Donald Patz

Full Transcript

Doug Shafer:
Hey everybody, Doug Shafer here. Welcome back to another episode of The Taste. Uh, today we have a long time vintner friend of mine, or years. I can't k- keep count. He'll have to help me, but we normally see each other on the road. Uh, we normally have long lunches together with lots of wine, but with the pandemic, (laughs) we haven't seen each other in a long time. Donald Patz, welcome. Good to hear your voice. How are you?

Donald Patz:
I'm doing very well Doug. Thanks for including me.

Doug Shafer:
Oh man, you bet. And I was thinking about you last night. Um, I try to think about the first time we met and I'm thinking it was the tasting group with the gang at Flora Springs. Was that it or was it before that?

Donald Patz:
Probably, you know, w- um, our daughters were rough, you know, a little bit different than age, but kind of in the same school. So we probably crossed paths at, um, even elementary school in St. Alena.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
It's certainly by the time they were playing softball.

Doug Shafer:
That's right. And so that's, that's, uh, late s. So that was a while back, I think (laughing), but we won't count the years. But, um, you've been involved out here in California for a long time, over years, but, and I, I l- I wanna hear about what you're doing in the wine bus- business, but, um, the most fun part about this thing, Donald, as you know, is, is to hear people's stories and their history and where they came from. And I know you and I have something in common. We did not grow up here in the Napa Valley. We came from far away. I was Chicago, and you were from where?

Donald Patz:
Originally Minneapolis. And then I live-

Doug Shafer:
Really?

Donald Patz:
Yeah. I live ... moved, uh, from Minneapolis to Eugene, Oregon in . Um, and then moved down to California in .

Doug Shafer:
So Minneapolis, how long were you there? What age?

Donald Patz:
years. Going into ninth grade is when I left.

Doug Shafer:
Oh man. So what was, uh, what was that like, was that, uh, Minneapolis?

Donald Patz:
Cold (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Cold (laughs). Really big mosquitoes, right?

Donald Patz:
Don't you remember the mi- upper Midwest? I mean, yeah, big mosquitoes. The state bird of Minnesota-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... actually is the loon, but it might as well be the mosquito. Um, yeah, I l-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, so-

Donald Patz:
I did, like, there were certain things ... I mean, we had, I, I think the reason that you stay in places like this is because of family, right?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
No, it was, it was great. I mean, you know, and, uh, and I know that your dad has something to do with Dick and Jane books. Am I wrong?

Doug Shafer:
No, you're right. He worked for a publishing company called Scott Foresman. Yeah.

Donald Patz:
And I s- yeah. I so remember learning to, um, read books on Dick and Jane books or to read on Dick and Jane books. And it really, it was amazing when I realized that your, that your dad had something to do with that. And, uh, I thought that was a, you know, pretty cool touch point, but, um, living in Minnesota, one of the th- the, beauties of being in a place like that, upper Midwest where, uh, education is really a high priority, I, I really, I realized it when I moved to Oregon and this is nothing against Oregonians at all. It's just that, um, the whole way that they funded schools in Oregon was quite different and you could, you could really feel it, I mean that there was a limited budget versus (laughs) Minnesota where we got new books every year.

Doug Shafer:
Right, right. Yeah. I, I do, I do remember that. I mean, so Chicago area was a fantastic public school system. That was great. Um, so Eugene, Oregon, so high school, high school in Eugene.

Donald Patz:
Yes, I did.

Doug Shafer:
What was high school like? What'd you do?

Donald Patz:
I wanted to be more of an athlete, but I just wasn't. So I just kinda kept my head down and was glad I was getting through it. I ended up getting a job at a grocery store, which is probably the beginnings of my curiosity about wine. So I was, you know, a box boy at this little, um, independent store. And, um, but one of the things you would do is, you know, you all kinds of different stocking things. And one of, one of the places I would be walking by quite a bit was the end caps of-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... Annie Green Springs and Boone's Farm, um, and Ryan Lender and stuff like that. And you're, and you're like, what the hell is this all about?

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
And why are there so many different kinds? You know, I mean, what's that? How could there possibly be more kinds of wine than there are kinds of cereals? This is, doesn't even make sense, but, um, yeah. So high school was-

Doug Shafer:
So that's what I ... 'cause I was gonna ... Yeah. I was gonna ask you later about when the wine thing hit. So that was the, the earliest, the early part.

Donald Patz:
I think that, you know, that was sort of the first bump in the road that sort of-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
... uh, adjusted my trajectory, but, you know, high school was, it was, it was fun, but, you know, I was b- I was really busy with, uh, trying to, trying to help out the family, trying to make sure that we, you know, we had stuff.

Doug Shafer:
You were a worker. Well, good for you. Good for taking care of family, man. That's great. So, um, was there wine in the house?

Donald Patz:
No, my, my parents, uh, were teetotallers.

Doug Shafer:
Did you know that my dad's dad was a teetotaler? (laughs).

Donald Patz:
(laughs) I did not know that, but-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Which was hilarious. And then dad comes out and (laughs) starts making wine. But, but-

Donald Patz:
Yeah. Did he get like, like stern lectures whenever he would (laughs) go back home?

Doug Shafer:
Oh, no, he did. The, the famous story was, uh, dad comes back from the war after flying or , , missions, you know, in a B, ge- you know, getting shot at, in the sky. He's , comes home and walks, you know, brings a six pack of beer in the house, you know, and his dad's like, "Get that outta here right now." And dad's like, "Wow, really?" (laughs)

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So it didn't matter.

Donald Patz:
Yeah, well - I started when I was already moved out. So, uh, it wasn't, there was never an issue about it at my h- at my home. I, I'm sure that my mom was a little disappointed on my career choice, but was hopeful that my experience could be transferred to something more wholesome (laughing) um, at some point, which never obviously happened, so there you go.

Doug Shafer:
No, are you kidding? You make really good wine. It's a beautiful thing.

Donald Patz:
Well, I, I feel like I, you know, I've done some interesting stuff in my life and I'm proud of what we've done. It's just that not always, you know, your family doesn't always see you the same way that the rest of the world does. And, uh, so there you go.

Doug Shafer:
Well, that's part of the definition of family, as we all know, but that's a-

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
... that's a whole ... maybe we'll start a new podcast. We'll call it The Family-

Donald Patz:
Yeah, families.

Doug Shafer:
... with Donald and Doug. Yeah (laughing). That'd be, be a big hit. Um, so after high school, we're off to where to then?

Donald Patz:
My mother was actually in u- when we were living in Eugene, so my mother was actually working at a local community college. So I did two years at a community college, then transferred to the University of Oregon, um, and got a, ended up getting a degree there in biology. I was a pre-med student, if you can believe this. And during w- uh, I actually was on made honor roll one time. So I was in- incorporated into the, uh, pre-med honor society at the University of Oregon. And one of the things they do, which is really unique, and I don't know any other college where you can get this experience. There may be others, but they actually contacted a, you know, um, a number of different physicians in Eugene and asked, "Hey, would you mind if, um, if a University of Oregon student who's pre-med could, uh, shadow you for a few days, a couple of ti- you know, two or three times a week for a couple of weeks?" And they, they got agreement from that. So I ended up trailing behind these doctors and it was kind of a h- at this moment, at that moment, I was already becoming a little bit interested in wine. And so we'd have these conversations where the first thing that would happen is they'd say, "You know, how are you doing in school?" So you'd talk about school at this moment. And then the next time you saw them, it was, where did you go to college? And where did you go to med school? And then all those things. And so by the third time you saw them, you've gotten all that stuff out of the way, they'd say, "well, what else are you interested in Donald?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
And I'd say, "Well, I'm kind of interested in wine." And every single doctor got the sort of dreamy eyed look-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
Um like, "Oh yeah, someday, man, that would be awesome. I'd love to have my own little winery and vineyard." So, you know, when I got the second, no, thank you, um, letter from, uh, the med schools, I said, "You know, maybe I can go into the wine business without having to go to med school. You know, it seems like that's what they all want to be in." So I, I felt pretty good about that part of it, but yeah ...

Doug Shafer:
Well you saved yourself , or , , years, you know.

Donald Patz:
Yeah. And probably two or $, worth of personal debt. Right?

Doug Shafer:
You know, it's funny when you started that story, I thought you were going to say, well, I was shadowing these doctors and after a couple of times seeing these patients, it's like, no, I don't wanna do this. So that's, that's funny when it went a whole new direction on me.

Donald Patz:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
So, all right. So, so no med school. So the wine business. So what'd you do?

Donald Patz:
I started off working for a little tiny ... uh, actually my first introduction was I, I was running a wine club for a local retail store. And so I setting up, you know, wine tastings and bringing in winemakers and setting up restaurant, uh, dinners and stuff like that. And, uh, then a wholesaler came to me and you know, this is like a year and a half later.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Wholesaler comes to ... I'm still working at grocery stores at this point to make a living. But this wholesaler comes to me and says, "You know, uh, because of your work with this wine club, um, everybody in town knows who you are,' which I don't think was true, but, you know, I was flattered by the idea. "Um, why don't you come to work with us and, you know, make a bunch of money?" So in the next year I frittered away my entire life savings, making a bunch of money in the wine business (laughing). You know, it's, it's tough. And I started off doing sales and delivery so that I could, you know, so they could justify, um, some kind of salary part of it, but-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Sales were, were really difficult. And, uh, you know, I, I learned a lot over a short period of time. But I realized at the same time, if I was interested in working in the wine business at this point, probably Oregon, it wasn't the best place for me because, um, most of the owners weren't making money with their wineries-

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Donald Patz:
... and they certainly couldn't afford to hire somebody like me. Now, remember, this is like early s. Uh, and so not today, I'm sure that everybody's super successful in Oregon today, but, um, (laughs) just like us, right Doug? Uh, uh, but, (laughing) but the, uh, but it was obvious that if I was interested in doing something in the wine business, I probably should move to California. And so, um, that's what we did in .

