Speaker 1: Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with
Speaker 1: which producers narrate their winery and their world. Te 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 Livermore Valley with
Speaker 2: Steve Zaganti of Three Steves Winery. Steve of three Steves Winery.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about three Steve's Winery.
Speaker 3: Hi, Alison, thanks for coming. So Three Steve's Winery kind
Speaker 3: of got started over a bottle of wine shocking with
Speaker 3: two friends named Steve. One of them suggested we get
Speaker 3: into this business, and the other two of us looked
Speaker 3: at them and center you out of your mind. And
Speaker 3: as the evening progressed, somewhere between bottle three and four,
Speaker 3: we came up with a bottle with the name three
Speaker 3: Steves Winery and started this little project. Wow.
Speaker 2: And I was going to say, like three Steves, is
Speaker 2: that like your three personalities? But there's just one Steve
Speaker 2: here today.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's a good point because one of the Steves,
Speaker 3: his wife, wanted to be close to family.
Speaker 2: And moved to Delaware, not close to wine.
Speaker 3: Nope, sold his shares to me. The other Steve's wife
Speaker 3: wanted to be close to family, moved to Texas. He
Speaker 3: still has a small percentage, but as a silent partner.
Speaker 3: And my wife, who's an East Coaster, I said, honey,
Speaker 3: have you ever thought about living out there your family?
Speaker 3: She says no, I love it here. So I love
Speaker 3: you so much, thank you. So three Steves is really
Speaker 3: now me, myself and I so this three personalities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go, Me myself and I. So tell
Speaker 2: me a little bit about the principles of three Steves. Like,
Speaker 2: you're here in the Livermore Valley? How did you end
Speaker 2: up here in the Livermore Valley?
Speaker 3: So as I was about to retire from a paying
Speaker 3: job my wife and I used to travel a lot.
Speaker 3: My wife looked at me and says, twice as much husband,
Speaker 3: half as much money. This is just not going to end. Well,
Speaker 3: you better go start that winery you've always talked about,
Speaker 3: because I've been a home winemaker off and on since
Speaker 3: the mid seventies. So we decided to start a winery.
Speaker 3: We were going to do it out in the Santa
Speaker 3: Cruz Mountains, where we had a home that during Prohibition
Speaker 3: was a winery, and I came into Livermore and met
Speaker 3: a bunch of the wine makers in Livermore and saw
Speaker 3: such a collaborative environment and such a great environment to
Speaker 3: make wine. I said, honey, what do you think about Livermore.
Speaker 3: So we started making wine here, commuting back and forth
Speaker 3: about an hour and a half each way.
Speaker 2: And you were living in the Santa Cruz Mountains all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: Yep, I was living in the Santa Cruz mountains. Wasn't
Speaker 3: crazy about the commute, but it wasn't babs. It didn't
Speaker 3: have to be during commute hours. But it started looking
Speaker 3: for a place to live and found this property which
Speaker 3: had a small winery on it, a house, and it
Speaker 3: was for sale, and decided, yeah, Livermore is where we're
Speaker 3: going to do it. And then we wound up moving
Speaker 3: here and setting up shop here.
Speaker 2: Well, and you moved here and started here when.
Speaker 3: So I was in the house in twenty twelve. If
Speaker 3: you remember what it was like to get a mortgage,
Speaker 3: then it was pretty ridiculous. So it took me until
Speaker 3: April May fifteenth, twenty thirteen to close escrow on it.
Speaker 3: But I was actually living on property for the four
Speaker 3: or five months.
Speaker 2: Before that, and that was the start of Three Steves
Speaker 2: Winery Or was that? Did Three Steves the brand start earlier?
Speaker 3: The brand started earlier. We got our license to sell
Speaker 3: wine in twenty ten. I had retired in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight. We're still kind of home wine makers, ramping
Speaker 3: up at a bonded winery renting space and then opened
Speaker 3: our doors downtown Livermore in a little taste room in
Speaker 3: twenty ten. And it was doing that and again I
Speaker 3: was doing that commute. Then we found this place and
Speaker 3: opened here July twenty six, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Wow, so here you are just over a decade. And
Speaker 2: do you you've got vineyards around We've got vineyards around
Speaker 2: us where we're we position. Now do you how many
Speaker 2: acres do you own? And are you purchasing fruit? And
Speaker 2: how much of your production is purchased?
Speaker 3: So I own Sometimes I exaggerate and say twenty four acres.
Speaker 3: It's twenty three point eighty six.
Speaker 2: You can round it up, okay, So I have twenty.
Speaker 3: Four acres on that property as the home I live in.
Speaker 3: There's two wineries, one that's leased out to jmc sellers
Speaker 3: as well as mine, and we have planted about six
Speaker 3: and the quarter acres of.
Speaker 2: Grapes, and what grapes do you have planted here?
Speaker 3: I was hoping you'd ask that.
Speaker 2: There you go, you read my mind.
Speaker 3: So when I bought the property it was all Cabernet Sevignon.
Speaker 3: About a year and a half ago I grafted one
Speaker 3: acre over to Cabernet franc another acre over to Cabernet Feffer. Again.
Speaker 3: This year I did that same exercise again. The reason
Speaker 3: I didn't do both at once was one I wanted
Speaker 3: to see other grafts took number two. Cabernet Feffer is
Speaker 3: extremely rare, and I could only get enough cuttings to
Speaker 3: do one acre. So this year, when I grafted again,
Speaker 3: I used the cutting from my new grafts to start
Speaker 3: those other two acres.
Speaker 2: So now you have three acres of Cabfef.
Speaker 3: I have two acres of cab Peffer, two acres of cab.
Speaker 2: Wow, two more acres into the world of cab Feth.
Speaker 2: I think there's fifteen acres in the Sianaga Valley and
Speaker 2: not much else in the world.
Speaker 3: That's about all there is, really, I do know of one.
Speaker 3: Then you're down in the Siannaga valley that just grafted
Speaker 3: a couple of acres a few years ago, and they
Speaker 3: got their first production last year, So maybe that numbers
Speaker 3: up to like seventeen or eighteen now plus my two.
Speaker 2: Wow, growing that little cap Cuffer's footprint on the world. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm curious. We're sitting in your tasting room and there's
Speaker 2: a map behind you that says are growing regions? Are
Speaker 2: these the places you're sourcing fruit from?
