Speaker 1: Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with
Speaker 1: which producers narrate their winery and their world. In thirty
Speaker 1: answers discover their stories, personalities, and passions.
Speaker 2: Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison
Speaker 2: Levine and today I am in the Adelaide district Impasseroblis
Speaker 2: with Kevin Usla. Haha, I said it correctly of Kukola.
Speaker 2: How am I doing? Perfect? Well? Great? These are finished names,
Speaker 2: so you know it's a little challenging, but not all
Speaker 2: of them, not all, but Kevin, welcome to Wine's Soundtrack
Speaker 2: and tell us a little bit about Kukola and where
Speaker 2: we are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're in the Adelaide district, one of the
Speaker 3: eleven sub appellations in passer Robolis. We are otherwise kind
Speaker 3: of we're in the area that's kind of known as
Speaker 3: the far out wineries. Were the furthest northwest corner and
Speaker 3: the only winer that goes past us, I believe, if
Speaker 3: I'm not mistake. Oh actually technical leaders too, which to boast,
Speaker 3: but justin most notably, uh there there are another two
Speaker 3: and a half miles west of us, so we're we're
Speaker 3: pretty far west and north as in terms of the
Speaker 3: overall pass Appalachian and anyway, what do you wanting to
Speaker 3: tell you about?
Speaker 4: Cuckola? Just kind of the the bullet points.
Speaker 2: The bullet points, give me, give me up quick, like
Speaker 2: what is the name Kukola?
Speaker 4: Cukola is Finish. My family's from Finland.
Speaker 3: It's my first language, and cucula and Finishes actually said goulapula.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: So cucula means the high place. So in Finish, I
Speaker 3: would say, you know, la luck, my house is on
Speaker 3: a high place.
Speaker 4: And if you when you.
Speaker 3: Came in, if you saw the house up high, that's
Speaker 3: kind of you know, we vastly for about five years,
Speaker 3: about five months excuse me about what we were going
Speaker 3: to call as an After going back and forth with
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of things, one day I asked my
Speaker 3: mom because I just was wasn't getting anywhere, and so
Speaker 3: she asked what I was looking for, and I kind
Speaker 3: of told her, well, you know, I'm you know, I
Speaker 3: was thinking, mecky, is that as a high as a mountain?
Speaker 3: And I gave her some other alters. She said, well
Speaker 3: about gougula. And I had never even interested enough. I
Speaker 3: had never heard the word and it just resonated im
Speaker 3: meed to because it such a fun word, cucula for
Speaker 3: Americas or whatever. But it's a fun word and it
Speaker 3: says a lot about how steep and high these properties
Speaker 3: are here. So anyway, we're roon centric organic right farmers.
Speaker 3: What we do one hundred percent of state grown. My
Speaker 3: first love of wines was Southern ron wines when I
Speaker 3: was in my twenties.
Speaker 2: You're jumping ahead of me there.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, stopped the bullet points.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm the other wine maker Cucola, and we're
Speaker 3: very focused on Rohan.
Speaker 2: Centric blendz And how many acres do you have here?
Speaker 3: So the property here is eighty acres, and yet I
Speaker 3: farmed two properties. The other is seventy two acres between
Speaker 3: the two. We've gone through some huge chases because of
Speaker 3: red blotch, but we had originally planted fifty acres across
Speaker 3: of vines across the two properties. We've pretty well torn
Speaker 3: we've torn everything out and we've replanted, and at this
Speaker 3: point we're only at forty two. We might stop there.
Speaker 3: So we're farming forty two acres across two properties. I
Speaker 3: also farm olives and walnuts on this property.
Speaker 4: As well.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you said that you're doing Roon varieties, although
Speaker 2: I know you also do little Cabernet, so there's some
Speaker 2: Bordeaux varieties in there too. And how many cases do
Speaker 2: you produce?
Speaker 3: Well, that's kind of a moving number. We were pushing
Speaker 3: close to three thousand cases a year or two ago.
Speaker 3: We are pulling back. The markets are soft, so I'm
Speaker 3: not quite sure what that number is. It's going to
Speaker 3: be in the two thousand plus zone. The vineage you're
Speaker 3: having today is close to three thousand cases.
Speaker 2: It's a little fluctuation. And is your wine exclusively direct consumer?
Speaker 2: Are you in any markets? I hope you're in Finland.
Speaker 4: It is so funny you say that we are in
Speaker 4: Finland all the Finish market.
Speaker 3: If you think the US market is bad right now,
Speaker 3: the Finish market is not good. Excuse the phone, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I wish I could disconnect that. So we are in Finnish.
Speaker 3: I'm in Finland. I'm a really proud fin And of
Speaker 3: course I had to have my wines that Finland had
Speaker 3: an opportunity five six years ago to have the wines there.
Speaker 4: That is our early place for distribution.
Speaker 3: We are one hundred percent direct to consumer in the
Speaker 3: United States heavily club driven.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, now I'm going to ask you what was your
Speaker 2: first memory relevant to wine.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that's a tough one.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sixty four years old, so my first
Speaker 3: memory relative wine would have probably been my in my teens,
Speaker 3: you know, something like any what is it any Green Springs?
Speaker 4: Any bunny? Oh gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, those those old kind of jug wines that
Speaker 3: my parents would have had their kitchen. That was my
Speaker 3: first memory of So there's two others real quickly, I
Speaker 3: think on the first time I ever was I was
Speaker 3: probably not carted.
Speaker 4: It was illegal.
Speaker 3: I had ordered a bottle of Sebastiani Cabernet Sauvignel at
Speaker 3: a restaurant, trying.
Speaker 4: To impress a girl I was dating. I knew nothing about.
Speaker 3: Wine before you were twenty one, probably I think it
Speaker 3: was before I was twenty one.
Speaker 4: Somehow I got it, it happened.
Speaker 3: But my first seminal experience interually enough was bo Castell
Speaker 3: and the chapter enough to pop.
Speaker 2: So yes, my next question, as you've sort of jumped
Speaker 2: ahead on, is what is that first you know, aha
Speaker 2: moment wine? Was it that bo Hostelle? Or is there
Speaker 2: another memory that kind of I'm sure you've had a few,
Speaker 2: because obviously you just then buy a winery and start
Speaker 2: a winery. But what was one of those wines that
Speaker 2: was kind of an aha moment for you? And what
Speaker 2: was it in why?
Speaker 3: It's hard to say what wine, but clearly so what
Speaker 3: happened was I started getting really curious about wines, and
Speaker 3: I got curious about wines really because of other interest hobbies,
Speaker 3: you know, real quickly. I was a pretty serious cyclist
Speaker 3: and runner for many years, and when I met.
Speaker 4: My wife Paula, I.
Speaker 3: Was really seriously into running and biking to the point
Speaker 3: that it really dominated a lot of my time. And
Speaker 3: it's always trying to figure out how to wait corporate
Speaker 3: my wife into this because I didn't.