Doug Shafer:
Interesting. Yeah, you're exactly right. 'Cause back at, in that period of time, Oregon was coming on, they were growing grapes and making wine, but they weren't, you know, well, anybody making wine wasn't making as good wine as they are now. So, but I see what your points, so yeah. Um, so go to California. So, uh, you picked up and head out. So was there a game plan? Did you know w- what part ... where are we gonna go? Are you gonna go central coast or Lodi? Or what were you gonna go?

Donald Patz:
Yeah, so we, we literally sat in, um, in the kitchen and looked at a map of Northern California and said, "Hey, check it out. Santa Rosa is about the same size as Eugene. So let's move there." (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) You did a lot of research there. Didn't you, about that guy. Yeah.

Donald Patz:
Yeah. The in depth. Oh yeah. Yeah. I knew it, I knew everything, so, (laughs) yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. So you moved to Santa Rosa, and then-

Donald Patz:
First, yes. And, and eventually, um, like, uh, t- about two years later, I got a job. I got my first real supplier side job with Flora Springs, um, in . And then, uh, in, you know, after about six months, we moved from Santa Rosa over to St. Helena, which is why we crossed paths.

Doug Shafer:
That's right. 'Cause our daughters were right about, born about that ... in '. Yeah, Katie was born in '. Um-

Donald Patz:
Yeah. Lauren is '. So there you go.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. 'Cause that's where I met you. So we had this, uh, I was lucky enough to be invited to be in, ina his tasting group with, uh, it was probably half the folks were winemakers, half the folks were sales folks, salespeople, mostly winemakers?

Donald Patz:
No, no. It was, it was really all wine makers, exc- except for me. (laughing) I'm not sure why I was in it.

Doug Shafer:
Well, 'cause you organized it. We had to have somebody put it together as, as I recall.

Donald Patz:
It's, it's spoken other guy, but, uh, but no, it was, it was a really interesting group. And in fact, I think they started in like or something like that. And, and I think there's an iteration that continues. I might be wrong in this, but I th- I think there might be a cont- a, a group that's continuing that despite the fact that members have come and gone over the years.

Doug Shafer:
Well, okay. I'm trying to remember who was there? You were in it. I was in it, uh, Kenny Deis winemaker at Flora Springs -

Donald Patz:
Joe Cafaro, um-

Doug Shafer:
Joe Cafaro, Craig Williams, Phelps.

Donald Patz:
Yeah. He was sometimes there not always.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
Mike Fisher, um-

Doug Shafer:
Mike Fisher, uh, Ann Moses, and James Saaw-

Donald Patz:
And James Saaw. Both, both of them were, were in it.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Uh, and there were other people who kinda ca- you know, would come sometimes and then other times couldn't.

Doug Shafer:
What was it sometimes? 'Cause I was ... yeah.

Donald Patz:
Uh, but, but was, was there.

Doug Shafer:
I was a sometimes 'cause he always gave me a hard time 'cause I didn't make it all the time.

Donald Patz:
We (laughs)-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, go ahead.

Donald Patz:
Well, you had said, you had such unique excuses why.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
Like, I had to tie up my tomatoes and you know, needed to fold my socks that night, so-

Doug Shafer:
I had to bathe the baby, you know, I had to, you know, the cooling was off at the winery. I had to go check it. Yeah. I d- I was pretty creative, I, I admit, but, uh, that was a fun group. And uh, I learned a lot in that group, but, uh, I also learned, I could never .., I always flunk the April fools tasting. Yeah.

Donald Patz:
Everybody flunks that that was the, it was the, it was the most difficult. And what, you know, what you're talking about was the tasting where we would as winemakers or, you know, auxiliary members, um, we would line up wines that were totally blind. And you had to, you know, guess the vintage, guess the varietal, guess the, you know-

Doug Shafer:
Country.

Donald Patz:
... the country and, um, you had the, you know, you could guess the, the place. So if you thought it was, um, you know, Nebbiolo, you had to figure out it was Barolo or Barbaresco and from Italy and, uh, yeah, most people got the majority of them wrong. Uh-

Doug Shafer:
No. Yeah. You get a, you get a point for every, you know, thing you got right.

Donald Patz:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
So the only reason I got points is if we could (laughs) ... 'cause I remember I said, "Look, can we get a point if we call it, if we know if it's red or white?" And you guys thought I was a fool, but it's the only way I got on the board. It's a red wine (laughs).

Donald Patz:
No, that's not ent- that's not entirely true, but, but it's a really instructive thing because what it does is, and you know, this is what I took away from it Doug is that, you know, that's not our job as winemakers.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
We're not really supposed to be able to, you know, tell the location of every wine that we ever taste, especially, you know, from outside of our local little area where we're working. Um, we do, we taste wines for different reasons. We taste wines, you know, to see if they're on track or if they're going haywire.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
Are there flaws or, you know, is everything cool? Um, and those are, that's a totally different way of looking at wine and thinking about it. And you really saw it in this group because my favorite tasting was one, I think we did a Chevil blanc where several of the wine makers said, you know, "Oh man, if I was making this wine, I would have added just a little bit of acid, you know, ton of brighten it up."

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
And I'm sure I didn't make any friends that night because the next thing I said was, "Yeah. How many people here ..." and remember, you know, the average Cabernet at the time that we're talking about was probably $ a bottle.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
I said, "How many people here are selling wine at a $ a bottle?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
Of course, nobody raised their hands. I don't think it needs acid.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I think it's just fine.

Donald Patz:
It's selling okay at . So yeah.

Doug Shafer:
My favorite was always Ann Moses when a wine had a, a little bit of, a little bit extra oak on, she, her comment was, "A shameless amount of new Oak."

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
I just loved that line, but, um, fun times, fun times.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So Flora, Flora Springs, you were there doing director sales for ... how long were you there? A couple of years. Two or three?

Donald Patz:
Six years.

Doug Shafer:
Six years.

Donald Patz:
I left at the, at the very end of, uh, of, uh, so I was there all of ... five years or whatever it is, but, um, yeah, I left at the end of and then went to work at Girard Winery, um, in February of ' and was there until - the fall of , at which point it was really obvious to me that, you know, I had to either decide to give up the little nascent project I was working on called Patz and Hall or make that my full-time job because, you know, if I can't make my own project work, who needs to hire me to make theirs work?

Doug Shafer:
Right, right. But let's talk about Patz and Hall because it, uh, it started out as a small little project, but it became a very successful winery. So tell me, tell me how that all came together.

Donald Patz:
Well, James Hall and I met when we were both working at Flora Springs and you know, we had these ongoing conversations. The truth is, we've mentioned the real w- the, the main wine maker at Flora Springs was a guy named Ken Deis. We mentioned him earlier. But Ken saw me when I first started as a short timer, because there had been somebody else in my job that only lasted about six months.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
So Ken, Ken had no time for me. (laughs) Why, why bother with a guy who's not gonna be here in six months? So the only guy I could find to ask questions about the wines that I was supposed to then be representing to the world was James. And, uh, and, you know, we struck up this conversation. We kept talking about what was going on in the cellar, but also, you know, what we personally like to do. And, um, James was hired to become the winemaker at Honig Cellars, uh, and at that point, um, in ', he was, uh, tasked with finding custom crush projects that would fit inside Honig.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, okay.

Donald Patz:
And I was already thinking, you know, I would really like to make a little bit of wine on my own because I'm kind of outside that group. Um, I'm focused on selling and, you know, maintaining distribute- distribution channels for Flora Springs, but it'd be fun to be on the creative side and, and use some of the things I've been thinking about. And James and I were at- were at lunch one day and, and I realized to myself, I didn't say it to him at the time that, you know, James actually has more technical background in the wine making and I probably could help sell it. So this might actually be a business.

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Donald Patz:
Um, and so we got together my now ex-wife and James and Anne, um, had dinner together. And, um, I suggested, why don't we try this, uh, start a partnership to create, um, Chardonnay as i- initially, and then eventually pinot noir? Um, and we made our first, first vintage in and away, we went.

Doug Shafer:
That's, and so you had a custo- so James made it at, uh, he was at Honig and you guys-

Donald Patz:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
So you, your project was a custom crush project for Honig.

Donald Patz:
It was. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So-

Donald Patz:
A- and it, and we were a custom crushed project there for a long time. I mean, I think it was harvests we did at Honig before we were sort of-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Donald Patz:
We got too big and, and they wanted to get bigger. So it was time for us to find our own space.