Speaker 3: Or what?
Speaker 2: Are you getting fruit from? Chili?
Speaker 3: So we're not getting fruit from Chile. We're making wine
Speaker 3: and Chile. Wow. So we make wine down there with
Speaker 3: This all started in twenty fifteen for us. We were
Speaker 3: buying some fruit from Sianaga Valley that you mentioned that
Speaker 3: so apparently that beautiful region we're buying fruit down there.
Speaker 3: And one of the places we bought fruit from we
Speaker 3: were buying a wonderful ancient vinees Infandel fruit planted nineteen
Speaker 3: oh six dry farm. We entered that wine that year
Speaker 3: in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, which you probably
Speaker 3: know is the largest in the world for American wines.
Speaker 3: The judges, in their infinite wisdom, out of sixty five
Speaker 3: hundred plus wines, held our bottle up and said best
Speaker 3: red wine a show. So when that happened, we started
Speaker 3: running out of wine, which is an interesting problem to have.
Speaker 3: Our friend Aldrose, who runs the vineyard down in Santaga Valley,
Speaker 3: was hitting us up every time we saw him about
Speaker 3: coming to chili and making wine with him. Said, al,
Speaker 3: you're single. We're married men. We have kids. We can't
Speaker 3: take off and go to chili and play. So he
Speaker 3: heard we were running out of wine after that award,
Speaker 3: and college says, hey, what's your excuse now, and started
Speaker 3: going down there and making wine with him. Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you make wine from chili under the three
Speaker 2: stat label, and then you have your state fruit. And
Speaker 2: then are you buying fruit? Where else are you buying
Speaker 2: fruit for? Is it Livermore Valley or other places?
Speaker 3: So we buy as much as we can, or as
Speaker 3: much as we're comfortable with as winemakers from Livermore Valley.
Speaker 3: We do buy some Zenfandel from Dry Creek Valley. It's
Speaker 3: one of the wines I want to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about today. From good friends of mine. The sayany
Speaker 3: family that have been farming there for four generations, And
Speaker 3: we buy down from Siamaca Valley we buy the we
Speaker 3: used to buy cab Feffory. We still will until our
Speaker 3: buys take off good. We buy the ancient vine Zenfandel
Speaker 3: and one other oh Sanjavesi.
Speaker 2: Okay, so a good little smattering of things. And what's
Speaker 2: your total case production?
Speaker 3: It's about four thousand cases a year. Ferries a little
Speaker 3: year on year, depending on demand and what we have
Speaker 3: going on. And frankly, sometimes they get a little weak
Speaker 3: and somebody says, hey, I've got this. Would you like
Speaker 3: to try and make that. Of course the answer is yes,
Speaker 3: but your business brain says, no, that's a dumb idea.
Speaker 3: You don't need to add another skew.
Speaker 2: But then you have to sell it, and then we
Speaker 2: have to sell it.
Speaker 3: That's the hardest part.
Speaker 2: And in terms of selling, are you one hundred percent
Speaker 2: direct to consumer or are you in markets nationally or handpicked?
Speaker 3: So we're about ninety five percent right across the taste
Speaker 3: room in bar in here. We do a little bit
Speaker 3: locally with some of the big names, but very very
Speaker 3: local like Total Wine, VEVMO, Safeways, things like that. We're
Speaker 3: in some restaurants, but it's not our main focus. We
Speaker 3: really like to sell here. We like to meet the
Speaker 3: people coming in the door, tell them our story, tell
Speaker 3: them about our wines. You know, share the passion.
Speaker 2: So we were a home wine maker before you became
Speaker 2: a professional line maker. But I'm curious, what is your
Speaker 2: first memory relevant to wine?
Speaker 3: So my first memory relevant? Oh, as a child, So
Speaker 3: my father made wine with a friend of his, a
Speaker 3: guy named Mario de Fava. They both worked at the
Speaker 3: same place that did kind of a lumberyard type business.
Speaker 3: But Mario had this beautiful spot out on Limerick Lane
Speaker 3: in Hillsburg, and my dad and he made a little
Speaker 3: bit of homemade wine together. My first memory was sitting
Speaker 3: down at dinner and my dad pouring a little bit
Speaker 3: of wine in the glass as a kid and watering
Speaker 3: it down. Typical Italian.
Speaker 2: Typical Italian. And you grew up in Hildsburg.
Speaker 3: I did, Yeah, I was there until Uncle Sam came
Speaker 3: knocking on my door in nineteen seventy two and set
Speaker 3: me off to places I didn't want to go.
Speaker 2: And so being up in Hilsburg, obviously you were surrounded
Speaker 2: by vines, not as many as there are today, but
Speaker 2: you were raised in an area that had vines. As
Speaker 2: you have traveled the world and drank lots of great wines,
Speaker 2: and obviously something triggered you to become a home wine maker.
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering if there is a particular wine that
Speaker 2: stands out it was one of those aha moments for you.
Speaker 3: Well, it's absolutely zinfandel. Yeah, And you know, so I
Speaker 3: said I was a home winemaker. I started when I
Speaker 3: got out of the service in nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 3: my first wine I made was a zinfandel from the
Speaker 3: very vineyard that I'm still now using the Sayani farms.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, So I'd love Zenfandel's. You know, it's the original
Speaker 3: grape on the planet. Is I'm sure? You know. I
Speaker 3: tell people if my doctor ever told me I could
Speaker 3: only have one more glass of wine in my life,
Speaker 3: I'd have a big glass of Zenfindel and immediately go
Speaker 3: find another doctor.
Speaker 2: So you love zinfandel, And I'm curious, do you think
Speaker 2: there's a such thing as a perfect variety?
Speaker 3: Perfect? Well, in my mind is Zifidel. Most people wouldn't
Speaker 3: agree with me, I probably, but I just absolutely love it.
Speaker 3: Second would probably be the you know cap Beefer was
Speaker 3: just talking about, it's so unique and so different from
Speaker 3: everything else I've ever had, and we get a lot
Speaker 3: of that customers coming to the table too. It's like,
Speaker 3: I've never had anything like this. I said, well, it's
Speaker 3: really hard to find. You do not many place that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all take something and that makes perfection. Huh. Well yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it also depends on what you're eating it with, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know wine makes food better. Food makes
Speaker 3: wine better.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to come to that in a second,
Speaker 2: but I do want to ask you first, like with
Speaker 2: zifidel being your love and obviously other grapes that you make,
Speaker 2: if we come to your home, what would we find
Speaker 2: in there? Is it a lot of zimfandel's from different producers?