Speaker 4: Want to give that up.
Speaker 3: And so this kind of evolved in over time into
Speaker 3: bike riding and specifically doing bike tours, which kind of
Speaker 3: evolved to wine bike tours.
Speaker 2: So this is how you got hurt a bike ride.
Speaker 3: I got hurt of bike ride with another incentive, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of a resorting way to bike ride instead of
Speaker 3: kind of me doing centuries or more, which she had
Speaker 3: zero interest in.
Speaker 4: And so what happened was the Santa Neez Valley.
Speaker 3: Was probably kind of my first real serious fory into
Speaker 3: consuming wines and getting curious about wines. And as you know,
Speaker 3: although it's very diversified there, there's a lot of ran
Speaker 3: either varietals. Probably back then it was more broidely driven,
Speaker 3: not so much blend driven. So that was probably my
Speaker 3: first foy into wines. But what really I think was
Speaker 3: the catalyst that got me going was I we are
Speaker 3: We lived in Topanga Canyon, which is the Santa Monica
Speaker 3: Mountains in Los Angeles. Uh and uh there was an
Speaker 3: amazing wine shop, it's still an amazing wine shop called
Speaker 3: the Wilden Hills Wine Company on Ventura near Folbrook in
Speaker 3: the valley.
Speaker 4: And somehow I had fallen into going there.
Speaker 3: I guess I was looking for good wine shops and
Speaker 3: I fell upon this amazing wine shop. Their knowledge there
Speaker 3: was and probably to this day is really amazing. They
Speaker 3: got an amazing staff. And so I'm not I'm not
Speaker 3: a shy guy who's asking all kinds of questions that
Speaker 3: I got wine spectator, and I would like circle all
Speaker 3: the wines that was curious about it to go in.
Speaker 5: There's a here he goes with his winespecnears definitely, and
Speaker 5: so somehow, I guess what I was asking questions about
Speaker 5: kind of moved to rones as a suggestion, and so
Speaker 5: I started kind of focusing on Roans, and you know,
Speaker 5: I don't know, you know, there might have been things
Speaker 5: like Rias or via Telegraph or certainly book Castell or
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's too long ago to remember anymore.
Speaker 4: That's pushing certainly thirty five to forty.
Speaker 3: Years ago, but I remember bok Castell maybe over time
Speaker 3: kind of really resonating with me, and I ultimately had
Speaker 3: an amazing experience in nineteen ninety five there where I
Speaker 3: tasted with one of the patriarchs. By chance, I had
Speaker 3: knocked on their door and you're not supposed to do that,
Speaker 3: and they.
Speaker 4: Like they didn't get you.
Speaker 3: Actually had to come back a couple of days later,
Speaker 3: and we ended up having this amazing tasting experience, and
Speaker 3: so that really we actually tasted with Rias as well
Speaker 3: at the same time, View Telegraph and a few others
Speaker 3: I forget, but that was kind of like, really when
Speaker 3: I started get I guess I was sucked at the vortex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the vortex happens, so I'm curious. Do you you
Speaker 2: know you make a lot of blends. In fact, you
Speaker 2: make almost exclusively blends, Roane blends. Do you think there's
Speaker 2: a such thing as a perfect variety?
Speaker 3: No? No, No, I mean, look at I suppose when
Speaker 3: I first fell in love with wines. Well, if I
Speaker 3: told you I loved roans and brons or essentially blended wines, right,
Speaker 3: unless you're a Northern wine is one hundred percent or
Speaker 3: damn close to one hundred percent sarraw. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I've had amazing examples of Surrahs that I've had
Speaker 3: in the past, and grenache, you know, Spanish got nachas
Speaker 3: and things like that that I just completely love.
Speaker 4: But I am a huge foody. My wife is a
Speaker 4: huge food ye.
Speaker 3: And so for us, I think what makes food so
Speaker 3: amazing is the ingredients, the components that go into it,
Speaker 3: and that I think, by extension, the same thing happens
Speaker 3: with wine. Each varietal brings a certain mouth feel, aromatic
Speaker 3: way whatever they deliver differently on the palette. And so
Speaker 3: I think blending is really kind of creating, in my mind,
Speaker 3: more complex wines.
Speaker 2: So if we were to come to your home up
Speaker 2: the hill from your tasting room. If we were to
Speaker 2: walk in there, what wines would we find in there?
Speaker 2: Is it a lot of the cucula wines? Do you
Speaker 2: drink a lot of local wines? International? Is it all
Speaker 2: blends all of above?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, looking you can certainly have you know,
Speaker 3: got to have a healthy dose and cucula allocation in
Speaker 3: my cellar. But yeah, I have a pretty big representation
Speaker 3: of Central Coast wines, a pretty big representation.
Speaker 4: In fact, I have.
Speaker 3: One whole wall of California wines, including cukola.
Speaker 2: Mostly roane producers or other varieties.
Speaker 4: Not necessarily.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, clearly there's you know, I'm getting
Speaker 3: too many names here, but you know, certainly all of
Speaker 3: the certainly a lot of the names that we know
Speaker 3: here in Paso, in the Sanatas area, but you know,
Speaker 3: up to Oregon and Washington, certainly a bias to the rhones.
Speaker 3: But you know, a good friend of mine here is
Speaker 3: a project called Sick Smile Bridge, and they are all
Speaker 3: about Bordeaux. His name is Jim Moroni, by the way,
Speaker 3: And you know, so I have a healthy amount of
Speaker 3: six Mile Bridge as an example. Pinos pinos a talisman,
Speaker 3: a good good friend and an amazing white maker up
Speaker 3: in northern California, Sonoma area, Scott Rich. So I have
Speaker 3: a lot of pinos. But yeah, so there's some varietal
Speaker 3: specific But if you took inventory of all the wines
Speaker 3: in my cellar, I suspect you'll probably find I don't know,
Speaker 3: seventy eighty percent of the murblness.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you opened up recently that drank really well?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I had some friends over a fellow wine
Speaker 3: maker for dinner a few nights ago, and we had
Speaker 3: a Chateau Quinaut from Bordeaux two thousand and three. It's
Speaker 3: a San Anio wine, and that was really.
Speaker 4: An amazing experience. I'm really big on older vintage wines,
Speaker 4: and so I really love to buy wines and put
Speaker 4: them away for a whole number of years. So that
Speaker 4: was really cool. Gosh, I don't know. I have a
Speaker 4: bottle of wine every night, so it kind of blurs
Speaker 4: after a while.
