: Thirty five? This would be my thirty fifth ventures.
Speaker 2: And you used to drive all over the state picking
Speaker 2: up grapes, so you've seen a lot of different vintages.
Speaker 2: And then now, of course you've been here in the
Speaker 2: Livermore Valley for what twenty years? Twenty years? So you
Speaker 2: know between the two, we know every vintage tells a
Speaker 2: different story in your experience, what have you seen both?
Speaker 2: You know, when you were visiting all these vineyards across California,
Speaker 2: did you see commonality or big variation? And now that
Speaker 2: you're really working with your particular vineyards, do you see
Speaker 2: grand change every year? Do you see common you know,
Speaker 2: threads that kind of take you through vintage to vintage.
Speaker 4: Let's see.
Speaker 3: I answer that the I think having the perspective of
Speaker 3: seeing all those vineyards in those appellations has has made
Speaker 3: me the wine maker I am today, and uh and
Speaker 3: given me appreciation for you know, for the growing aspect.
Speaker 3: It's when I left Santa Cruz Mountains, I was farming
Speaker 3: ten small vineyards and now I have a lot more acreage.
Speaker 3: But in you know, three vineyards and seasonal variations. The
Speaker 3: vintage really play is such a part. It's almost like,
Speaker 3: you know, give me another thirty five years and then
Speaker 3: I'll have some threads for you.
Speaker 4: But each vintage can be so unique and.
Speaker 3: So interesting that it's almost like no two are the same.
Speaker 2: So are there any sort of signs or predictors that
Speaker 2: you look for that are going to tell you what
Speaker 2: a vintage is going to give you?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean I pay attention to a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff, the butt break and when it happens and
Speaker 3: how fast it happens, the heat during the spring, things
Speaker 3: like that. And I farm completely organically, and so I
Speaker 3: think that means I spend a little bit more time
Speaker 3: in the vineyard, maybe a little bit closer to the vines.
Speaker 3: You really have to get the leaf pulling correct in
Speaker 3: order for the stuff that we're using against mildy to work,
Speaker 3: because it's organic, and so you've got to be pretty careful.
Speaker 4: But I forget you as well.
Speaker 2: No, just about any signs or predictors that you have.
Speaker 2: But so you're you said that you're affirming organically, you're
Speaker 2: spending time in the vines, getting very close to them.
Speaker 2: Do you talk to your vines?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? No, no, there, yeah, yeah you have to and
Speaker 4: saying do.
Speaker 2: You have a conversation with them or are you more
Speaker 2: like encouraging them, reprimanding them or is it just you know,
Speaker 2: sharing your life story.
Speaker 3: It is, it's talking to them. If they talk back,
Speaker 3: then and then I worry about myself. But yeah, so yeah, no, no,
Speaker 3: I find myself talking to the vineyard when i'm you know,
Speaker 3: because they're a part of your life. I mean, you
Speaker 3: know every vine, right, I mean when when you're doing organically,
Speaker 3: you don't just drive the tractor through and spray for weeds.
Speaker 3: You're actually manually pulling weeds.
Speaker 4: And stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So so you really get to know the vineyard a.
Speaker 2: Very intimate relationship. Do you talk to your wines when
Speaker 2: they're in barreled? Does it continue or really it's the vines?
Speaker 4: No, it does. Yeah, absolutely, you gotta talk to the one.
Speaker 3: I mean, Sauvinil Mack is just so strong you can
Speaker 3: ignore it. You can, you know, kind of kick it around,
Speaker 3: leave it in the corner, forgot about it. And it's
Speaker 3: just so resilient that it can come out just beautiful
Speaker 3: even even with negative energy if you're in a bad
Speaker 3: mood or whatever, when you're making it now.
Speaker 4: Pina, no water.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I mean you walk past it
Speaker 3: and you look at it, askance, and it could go
Speaker 3: into a funk for three months.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to really watch your attitude and
Speaker 2: your tone. So have you established any sort of good
Speaker 2: luck rituals that you do at the start of harvest
Speaker 2: for yourself personally or for your team?
Speaker 3: No, I don't have any. No, I probably should, but
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: None of those lucky socks, or I don't shave or
Speaker 2: the same shirt, or.
Speaker 4: I will often be pretty scruffy during harvest.
Speaker 3: But that I don't think that has to do with luck,
Speaker 3: just fatigue.
Speaker 2: You don't feel like you jinx yourself if you shave.