Doug Shafer:
With you. So here's a question for you. So for James, 'cause I'm thinking of a conflict of interest. For James and working at Honig as the winemaker, but part of their gig was to do custom crush shops, so he really didn't a conflict 'cause he was doing what Honig want him to do is have some custom crush line, but you're working at Girard or Flora Springs or Girard selling wine -

Donald Patz:
Flora Springs, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Flora Springs, pardon me. Flora Springs and Girard and you've got this as doing sales, but you've got the side project going. I was always curious about that. I never talked about that.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Was that, was there any, any tension conflict on that?

Donald Patz:
Well, I think eventually it was, uh, it, it bothered the owner. I, I'm, you know, they didn't really actually say it this way, but I bel- I believe it, it contributed to some changes that, uh, Flora Springs made in terms of their, um, their marketing and sales. They eventually, uh, chose to go a different direction-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... and that's why I ended up, um, moving on to Girard, but going into Girard, Steve Girard knew upfront what I was doing.

Doug Shafer:
Great.

Donald Patz:
So obviously if he had a problem with it, he wouldn't have hired me to begin with.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Um, but I, you know, the thing is, is when we started, it was like cases. I mean, you know, dude, if you can't sell cases-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... um, you might as well stop actually doing anything in the wine business and just go find something else to do. Uh, so it, uh, you know, for the first few years, anyway, it was so small that I really kind of saw it as irrelevant. It didn't ... I went out of my way not to talk about it when I was, um, doing anything for Flora Springs.

Doug Shafer:
Right. Yeah, you can't. But at the same time, you sell out a year wine in Flora Springs hasn't sold out of their wine. They were like, "Hey, what's going on?" What do you say?

Donald Patz:
Yeah. Well, if they were making cases, I could have sold out of their wine too (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Good point. All right. So you guys start off, cases. You start growing ... how long does it take to get to , cases, , cases, and eventually, how big did you get?

Donald Patz:
So I think the first year that we did , cases probably was ... I think it was probably ' or '. Um, maybe even later ' or ', somewhere in there. And then , cases was probably, you know, like five or six years later than that. _n and , just before we sold out, uh, Ste. Michelle, um, Ste. Michelle wine estates up in Washington, we were, um, at about just under , cases.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. And help me on this one. Am I, do you, did you guys own, own any vineyard land?

Donald Patz:
We didn't. Now, we were, you know, we did not. And, uh, and we, but we had some great contracts, uh, for some fabulous fruit and it, and it was really kind of a learning experience for me. You know, the assumption was, do you wanna be in the wine business first, you have to go out and buy the raw land and you've gotta develop it. And I mean, that was a m- that was the model for a long time. Um, but I think, you know, a lot of wineries, uh, whether they own land or not buy some of their grapes. Um, and so, you know, my thought was, well, if you can buy some why not just buy them all? Um, I didn't wanna get up that early in the morning to do cross protection anyway. Uh-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) All right. But, but I mean no land and you're buying all your grapes ... how many growers did you guys have? I mean, how m-

Donald Patz:
(laughs) Well, some of the g- some of the guys that were pretty big, you know, I mean, the Duttons are not a small production thing-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
... and Martinellis also own quite a bit of land over in Sonoma and, and have quite a bit of grapes. Um, it was, uh, it was probably or f- between and , depending on the year different growers.

Doug Shafer:
Because I'm, when I'd run into you locally, you were always like, "Well, I'm heading up here to go ... I got to go see a vineyard and over here, I gotta go down there. I gotta go see a vintner."

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
I mean, it's, it's either you're on the road selling wine or you were, you were the grower guy, 'cause James make, is making the wine. So-

Donald Patz:
No, James was, James was the grower guy too, but you know, it was fun to ... That was my favorite part. So, you know, we sell a, we sell the company to Ste. Michelle and they go, "Donald, now, you'll only ... you, you can do all the things you love the best, travel around and sell the wine." And I, (laughing) I laugh, I go, "That wasn't my favorite part. That was the part I did because you know, it matched my skills the best probably-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
... uh, within the group." But, um, my favorite part was walking around in vineyards and kicking dirt-

Doug Shafer:
Kicking dirt.

Donald Patz:
... and talking to the guys out there and, you know, looking at the grapes and hoping that they were gonna be just as good as they look like right now.

Doug Shafer:
Uh (laughing), what's, what's cause every grower is different.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
I mean, everybody's got different goals and the winery and the winemaker has their goals. How do you keep to growers happy? What is your secret? What's the key?

Donald Patz:
You know, well, I guess we've ... we, we chose those guys because they, you know, they were in alignment with what we wanted to do for the most part and they understood why we were asking them to do stuff. And then you, you basically, you know, it's like any other relationship you treat each of them a little bit differently. You learn what it is that, that they get upset about and you, you know, a- and the things that they really like and you play to the strengths of each one of them. And it's, isn't, you know, there's no, uh, it's not like you're being insidious or like, you know, insincere, it's just, you learn to, you know, to work with these guys. Um, and if they were difficult, then eventually we rotated them out of the, of the program because who needs another headache?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Um, and there were, there were people who, uh, and, you know, not to point at anybody, but there were, there were people who were better at talking about what they were doing in the vineyard rather than actually doing what they were saying they were doing. And, you know, after a couple of vintages, um, you know, we'd find somebody else's grapes to buy. Uh, and, and a, a, a number of those people went on to having successful relationships with other people. So it was probably us.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
You find the people that work best with you and you, the other thing is we almost never argued about pricing. You know, it was within reason. Um, if it was another $ a ton and they, the grower was gonna be happy because we were willing to go up a $ a ton, we went up a $ a ton-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, right.

Donald Patz:
... on price or two or three or whatever the number was, as long as it was sort of tracking along basically with the way that pricing was happening in either Napa or Sonoma when we were looking for grapes in either one of those places. And as long as it wasn't like, well, the Napa average is, you know, a ton for Chardonnay. So we want , from you.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
Um, or alternatively, as long as it wasn't, um, one, a re- a requirement that we do it as a single vineyard designate and two, that they got, um, a price based on our retail price, uh, then we were in pretty good shape.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. And, but you guys did do some single vineyard stuff. Didn't you at Patz and Hall?

Donald Patz:
A bunch.

Doug Shafer:
A bunch?

Donald Patz:
Yeah, oh, we did a bunch. Yeah. And we liked it. I r- I really liked, and I'm still doing that with my new projects, but, but I, I think that, um, you know, I think that it's, it, it speaks to the place that we're in. We're in one of the most glorious places. And I'm, and when I say that I'm, I'm talking about both Napa and actually any place in Northern California, um, that I've purchased grapes from in the past, are, are just remarkable. And we're so fortunate to be able to, uh, to be able to, you know, buy these grapes or grow these grapes ourselves, whichever it is, um, and make incredible wines. I, I really believe we're living in kind of a golden age of wine, probably the likes of which humanity has never seen before.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
Um, more great wines around the world than it ever been produced. And so here we are in, um, you know, a little blessed area a- and allowed to, uh, to make these wines and to share them with friends. It's just a real privilege.

Doug Shafer:
I'm with you, I'm with you, even though, you know, even though you made pinot, but that's okay (laughs).

Donald Patz:
(laughs) Well, I realized how easy it was to make cabernet. So now I'm doing that too (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh, here we go. Here we go. All right. Full disclosure to our, our listeners. Um, this, this, our guest today, and I have a long, long history, and it basically is usually debating about the merits of pinot noir versus cabernet.

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
And he's a pinot guy and I'm a cab guy and we've never really resolved it, but we have mutual respect for good, really good wine, so-

Donald Patz:
Of course we do. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Of course we do, but, uh-

Donald Patz:
Any- I'm sure that anybody listening to this can hear the-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... the joy in our, in our discussion that we're, we, we really respect each other and have a lot of fun doing it, but that doesn't mean that you don't get to poke the guy once in a while.

Doug Shafer:
No, poke ... I can't believe you just said that, how easy it is to make cabernet. Oh, okay.

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Well, we'll talk, we'll talk, we'll talk later. Anyway. So Patz and Hall, , you guys opened a tasting room in Napa. You got a general manager, hiring staff, uh, you’re at a warehouse in Sonoma making wine. It just, was, was this, was it crazy times 'cause you're staffing up and making more wine? What was that like?

Donald Patz:
Well, you know, it's, there comes a point in your business where you say, I'm, I'm doing a bunch of stuff, but I'm, I'm using the skills that I have to the best advantage of our company or are there other people that we can bring in to support what we're doing and be, become more effective? And, and so we went through a whole process of, uh, analyzing our business and trying to figure out how we could structure it in order for all of the partners involved to, uh, to be more efficient and effective. And so, yeah, basically the idea was, let's bring some help in to, uh, to help manage the business and also, um, a number of other elements, like the direct-to-consumer side of it and the tasting room.

Doug Shafer:
Right, right. And, uh, because it, it all changed so much in the two thousands, for sure. Um-

Donald Patz:
It really did. You know, in there were very few people that were trying to sell all of their wine direct to consumer. And by the time you get to the early two thousands, that was the new model is, why bother to sell it to restaurants or retail stores or distributors across the country when you can, you know, sell it to every ... I've got a bunch of friends, I'll put them all on a mailing list and sell all my wine.

Doug Shafer:
Right. So you're rocking along, then comes along and here's a story I don't know. You meet a gal named Michelle and, uh, your life begins to change with that. Tell me about Michelle.