Speaker 2: Is a lot of your own wines? Is it wines
Speaker 2: from around the world?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What do you like to collect and having your house
Speaker 2: ready to drink?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I don't know about collects. I
Speaker 3: drink it pretty fast to collect from me as oh,
Speaker 3: I forgot that was in there. A fair amount of zins.
Speaker 3: I don't make a up until this year, didn't make
Speaker 3: a Pean and No war. So I have a few
Speaker 3: more than a few Pean and No wars.
Speaker 2: In there, mostly domestic or French.
Speaker 3: Also, almost everything I have is domestic visits. What I
Speaker 3: know most of what I have is California besuits. What
Speaker 3: I know I mean, I've been to Europe on wine
Speaker 3: river cruises that we host and take our club members on.
Speaker 3: But I'm not well versed like my co wine maker
Speaker 3: alex Is on Wines of the World.
Speaker 2: Is there a wine that you have at home in
Speaker 2: your wine fridge ready to drink since your wines are
Speaker 2: ready to drink that you opened recently that drank really well?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: One that shocked the heck out of me is I
Speaker 3: was cleaning out my wine fridge because the compressor died. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: I have a three thousand square foot building at fifty
Speaker 3: eight degrees that I gave barrels and so I could
Speaker 3: move it quickly. And as I was putting it back
Speaker 3: together with a new compressor, I found a lot of
Speaker 3: things that surprised me. Like I said, I don't have
Speaker 3: a spreadsheet showing what I have. I'm not that organized.
Speaker 3: And I pulled out a It was a twenty eleven
Speaker 3: rose from Onguard Winery on Guard Is in Sonoma, Chapa.
Speaker 3: The owner is an old friend. We used to make
Speaker 3: wine together here in Livermore when we were renting space
Speaker 3: at another winery, and I brought it to a friend's house.
Speaker 3: It was wife's birthday and we went to her house.
Speaker 3: I brought a back up bottom, so I knew it
Speaker 3: couldn't be good. And it was amazing at twenty eleven
Speaker 3: Rose and it was from I called him and it
Speaker 3: was cab cap Front mar Low. There was one other
Speaker 3: varietal in there, but he said, what that's good? It
Speaker 3: can't be. It shocked me. I mean, it just blew
Speaker 3: me away.
Speaker 2: Wow, it just proves to you that rose has aging potential.
Speaker 3: I guess it does.
Speaker 2: Yeh, that's amazing. So I'm curious going back to the
Speaker 2: perfect variety you Zifidel cab Feffer. We have a few
Speaker 2: great varieties out there. And you said that you enter
Speaker 2: your wines that you've won awards at the San francisc Chronicle.
Speaker 2: So obviously competitions play a role in how you market
Speaker 2: your wines and how you sell your wines. But overall,
Speaker 2: what is your opinion online critics and scores. Do you
Speaker 2: find them to be a great use? Do you find
Speaker 2: them to be how do they benefit or hurt a
Speaker 2: small brand like yourselves?
Speaker 3: I mean, the benefit is when you get a good score,
Speaker 3: a good award, people hear about it. You have some
Speaker 3: plaques on the wall, you know, so it helps sell
Speaker 3: the wine. If you're on a grocery store shelf or
Speaker 3: liquor store shelf, and you have a you know, ninety
Speaker 3: five point rating, of course that's going to help sell it.
Speaker 3: But that's not really our business model. We're more in
Speaker 3: front of people here wine critics. I think you almost
Speaker 3: have to know the critics and know what to send them.
Speaker 3: Competitions the same thing. You know, there's a certain style
Speaker 3: that the judges like in different competitions. I haven't figured
Speaker 3: it out, by the way, but for example, the Cabernet
Speaker 3: feffer that we have prior to twenty twenty two, we
Speaker 3: called it three caps. You kind of like that number three?
Speaker 3: I see that, yeah, because it has a little bit
Speaker 3: of Cabernet savin, a little bit of Cabernet fronc in it,
Speaker 3: mostly Cabernet cuffer. Though. We set that off to critics,
Speaker 3: or to not critics, but like a wine enthusiasts, and
Speaker 3: didn't get a great rating. I mean it was high eighties,
Speaker 3: but not what we're used to. When the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two came out, with the label Cabernet Feffer. Maybe they
Speaker 3: even had to look it up. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 3: we got a much better rating. Pretty much the same wine,
Speaker 3: a different year apart, but you could taste the two
Speaker 3: side by side and they're really close.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. It says a lot about what perspective there
Speaker 2: might be or you know, it's palet a subjective but
Speaker 2: also perspective. So I'm curious your perspective Redwire Rose as
Speaker 2: a drinker, it depends.
Speaker 3: On the weather.
Speaker 2: Still are sparkling.
Speaker 3: Mostly still?
Speaker 2: But kind of an equal opportunist.
Speaker 3: I do like sparkling. We do with sparkling, we do
Speaker 3: a regular brute and a rose broot. They're great sellers
Speaker 3: from what grapes from chardonay, pina no ter pino, mignet.
Speaker 3: Very traditional, yeah, very traditional? Yeah wow, made them out
Speaker 3: the champ and wine. Wow.
Speaker 2: So going back to what I kind of cut you
Speaker 2: off before food pairing, because this is where I ask you,
Speaker 2: since you're an equal opportunist and all that you drink
Speaker 2: and like, and that you're making sparkling wine and you're
Speaker 2: making unique grapes like keb pepper and then also traditional grapes,
Speaker 2: how do you approach food and wine pairing. Are there
Speaker 2: rules that you follow? Is it really about what you're
Speaker 2: in the mood for and what determines how you're going
Speaker 2: to choose the wine you're going to open.
Speaker 3: So there's no rules in my book anyway, Others may
Speaker 3: differ with that. What I'm going to choose, It depends
Speaker 3: on my mood, depends on the weather, depends on what
Speaker 3: I've done that day. It's you know, you say with fish,
Speaker 3: it has to be a white wine. It doesn't you know.