Speaker 2: No about So, you said that your dad put in
Speaker 2: the cellar when you were eight years old, and I
Speaker 2: mean you were a young child when you saw this happening.
Speaker 2: Did you know at that point that wine was something
Speaker 2: to interest you, or what did you want to be
Speaker 2: when you grew up, when you were a little boy,
Speaker 2: what did you think you wanted to be.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to be a potter and I wanted
Speaker 3: to be a masseuse. I'm a licensed massage therapist, which
Speaker 3: my wife gets the benefit of. And I've never I
Speaker 3: didn't continue on with pottery, but I wanted to do
Speaker 3: pottery and massage. And so when I went away to college,
Speaker 3: it'll surprise you to know I much preferred beer to wine.
Speaker 3: But then when I spent that year in Bordeaux my
Speaker 3: junior year, I absolutely fell in love with wine. And
Speaker 3: then I came home to the winery to join.
Speaker 2: Wow, and do your siblings work in wine as well?
Speaker 4: No, I have.
Speaker 3: Let's see, a sister who's a professor, a brother who's
Speaker 3: a retired doctor, and another brother who's an electrician. And
Speaker 3: so I give the best Christmas presents.
Speaker 2: Are you the baby of the family or in the middle.
Speaker 4: I'm the baby.
Speaker 2: So when you're not managing and talking to your vines,
Speaker 2: and you're not here in the winery, what do you
Speaker 2: like to do in your free time?
Speaker 3: So I've got a beautiful family, three daughters, that take
Speaker 3: up a bunch of time. We've got my youngest daughters
Speaker 3: playing competitive soccer, so we travel around for that, which
Speaker 3: takes up a.
Speaker 4: Lot of time.
Speaker 3: And when I can find a day or two to myself,
Speaker 3: I fly sail planes.
Speaker 2: Planes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been into free flight, which is no motor
Speaker 3: right for thirty years. I've flown paragliders for a long time,
Speaker 3: since ninety two. My dad and I did that together
Speaker 3: and it was still my favorite picture of my dad
Speaker 3: and I to this day is on my wall at home,
Speaker 3: and it is after we both had gone up for
Speaker 3: the first time over launch. We got two thousand feet
Speaker 3: over launch, and we went We flew ten miles an
Speaker 3: hour and a half and we landed in a field
Speaker 3: next to each other, and we put our arms around
Speaker 3: each other and I took a selfie before selfies were
Speaker 3: a thing with an instamatic camera, and we both have
Speaker 3: tears running down our faces. Paragliding, wow, so that looks
Speaker 3: like a parachute, right, And if you do what the
Speaker 3: birds do, you can go up and go places and wow,
Speaker 3: it's it's fairly dangerous. And so I felt a little bit,
Speaker 3: uh yeah, I felt a little bit less and less
Speaker 3: comfortable with it over the years, over the last decade,
Speaker 3: and then I said, I really want to do this
Speaker 3: passion of mind, which is flying. And and the other
Speaker 3: thing that's a little bit safer is sail planes. And
Speaker 3: it's a plane with no engine. You get towed up
Speaker 3: by another plane. And then you do the same thing.
Speaker 3: You ride the air currents, you ride the thermals. Just
Speaker 3: two weeks ago I flew north to Reno. I was
Speaker 3: took off out of air sailing. I got to seventeen
Speaker 3: thousand feet, I flew three hundred kilometers. I was in
Speaker 3: there for four and a half hours. Wow, all just
Speaker 3: riding the thermals.
Speaker 2: So no sound, it's silence up there.
Speaker 3: It's fairly quiet. You're flying along at fifty to sixty
Speaker 3: miles an hour, so there's wind, but that's it.
Speaker 2: Wow. And then when you land, you land on land,
Speaker 2: land in an airport.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the one thing people don't understand about sailplanes is
Speaker 3: they get my ship gets a forty eight to one ratio,
Speaker 3: which means if I'm a thousand feet in the air,
Speaker 3: I can go a mile, you know, because.
Speaker 2: You have to land in an airport, so you have
Speaker 2: to find an airstrip somewhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right, sorry, not a mile.
Speaker 3: If I'm a thousand feet in the air, I can
Speaker 3: go forty eight thousand feet, which is almost eight.
Speaker 2: Miles US, so you can find an airstrip.
Speaker 3: So one thousand so I think about that eight miles.
Speaker 3: So I've got a lot of stuff within reach. Wow,
Speaker 3: and so and so we fly kind of from airport
Speaker 3: to airport where you say, okay, I can reach that one.