Donald Patz:
Sure. You know, well, let's back up one second because, you know, I had a- it's not like we met while I was still married (laughing). We, I had, I had been divorced for a number of years already. So I it's, uh, it is kind of a crazy love story in that, um, you know, m- my son told me that I should probably get a Facebook account and th- and this had nothing to do with romance at this point. Just, he thought that I would, might enjoy that. So I got-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... uh, set up a Facebook account. Why not? Right?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
And so then you start getting, as I'm sure anybody who's set up a Facebook account back in the day, you suddenly get a whole bunch of people who wanna be your friends, that you don't even know who they are.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
Now, why do they wanna be a friend? So I, it, it dawned on me finally that, you know, maybe at least some of these people are just curious about what a wine guy does. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
They recognize the last name. And so, um, I said, fine. We'll just sort of, you know, unless somebody looks like (laughing) a mass murderer, then (laughs), then maybe, you know, we'll just be friends on Facebook and that'll be great. And then I'll put on a little bit of stuff about my personal life and a little bit of stuff about what I'm doing in terms of the wines and stuff like that.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
Anyway, so I have a bunch of friends I don't know who they are.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
And one day I sit down, (laughing) I sit down and I look ... I, I don't know if I’ve shown you this picture or not. It's a, it's actually the opening page on my iPhone is the picture that I saw that day. I'm just fanning through the, the f- the news feed basically and I see this picture. It's this woman, um, riding in a car and has sort of a Mona Lisa kinda smile on and semi-mirrored sunglasses. And she's beautiful. And I, and below that, it's a picture that, that her son has taken and her son posts it and says, "Check out my mom. Isn't she hot?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
So he's, he's saying this, not just to me, he's saying this to the world. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Donald Patz:
And at that moment, as we all know, because we're all Facebook fiends, um, I had three choices. I could have A, done nothing and continued on my merry way. B, I could have written something like "Hubba, hubba, hubba. Oh yeah, she's hot."

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Probably not appropriate, but I could have done that or C click the like button and move on. And so I did C, I did click the like button and moved on and thought nothing more about that really too much. minutes later, get an email from her son saying, "No, really. I think you should meet my mom. I think you'd really like her."

Doug Shafer:
Her s- I've never heard this. Her son did it.

Donald Patz:
Who, who are you? What? Why are you, why are you saying this? Um, and so finally I, I said, "Uh, sure." You know, I don't have no ... I don't even know where they live.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
Uh, and I said, "Yes, you know, if you're ever in California or, you know, you wanna come up to the Napa Valley, let me know. And you know, it would be, I would love to meet her. It sounds ... she's, she looks like a b- a really lovely person."

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
And so, you know, something fairly innocuous actually I thought. And another email comes in another five or minutes later saying, "Are you around this weekend?" (laughing) Wait, what? So I, my response was, "Well, I'm here Friday and Saturday, but Sunday I've got to go to Texas for a sales trip." He says, "I'm bringing my mom to meet you." Like, at this point, now I'm looking it up ... and looking him up on, um, Facebook and I-

Doug Shafer:
How old is ... how old is this kid.

Donald Patz:
I think he was like or something like that at that time.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Okay.

Donald Patz:
And, uh, I'm looking, I'm looking him up on, uh, on his page and I realized he's in Washington DC. So I'm thinking, wow, that's pretty crazy bringing your mom across the country to ... fine, sure. Why not? So of course, the day of they're flying out together, they miss their flight so they have to up, and I've got to meet her by myself at the airport. I'm standing at the airport going, wow, this could have been ... this could be the stupidest thing I've ever done my entire life.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
This could be a complete disaster and I may regret this the rest of my life. Right? But, um, it didn't turn out that way, happily. Uh, it was a lovely first meeting. We had, um, a lot of fun. We went to dinner together. It was Fleet Weeks in, in San Francisco and we were eating along the Embarcadero. You could see fireworks going off. I said, "Hey, first date, I got fireworks for you. How do you beat that?" (laughing) But I, so we had, we had fun. And, uh, and so we kept in touch and she came out to California to visit and we, uh, met again in New York. She came up from Washington DC to see me when I was working in New York and then sort of one thing led to another and next thing I know, um, she's, I'm trying to convince her to move to California.

Donald Patz:
So of course she has to have alm- of course if I'm with a woman, it's somebody with, you know, a little more than some intelligence. So she's got all these reasons she doesn't have to move to California. One of which is, "I don't really like ..." you would like her. "I don't really like pinot noir that much. Anyway, I'd rather drink Bordeaux or California cabernet."

Doug Shafer:
That's right. That's why I love this woman because she's a cabernet gal (laughs).

Donald Patz:
(laughs) So my response was, 'cause I'm a sales guy, which means, or I would cl- you know, that's kind of one of my backgrounds. Uh, I, I said, "Fine, move to California. I'll make Cabernet for you."

Doug Shafer:
Oh, oh (laughs).

Donald Patz:
And, uh, she moved to California and I didn't get a chance to do the Cabernet project until later. But, um, yeah, I did it.

Doug Shafer:
You did it. Wow. And you guys ended up getting ma- when did you guys get married?

Donald Patz:
.

Doug Shafer:
.

Donald Patz:
It was the earthquake. Literally, it was the earthquake. Um, you know, the-

Doug Shafer:
The earthquake in ... the Napa earthquake.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
So we, you know, we, we, we wake up the bed is leaping around the r- (laughs) the be- the ro- the bedroom.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
And uh, like the next day she's ... I've been telling her, look, anytime you want to get married, I'm happy to do it 'cause let's, you know, let's plan it and, and, and get married.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
She says, "No, I'm okay. I'm okay." Um, and then, you know, like two days later she goes, "We're getting married." I said, "Great. When do you want to?" "In, as soon as possible. We could die anytime I wanna (laughs), I wanna be married." (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh. Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. I do remember. It was like a surprise, all of a sudden, "Hey, we're, we're, we're married, we're having a party." It's like, wow, when'd that happened.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) It was quick. It was fast. All right. That's ' and s- ' was a big year.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
What happened with '? You had the big move. Yeah.

Donald Patz:
Well, it started in , -

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
... when we started talking with Ste. Michelle and, um, these kinds of events,, yes, take forever I swear.

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Donald Patz:
You know, attorneys on both sides and everybody wants to do this or that. And you know, they absolutely can't do that. Then five minutes later, it's possible. And yeah, I went around and around for a while, but eventually, um, we agreed to sell to Ste. Michelle. And, uh, and I, I think everybody had their own reason for it. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
I mean, and, you know, we've been doing this for a while. Um, and you, this is kind of what went through my mind. I don't, I can't speak for the other partners, but, um, we had, uh, a complicated partnership agreement and, um, you start to say to yourself, "Well, how much longer do I wanna keep working?

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
You know, is it, is it five years? Is it years?" And let's say it's five years. It turns out to be longer than that for me. But let's just say it was five years. In five years, will we have somebody interested in buying us or will you be looking at a market where nobody is selling and the values of every company has gone down by a quarter?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
So you got this deal in front of you and you say, you know, maybe this is the best time, even though it doesn't feel like I wanna do, I want to quit yet, but maybe this is the best time for this project to end.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
And I suspected that there were similar thoughts on the other partners, but we never really sat down and talked about, you know, the motivations. It was more, does this deal feel like is a reasonable deal or not.

Doug Shafer:
And it was 'cause I think, you know, I remember seeing you afterward, you were, you were very content you were happy about it.

Donald Patz:
Um, well, I think we were, everyone was equally unhappy (laughs). You know, I think, I think if, if the deal is the buyer thinks they overpaid and the seller thinks that they didn't get quite enough, then that's probably the right deal for everybody. (laughs) So-

Doug Shafer:
Well, yeah. I, yeah. Everybody's, everybody's a little upset or it's e- either everybody is ... yeah.

Donald Patz:
Not, not upset, but you know, a l- if they wished they could have gotten a little bit better deal on bo- on, everybody, I think wish they had gotten a little bit better deal out of it. But, um, you know, it is what it is and it is more money than I'd ever made before. And so it was satisfying to know that what we had worked on for almost years actually had value and-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... and other people appreciated what we'd been doing. Um, I, we all signed contracts to continue to work for a year. And at the end of that year, um, it was clear that Ste. Michelle really didn't have a clear idea of what they wanted from me going forward. So my counter proposal was, well, why don't you just, um, release me for my noncompete and, uh, and you won't have to pay me anymore? And they said, "Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll do that."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Well, good.

Donald Patz:
Yeah. So May st, , I was released from, uh, from my non-compete with, uh, Ste. Michelle and hit the ground running, started looking for grapes and had plans to do some new projects.

Doug Shafer:
And you, you f- you, you and Michelle formed, uh, what's, it's the Donald Patz Wine Group. Correct?

Donald Patz:
That Donald Patz Wine Group. Yep.

Doug Shafer:
Great name, love it.

Donald Patz:
I can't actually put that on the front label because, because I sold the name Patz-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
... but, but I am allowed to use the Donald Patz Wine Group as a business name.

Doug Shafer:
Well, good.

Donald Patz:
So none of the, none of the wines are called Donald Patz, but that's okay. It was fun to, uh, to think about new stuff too.

Doug Shafer:
No. So, so tell, tell us about the, the whole new program 'cause it sounds really exciting. I've heard parts of it, but not the whole program. So what's the deal?