Speaker 3: It can be a rose, it could be a light red,
Speaker 3: it could be a capfeffer. It could be a cap effort,
Speaker 3: although that's a steak on the barbecue.
Speaker 2: Ah well, I'll have to try your capfeffer to know.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. We will do that once you put this microphone down.
Speaker 2: But are there any guidelines that you recommend or suggest?
Speaker 2: Like if a customer comes in here and they're tasting
Speaker 2: your wines and they're saying, well, you know, how do
Speaker 2: I how do I pair this pino blanc, or how
Speaker 2: do I pair this cab feffer? What what do you
Speaker 2: tell them to sort of look for or to do well?
Speaker 3: I mean, and it's really up to them. That's like
Speaker 3: sometimes I'll get people in there trying wines and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which is your favorite or which one should I buy? Well,
Speaker 3: you should buy the one you like the most. And
Speaker 3: the same thing with the food pairing. It's what works
Speaker 3: for your palette. You know, the pino blanc. You know
Speaker 3: people have come in so, well, what should I pair
Speaker 3: this with? I said, my ideal pairing for this, or
Speaker 3: are pino Grazio for that matter, give me a big
Speaker 3: shrimp cocktail with lots of horse radish in it. I
Speaker 3: want something that'll, you know, kind of bring the brightness
Speaker 3: and clean it up. If I'm going to have always, always,
Speaker 3: always spaghetti with a heavy red sauce, I make a
Speaker 3: really good deep red sauce. It's got to be z infandel.
Speaker 3: I mean, could I drink something else with it? Sure,
Speaker 3: but I have my standard go tos. But the rest
Speaker 3: of it's just kind of wide open and see what works.
Speaker 2: I love it. So for somebody who hasn't had the
Speaker 2: pleasure to taste Three Steves wines yet yet, what do
Speaker 2: you think they're missing out on?
Speaker 3: Well, Well that's a tough one. Do I float my ego?
Speaker 3: Go for it? Are you what they're missing out on?
Speaker 3: And whether it's Three Steves or another small kind of
Speaker 3: family run winery, you're missing out on very unique wines
Speaker 3: that are truly handcrafted. That phrase is overused a lot,
Speaker 3: but they really are handcrafted. You go to some of
Speaker 3: the big, huge wineries, it's all equipment, it's formulas, it's
Speaker 3: computer controlled chilling. I mean, it's it would be nice
Speaker 3: to have some of that stuff, sure, but you really
Speaker 3: it's all handcrafted. We try different yeasts all the time,
Speaker 3: we try different barrels all the time. We do these
Speaker 3: small runs and taste things. One of the ones we
Speaker 3: did last year that we're going to release at our
Speaker 3: wine club release on August third is a ramato. A
Speaker 3: ramato is a pinot grisio that's fermented on the skins
Speaker 3: for a little bit. We have the ability to experiment
Speaker 3: all that on that kind of stuff, whereas someone like
Speaker 3: a Gallo, for example, nothing against Gallo, but they have
Speaker 3: their formula and they stick with it because whenever you
Speaker 3: open that bottle you want to taste exactly the same,
Speaker 3: or a cores light, you know it's going to taste
Speaker 3: the same every single time you open one. You know,
Speaker 3: we can mix it up, experiment, have fun, well, I'm going.
Speaker 2: To come back to that in one second. Just what
Speaker 2: you said about, you know, consistency versus uniqueness. But I
Speaker 2: do have a question of the wines that you have,
Speaker 2: knowing what you love, but also you mentioned you know
Speaker 2: you have pin oblanc you have Pino grigio, You're going
Speaker 2: to make a romato, you have kep Feffer, on and
Speaker 2: on and them. If space aliens were to land at
Speaker 2: your property right now and knock on the door saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we want one of your wines, which wine
Speaker 2: would you give to them? To say welcome to three steves.
Speaker 3: Dry Creeks in my favorite every year. I try not
Speaker 3: to keep the bias in every s's where I started
Speaker 3: making wine. But for the zen, the ancient vine and
Speaker 3: the dry creek, you're splitting hairs which is the better wine?
Speaker 3: Both different in their own way, and it really again
Speaker 3: goes back to taste, and for me, it's taste based
Speaker 3: on what I've done that day, what the weather's like,
Speaker 3: a lot of different factors, what I have for breakfast,
Speaker 3: you know, all of that influences.
Speaker 2: So they're going to get that Dry Creeks in I
Speaker 2: love it. Okay, So going back to what you were
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, being a small winery and handcraft
Speaker 2: wines compared to you know, maybe having more of a
Speaker 2: recipe for wine to make the same standard wine so
Speaker 2: that every time you open up a bottle, you know
Speaker 2: what you're going to get. So I'm curious about that.
Speaker 2: A lot of what will differentiate your wine from one
Speaker 2: year to the next is vintage, vintage variation. And you've
Speaker 2: been here for you know, a few years, a good
Speaker 2: over a decade you've been you know, living here with
Speaker 2: your property, and I'm curious how much similarity and how
Speaker 2: much variation or versus how much variation you see from
Speaker 2: year to year.
Speaker 3: So mother nature is always the wild card, right And
Speaker 3: in some years, like on the dry Creek there's two
Speaker 3: years we didn't get any fruit last year because that
Speaker 3: section of the vineyard and the weird weather patterns we
Speaker 3: had just didn't ripen right. And when I said, guys,
Speaker 3: I'll still take some besees are old family friends that
Speaker 3: have this vineyard, they said, no, no, no, the big
Speaker 3: guys will blend it in. Don't worry about it. We're
Speaker 3: not going to lose money on this, but we're not
Speaker 3: going to sell to you. Is it's not right for
Speaker 3: your program. So there's always that variation by vintage, some
Speaker 3: of which you have to say no, I got to
Speaker 3: walk from it. Others you can do little things like
Speaker 3: if it's, for example, if you're making a Cabernet, we've
Speaker 3: never no, never made one hundred percent Cabernet seven on
Speaker 3: some away's got a splash, or to a petitefer dough.