Speaker 2: Hard to keep up, but it's nice when you have
Speaker 2: a selection, and if you're keeping older wines, you know,
Speaker 2: you just go down there and see what you think
Speaker 2: might be ready to drink. Now, So I'm curious you
Speaker 2: were saying that when you went into Woodland Hills Wine
Speaker 2: Company to buy wines, you walked in with your wine
Speaker 2: spectator circling them. I'm going to guess that you have anymore. No, no,
Speaker 2: now you have a palette. I get that, But I'm
Speaker 2: curious because at that time, I'm sure what you were
Speaker 2: circling were things that got some pretty good scores. So
Speaker 2: as a winemaker, now where do you do you what
Speaker 2: is your opinion on wine critics and scores. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously that was boiling water. Well, I mean it was
Speaker 2: clearly a very important thing as a consumer, and I
Speaker 2: see the value. And look where you are today. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's a dangerous road to go down, but well, look.
Speaker 3: At I submit to most of the wine critics, and
Speaker 3: I think that anybody who's in the business, the end
Speaker 3: of the business that I'm in, which is direct consumer
Speaker 3: uh really kind of wines and distinction, we do submit
Speaker 3: and and rely on, you know, critics treating us favorably,
Speaker 3: and to a large degree, I get a lot of
Speaker 3: pretty good recognition from them. I will say that you know,
Speaker 3: this is this is this is where it gets ripe
Speaker 3: with danger certain wine critics and especially historically, and it's
Speaker 3: sort of evolving. I think today have different palettes, but
Speaker 3: there's been kind of a defined palette, the Robert Parker
Speaker 3: palette as an example, kind of big extracted wines. And
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, I love those wines. I have
Speaker 3: those wines in my cellar. But I'm all about finesse
Speaker 3: and elegance. I'm kind of more into the little lower alcohol.
Speaker 3: I'm just non interventionous, non indivenduous wines. Complexity, high acid,
Speaker 3: how does it complement food? And so a lot of times,
Speaker 3: although those wines might do well with critics, they don't
Speaker 3: necessarily do as well as I think that they should.
Speaker 3: And I do see again that that's evolving, and I
Speaker 3: think I certainly see it with respect of how we're
Speaker 3: being treated about wines. So, you know, you kind of
Speaker 3: have to play the game, and I think that over
Speaker 3: time that conversation of balls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously, like you said, you're not really you're
Speaker 2: not driven by scores anymore in your buying. So you know,
Speaker 2: you find your place and now you have the confidence
Speaker 2: and you know what you like and you know how
Speaker 2: to find it. So talking about what you like as
Speaker 2: a consumer, you have a vast selection of wines in
Speaker 2: your cellar. As you've described, you make red wines exclusively.
Speaker 2: I know you said you had a white wine, but
Speaker 2: currently are only making red wine as a wine drinker,
Speaker 2: red whieter rose.
Speaker 4: All of the above.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, Look, if you're really into food and wine
Speaker 3: with food, it has to be all of the above.
Speaker 3: And it isn't that I don't have Volley, my only
Speaker 3: white that I haven't made in a few years in
Speaker 3: my cellar.
Speaker 4: I do have other whites in the cellar.
Speaker 3: And you know that runs the gamuts from you know,
Speaker 3: kind of German reeslings to.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Whatever, you know, chardenay typically French chardonnaise or so when your.
Speaker 4: Bonks or you know, it's all over the map.
Speaker 2: A nice equel opportunist. What about if you had to
Speaker 2: choose still or sparkling.
Speaker 4: I'm a big still guy.
Speaker 3: I have I have a fair amount of sparkling in
Speaker 3: the cellar, you know, I just I don't know, I
Speaker 3: just we just don't pull out as much sparkling as
Speaker 3: we used to.
Speaker 4: I don't know why, it just has happened that way.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious to go into your cellar, and that
Speaker 2: sounds like a very vast, exciting place to wander through.
Speaker 4: It's not too bad. It's a pretty good place. I
Speaker 4: like hanging out there.
Speaker 2: So you said that you like to you know, you
Speaker 2: and your wife like to cook. That you you know,
Speaker 2: like to pair wine with food. So how do you
Speaker 2: approach pairing wine and food? Do you follow rules? Are
Speaker 2: there rules you can share, guidelines that you use, or
Speaker 2: do you just sort of I got that two thousand
Speaker 2: and three CENTI milion, and I'm ready to drink it,
Speaker 2: so let's just open it with whatever.
Speaker 3: I definitely don't do that, although it's it's funny that
Speaker 3: saandamon I did.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was a bit of.
Speaker 3: A violation of what I would have typically paired with
Speaker 3: the meal.
Speaker 4: Although that's aren't really fair.
Speaker 3: So our guests are vegetarians, and my wife and I
Speaker 3: have been leading vegetarian for a while now, We're not
Speaker 3: one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: I love meat. I'm a carnivore, but so.
Speaker 3: So she's got a nice repertoire of dinners that she
Speaker 3: prepares that are vegetarians. So she did it for our guests,
Speaker 3: and it was a nook. I can't remember what's with
Speaker 3: the nook.
Speaker 4: It's funny.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, I'm zoning, But she did this
Speaker 3: new thing that's a portobello mushroom with spinach and feta
Speaker 3: cheese and some other things in there, and it was
Speaker 3: just it's really beautiful, really savory. So you know, the
Speaker 3: mushroom component to me works with a Bordeaux certainly, but
Speaker 3: probably more a Senteniome because it's softer. So I wouldn't,
Speaker 3: you know, do something that would be left bank. I'd
Speaker 3: probably typically do something that's more right bank with something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: So if I was going to back up a little
Speaker 2: because first, tell me what are the rules you fought,
Speaker 2: because it sounds like you played a little bit with that.
Speaker 2: So maybe you don't always follow rules because surprises can happen.
Speaker 4: Well, that's right, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, there's always kind of standard rules, especially
Speaker 3: when you're in the taste and where you have you know,
Speaker 3: club members that are asking you, got I'm doing this tonight, Kevin,
Speaker 3: what would you do with it?
Speaker 4: And so there's kind of the standard rules. You know,
Speaker 4: our lighter wines.
Speaker 3: Will typically be I'll tell people poor chicken, excuse me,
Speaker 3: fish chicken, the pork if we're kind of talking kind
Speaker 3: of a meat driven meal. And as we go up
Speaker 3: the ladder, with our wines, you know, you'll typically kind
Speaker 3: of go you know, we got our pott to do,
Speaker 3: which is.
Speaker 4: A grenache space with serraw wine.
Speaker 3: It'll tend to be maybe more red sauce, maybe eggplant
Speaker 3: parmesan to maybe even chicken with like a like a
Speaker 3: preshudo wrap or up to pork pork tenderlines. By the way,
Speaker 3: I just had some left up with pork tend to
Speaker 3: wins that my wife made last night for lunch. That
Speaker 3: would be awesome with.
Speaker 4: That, And so you might kind of go into the beef.
Speaker 3: But then as you kind of move up, you know,
Speaker 3: Serrah based will tend to want to be maybe more game.