Donald Patz:
So I have three new projects. Like I tell people, you know, if you sell one, of course, you're going to start three. Right?

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
But I really had two in mind. Um, one was to fulfill the promise to my wife to make cabernet for her and, um, I was happy to do that. And despite the fact that we like to go back and forth over which, you know, which is the greater grape, both are lovely and a lot of fun to work with. Uh, they're quite different and you'll approach them different. But, um-

Doug Shafer:
Well and, and cabernet, and cabernet is really easy. So that's a no brainer (laughs).

Donald Patz:
Super easy. Yeah. It actually falls off the vine and rolls into the bottle all by itself.

Doug Shafer:
I know. Isn't it cool?

Donald Patz:
Awesome.

Doug Shafer:
I love it. Elias and I sit back and have a cold beer and watch that happen every year. It's so neat (laughs).

Donald Patz:
(laughs) Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, (laughs) but-

Doug Shafer:
Okay, so you're making cabernet. Where is ... is it Napa cab, Sonoma cab, where is it?

Donald Patz:
I do two.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
Um, I'm doing two now. I'm doing one from a vineyard that, um, Judy Jordan owns actually called Sage Ridge, which is, um, up Sage Canyon Road on the opposite Ridge line from, um, Pritchard Hill.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
So Prich- as you go up towards, um, Lake Berryessa, it, uh, Pritchard Hill would be on your right-hand side, Sage Ridge is on the left-hand side up on the ridge.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
It's a spectacular sight, spectacular sight, man. It, it, it's a good thing you didn't go up there with me that day. You'd be buying grapes from them too 'cause it's just gorgeous. These little vineyard plots that sort of run across the ridge line. And, uh, so I signed up for a very small piece there, but even before that, um, I decided that you were lonely in Stags' Leap-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
... and you needed a real competitor. So, (laughs) so I'm, I'm buying grapes, I'm buying grapes from Hirondelle Vineyard, which is part of the Clos du Val group.

Doug Shafer:
Right, right. I know it.

Donald Patz:
Um, and uh, yeah, I'm getting a little bit of fruit from there, right? Basically next door to Stags' Leap Wine Cellars and uh, it's, it's really cool. I love, I've, I've always loved Stags' Leap and um, it certainly your wines are part of the reason that I like that area, but, but others as well.

Doug Shafer:
Sure. No, thank you. Oh, good. All right. So two cabs and by the way, sort of the first one Sage Ridge and Pritchard Hill, that's on the eastern side of the valley.

Donald Patz:
Yeah, it is. You know, up I the hills in the east.

Doug Shafer:
So it's [crosstalk ::] up in the hills and eastern side.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So you're at Silverado Trail. You head east up the ... what's that road? . It goes up to Lake Hennesey.

Donald Patz:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Donald Patz:
S- Sage, Sage Canyon road (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Okay. All right. All right.

Donald Patz:
How long have you loved here?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. You know, I, I ride my bike on that road. I just don't know the name of it. It's that road (laughs).

Donald Patz:
That road, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
That road. All right. So you got two cabs. What else do you have?

Donald Patz:
Um, for, for that particular project, it's just cabernet sauvignon, but, but I realized in t- I had a little excess fruit and so I created a secondary label called JML. It's a, it's my wife's Korean initials-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
Jung Min Lee, JML. And so we, we make a small amount of, uh, of a second label under that as well, which is really cool. It's a, it's a, um, line drawing of my wife's face, actually. It's really accurate. And, uh, you know, if you've ever met her, you immediately recognize who it is on the label.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
It's, it's a lot of fun. But then, um, you know, um-

Doug Shafer:
Hang on, I gotta stop you. Did we talk about the name of the first one? It's called Secret Door Winery.

Donald Patz:
Secret Door. Yeah. Secret Door Winery.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. That's the two ca- the two cabernets. Got it. Thanks.

Donald Patz:
Yep.

Doug Shafer:
All right.

Donald Patz:
And, uh, let's say it one more time. Secret Door, uh, (laughing). The, uh, the project that prob- that is the largest of what I'm doing is, um, is focused on Russian River, specifically Russian River Chardonnay and pinot noir, um, you know, brings together all of the stuff that I learned, um, with Patz and Hall. Uh, and I'm working with a number of the people that sold grapes to Patz and Hall. A- and when I started that in , I specifically told them, um, I'm not buying ... I'm not buying grapes from any site where Patz and Hall is currently purchasing grapes because I do not want it to look like I walked out the front door and tried to yank all the best grapes. Um, and, but I said after the first year, you know, all bets are off. And if grapes come up in a vineyard that I'm interested in, uh, even if Patz and Hall is currently pa- buying them, um, I I'd be interested in at least talking about it. So haven't really ended up with a lot of them. There's a couple of vineyards where there's some crossover, but mostly it's separate stuff.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
Um, and chardonnay and pinot noir, uh, are things I really love, but you know, the cool thing about this, Doug, is that, uh, after doing Patz and Hall, you know, working with the Patz and Hall and doing the Patz and Hall stuff for years, I got a chance to start over and really wipe the slate clean and just say, okay, you know, years ago when I started this stuff, this is what I thought was super important and what I wanted to drink, but you know what? I'm a little older now and different and probably want to drink something different. So let's make the wines I wanna drink today as opposed to the ones I wanted to drink in '.

Doug Shafer:
Wow. Fun.

Donald Patz:
And, uh, it was r- really fun.

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Donald Patz:
Really fun. Got to look at, you know, different vineyards and think about, um, how that might play into the style of winemaking that I was interested in doing. And so the essence of the differences have been, I'm picking grapes a little less high in sugar-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... than we used to do for Patz and Hall. Um, specifically in order to get, uh, the acid pH balance where I want it to be and make chardonnay that is refreshing and bright and, um, but yet complex and, and, you know, has the, the depth to be a serious wine. That's been an, that has been really a revelation. Uh, and then with, with pinot noir, um, a similar kind of thing. Again, picking a little less high in sugar, but I'm also using a lot more whole cluster. So we're doing %, whole cluster. And, and for me, that really brings out the pinot, that, the pinot perfume - that really exotic sort of pinot-y character that's just not like any other red grape and is sort of, for me the best thing about pinot noir. So, a lot of fun.

Doug Shafer:
And that's, uh, so that's your second project. What's the name of that one?

Donald Patz:
That's called Meritana Vineyards.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Donald Patz:
Meritana. So I-

Doug Shafer:
So the label will say Meritana? That's gonna be good.

Donald Patz:
It does, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Got it.

Donald Patz:
And strangely enough, the Secret Door actually says Secret Door on it too (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) You know, that's what I like about you. You really know what you're doing. You're a consistent guy. That's good.

Donald Patz:
Super, super consistent.

Doug Shafer:
You, you must have, you probably got s- you probably have a sales background, don't you? I bet you do.

Donald Patz:
I might (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Yeah.

Donald Patz:
I might.

Doug Shafer:
All Right. That's two. You said you got three. What else do you have? (laughs).

Donald Patz:
Yeah, I do. And so by, you know, by the, by basically the st of June of , I had both of these sort of roughed out.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
I knew where the grapes were coming from. And, um, I knew where I was gonna make the wines and, uh, I had a plan for each of those. And so I was curious because a friend of mine was at the, um, Aspen Food and Wine. And I, I was basically asking him “How is it? Is it going well this year? Or are you, um, you know, seeing the right kind of people?” Things like that. Uh, and so we had a very short conversation about that. He, he, he kinda convinced me, I didn't need to go, but, um, but I was gonna thi- continue to think about it. And sort of at the very end, sort of a throwaway moment, he says, "Oh, and by the way, I'm sitting here at the bar in Aspen with Francoise Villard from the Northern Rhone Valley and he's talking about doing another, um, California project, would you be interested?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
And I said, "I just kinda came out of a partnership. So I'm not really excited about starting another partnership. But you know what, look, have him come to California, we'll go see vineyards together. And if we like each other enough, we, we can, you know, talk about it." And so, uh, sure enough, he came out in August of . We went to see some vineyards and decided we were, we were gonna make, um, a Rhone style, California wine, uh, from, um, a vineyard up in Mendocino that I bought chardonnay and pinot from for years called Alder Springs Vineyard.

Doug Shafer:
Right, right.

Donald Patz:
And, and, uh, and so for me, um, this s- this site is really good for chardonnay and pinot, but I think it's maybe even better for these, these Rhone varieties. It's an amazing site at elevation with, um, with the crazy grower who, who will pretty much do anything as necessary in order to create fantastic wines. So I thought we'd probably do Viognier and, um, and syrah probably.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
But, um, Francoise and I went up there together and he starts running up and down the rows of Marsanne and Roussanne, and I'm like, oh my God.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
is there a more difficult cluster of grapes to figure out how to sell then a combination of Marsanne and Roussanne? This is nuts. What are we doing?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah.

Donald Patz:
But it's actually turned out to go pretty well. I think I'm actually selling a little bit more white than I am syrah right now (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
That's great.