Speaker 3: It might have a little cab fronc or marilew in
Speaker 3: it for you know, mid palate or nose petieper dough
Speaker 3: for the back of the palette. You can always do
Speaker 3: a little bit of blending there and get to where
Speaker 3: you want it to be. But as far as are
Speaker 3: they all exactly the same. We had an employee party
Speaker 3: the other night and I opened up at twenty twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
Speaker 3: and sixteen cab and they were all kind of the same,
Speaker 3: but very different in their little nuances. And part of
Speaker 3: that was with the blending, and part of that was
Speaker 3: with the vintage. Part of it was also you know
Speaker 3: twelve was age long. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So are there any sort of signs or predictors
Speaker 2: that you look for that's going to help you determine
Speaker 2: what kind of vintage you're going to get.
Speaker 3: Just walking out in the vendyard and looking at the
Speaker 3: vendor and seeing how it's looking, and trying to protect
Speaker 3: what the weather's going to do. I mean, we had
Speaker 3: a great year going in oh I don't remember now, thirteen,
Speaker 3: maybe twelve or thirteen, and fruit was ripening really nicely
Speaker 3: up in dry Creek. They had a heap blast that
Speaker 3: hit them really hard, and of course all the crews
Speaker 3: now were busy picking and our zinfandel came in so high.
Speaker 3: We had to water the heck out of it to
Speaker 3: water it back. I kitted around with a priest that
Speaker 3: I knew now I know how Jesus made water into wine,
Speaker 3: and he gave me a stern look and it says,
Speaker 3: that's not how it works. But that's the only time
Speaker 3: we've had to do anything with that dry Creek fruit.
Speaker 3: But we had to water it back because it would
Speaker 3: have been not only sixteen or seventeen maybe higher percentage,
Speaker 3: but it would have been sweet. Because the yeast can
Speaker 3: only live up to a certain.
Speaker 2: Point when they die, and so in some ways there
Speaker 2: aren't real predictors because you just don't know what Mother
Speaker 2: Nature's going to throw you but you said you walk
Speaker 2: in the vines, and you spend time in the vineyards.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious when you walk through the vines, do
Speaker 2: you talk to your vines? What kind of communication do
Speaker 2: you have with them?
Speaker 3: I just talked to myself.
Speaker 2: No talking to the vines. What about when it comes
Speaker 2: into the winery in there in barrel? Do you then
Speaker 2: talk to it?
Speaker 3: Good times when we're going through the vineyard, there's typically
Speaker 3: some music playing, but it's just you know, I'm a
Speaker 3: rock and roll guy, but we're just looking at how
Speaker 3: they're progressing, whether or not they need to be thinned
Speaker 3: a little bit. You know, we could grow easily six
Speaker 3: six and a half tons an acre here, we thin
Speaker 3: it back to about four. Make sure they're being thinned properly.
Speaker 3: I don't do that myself. We have a crew that
Speaker 3: comes in and does it. But you just go through
Speaker 3: and kind of look and see how things are going
Speaker 3: and then say a little prayer and come on, mother
Speaker 3: nature be my buddy.
Speaker 2: So you talk to mother nature, but you just don't
Speaker 2: talk to the vines.
Speaker 3: You have to, you have to. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: last week it was well over one hundred degrees here
Speaker 3: and the vines kind of go dormant over one hundred.
Speaker 3: So I'm thrilled this week we're back in the eighties nineties.
Speaker 3: It's perfect growing season. It was also foggy this morning.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you got it where you were
Speaker 3: this morning, but that's also perfect for this valley where
Speaker 3: you get the fog coming in at night in early
Speaker 3: morning and then it gets nice and hot during the day.
Speaker 3: I never thought I'd live in Livermore, but I absolutely
Speaker 3: love it. And the reason I say that is when
Speaker 3: I was in the service in the early seventies, I
Speaker 3: was stationed in Sacramento, not far from here, and I
Speaker 3: came into Livermore to see an old girlfriend and there
Speaker 3: was nothing here. It was cows and nukes.
Speaker 2: And it's crazy because it's got a charming town and
Speaker 2: it's quite developed, you know in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: homes and restaurants and things, and it's very vibrant.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great, great town. And like I
Speaker 3: said before, great community want winemakers that everybody works together.
Speaker 3: If something breaks during harvest, before you know it's broken, hardly,
Speaker 3: someone's here often you're their spare. You know.
Speaker 2: It's very collaborative in the time that you've been making wine,
Speaker 2: have you set up any you know, good luck rituals
Speaker 2: that you do at the start of harvest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we always start harvest off with a shot
Speaker 3: of whiskey, and it's like, here's the start of harvest,
Speaker 3: and we finish it up that way. Same thing. When
Speaker 3: the bottling truck comes, we all do what we call
Speaker 3: a safety meeting. Everybody gets a shot, not a lot,
Speaker 3: just a shot, and we do a toast to being
Speaker 3: safe and having a good bottling day or harvest. Do
Speaker 3: that shot and off we go.
Speaker 2: So whiskey is the common denominator across that.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: Now. I know you said you had a hard weekend.
Speaker 2: So wine wasn't your first career, and I'm curious when
Speaker 2: you were little, what did you want to be when
Speaker 2: you grew up? And is that what you ended up
Speaker 2: doing in.
Speaker 3: Your first career. No, So when I was little, I
Speaker 3: wanted to be a pharmacist. I don't know why, but
Speaker 3: I was enthralled with being a pharmacist. In my career
Speaker 3: was starting off in engineering that uncle Sam came, got
Speaker 3: into communications, satellite communications, high end stuff, and then wound
Speaker 3: up in a medical device field and I spent almost
Speaker 3: thirty years at a company with medical instrumentation and loved
Speaker 3: what I did. Started off on the engineering side, worked
Speaker 3: my way up to I was in charge of North
Speaker 3: American sales service, customer education, scientific support and had a
Speaker 3: great time doing that and retired when I could in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight because I was traveling probably three
Speaker 3: quarters of the time and just getting burned out on
Speaker 3: the travel. Now, ironically, in eighteen had a customer, old
Speaker 3: friend of mine up here trying the wines. He's a
Speaker 3: Harvard professor on the East Coast, and he talked me
Speaker 3: into going back to a little startup for about a
Speaker 3: year year and a half where I hired an assistant
Speaker 3: winemaker to cover for me and went to this little
Speaker 3: startup where I was out of the country every other week.
Speaker 3: And I did that for a little over a year,
Speaker 3: and I said, okay, guys, I'm done where you need
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: You kind of remembered how hard it is to be
Speaker 2: traveling that much.