Speaker 3: It'll be one to be a little bit more beef
Speaker 3: because it's Syrah with granachi more men, but typically have
Speaker 3: Surrah and as we kind of go up, you know,
Speaker 3: I have a cap based blend as you mentioned, actually
Speaker 3: two of them, one heavy and the other I have
Speaker 3: a petite serrab blend. So we'll kind of get more
Speaker 3: into the kind of the game the beef, the fattier
Speaker 3: beef or you know, maybe you know, mushroom based kinds
Speaker 3: of meal.
Speaker 2: Something, right, So you're kind of going from lighter style
Speaker 2: wines to lighter style of foods and it's more in
Speaker 2: weight that you're.
Speaker 3: Matching, yes, but it could also be lighter wise, but
Speaker 3: it's really a function of what's the sauces or what
Speaker 3: is that it's accompanying that, But it's I you know,
Speaker 3: we all have this kind of vocabulary in our brain
Speaker 3: about what you pair.
Speaker 4: With what, and a lot of it is forty years
Speaker 4: of consumption of wine. It's just kind of instinctive practice practice. Yeah,
Speaker 4: people ask me how do you learn all this? As well?
Speaker 4: I drink a lot.
Speaker 3: So but there are you know, I do break the rules,
Speaker 3: like god, you know, this could work, you know, like
Speaker 3: a good example is this isn't really breaking a rule,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people are surprised, for example with
Speaker 3: saran turkey is an amazing combo and or saran reestling
Speaker 3: is a great combat well a lot of wine wine
Speaker 3: and pistionados will probably know this, or maybe they don't,
Speaker 3: but sometimes it's good to experiment, kind of go outside
Speaker 3: of the box and say, hey, well this work or
Speaker 3: will it not work? You know, if there's a spice element,
Speaker 3: do I want to have a.
Speaker 4: Little bit more kind of fruit forward.
Speaker 3: Wine to kind of offset that which is maybe a rule,
Speaker 3: but you know you can kind of tweak those sometimes
Speaker 3: and kind of come up with some nice surprises.
Speaker 2: Great, you've got to try different things and test it
Speaker 2: out and see what we're and after forty years of experience,
Speaker 2: you too will be like Kevin. So for somebody who
Speaker 2: hasn't had the pleasure of tasting cucola wines yet, what
Speaker 2: do you think they're missing out on?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, is this the cucola plug?
Speaker 2: The whole thing is a cucola plug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, look at our kind of our tagline
Speaker 3: clearly is we're organic, dry farmers, ron centric make blends.
Speaker 4: That's what turns me on. We are low interventionist.
Speaker 3: We are very kind of tear wire driven, acid driven,
Speaker 3: food driven and what we do and if that's kind
Speaker 3: of your hot button, you got to come and see
Speaker 3: what we do. We make typically eight reds in a year.
Speaker 3: Eight red wine is not all necessarily that in that year,
Speaker 3: six seven, eight, depending on the vintage, and a lot
Speaker 3: of our wines are allocated. So if you're curious about cucola,
Speaker 3: you know you have to come to us direct.
Speaker 2: So if space aliens were to land on your property
Speaker 2: right now after they wind through the roads and find
Speaker 2: their way all the way up here, and they're up
Speaker 2: here on your hill. Which of your wines would you
Speaker 2: want to welcome them with? To say, this is kukola?
Speaker 4: You you walked into one that I won't give you
Speaker 4: an answer on.
Speaker 3: So that the question is the question I get in
Speaker 3: the tasting room often is which is your favorite one?
Speaker 2: Now this is not what your favorite wine is, okay,
Speaker 2: because I'm not saying what's your best wine your favorite wine?
Speaker 2: But which is which is the wine you would say
Speaker 2: to someone if they will if the Space aliens walk
Speaker 2: in and they're handed the first wine they're gonna try,
Speaker 2: maybe they're going to try more after. Maybe they only
Speaker 2: have time for one.
Speaker 4: Variation on the question?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 4: I mean?
Speaker 3: So I'll push back a little. So all of my
Speaker 3: wines are my babies. Sure, I love them all. And
Speaker 3: so if I were to choose for myself or for
Speaker 3: you as a guest or a space alien as a guest,
Speaker 3: it's maybe what's my mood?
Speaker 4: And baby, what's the food?
Speaker 2: So what's your mood right now?
Speaker 3: My mood is it's early in the day, so probably
Speaker 3: off though, which is or kudwas based.
Speaker 2: Blend Okay, yes, okay, see got an answer. There's a
Speaker 2: time and a place for every wine, of course, but
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, you might want to start out with
Speaker 2: the wine that's your lighter style because or maybe you
Speaker 2: want to give them the biggest wine you got. You know,
Speaker 2: there's don't have to pick favorites. They can all be
Speaker 2: your babies. So you know we're sitting here, Your tasting
Speaker 2: room is in the middle of one of your vineyards.
Speaker 2: Vineyards are on the back hill right behind me. And
Speaker 2: you have been here. You bought this property. How many
Speaker 2: years ago?
Speaker 4: I should know this.
Speaker 3: We bought this property at least twenty years ago. We
Speaker 3: moved up here December two thousand and four, so that
Speaker 3: would be twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: So yeah, twenty years ago, twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: And did you was this as an existing vineyard already
Speaker 2: or did you plant it?
Speaker 4: No? I'm sorry, putting my phone off so you don't
Speaker 4: hear all these beings. I apologize.
Speaker 3: This eighty acre parcel again. And well we closed closed
Speaker 3: Escro first of December two thousand and four. It was
Speaker 3: seventy five acres of walnuts walnut trees. It was a
Speaker 3: one acre slipper of cabernet sevignant, which is why I
Speaker 3: experimented with cab even though I'm focused on runs. And
Speaker 3: I joked that it was three acres of rusted tractor
Speaker 3: truck parkes, pipes and lumber and.
Speaker 4: It took me a year plus. You know what do
Speaker 4: we call those?
Speaker 3: You know, the trucks on the trailers, this massive trailer
Speaker 3: and it was insanity, but kind of the farming vernacular
Speaker 3: on the property. So I just roll quick summary. Two
Speaker 3: thousand and six January started planting our first vines. Ultimately
Speaker 3: planted fifty acres of vines across two properties just this,
Speaker 3: thirty acres of which were on this property. Eight acres
Speaker 3: of olives. We built our home, and we built this winery. Yeah,
Speaker 3: everything you see here today except for the remaining twenty
Speaker 3: two acres of walnuts, all the infrastructure we've built over
Speaker 3: the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: Wow, So you planted the vines. You've been organic since
Speaker 2: the start. This was this was untouched land in that way,
Speaker 2: so it's never been touched by chemicals or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So that's a really beautiful thing. And I'm curious as
Speaker 2: you've watched your vineyard grow up. We know every vintage
Speaker 2: tells a different story. We know there's variation, maybe less
Speaker 2: in a region like this, But what have you noticed
Speaker 2: over the years as you've watched your babies grow up?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I could tell you all day about that.