Donald Patz:
But we did a blend, we did a blend.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
So we were doing Marsanne and Roussanne blend in . And then in , we added Picpoule blanc and Viognier to the, to the mix in small amounts. And, uh, the combination we call cepage d’or or grapes of gold or golden grapes, whatever you want to call it-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
... however you want to translate that. But, um, yeah, fermented separately, and then the blend comes together, um, usually a few months before bottling.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
Um, but I really l- I'm kind of shocked at how, how much I like drinking that white wine that a blend. Not something I originally thought I was gonna really love, but, but it's tur- I find myself sort of grabbing a bottle more frequently than I ever imagined. And then syrah, I mean, you do a syrah, petite sirah blend. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right. Right.

Donald Patz:
Which sounds like a great idea to me too but, um, my, my French partner is all about % syrah, so we're, that's what we're doing. Uh, and again, at elevation, it's extraordinary sight. So yeah, the wines have turned out beautifully.

Doug Shafer:
Great. And the name for that one is? That third project?

Donald Patz:
So I started ... I wanted to use the word Terminus because, I had some reasons for it. It's the Roman God of borders and boundaries, but somebody else had already used that. Um, although they weren't apparently currently making any or bottling any wine under that label, I just didn't wanna get in, into, you know, trademark war. So I changed it a little bit to Terminim. Sou- still sounds sort of Lat- so not U-M at the end, it's I-M. Terminim, I guess-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... which, um, for me says a couple of things. First of all, three projects is kind of the border. I mean, this is, as far as I'm willing to go.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Donald Patz:
I'm not gonna do four or five or projects. Three is plenty. Um, also driving to Northern Mendocino County is kind of a long way away. So I'm drawing the border of where I'm willing to go (laughs) at the edge of that vineyard.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That's a long haul. What is it? Five-hour drive?

Donald Patz:
It's a long, long, long drive.

Doug Shafer:
It's a long drive.

Donald Patz:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Windy roads.

Donald Patz:
So, but, um, and also because the grape varieties are coming from the Rhone Valley and I had listened to a couple of podcasts on the Roman Empire and I, I didn't realize as I lo, I'm not really sure why I, I didn't. I didn't realize how important the Rhone Valley was actually to the overall Roman Empire.

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Donald Patz:
For a lot of reasons, it was a source of not just wine, but all kinds of agricultural products and to be a- be able to run up and down that river with goods and, um, you know, uh, grain and-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... wine and all kinds of stuff was an en- and enormous benefit. So, um, there is a long history of, uh, influence in the, in the Rhone Valley from the Roman Empire. In fact, I've heard of people like plowing their vineyards and suddenly, you know, like a statue head occurs in the middle of their vineyard just got s-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Something from the Rhone -

Donald Patz:
... spit up by the earth. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
That's wild.

Donald Patz:
I was walking down this little, um, alleyway basically with all this cobble rock wall, um, you know, sort of rounded rocks and, and right in the middle of, it was a hunk of marble. I thought, that's not a local rock.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Donald Patz:
That almost certainly was brought here by the Romans. And so the, the background of the label includes, um, a sort of, a sort of a semi marbleized character that indicate that sort of Roman presence. And it's sort of, and, you know, sort of evocative of, of, uh, a different time and place-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
... but it's California and we want these to be California wines. They're not supposed to be like wanna be Rom- uh, Rhone wines. They're, they really are California wines that we, that we really like.

Doug Shafer:
Nice, nice. So where are you gu- where are you making the wines? You're making them all in the same place?

Donald Patz:
No. You know, I really w- part of it was, I wanted to be able to separate cabernet from the chardonnay and pinot project.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
And, um, because it's a different mindset. And, you know, the guys in c- in the Napa Valley are really used to doing Napa Valley cabernet-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Donald Patz:
... where in Sonoma they're good at winemaking, but, you know, slightly different mindset. Um, and vice versa. You know, I wanted to do, um, Russian River pinot noir and chardonnay in a particular style that probably is quite different from a lot of Calif- Napa Valley people.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Donald Patz:
Um, and so I, I separated them on purpose. And so I'm making the cabernet again, custom crush, sort of the way we started Patz and Hall, um, in Calistoga had a winery there called Envy Winery and the chardonnay and pinot project now at, um, Grand Cru Custom Crush in Windsor, and they have been fantastic with chardonnay and pinot noir for me. And so I write the work orders and oversee it, but they've got the teams in place to run to, you know, to actually do the work.

Doug Shafer:
You got it going. So you got three new projects, you got a lot going on and just, I'm a little bit scared to ask you got anything else going on, anything new I should know about?

Donald Patz:
Uh, no (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs). Okay, good, good, good.

Donald Patz:
You know, just, just living the life, man. I mean, you know, like I, I'm leaving tomorrow to go down to Southern California to see my mom who is years old now. And, um, I'm glad to still have her with us. Uh, but she's had some health problems recently. So, um, you know, you worry about all kinds of s- other stuff. It's, uh, it's, as you well know, r- um, doing wine and running a wine businesses is a- is really all consuming. It's not just a, you know, roll into work at o'clock and think about leaving at :. Even if you want to, it just won't let you.

Doug Shafer:
No, yeah.

Donald Patz:
And, and you know, so I'm in that same situation, I'm super busy with all kinds of stuff, but at the same time, I think you have to, you have to have time for family stuff as well.

Doug Shafer:
Good. Well, I'm glad you're going down to see her, but, uh, so these three new projects-

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
... how do people get ahold of them? How do they find these new wines? You know, they're, everybody knows about Patz and Hall-

Donald Patz:
Well, there-

Doug Shafer:
... but that's, that's that's history now. What, uh, the new stuff, how'd they find it?

Donald Patz:
Yeah. You can ... um, if you do a Google search on Donald Patz, my new stuff all pops up. So I have a, I have several websites. I've g- the, the one probably to start from is donaldpatzwinegroup.com.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Donald Patz:
Donaldpatzwinegroup.com. Um, or they can email me at, um, donald@donaldpatzwinegroup.com (laughs), um, and I'll be happy to give them additional information, but, uh, each of, each, each wine project has its own website too. So there's one for Meritana Vineyards, there's one for Secret Door Wines and there's one for Terminim Wines.

Doug Shafer:
Good. Lots of options. Lots of ways to go. And I want to try the, uh, the new white wine. So, um, can you bring a bottle of lunch sometime, you know, when we can get back to having lunch, please?

Donald Patz:
Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It's time to start that again. I'm really glad that you brought that up because, um, I think you owe me lunch this time.

Doug Shafer:
I do owe you lunch.

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
And I'll, I'll bring a bottle of cabernet just to show you how you really make it. Oh God, did I really say that?

Donald Patz:
I'm sure that you will ... I'm sure you will try.

Doug Shafer:
Just to sh- just to show you how Elias makes it. There you go (laughs).

Donald Patz:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
All right, man. Donald so good to hear your voice and catch up with you and, uh, thanks for sharing your story.

Donald Patz:
Yeah. It's really fun. I'm glad that you c- I'm glad that we got in touch two years later (laughs) to do this.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) All right. All right. I'm buying lunch. I'm buying lunch.

Donald Patz:
No, no, it's great, it's great to be able to chat with you about it too. And, 'cause we haven't had a chance to really talk about all of this stuff one-on-one. So it was fun to do it today. I felt like we were just having you and me have a con- a conference and uh, and let's, let's cl- include some other people and let them hear about it today too.

Doug Shafer:
We will, we will.

Donald Patz:
And thank you again for the opportunity.

Doug Shafer:
You bet, buddy. Great talking to you. Be good. Safe travels.

Donald Patz:
Thank you.

Doug Shafer:
All right. See ya. Bye.

Donald Patz:
Bye.

Full Transcript

Doug Shafer:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Taste. This is Doug Shafer, and today we've got one of my favorite Stags Leap District neighbors. We do a lot of things together, usually promoting Stags Leap District in the Napa Valley, but I've never had a chance to hear her whole story. So today is the day. Welcome to Elizabeth Vianna, general manager, winemaker of Chimney Rock Winery. Elizabeth, how are you doing?

Elizabeth Vianna:
I'm doing great, Doug. Thanks so much. This is so cool for us to actually get to chat a bit.

Doug Shafer:
I know, because we're usually at these things and we're, you know, promoting wine, talking wine, and it's like, you know, we never have a chance to say, "Hey, you know, what's going on in your life?" So. So I'm-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly. I know. You've, you've had dinner at my property. I've had dinner at your property-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... but we never get to chat. So.

Doug Shafer:
I know. All we do is-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Good to fix it.

Doug Shafer:
All we do is tease each other about our wines in front of people. That's always fun.

Elizabeth Vianna:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Um, so anyway, a lot to cover here. We've got the Chimney Rock story for anyone who doesn't know that, but, but there's your story, which I'd, I'd like to start with. I, 'cause I think it's pretty cool. So let's start there. It starts in Brazil. Is that right?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. So I am Brazilian-born. My dad's Brazilian. Um, my mom is from El Salvador. I was born in Brazil and sort of grew up all over. Um, I was in Brazil, zero to three. I'll kin- kinda make it short, that I, we hopped to the U.S. lived in the U.S. from three to nine. Went back to Brazil, nine to 16.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
And then back to the U.S., so, an adventurous in childhood (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
That must have been, uh, you know, as children, we, we just roll with the punches, but looking back on it, was that traumatic? I don't know. Probably not, but, or was it exciting? Or it just was, what was it, what's your recollection of going back and forth like that?