Speaker 3: Travel is not what people think it is. People that
Speaker 3: don't travel think it's very romantic. Oh, you get to
Speaker 3: go to all these great places. No, it's a miserable flight.
Speaker 3: It's a hotel room that all look the same. It's
Speaker 3: a meal by yourself most of the time in a
Speaker 3: restaurant instead of your home cooked food.
Speaker 2: You just haven't figured out how to travel like I do.
Speaker 2: For wine, that is very different.
Speaker 3: I wish I would have figured out this podcast thing.
Speaker 2: So when you're not working, how do you like to
Speaker 2: spend your free time?
Speaker 3: Grandkids, just time with my wife and my family. We
Speaker 3: have a little place north of here. It's a place
Speaker 3: famous for auto parts, place called Napa on a lake,
Speaker 3: and we go up there and have a nice little
Speaker 3: ski boat, don't ski anymore of it, go out in
Speaker 3: the middle of the lake, shut the engine off and
Speaker 3: being the good winemaker that I am, open a beer
Speaker 3: and just relax. Because we live fifty yards from the
Speaker 3: tasting room and we're open seven days a week, it's
Speaker 3: kind of hard to kind of shut down when we're here.
Speaker 3: So this is only an hour and forty five minute drive,
Speaker 3: and we go up there. We take the dog and
Speaker 3: just relax, go out in the leg, take a swim,
Speaker 3: do nothing. It's yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: So when you, as you just said, you're open seven
Speaker 2: days a week and you live right here on the property,
Speaker 2: when you want to kind of turn it off and
Speaker 2: create a romantic evening for you and your wife. What
Speaker 2: kind of wines get open for a romantic evening to
Speaker 2: set the mood?
Speaker 3: Well, not Zefindel, because she's not a Zepindel man.
Speaker 2: After all these years, you never converted her.
Speaker 3: No. I mean she'll do reds, but she's she's more
Speaker 3: into like Chardonnay's maybe a piano grazio. It's not a
Speaker 3: real soft blank fan. I think we've got a great
Speaker 3: saft block, but probably a chardonnay, and cook a light
Speaker 3: meal light for her. She's you know, big into salads
Speaker 3: and fish and things like that. So and just maybe
Speaker 3: you watch a movie on the TV. It's typically lately
Speaker 3: we've been gotten into these old like fifties westerns just
Speaker 3: to see the acting and you know, very different era.
Speaker 2: I like how you earlier said, like you make this
Speaker 2: great pasta, you make spaghetti and then you'll make it
Speaker 2: as infidel and clak. Clearly that is not for a
Speaker 2: romantic evening. That's for a guy's night.
Speaker 3: That's a guy's night. Penny pasta with my red sauce
Speaker 3: and a bottle is in that that's that's that's me.
Speaker 2: She puts up with it, though, Well, I'm curious when
Speaker 2: you look back at, you know, your life, is there
Speaker 2: a piece of advice that someone gave you along the
Speaker 2: way that you try to live or work by you
Speaker 2: something that you've applied. It could have been a parent,
Speaker 2: a teach, or a mentor along the way, previous careers
Speaker 2: or in wine.
Speaker 3: Treat people like you want to be treated, you know,
Speaker 3: treat that I don't care, you know, like at this
Speaker 3: company where I worked, I was a senior vice president.
Speaker 3: I walk in and greet the security guards and the
Speaker 3: janitor is by name. It's that's, I think, the best
Speaker 3: a vice I've ever gotten. And it's what we do
Speaker 3: here as well. I tell our staff treat everybody like family,
Speaker 3: make sure that their their biggest take home from Three
Speaker 3: Steve's Winery is while we feel like we belong here
Speaker 3: and make it real, you know, don't just try and
Speaker 3: put something on, but reach out to people, get to
Speaker 3: know them, let them get to know you and us.
Speaker 3: I get lots of compliments on the wine, I get
Speaker 3: more about our staff, So I'm really proud of that.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to ask you, then, when you
Speaker 2: look back at your career, what is one of your
Speaker 2: prodestants achievements to date.
Speaker 3: Oh, you might have to pause the tape on that one.
Speaker 3: I got to think about that. My proudest achievement to
Speaker 3: date is when our first child was born.
Speaker 4: I said, in your career, okay, in my career, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean my whole career, because the field that I chose,
Speaker 4: or I guess they chose me.
Speaker 3: For a while, I was working on point of sale systems.
Speaker 3: I helped co develop the first laser based scanner on
Speaker 3: the grocery store market. Wow. I got out of that
Speaker 3: because I thought, at the end of the day, Okay,
Speaker 3: because of me and my efforts and lots of others efforts,
Speaker 3: I'm not taking full credit. People can get through the
Speaker 3: grocery storeline faster. Okay, that's kind of cute. And then
Speaker 3: I got with this company that was helping cure cancer.
Speaker 3: The guy who just got a Nobel Prize three years
Speaker 3: ago for car T cell therapy, the huge breakthrough for
Speaker 3: for cancer survivors, was a friend and a customer of mine.
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of what I used to do for
Speaker 3: a living because it makes a difference in humans lives.
Speaker 3: Now I make them happy. They said, wow, this is nice. Wine.
Speaker 3: I'm getting a buzz.
Speaker 2: That's an achievement. And like you said a second ago,
Speaker 2: that people compliment you on your staff and how friendly
Speaker 2: they are, those are achievements.
Speaker 3: Agreed, agreed, And this is a feel good job too.
Speaker 3: But I still dabble and consult a little bit in
Speaker 3: that field that I was in, but most of it's here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I met the winery a lot.
Speaker 2: And going back to the advice thing, is there any
Speaker 2: advice that you would want to give our listeners something
Speaker 2: about wine or life?
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't start a winery. There's an over you saying,
Speaker 3: but it really rings true. To make a small fortune
Speaker 3: in a winery, you start with a large fortune.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Going from homebrew to commercial is a big step. You make,
Speaker 3: you know, a five gallon carboy of wine and it
Speaker 3: might turn out really good. Rampinging that up to you know,
Speaker 3: fifty barrels of wine and then watching those barrels age
Speaker 3: and carefully topping and checking so two levels and making
Speaker 3: sure nothing's going wrong with that wine. It's a lot
Speaker 3: of work and it takes a substantial investment. Not so
Speaker 3: much the way we did it, because I bought the
Speaker 3: property my business partners and I kind of funded as
Speaker 3: we went along and started small and kind of slowly
Speaker 3: grew it through having space at another winery and having
Speaker 3: a very low cost space downtown for a tasting room.