Speaker 3: And if you get high enough and go far enough,
Speaker 3: then you can reach that one.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, wow, Wow. That's a hobby. I've never heard
Speaker 2: anyone that's amazing. Well, when you're down here on ground
Speaker 2: and you're planning a romantic evening for you and your wife,
Speaker 2: the girls are out, you know, you just have a
Speaker 2: night for the two of you. What sort of wines
Speaker 2: do you open to set a romantic mood versus a
Speaker 2: Tuesday night? Yeah, it's not that romantic can't happen on
Speaker 2: Tuesday Night's.
Speaker 3: Gonna say every night can be romantic, let's see. So
Speaker 3: we love to start with my sparkling. I make a
Speaker 3: completely hand done sparkling wine that spends you know, four
Speaker 3: or five years. Sir Laughton on the East les and
Speaker 3: the bottle, and that's got to start. You know, my
Speaker 3: wife and I love sparkling wine, and then we often
Speaker 3: go to a shard ennay. I make a really delicious
Speaker 3: San Francisco based chardonnay.
Speaker 2: So romantic evening is drinking all your own wines. Absolutely
Speaker 2: total house palate.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when we go out to dinner and and you
Speaker 3: you asked about pairing wine, pairing wine and food, we
Speaker 3: love to do.
Speaker 4: We don't.
Speaker 3: We don't get the same glass of wine. We always
Speaker 3: get different glasses of wine and share them. You know,
Speaker 3: when people say, you know, I want to you know,
Speaker 3: learn how to taste wine or I want to get
Speaker 3: better at tasting wine, I say, okay, rather than open
Speaker 3: a bottle tonight, open two bottles tonight and you can
Speaker 3: taste some side by side. And so that side by
Speaker 3: side comparison is what really gives you the most information.
Speaker 2: So when you look back at your career or your life,
Speaker 2: is there a piece of advice that someone gave you
Speaker 2: along the way that is something you try to live by,
Speaker 2: or you know your your work.
Speaker 4: Ethic, Bye, let's see, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, my dad's philosophy was was very enjoy every
Speaker 3: day and get the most out of every day.
Speaker 4: You went hiking every.
Speaker 3: Day and paraglided, and we paraglided together, and we really
Speaker 3: worked to live. And I think that kind of goes
Speaker 3: through how we run the winery and how I operated today.
Speaker 2: And so when you look back at your career, what
Speaker 2: would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date?
Speaker 4: Oh, my goodness, proud is the achievement. Wow, that's a
Speaker 4: tough one. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm so proud of like all four of these wines
Speaker 3: and kind of this. I couldn't really pick one.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a specific wine.
Speaker 4: But these are my achievements.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, I moved the winery and we we
Speaker 3: tripled in size, and you know, we've got a tasting
Speaker 3: them down.
Speaker 4: But really my achievements are my wines. That's how I
Speaker 4: see it.
Speaker 2: Like that.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 2: So I want you to complete a sentence from me.
Speaker 2: We'll have a little more fun now, I won't make
Speaker 2: it as hard. A table without wine is like a desert,
Speaker 2: simply put. And if you were being sent off to
Speaker 2: a desert or deserted island, what three wines would you
Speaker 2: take with you, and they don't have to be your own,
Speaker 2: but they could be your own. But any three wines
Speaker 2: that you could take with you, what would it be?
Speaker 3: Oh goodness, I would take a mcgrail cab, a Wood
Speaker 3: Family Sarah and my Angelo's qubat dry Rose.
Speaker 2: Three Livermore wines.
Speaker 4: Oh for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're Livermore thrown through.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I came for the tasting room and
Speaker 3: I'm staying for the grapes. The first three years opened
Speaker 3: my eyes to what this valley can produce, and quality
Speaker 3: and value.
Speaker 4: I think it's unsurpassed.
Speaker 2: So we're sitting at a table. We've got your wines
Speaker 2: on the table, there's an empty seat next to you.
Speaker 2: Curious who from any walk of life, living or deceased
Speaker 2: do you wish you could open up a bottle of
Speaker 2: page Mill Winery with and share?
Speaker 4: My dad?
Speaker 2: Did he not get he's had your wine? Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, my dad. My dad passed a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago. He's who I'd like to have a glass
Speaker 4: of wine with.
Speaker 2: No, I know, I know, I know. It's my Oprah moment.
Speaker 2: We'll go, we'll jump ahead. Well, we'll talk about music.