Speaker 2: This is this is sigd answer.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess just the one thing I've realized already
Speaker 3: many years ago and I still see is And some
Speaker 3: of this might have to do with just kind of
Speaker 3: the natural propensies of this soil is property to do
Speaker 3: what it does. But what I think I've noticed is,
Speaker 3: especially as it relates to what type of vegetative growth
Speaker 3: we get in the winter, the abundance of the very
Speaker 3: the variety of it seems like it gets more and
Speaker 3: more intense over time, which I think maybe speaks hopefully
Speaker 3: to being a good steward of the land. And we
Speaker 3: don't fertilize our property. We just rely one on the
Speaker 3: native product that it produces. We just called that material
Speaker 3: back in the soil. We have very vigorous plants, almost
Speaker 3: too vigorous. So you know, again, is that property or
Speaker 3: is that as.
Speaker 4: A result of organic dry farming practices.
Speaker 2: And age and also age.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, unfortunately, the age because of the whole red
Speaker 3: blotch we've dealt with, We've torn everything out and we
Speaker 3: restarted and so it so the age is really part
Speaker 3: of the equation. Are the last of our oldest vines
Speaker 3: we just tore out to three months ago?
Speaker 4: Wow? So it's that was really hard breaking to do that.
Speaker 4: But you know you have to. I mean, you've got
Speaker 4: to make amazing wines. You have to do what you
Speaker 4: need to.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so, do you have any good luck rituals that
Speaker 2: you do at the beginning of harvest? Have you established
Speaker 2: any with your vineyard?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 6: No hard work work, no time for rich So you're like,
Speaker 6: so one of the wines that and we may may
Speaker 6: not talk about the wines, but one of the wines
Speaker 6: that are in front of you today is called sea siou.
Speaker 4: And see Sue is the word in the Finnish.
Speaker 3: Culture that defines fins. It's a word of pride in
Speaker 3: the Finnish culture, means patience, perseverance, and stamina. There's actually
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of things that means. It's it's a
Speaker 3: powerful word. Basically stick to itiveness, never quit. My wife
Speaker 3: loves to say it means stubborn, and so I guess
Speaker 3: my attitude the way I grew up the culture of
Speaker 3: fins is keep your head down, work hard, and good
Speaker 3: things happen.
Speaker 4: So that's my good luck.
Speaker 2: That's good luck. Are there any sort of signs or
Speaker 2: omens that you look for that you capture that are
Speaker 2: going to tell you what harvest is going to be,
Speaker 2: what kind of vintage you're going to get?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: No, you know, I can reflect on twenty twelve as
Speaker 3: an example. It was actually the first year of kind
Speaker 3: of that when we really kind of started geting this
Speaker 3: series of drought years year after year. I think we
Speaker 3: had like five years in a row right there, four anyway,
Speaker 3: And it turns out that if you had asked me
Speaker 3: to kind of foretell what the vintage was like, never
Speaker 3: could I would have thought, given the drought year, that.
Speaker 4: We would have had a lighter yield.
Speaker 3: We would have had, you know, maybe a little more
Speaker 3: tear wire driven wines, less kind of fruit driven wines.
Speaker 4: It turned out to be almost the exact opposite.
Speaker 3: It was one of the most bountiful yields I've ever had,
Speaker 3: you know, on a per Ton basis, on a paracre basis,
Speaker 3: and the fruits were the fruit was really kind of
Speaker 3: the wines were very fruit forward, big wines, so you
Speaker 3: never know. The eleven vintage was one of the most
Speaker 3: horrendous growing vintages we've ever experienced.
Speaker 4: And I mean to the point that we had hail,
Speaker 4: we had snow.
Speaker 3: I lost seven percent of my branches of my grenache
Speaker 3: because of extreme winds because it brains so late. I
Speaker 3: justified it through the towel. I said, screw it on
Speaker 3: trying to get the weeds under control. So we were
Speaker 3: probably waiting through two feet thick of weeds during harvest it.
Speaker 3: I just thought, Okay, we're screwed. And although critics sort
Speaker 3: of panned the vintage, I think in retrospect eleven was
Speaker 3: an amazing vintage. So I've learned, after a number of
Speaker 3: years of not being able to read the tea leaves,
Speaker 3: that never read into the vantage until that everything's done.
Speaker 2: So this is going to be a little kind of
Speaker 2: you're a winemaker, now you're a vineyard owner. You planted
Speaker 2: these vines. You come from a financial background, having worked
Speaker 2: in finance for many years, so this may seem a
Speaker 2: little silly to you, but I guess you know you
Speaker 2: survive the space alien question sort of, but you know
Speaker 2: you planted these vines. You've watched them grow up, You've
Speaker 2: had to pull them out and replant, And I'm curious
Speaker 2: when you walk through the vines, do you talk to
Speaker 2: your vines? Do you have a conversation with them? Is
Speaker 2: there any kind of communication that goes on of encouragement,
Speaker 2: of disappointment.
Speaker 3: Of So I don't know that I ever really have
Speaker 3: a conversation with the vines, but I do actually have
Speaker 3: an audible conversation with myself. I do talk to myself,
Speaker 3: and everyone's well, I think people don't think I'm crazy.
Speaker 3: I do find myself, certainly because I'm either evaluating or
Speaker 3: working in the.
Speaker 4: Vineyard a lot.
Speaker 3: But I think this is more of the context of
Speaker 3: maybe when the day is done and if I want
Speaker 3: to kind of, you know, unwind, I'll either walk.
Speaker 4: Into the year or I'll sit, you know, on one
Speaker 4: of our stone walls.
Speaker 3: Overlooking the vineyard and kind of maybe assess things and
Speaker 3: maybe appreciate thing.
Speaker 4: So I don't know that I really talked to my plants.
Speaker 2: Do you talk to your wines when they go into Beryl?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Again, I talked to myself a lot of talking to
Speaker 3: my wives. I do talk a lot to myself. You know,
Speaker 3: if you ever walk in on me and I'm talking,
Speaker 3: there's not necessarily somebody to the room.
Speaker 2: So obviously wine was not something that you had planned
Speaker 2: to do as an adult. And I'm curious when you
Speaker 2: were a little boy, what did you want to do?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, there was lots of things I wanted to be. So,
Speaker 3: first of I'm a super visual guy. I've always been
Speaker 3: over the top interested in photography, to the point that
Speaker 3: when I was a young guy, would actually take a
Speaker 3: lot of photographs, develop all my negatives, make prints, mostly
Speaker 3: black and white, did a little bit of bo it's
Speaker 3: called ciba chrome slight kind of processing stuff.
Speaker 4: I took some or photography class, so you know, I wanted.
Speaker 3: To be a an art photographer. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: a I wanted to be a cinematographer. I wanted to
Speaker 3: be an architect, because you see, all these things are
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 4: Very visually driven things.