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, I, I think my, my parents lead, led by example. And kind of always made it seem like it was an adventure. Um, I, I can't even remember how many different schools I went to, but, uh, we lived in Los Angeles. We lived in Illinois. We lived in Massachusetts.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
And then we went back to Brazil. So I would say that it was challenging for a kid. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You're like the new kid in school. I know, I know we have that in common. I know you got to move your last year of high school too. And I, uh, I think, you know, in retrospect, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Because it, it's, it made me who I am. Right? And I'm kind of an adaptable human being. And I love people because, you know, I got exposed to a lot of different things at a young age. So. Um, not traumatic, but definitely challenging.

Doug Shafer:
Of course, and, but, but you're right. It makes you flexible. I mean, we're, and adaptable. We were talking about silver linings before we started. Um, and that's one. I mean, you're able to, 'cause I, I've seen you in action. You can, you, you can handle or deal with anybody anytime (laugh). So, I mean, you, you've got that, that, that knack, which is really cool. But what was, wha-, why were you guys moving? What was it? Was your, is your dad's career, or your mom's?

Elizabeth Vianna:
My dad's career.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. So dad, dad's a chemical engineer.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Uh, and he, uh, started actually in the sugarcane business. Um, so mostly import-export from Brazil in the beginning. Then he got a job, with a small company in Los Angeles. Worked there for a year. Then he got a job with, um, you'll laugh at this, with Dicalite, which is a company that produced diatomaceous earth.

Doug Shafer:
Oh yeah. I remember Dicalite Forever.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. Remember that? Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
For D, DE fi-, DE filtrations in the winery (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
So, so d- dad was working for Dicalite, and then he ended up working for, um, a subsidiary of, um, Raytheon out of Massachusetts. And Raytheon was dealing with petrochemicals, and, uh, th- they actually moved my dad back to Brazil. So we lived in Massachusetts for a little bit, and then they decided they wanted him to open an area division down in Brazil for them. And, uh, so we went back down there. And then (laughs)-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And then from there, he worked for Petrobras, who brought him back to the U.S.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
So, um, just, you know, kind of full circle.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Citizen of the world.

Doug Shafer:
Um, any siblings?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. We're, um, we're a good traditional Latin family.

Doug Shafer:
There you go (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
We are, um, we are six kids.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I know, big family. Uh, big, big and complex. Uh, dad was married before he met my mom. So I've got three sisters, but we're very close, from his prior marriage. And then, um, my parents had four biological kids, and then, uh, actually adopted my sister. So that actually makes eight, isn't it?

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Well, that's great. Big families. That's fun.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I know. Yup.

Doug Shafer:
And, and so, growing up, uh, was there wine in the house? Was that around, and were you exposed to that? Or, or I'm, I'm always curious about that.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Absolutely. Yeah. So my-

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... dad definitely had an affinity for the fine things in life. He loved good wine. Uh, he had a- actually, he prided himself at, in once buying two bottles of the 1945 Mouton Rothschild-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... um, from a restaurant closing sale in San Paulo. So he, he definitely appreciated fine wine. And, um, I think this is probably kinda crazy, but in Brazil, you know, my parents, they would pour us a little splash and they would let us taste things that were at the table. So it was definitely part of the table for us.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, but I, I didn't really, didn't think about it in depth at that point. But it was there, it was definitely a part of our, our make up.

Doug Shafer:
That's great to hear. Um, I've done that with my kids. They're all ... Well, you know, you know, they've grown up (laughs) a lo-, around a lot of great vines in winemaking, so, um, they've seen it forever. Um, and so, but, uh, moving around, uh, did, when you hit high school, was that in one spot or was that still moving from place to place?

Elizabeth Vianna:
No. No. No such luck. I got to go to three different high schools.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, man. That's tough.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Uh, I know, I know.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Elizabeth Vianna:
First year, first year was in Brazil. Second year, Massachusetts. Last two in New York, right outside of New York City. So, uh, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Uh, that's tough-

Elizabeth Vianna:
But like, like I said, you know?

Doug Shafer:
... high school years.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. High school years. That, that's not my favorite period. I will say that (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
No. I can't blame you. Were you, were, were you, what were you, were you in day activities, or was it tough because you kept moving around?

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, my first love was actually music. And, um, I started playing piano when I was like seven years old. So music became kind of the way that I would bond with people. Right? So I could immediately like join choir ... and do this. And, um, music was always my kind of connector. So that, that actually kinda helped me at least connect with like the musical kids right away. Um, so I had, I had my tools. That was one of my s-, tools (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Nice, nice. I'm glad you had that. Um, I had that too. It was, um, I was in concert choir, this, in Chicago. And, uh, it was a big, big school. And, um, if, you know, music department, band orchestra. They put on a, uh, musical every year. And then also, sports was a big, big thing. So after high school, where, where, where to?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So it's funny. My, I was literally on the career track of becoming a concert pianists.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
That's I was thinking. I had studied with a couple of great teachers in Brazil, and then one at the Boston Conservatory. Um, and I was going to apply to like Juilliard and, uh, the music school up at Rochester. And then kinda last minute, I, you know, just took a deep dive and, and thought, "Do I really wanna play music for a living? Or will that, will that take something away from it?" It was, music had been kind of my, you know, my happiest place. And I, I literally got scared that somehow if I had to make a living doing it, it would take away from it.

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So, lo and behold, I surprised my parents and said, "No. You know what? I'm gonna apply to liberal arts schools. I think I'll c-, I'll continue to play, but I wanna explore other areas." And, um, and, and so, I applied to liberal arts schools instead, and ended up, uh, landing at Vassar for my undergrad, um-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... where I spent four years. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Well, nice. So you finally got one place for four years. That must have been kinda nice. Yeah (laughs)?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh, it was amazing. You know what? I finally belonged somewhere-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... for the, for the first time in my life. And Vassar was a pretty, uh, perfect school for me because there were kids from all over. Uh, a lot of them ha- had also had similar experiences where they moved around or, um, they're from all over the place. And I just felt like I fit in there, you know? And, uh, so it kind of erased tho- those like high school years pretty quickly for me.

Doug Shafer:
Good. Good. I'm glad you had that (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
So that, so, uh, you know, college, was it, was it beer? Was it wine?

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, it was beer.

Doug Shafer:
Or both? All above (laughs)?

Elizabeth Vianna:
It was, it was beer and wine, but definitely not high-end wine. I'll just say, I, I recall a, you know, probably bottles of Hardy Gallo burgundy-

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... at parties in my group. So at that point, it was about cost. Right? It wasn't about, um, sophistication. So, so, but, but wine was present-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... certainly in a, in it's, in a very, uh, weird stage (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Right. I'm with you. It was just, it was there, but it wasn't like, you weren't thinking of a career in wine at that point.

Elizabeth Vianna:
No at all. Not at all.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Just wanted to clarify that. Okay, good. So Vassar, you get out. And Vassar in when, um, what year?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So I graduated in '89. And basically, I had majored in biology. And I was pre-med. and I'd gone from, you know, wanting to play music to thinking I needed to save, uh, children (laughs). So I, uh, I now wanted to become a pediatric oncologist. We had a family friend who had been a mentor, who I loved, who was a pediatric oncologist, and I think he kind of inspired me. And I mean, I was taking it pretty seriously. I did an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital like one summer in college. And, um, I, I really, you know, I, I thought I was really committed. And ... um, get out of college and decide, "Well-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
"... let's not quite go to medical school just yet. Let's um ..."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I, I had dreamt of living in New York City. This was like a thing in my mind, that in order to live a full life, I had to live in New York City for a year or two, or whatever. And so, I applied for a couple of jobs, uh, in New York. Um, the first one that I got ended up being in research. So I got a job at Cornell Med School in New York City, doing, uh, developmental neurobiology research.
And it was just a means for me to, you know, make a living while I lived in New York and kinda, um, enjoy life before I went off and borrowed money, and went to medical school. And, um, ironically in that period, I was hanging out with a buddy of mine from Vassar, and his dad, um, their Wall Street guy, and had collected a lot of great wine and had some, some great wines in the cellar. Like, you know, Grand Crus, First Growths. And, um, he was very generous and shared these wines with us. And he bought these all like in the '70s.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So they had some age and, um, you know, they're, they're am-, they're amazing. There were like nothing I had ever had. Um, and that sort of started though, wait a minute, this is, this is a lot more than I ever realized. Um, those ones kinda stopped me in my tracks, literally. So it became kind of a hobby, you know, so I started going to tastings in New York and reading the Wine Spectator, and ... you know, getting my coffee of Hugh Johnson. And suddenly, it was becoming a little bit of an obsession.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, and I, and I, and I'm still working and having a great time in New York. You know, you're in your 20s in New York. You're enjoying theater and music, and making friends all over. It was, it was just a great, great period of my life, you know? And suddenly, I, I realized, "Wow, six years have passed and here you are, you're still working in New York. No med school, what, you know, what's, what's next?"

Elizabeth Vianna:
So I happened to go to a tasting, uh, pre-auction tasting at Christie's, and, uh, Christian Moueix spoke at that. And he talked about going to UC Davis's graduate program in winemaking at this talk. And that was kind of my light bulb. You know, said, "What? A program in winemaking."