Speaker 2: Now back Now we're gonna finish. We have a couple
Speaker 2: of your wine sitting in front of us. We have
Speaker 2: a Savignon Blanc, we have the Angelus Couve named after
Speaker 2: your wife. We have the GPS which you spoke about,
Speaker 2: and we have a Cabernet savignon. And you know it's
Speaker 2: wine soundtracks. We've gotta We've gotta kind of end this
Speaker 2: with a little tie in with music. Music conjures up
Speaker 2: feelings in US. Wine conjures up feelings in US. And
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you could pair these four wines with
Speaker 2: a genre, a musician, a song to Starting with your
Speaker 2: Savignon blanc.
Speaker 3: So the Soavignon blanc really wants something flamenco, something light
Speaker 3: and airy and nylon strings, Yeah, definitely, And it calls
Speaker 3: for for not strumming, but hand you know picking. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's bright, it's it's lively, it's it's a cid
Speaker 3: and you know it's got a little bit of a
Speaker 3: spice to it.
Speaker 2: I can hear the nylon, I can hear it. I
Speaker 2: can almost taste the line by the music. Now, what
Speaker 2: about Angela's couve? What is it? It's a rose of.
Speaker 3: It's a rose grenache six hours on the skin. So
Speaker 3: it's got that kind of light salmon color which is
Speaker 3: which is really my bull's eye.
Speaker 4: And I would say acoustic.
Speaker 3: Fingerpick maybe blackbird uh yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: And then the GPS that you know, it's helping find
Speaker 2: your way and not a g G s M. I
Speaker 2: can't even remember the way the letters go now, but
Speaker 2: no a GPS your directional wine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the my location wine.
Speaker 3: So the GPS calls for major chords. It's a happy song,
Speaker 3: something that is maybe offbeat, like something like.
Speaker 4: Uh something on the back beat. Uh.
Speaker 3: And it's and uh fairly complicated.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of chords.
Speaker 2: So a genre or a song or a.
Speaker 3: Musician, let's see rock, Uh major chords, yeah.
Speaker 2: Rock, rock and roll and the Cabernet Savignon.
Speaker 3: Cabinet son own needs chamber music needs something you know
Speaker 3: with a cello in it, and something mallow maybe maybe
Speaker 3: some minor chords.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I have real, some real visuals of these wines based
Speaker 2: on the style of music that you have chosen. So, Dane,
Speaker 2: that was really good.
Speaker 4: Thank you well.
Speaker 2: I have one more question for you, two parter, what
Speaker 2: what wine region in the world is At the top
Speaker 2: of your bucket list to explore Chile.
Speaker 4: Chile.
Speaker 3: I really want to go to Chile. I've never been
Speaker 3: my wife's spin and I'm really jealous about that. And
Speaker 3: my Spanish is terrible, but i love to butcher Spanish
Speaker 3: and I've heard a lot about it.
Speaker 4: I really want to go to Chili.
Speaker 2: Well, while you make those plans for somebody who would
Speaker 2: want to come here to Livermore Valley, how can they
Speaker 2: get here? Where can they find you? How can they
Speaker 2: find you? What can they experience?
Speaker 3: First, they should order a bottle of the GPS that'll
Speaker 3: take them right here, because because it's got the coord
Speaker 3: and it's right on the label perfect thirty seven degrees
Speaker 3: north and one hundred and twenty one degrees west. So
Speaker 3: Livermore Valley is really just a stone's throw from the
Speaker 3: San Francisco Bay Area. For much of the Bay, we're
Speaker 3: the closest wine region and there's, you know, so much
Speaker 3: to explore and visit in Livermore Valley. When I arrived
Speaker 3: here in O four, i was winery number twenty four.
Speaker 3: Now they are over fifty wow wow.
Speaker 2: And so if they come here, they come to page
Speaker 2: Mill Winery and you have a tasting room any particular experiences.
Speaker 4: So I love to do flights.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, we've got a guided tasting for
Speaker 3: which our brand ambassador will tell you about each wine
Speaker 3: and guide you through as you go from lighter to heavier.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the experience that you got to do.
Speaker 3: And you've got to taste the Angelus kVA and the
Speaker 3: gpsal much to your wife.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, Well there's an indoor area, small tasting
Speaker 2: room inside and a lovely outdoor area looking out at
Speaker 2: your neighbors vines but still vines. Beautiful Dane. Thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us on Wine Soundtrack. I hope you had
Speaker 2: a good time, and let's go taste some wine.
Speaker 3: It sounds great. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you
Speaker 3: for visiting liver More on pagemail.
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