Speaker 3: But I will say that I don't think I ever
Speaker 3: thought I would be a farmer. But I had an
Speaker 3: innate interest in farming. And when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: my parents, my father from Finland to Canada and the
Speaker 3: family from Canada, United States, and we lived in the
Speaker 3: San Fernando Valley had a little tract house in North Hollywood,
Speaker 3: and my.
Speaker 4: Parents had a typical kind of fifty five hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty foot deep.
Speaker 3: Yard, and they had plum trees and orange trees and
Speaker 3: apricot trees and lemon trees in there that they were actually.
Speaker 4: Were there when they were planted those.
Speaker 3: But I was innately so interested in this stuff that
Speaker 3: I planted this huge, maybe the size of this room
Speaker 3: easily vegetable garden when I was probably nine or ten,
Speaker 3: and I maintained it pretty well till I left the house.
Speaker 4: I was really into gardening in general. I had these amazing.
Speaker 3: Flower gardens, and almost at the point of embarrassment when
Speaker 3: I was in my late teens, my mom would brag
Speaker 3: about my flower gardens.
Speaker 4: You can't do that. That's not cool for a sixteen
Speaker 4: year old boy.
Speaker 3: So I guess, you know, even though I didn't necessarily
Speaker 3: articulate or really think about this in a serious way,
Speaker 3: I've always been innately drawn to farming, So I guess
Speaker 3: I became a farmer.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working, not in the vineyard anymore,
Speaker 2: it's never, never, never, How do you spend your free time?
Speaker 2: Do you still cycle.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so no, I do not cycle. I have
Speaker 3: an amazing bike. Well it's a thirty forty year old
Speaker 3: bike that I is a handbuilt bike, and every once
Speaker 3: while I do get on and a ride. Unfortunately I don't,
Speaker 3: and that's probably because of my work schedule. I'm usually
Speaker 3: four o'clock in the morning up and I'm working, and
Speaker 3: I pretty well worked till sunset. So I'm a workaholic.
Speaker 3: Somebody once said to be that there's workaholics and then
Speaker 3: there's Kevin, so that's kind of me. But that said,
Speaker 3: I do break loose. As we've discussed.
Speaker 4: I'm Canadian born.
Speaker 3: I just leand up in a Finnish enclaved northern Ontario, Canada,
Speaker 3: and I have a house on a lake three hundred
Speaker 3: miles north of Toronto.
Speaker 4: So it's in northern Canada.
Speaker 3: You can't drive to it, you take a boat to it.
Speaker 3: It's completely isolated. I'm a big fisherman, so I did
Speaker 3: a lot of fishing there. In fact, I was just
Speaker 3: there for two weeks doing work on my house there.
Speaker 3: I got back two weeks ago, but in two weeks
Speaker 3: we're going back for six weeks and there's.
Speaker 4: No internet, there's no email.
Speaker 3: The only way to talk to me is to come
Speaker 3: by boat to the house and I shut it down.
Speaker 4: That's my time to shut down.
Speaker 2: So in your free time, you just have to turn
Speaker 2: it off.
Speaker 4: I have to turn it off. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 4: how to do it otherwise.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think it's funny that you were
Speaker 2: a big bike rider and you don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2: But you know, and it was the wine part that stuck.
Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I tell people that I'm a
Speaker 3: big skier, cyclist, and runner.
Speaker 4: I do none of them anymore because there's no time.
Speaker 2: So living in the vineyard, you said you don't you
Speaker 2: have a lot of sparkling lines. You don't open those
Speaker 2: very often. And I'm curious if you were planning a
Speaker 2: romantic evening for you and your wife, what sort of
Speaker 2: wines do get open to set the mood of romanticism.
Speaker 4: Well, I would say it's kind of food driven. Again,
Speaker 4: I mean, hopefully that creates.
Speaker 5: The mood for something romantic once in a while, if
Speaker 5: you're not too exhausted.
Speaker 4: It is so food food driven.
Speaker 3: My wife is an amazing cook, and if you're a
Speaker 3: guest at our house for dinner, I think you'd be
Speaker 3: going away.
Speaker 4: People.
Speaker 3: People tell me all the time, you are the luckiest
Speaker 3: guy on earth, Kevin, and I am.
Speaker 4: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: So my wife has an amazing repertoire of food that
Speaker 3: she makes, and she's super creative. Is our kids are adults,
Speaker 3: and they're gone now. The Armies has been gone now
Speaker 3: for over two years, and so she's got and I
Speaker 3: think probably somewhat driven even by COVID, but COVID, post
Speaker 3: COVID and post kids, she's gotten even more creative. And
Speaker 3: almost every night there is a different entre that's she's presenting.
Speaker 3: And so we always have a bottle. There's a rare
Speaker 3: night that we don't have a bottle of wine. So
Speaker 3: that wine is.
Speaker 4: Going to be decided based on what the food is.
Speaker 4: But it runs the gap, you know.
Speaker 3: Again, California wines certainly googole of wines, Central Coast wines,
Speaker 3: Northern California wines not so much. Napa maybe more Sonoma,
Speaker 3: heavily focused in areas like the Willamette.
Speaker 4: I love pinos. To me, Willammite is more kind of like.
Speaker 3: The Bargone region, and so I'm more driven by that
Speaker 3: than I buy, you know, wonderful Why has it come
Speaker 3: out like center readabilace like that.
Speaker 4: But they're not to me, kind of more in the
Speaker 4: vain of what I think the pinos.
Speaker 3: But I love Borgone, I love Rone in France, I
Speaker 3: love Bordeaux Spain.
Speaker 2: So you are these two empty nesters with a wife
Speaker 2: that cooks really well, opening wine. It must be a
Speaker 2: very romantic house.
Speaker 7: No, maybe I should just leave it that say, yes,
Speaker 7: you're right, it's an amazing experience. The reality problem that is,
Speaker 7: I'm so damn exhausted. We dinner at drink wine and
Speaker 7: she puts on a movie and I fall asleep.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Guys. So I'm curious when you look back at your career,
Speaker 2: and this can include also working in the financial sector,
Speaker 2: But what would you say is one of the best
Speaker 2: pieces of advice you ever received?
Speaker 4: That's easy, my dad always told me. My father was,
Speaker 4: you know, a working class Finish guy.
Speaker 3: Grew up during World War Two, during the period that
Speaker 3: the Soviets had invaded Finland, and he, when he was
Speaker 3: in his twenties, jumped on a ship with his brother
Speaker 3: one of his four siblings and moved to Canada, and
Speaker 3: his ultimate mission was coming in the United States, the
Speaker 3: land of opportunity, and so my dad was driven by money,
Speaker 3: by wealth.
Speaker 4: He never that wealth, but.
Speaker 3: It was always about the level of your happiness is
Speaker 3: directly correlated to how much money you make.
Speaker 4: And you know, I can't argue with that.