Speaker 3: But it's not for the lightheart hit. You really have
Speaker 3: to think hard about do I want to do this,
Speaker 3: and about really not just winery but anything. Really, if
Speaker 3: you're going to turn a hobby into a business, you
Speaker 3: might just destroy that hobby for yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kept leave this sentence for me. A table
Speaker 2: without wine is.
Speaker 3: Like a day without sunshine. I mean it's an incomplete meal.
Speaker 3: You know, not having a glass of wine with a
Speaker 3: great dinner is a mistake. Yeah. I started something back
Speaker 3: in my career because I was traveling all the time,
Speaker 3: when I was entertaining customers all the time, I thought, man,
Speaker 3: I'm eating too much and drinking too much. So I
Speaker 3: started doing the dry January thing, which I wouldn't admit
Speaker 3: here at the winery. But food is horrible that month.
Speaker 3: I mean it's just not the same. It's like you're
Speaker 3: going to make a dish and not put any seasoning
Speaker 3: at all on it. Yeah, you know, it just there's
Speaker 3: an incomplete piece there.
Speaker 2: So it's moderation, So maybe in January you just have
Speaker 2: one glass or half a glass as opposed to two
Speaker 2: glasses or a bottle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of. I started this about thirty years ago,
Speaker 3: so I kind of still stick with it. But yes,
Speaker 3: that's what I would tell your listeners.
Speaker 2: Don't heed your actions, follow your words. So we're sitting
Speaker 2: at a table and your wines are on the table,
Speaker 2: and there's an empty seat next to you, who, from
Speaker 2: any walk of life, living or deceased, do you wish
Speaker 2: you could open up a bottle of three Steves wine
Speaker 2: with and have a chat.
Speaker 3: My mom and dad to have them back here and
Speaker 3: see this, as they never saw the winery and it
Speaker 3: would have been that that would be amazing.
Speaker 2: Were they wine drinkers in moderation?
Speaker 3: Very much? So, very much in moderation though, but yeah
Speaker 3: they don't. They didn't drink as much as I. Maybe
Speaker 3: that's why I'm still here.
Speaker 2: Well, but I mean living in Hilsburg, I mean they
Speaker 2: may not have worked in wine, but they were around it,
Speaker 2: so not an unfamiliar category, not at all.
Speaker 3: Although when I grew up Hilsburg was a lot of
Speaker 3: prunes and there was a dehydrator in down Sun sweet
Speaker 3: and as kids in the summer pick prines to make
Speaker 3: extra money. There was grapes planet, of course, but most
Speaker 3: of those were, you know, small wineries or Italian families
Speaker 3: that had their grapes out there so they could make
Speaker 3: their homemade wine.
Speaker 2: Steve, I'm curious with the wines you like to drink,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to guess one of them I already know.
Speaker 2: But if you were being sent off to a deserted island,
Speaker 2: what three wines would you want to take with you?
Speaker 3: I guess three Zen's is not the right answer.
Speaker 2: If that's your answer, that's your answer.
Speaker 3: No, I would probably take I'd definitely take.
Speaker 2: A Zivindel dry creek, Simfidel.
Speaker 3: Dry creek or ancient vine, either one. But yeah, probably
Speaker 3: a dry creek because you're on an island. It could
Speaker 3: get kind of warm, so I'd probably take a bottle
Speaker 3: of our Pinogresio or the Pino Bloc. But the Pinogresio
Speaker 3: is crisper and lighter and all stain of steel, so
Speaker 3: probably that.
Speaker 2: And I like your loyalty that you do two of
Speaker 2: your own brands. Curious if the third one going to
Speaker 2: be one of yours or some thing else?
Speaker 3: Well, like if I'm going to this deserted I own
Speaker 3: chances are I already have mine with me? And I said,
Speaker 3: you're right, I did. I said a z Infantel And
Speaker 3: you asked which one? And then you have to take
Speaker 3: a cabernet because.
Speaker 2: From any particular area or producer, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Uh, it wouldn't matter if it was mine or if
Speaker 3: it were a Napple wine, it'd be a smaller producer.
Speaker 3: Probably my friend Chap I was telling you about his
Speaker 3: his rose of cab I'd love to take a bottle
Speaker 3: of his Cabernet.
Speaker 2: And what's the label on that one? Is it chabba?
Speaker 3: It's on guard? Yeah, like a like a sword fight. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll get back to your wines. Okay, we're gonna play.
Speaker 2: You've been waiting for this. The one thing that you're
Speaker 2: warned about this whole conversation is about pairing wine and music,
Speaker 2: because it's called wine soundtrack after all. And and you know,
Speaker 2: wine hundures up emotions in us as we've talked about
Speaker 2: some of these wines, and how you know you light
Speaker 2: up when you talk about zim Fidel, and that you
Speaker 2: know the wines that your wife likes and what people
Speaker 2: like and music. Also, we have emotions to music, and
Speaker 2: there's a time and place that we listen to something
Speaker 2: as well as drink wine. So combining those two together,
Speaker 2: let's start with your pino blanc. What kind of music genre, artists,
Speaker 2: song would you say exemplifies the pino blanc.
Speaker 3: So this is the one I struggled the most with, actually,
Speaker 3: but pino blanc being light and citrusy, and I think
Speaker 3: of a hot day or a warm day, so I
Speaker 3: immediately thought of the beach boys, you know, beach music
Speaker 3: with this wine on the beach, probably pretty perfect.
Speaker 2: Then let's go with your rose. Now, this is a
Speaker 2: rose of.
Speaker 3: Cabernet Sauvignon prime, a little bit of Zenfandela in there,
Speaker 3: a little bit of Sanjavesi, but primarily Cabernet sevignon. And
Speaker 3: the story I tell our customers is they say, well,
Speaker 3: why caberne sevignon to make a rose, because that's an
Speaker 3: expensive grape and you get more money for it. I said, well,
Speaker 3: the best way to make a big bold. One of
Speaker 3: the best ways big bold Cabernet sevignon is you want
Speaker 3: maximum skin contact with the juice. So what we do
Speaker 3: is we de stem. We don't crush, We destem our grapes.