Speaker 3: I've been pretty successful in my life, and clearly money
Speaker 3: has imported me the ability to do things that other
Speaker 3: people wouldn't. But I started to, you know, like I said,
Speaker 3: fall in love with wines in my twenties, and by
Speaker 3: the time I was in my thirties, I was actually
Speaker 3: making I didn't tell you this. I actually planted a
Speaker 3: vineyard into Penga Canyon. I actually got legally bonded as
Speaker 3: a winery. I made a whopping sixty sixty five cases
Speaker 3: a year there, and I planted a straw with a
Speaker 3: touch of garnache, a touch of Sisau, and a touch
Speaker 3: of Gross's Times of Basic because I love Brunello's, and
Speaker 3: to this day I still love Brunello's. I've never made
Speaker 3: any wine because it just through more work out there.
Speaker 3: But I made essentially a Surrah or a Serrah kind
Speaker 3: of blend every year for five years there.
Speaker 2: If only your wife knew what the future hell at
Speaker 2: that moment, she my wife.
Speaker 3: My wife will tell people that Kevin doesn't understand the
Speaker 3: meaning of a small hobby.
Speaker 4: So but the point I was going to make was
Speaker 4: every year we would have.
Speaker 3: A release part in juneish of our wines, and we
Speaker 3: our house sat up high in the Santamuni of Mouths
Speaker 3: and actually looked out of the canyon and you could
Speaker 3: see Catalina in the distance if you have a perspective
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles, the west side. And it was this
Speaker 3: one night in particular, which maybe kind of illustrates kind
Speaker 3: of my attitude about maybe what makes happy, what drives
Speaker 3: people in life, or what maybe the messages, especially with
Speaker 3: the younger people, how they should let.
Speaker 4: Their lives is.
Speaker 3: You know, we were all kind of buzz. It was
Speaker 3: the end of a wonderful evening. The sun was setting,
Speaker 3: and one of my guests said something, we got this
Speaker 3: such a beautiful evening, and you know, it was probably
Speaker 3: a little bit buzz I'm sure at that point. And
Speaker 3: I said, you know, I've made a whole lot of
Speaker 3: money in the wine, in the money measurement world that
Speaker 3: I never thought it would make. And on some level
Speaker 3: I'm kind of miserable. And I said, and you know,
Speaker 3: I do nothing but throw money down the drain in
Speaker 3: this wine project.
Speaker 4: That's nothing compared to, by the way, what I do here.
Speaker 4: So in retrospector should have stuck it.
Speaker 3: But the point was, yet I completely dig it, and
Speaker 3: so the question is what's wrong with me? And so
Speaker 3: I guess the short answer to your question is when
Speaker 3: young people ask me about coming into this business, it
Speaker 3: is so much this business. Your question is a broader question,
Speaker 3: but I think it relates to the question, which is
Speaker 3: you know they're wanting to get in the wine business,
Speaker 3: and my answer is you damn well better love it because.
Speaker 4: It's a lot. There's a lot of work. It's a
Speaker 4: very hard business, especially in this kind of an environment.
Speaker 3: But the broader thing is what I told my kids,
Speaker 3: figure out what turns you on and then figure out
Speaker 3: how to make money doing what turns you on. Don't
Speaker 3: now I did it. The reverse, which maybe is in
Speaker 3: retrospect is good. I did quite well in my career,
Speaker 3: and I use that wealth that I acquired to pursue
Speaker 3: that which is always things that have always turned me on.
Speaker 4: I've always had extracurricular activities.
Speaker 3: I'm not one of those guys who, well, I just
Speaker 3: retired from my financial world a little over a month ago,
Speaker 3: and this is my retirement game. I'm I'm working eighty
Speaker 3: to one hundred hour weeks, so I've retired to eighty
Speaker 3: to one hundred hour weeks. But the point is, I
Speaker 3: think you'll love the career, your.
Speaker 4: Path in life if you're turned on with what you're doing.
Speaker 2: So when you look back at your career, what would
Speaker 2: you say is one of your proudest achievements to date?
Speaker 4: God? Easy kids?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: No, I said your career, because I know everyone always
Speaker 2: answers their kids.
Speaker 3: So the proudest achievement in my career to date, And
Speaker 3: it could be from any part of your career, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure there will be lots of those moments. But
Speaker 3: you know, when you say career, you know maybe you're
Speaker 3: asking about the money.
Speaker 2: Measure world, and that's about anything but not your kids,
Speaker 2: work life. It could be whine, it could be.
Speaker 3: I think my proudest achievement is that I pursued my dream.
Speaker 2: See, not the money world yet.
Speaker 4: Well, it's consistent with what I just said earlier, exactly.
Speaker 2: Absolutely So you said to me that every in your
Speaker 2: house you have a bottle of wine. It's very rare,
Speaker 2: not to have wine on the table. So I'm curious
Speaker 2: if you can complete this sentence for me, A table
Speaker 2: without wine is like.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, A table without wine is like a
Speaker 3: day without food.
Speaker 5: I guess.
Speaker 2: It's non existent in your world.
Speaker 4: Wine is a legitimate component of your meal.
Speaker 2: I fully agree with that, fully agree. So we're sitting
Speaker 2: at a long table. You do dinners all the time,
Speaker 2: your wife cooks a great meal. You pull out cucoloa wines,
Speaker 2: you have them on the table, and there's an empty
Speaker 2: seat next to you. Who from any walk of life,
Speaker 2: living or deceased, would you like to be sitting in
Speaker 2: that seat sharing a bottle of cucola wines?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, there's so many people that would love
Speaker 3: to sit you know, this is kind of the political world.
Speaker 4: I would have always loved to have met Jimmy Carr.
Speaker 3: That has nothing to do with with you know. Maybe
Speaker 3: you expected me to save you know, uh, highly regarded
Speaker 3: wine maker.
Speaker 4: I I there's there.
Speaker 3: There's such a high list of people, and you know
Speaker 3: now that you put me on the spot, I can't mean.
Speaker 4: Jimmy Carter comes up first and foremost, maybe.
Speaker 3: Because he's been in the news lately and it's as
Speaker 3: the end of his his life cycle here.
Speaker 4: Hmmm.
Speaker 3: I'm always fascinated just this is a generic answer, but
Speaker 3: I'm always fascinated by people who have.
Speaker 4: Lived with life intensely.
Speaker 3: So there's a litany of people in the political world,
Speaker 3: and the historical world, and certainly.
Speaker 4: In the wine world.
Speaker 3: And I you know, you got me on the spot,
Speaker 3: and I can't think of it as soon as as
Speaker 3: soon as you walk out the door, Alison under I
Speaker 3: should have said, Blake, Well, you.