Speaker 3: They're gently going into a big tank, getting ready for
Speaker 3: fermentation in a day or two, after a little soaking,
Speaker 3: and after about three hours they're starting to juice out,
Speaker 3: and we pull some of that juice out to make
Speaker 3: our rose with. Now I've got the same amount of skins,
Speaker 3: less juice, more skin contact with the juice, better cabernet,
Speaker 3: And then I have this lovely rose of cap So is.
Speaker 2: That runoff or is that first press?
Speaker 3: No, it's runoff? Run off or sange? Is the front? Say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it's got some nice color to it.
Speaker 2: So getting back to it, what does it conjure?
Speaker 3: Music? One? So, I'm a long time Jimmy Buffett fan,
Speaker 3: and I discovered today that he has a song that's
Speaker 3: said that's called turn up the Heat and chill the
Speaker 3: rose perfect, And I said, I'm going to pipe this
Speaker 3: into the building. And I never heard it. He's done
Speaker 3: a lot of music, of course, so it's hard to
Speaker 3: catch it all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, wow, Well see that's what you got to
Speaker 2: play when you're you know, making your roseying it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just doing it, Okay. The Illustrious cab Feffer, the
Speaker 2: group that nobody knows, and it is not related to
Speaker 2: Cabernet Savignon. It is not related to Trousseau and I
Speaker 2: can have the color of dressa We used to think that.
Speaker 2: And it is a group originally from the southwest of France. Morot.
Speaker 3: I thought it was Morteau, Morteau. You're probably right tonight. Okay,
Speaker 3: oh good good, I got one right. So so are
Speaker 3: you a Beatles fan? I am Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Speaker 3: Club band.
Speaker 2: Does the wine have peppers in it?
Speaker 3: It doesn't have peppers in it, but you're gonna taste pepper.
Speaker 3: So the name, excuse me, the name Cabernet Feffer. We
Speaker 3: thought was this guy immigrant by the name of Feffer
Speaker 3: in Los Alters or Los Catos. I always mix the
Speaker 3: two up. Named it after himself because that is peppery finish,
Speaker 3: while it was really more to He didn't cross Trousseau
Speaker 3: and Cabernet suffered On as we thought. But what it
Speaker 3: was about two years ago, you see, Davis discovered it
Speaker 3: was Morteu.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's always fascinating as they discover more origins of grapes,
Speaker 2: and one more because you're really on this. But the
Speaker 2: Dry Creek Zinfidel Eric.
Speaker 3: Clapton Tears in Heaven because it'll bring a tear to
Speaker 3: your eye when you try it.
Speaker 2: Oh oh boy wow. Okay, four definitive styles of music
Speaker 2: for four wines. That was wonderful. Stee, this has been
Speaker 2: really fun chatting with you. You've had fun. But I
Speaker 2: have one more question two parts, and that is I
Speaker 2: know you're making wine in Chile, so you go down there,
Speaker 2: but I'm wondering what other wine region in the world
Speaker 2: is at the top of your bucket list to explore
Speaker 2: that you have yet to go to, to.
Speaker 3: Explore, to go make wine, explore, explore. Oh I've been
Speaker 3: to I reconally did Porto. That was wonderful. I've done
Speaker 3: the Danube through Austria, and I've been to Bordeaux. I've
Speaker 3: been through Italy, but not enough of Italy. I'd like
Speaker 3: to do more in Italy. Okay. I'd also love to
Speaker 3: go into Argentina just to try some mollbacks, you know,
Speaker 3: just to go to Mendoza where we get our mall
Speaker 3: back in Chile is right across the Alps from Mendoza.
Speaker 3: But to get there it's about a six hour drive
Speaker 3: and we're always so busy. I'd never made it.
Speaker 2: Well, you'll have to get to Argentina. What wine region
Speaker 2: in the world do you want to make wine from?
Speaker 3: I think that'd be fun to try it there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I'm having a lot of fun in Chili. Al
Speaker 3: de Rose is a great partner down there. If you
Speaker 3: haven't met al you should look them up to Rose Winery.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of fun. And when we first started
Speaker 3: down there, we had no equipment whatsoever. So we would
Speaker 3: pick have the grapes picked in the field in a
Speaker 3: little boxes, load them in the pickup truck, bring them
Speaker 3: to the winery, dump them want a stainless steel table,
Speaker 3: and ladies from the village hand pick the berries off
Speaker 3: the stems. We had a really bad weather event one
Speaker 3: year just before harvest, and here we would have lost
Speaker 3: all the grapes. They were able to pick out the
Speaker 3: good grapes out. We'd tossed about two thirds of them,
Speaker 3: but we still had a harvest. Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well now last part, second part of that question.
Speaker 2: Last question is for people who want to come here
Speaker 2: and visit you when they want to explore Livermore Valley,
Speaker 2: just hops given to jump over from San Francisco. How
Speaker 2: can they find you? Where can they find you? And
Speaker 2: what can they experience here beyond the super friendly staff.
Speaker 3: So I think what you can experience here is we
Speaker 3: have some gorgeous views outside of the winery. We have
Speaker 3: a big patio area with huge umbrellas, industrial umbrellas. We
Speaker 3: have food trucks every weekend. You're going to meet that
Speaker 3: friendly staff. I'm still going to stay it as you should.
Speaker 3: And I think you have some fantastic wines. And typically
Speaker 3: I'm around my son Jason's around, or my co winemaker
Speaker 3: Alex is here, or our tas room Stacey tasroom manager,
Speaker 3: Stacey's here, and we'll all welcome you with open arms.
Speaker 2: Great and you're open seven days a week, so that
Speaker 2: makes it super easy.
Speaker 3: Seven days a week, eleven thirty to four thirty. Www
Speaker 3: dot three Steveswinery dot com. That's the numeral three not
Speaker 3: spelled out.
Speaker 2: Wonderful well, Steve. Thank you for joining us on Wine
Speaker 2: Soundtrack and let's go to some cabfeffer.
Speaker 1: Yes, ma'am, thanks for listening to a new episode of
Speaker 1: Wine Soundtrack USA. For details and updates, visit our website
Speaker 1: winesoundtrack dot com.