Speaker 2: Said Jimmy Carter. You got a name out there, and
Speaker 2: that makes sense, and we'll save a few extra seats
Speaker 2: at the table. So when you when you fill it in,
Speaker 2: you can do that. Ye be pretty Hang up, it's
Speaker 2: so we're getting to the end. I got, I got,
Speaker 2: I got. We're gonna play our little game. But I
Speaker 2: do have a question for you. First, you're we're here
Speaker 2: in a hot area, you've got nice diurnal shifts, you're
Speaker 2: dry farming, you're doing everything as as you know, with
Speaker 2: the lowest of intervention possible. We know that climate change
Speaker 2: is definitely something to grapple with. So I'm curious you
Speaker 2: think that people will be doing this in three hundred.
Speaker 4: Years, growing mines making wine. Oh, of course they will
Speaker 4: will adapt.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing about certainly the vineyard world
Speaker 3: and this is shore I'm sure with other plants. Is
Speaker 3: how science has evolved to make plants, in this case,
Speaker 3: plants producing an edible component adaptable.
Speaker 4: But you know, there's also the other side of the coin,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 3: We people have to get their heads in the game
Speaker 3: on on what we're doing to destroy this planet.
Speaker 2: So if if, unfortunately you were being sent off to
Speaker 2: a deserted island at this point, temperature not being an issue,
Speaker 2: refrigeration not being an issue, which three wines would you
Speaker 2: want to take with you?
Speaker 4: Ola or anything? Oh? Christ, that's a hard one. Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I would do something like one of
Speaker 4: my favorite wines is Lachappel from the Rwin region. Uh,
Speaker 4: there's so many. I don't know even where to begin. Oh,
Speaker 4: l Lawn from Bordeaux. Should I throw a cuckola in there?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 2: Well, well which one?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: That's the hard one, that's my mood, So I'll pick
Speaker 3: something else, gosh own, Uh, gosh, try, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: it would have to be.
Speaker 4: One of the Rones, Southern Roones, and what the hell
Speaker 4: all throw in books. Guys.
Speaker 2: I like how you're consistent, though, and you still will
Speaker 2: not pick a wine. So that's gonna bring me to
Speaker 2: our fun question of pairing wine with music, because now
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make you, you know, single out a few
Speaker 2: of your wines and tell me what sort of genre
Speaker 2: music musicians song you know, kind of reminds you of
Speaker 2: the wine. So we're gonna start with your blue label wine,
Speaker 2: which is the coun Wah, the the coun Wa based
Speaker 2: wine that is named after your dad.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, you told me you were going to do this.
Speaker 2: And this is the only thing I've warned you about.
Speaker 4: Oh the heck am I going to answer this?
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny because I got some really colectic
Speaker 3: taste in music. I love music, but when you put
Speaker 3: me on the spot with that kind of stuff, it
Speaker 3: is because I don't really listen to music as much
Speaker 3: as I used to.
Speaker 4: My audio system isn't isn't up to dach.
Speaker 2: I'll say, we got us say.
Speaker 3: Mood wise, you know, certainly you know Kunwhas is very
Speaker 3: fruit driven, big volume, spicy. I suggested earlier, salsa, a fun,
Speaker 3: a fun Latin tune would be wonderful with that wine.
Speaker 2: Perfect Okay. Next up we have si zoo, which is
Speaker 2: the very pactful finish word you were talking about. And
Speaker 2: this is tell me a little bit about the grapes
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 4: Serra granach morvat.
Speaker 3: Actually, this vintage that you have in front of you
Speaker 3: is a forty six percent Sarah, thirty percent moved and
Speaker 3: twenty percent gach. Is always Serra dominant and could be
Speaker 3: typically more likely a quarter each granachean warvan in that zone.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, this is where it gets tough.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty serious wine.
Speaker 3: It would have to be something more classical music, you know,
Speaker 3: generically baroque music, maybe like a Vivaldi's four Season or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 4: I don't see that.
Speaker 2: I'm sipping the wine. I get that it's got a
Speaker 2: little floral, little fruit, a little spice. It's kind of
Speaker 2: it's got the seasons and the flavors. There you go, Okay,
Speaker 2: one more, you're almost there. One more. We're gonna do
Speaker 2: the Cuckola noir.
Speaker 4: And this is Cookland noir.
Speaker 3: This vintage is eighty five SRaw fifteen petite, so it's dark.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty intense wine, even though it's got petit
Speaker 4: in it. To me is kind of a nod to
Speaker 4: the Northern Rhone has this.
Speaker 3: More kind of tear war driven kind of sense that
Speaker 3: you get from kind of the Northern Rhnes.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that's hard. I'm trying to think of something
Speaker 4: a little bit more kind of modern, you know. Gosh,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean maybe it's cerebral.
Speaker 3: Pink Floyd comes to my King Floyd is one of
Speaker 3: my favorite all time bands.
Speaker 4: It's a very cerebral band and a very cerebral wine.
Speaker 2: There you go. I won't put any more pressure on,
Speaker 2: but you are good at describing your wine. So you
Speaker 2: know you did well. You did well, Kevin, You're off
Speaker 2: the spot. You have one more question to answer, and
Speaker 2: that is it's a two parter. First is what wine
Speaker 2: region in the world is at the top of your
Speaker 2: bucket list to visit?
Speaker 3: Oh that's easy, I'm not so let's just do country first.
Speaker 4: Believe it or not.
Speaker 3: I love Spanish wines. I have a lot of Spanish
Speaker 3: wines in my cellar. I have never been to Spain.
Speaker 3: It just hasn't hit my It's hit my list, but
Speaker 3: it's just it never has been high enough and whatever
Speaker 3: circumstances have kept me from going there. It's going to
Speaker 3: happen in the next year, for sure. I'm sent it
Speaker 3: to my wife Rioja. Certainly, Front and Center is a
Speaker 3: place that in prior Rod. Certainly, those two are my
Speaker 3: favorite zones.
Speaker 4: So in Spain.
Speaker 2: Okay. And for our listeners, if they want to come
Speaker 2: visit you at Cucula, how can they find you? Where
Speaker 2: can they find you? Tell us?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so again we're Although we do have some exposure
Speaker 3: in some stores and restaurants in the central coast in
Speaker 3: South California, we are not distributed. Therefore, the easiest way
Speaker 3: is either come and visit us here on Chimney Rock
Speaker 3: on the west side of Passo, or go to Cucolawine
Speaker 3: dot com. It's k U k k U LA wine
Speaker 3: dot com. Plug get myself here. Those are the two
Speaker 3: best ways to see our wines.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: And the tasting room is in the vineyard. It is
Speaker 2: enclosed in air conditioned, so on a hot day you
Speaker 2: can stay nice and cool. But yes, it's got windows
Speaker 2: all around. You can look down at the cellar, you
Speaker 2: can look out at the vineyard and taste the wines
Speaker 2: of Cucula. So, Kevin, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: us on Wine soundtrack and let's go take a walk
Speaker 2: in the vineyard.
Speaker 4: Do it it the finds would say, cheers.
Speaker 1: Cheers, Thanks for listening to a newsisode of Wind Soundtrack USA.
Speaker 1: For details and updates, visit our website windsoundtrack dot com.