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
"Uh, that sounds interesting." So I like immediately, uh, wrote to Davis, got the application, and, um, put it in a drawer. I was like, "You're crazy. You're not doing that. That's, that's nuts."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
And then I, I, I remember having brunch with a really good friend of mine who's in the movie business, and he, um, I sat down and I was like, "John, I have this crazy idea." Like, "I'm thinking maybe about going to winemaking school." And he knew me really well, he's a really, really close friend to this day. And he said, "That's it. I can see it, do it."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
And I, and I said, "John, I think, let me wait for a year. Let me sit on this for one more year. And then if I'm still gung-ho in a year, maybe I'll do it." And he said, "Don't wait. If you wait, you won't do it. Just do it." So, you know, I went back to that drawer, pulled out the application. Filled it out, and, um, applied to Davis. And what's serendipitous about where I was is, at this point, I was working at a clinical lab. And I had become kind of an expert in HPLC and, uh, GC mass spec. Which as you know, were the analytical instruments that you use to measure aroma compounds in wine, and phenolics, and-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So I had a skill that, um, and I had all the science classes that would help me get into Davis. So applied, got in. And next thing you know, Doug, I'm starting at Davis in '97.

Doug Shafer:
I go- ... That's crazy. So, uh, I gotta ask you a question. Before you heard Christian speak, had you ever heard of UC Davis? Did you know there was like a wine school?

Elizabeth Vianna:
I, I hadn't.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
I hadn't thought ... I, honestly, I had been-

Doug Shafer:
That's crazy.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... exploring wine as a consumer. You know, and I hadn't even really started to think about the process, or, or production, or vineyards. I had not stepped foot in a v-, in a winery.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Have you ev- ... Yeah. Had you been to the vine-, uh, the wine country, or vineyards-

Elizabeth Vianna:
I-

Doug Shafer:
... in upstate New York? Anything?

Elizabeth Vianna:
... you know, I had been to two little wineries in New Mexico-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... as my exposure to a physical winery. Like, how funny is that? So-

Doug Shafer:
It's wild. I mean-

Elizabeth Vianna:
I know, kind of insane.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. 'Cause I was, one of my questions is, how, how did you find Davis? So it was Christian Moueix ta-, Moueix talking.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Christian, he, he he's responsible. And I had a glass of 1985 Socien du moelleux in my hand when he mentioned that. So I call that my aha wine.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Because it-

Doug Shafer:
That's when it happened.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... it was, it was what was in my hand when I made the decision that would like change the course of my life completely. So.

Doug Shafer:
That's great. So Christian, for those of you who don't know, he's the, um, proprietor of Dominus here in Napa, and also, uh, a fairly famous little winery called, um-

Elizabeth Vianna:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Petrus in France?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Ye- yeah. Petrus (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
So, all right. So you g-, apply, you get accepted. All of a sudden, you're in Davis, California. That's not New York, Dorothy.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
And, uh (laughs)-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... um, in the master's program. So how was, how was that? Was anybody, uh, anybody there, classmates that, um, stand out, you got to know well? There's, any business now?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, g- going to Davis was like going to heaven ... suddenly, right? Like, I'm obsessed with wine, and suddenly I'm in a room with people who were equally obsessed. Um, so yes, absolutely made lifelong friends there. Um, I, I'm sure you know some of them. Robbie Meyer was in my class. Sally Johnson up at Pride was in my class.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, let's see, Merissa Taylor up at Rutherford Hill.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, Andy Erickson and Helen came the year after me. So they w-, they, they were, they were there. Who else was in my class? Anyway, these are ... Matt Rorick, who has a-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... little brand called Forlorn Hope.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Tim Milos also. A really, really good friend, uh, and, you know, continue to be to this day. I mean, it's kind of this family that you instantly form.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
When you, when you get to Davis. So, um, amazing time there. And I, I started, I finally stepped foot in a winery, a real winery, uh, in 1998. Uh, Peter Luthi of Trefethen gave me my first internship.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, cool. Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
I remember Peter. Good, at Trefethen.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Y- yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Which is great.

Elizabeth Vianna:
At Trefethen.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And P-, and Peter, Trefethen was reputed at the time that I was at Davis to have one of the best internships. 'Cause Peter really made sure that people kind of rotated through every aspect, you know? So I, I, I got to do everything.

Doug Shafer:
Mm.

Elizabeth Vianna:
From bottling to, you know, to cork trials, to vineyard stuff, to learning how to take apart a ball valve.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
It was like, it was comprehensive. And, uh, I still remember, you know, probably my f-, one of my first day is on the internship, like just looking up at the sky, seeing a red, a red-tailed hawk go by and thinking, "Wow. I, I, I can't, I can't believe I'm, I did this."
You know? Uh, just kind of knew that it was the right thing for me, uh, instinctively and, and that this is where I was meant to be. It's bizarre. It makes no sense, but that's what it was (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
No, that's great. And, uh, just for fun, how, how were your parents on this one? 'Cause they probably never saw this coming either.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. You know, my dad had the, the, had paid that bill for that Vassar education.

Doug Shafer:
Right (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
I'm, I'm not, I'm not sure what, what he thought, but, you know, my parents had always been supportive of any endeavor. Whether it was the music thing, and then when I changed my mind about music. Um, so they, you know, I, I think they, they were a little skeptical but supportive nonetheless. And, um, I think they have not come to regret being supportive. They now call me when it's time to send them another shipment of wine.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So (laughs) I think they really, they, they enjoy the perks.

Doug Shafer:
That's great. Yeah. I've got the same situation with the family, "Hey, dad, I need some wine (laughs)." 

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly. I bet.

Doug Shafer:
So Trefethen, and then, uh, you did other internships while you were at Davis?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. So my second internship, um, was at Chimney Rock.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I, yeah, I was, I went to the job fair while I was in, at Davis. And, um, Leilah Backhus was the assistant wine maker at Chimney Rock at the time. And she was a good friend of mine. You know, we had been, um, schoolmates, and she was like, "Oh, come work at Chimney Rock. We'll have so much fun." And, um, I took the job, of course, and, uh, you know, I knew I wanted to make Cabernet from the get go.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Like, that, that was always my grape. I knew that that's what I wanted to do. So Chimney Rock was a pretty sweet place to, to get that second internship, you know, with the estate vineyards right around the winery. Um, just a really great learning, learning place. And I, I loved it here. The vineyards were spectacular. I just, I just loved the place. Doug Fletcher was the winemaker at the time.

Doug Shafer:
Oh Doug, yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And yeah, and he was, you know, he was just a Renaissance man. We, we laughed a lot. He loved opera and classical music, so we connected on that level as well. And, um, yeah, had a great internship at Chimney Rock.

Doug Shafer:
Oh yeah. And Doug's a great, great winemaker. I bet he was a great, uh, mentor, you know?

Elizabeth Vianna:
He was.

Doug Shafer:
I'm sure he was, I can see that.

Elizabeth Vianna:
He absolutely was.

Doug Shafer:
Miss him. I haven't seen him in a while. Um, so after graduation, what happens?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So after graduation, I, um, started applying for jobs. You know, and of course, you're just out of Davis. And in my mind, I, I had a vision of what I wanted. Right? Like, an estate-grown small winery.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Something like Chimney Rock.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, and, um, I stumbled upon a job position at, um, Napa Wine Company. And it was a lab director position. Uh, and, you know, I go for the interview and I'm like, "God, it's a really big place." And, you know, it, they don't have any, they, they do have some vineyards, but you know, it, it, it wasn't what I envisioned for myself. So I remember I actually called Doug and I said, "Let's have lunch. Um, I, I need, I need some, some counsel."
And, um, at the time at Napa, this was 2000. Um, this was, um, before a lot of, a lot of little wineries hadn't been built. So, um, like Heidi Barrett was making her wines there. Celia was making Staglin there. Um, who else was there? Erin Green was making all of Pahlmeyer there. Nickel & Nickel was being made there by Doris Fanelli.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So, so Doug basically turned to me and said, "Well, duh, this is a great opportunity."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I need, I-

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know?

Doug Shafer:
... I need to interrupt real quickly. For those who don't know, Napa Wine Company, a big operation, um, run by a great family. And they've, they've got their own label, but they're, they're a big business, especially back in, in this era when Elizabeth was working there, um, custom crush. So if, if you have a brand or a label and you don't have a facility, you can bring your grapes in, crush them there. And they, they, they age it, they bottle it, they do the whole thing, I think Elizabeth. Right? So.

Elizabeth Vianna:
That's exactly right. Yeah. And Andy really lo-, Andy Hoxie-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... who's the, you know, who runs it and who's just the loveliest gentleman. Um, he, he really favored bringing in the small clients who wouldn't have the opportunity to make wine otherwise, you know? I know, I know he had several GMs who tried to convince him to bring in some big boys so he could really make some money. And he was like, "No, that's not the point of this. You know, I really wanna support the folks who, who need a home."

Doug Shafer:
So, so Doug set you straight and said (laughs), "It's a great opportunity," and-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Take the job, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... "Take the job." Because as lab director, let me guess. So you're doing all the analysis basically for all these different clients.

Elizabeth Vianna:
All those wines. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So you're seeing how all these super-duper winemaker folks. Are you involved in, are you finding out what they're doing, what kinda yeast they use? What they have -

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh, everything.

Doug Shafer:
Everything?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Everything. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
You (laughs)-

Elizabeth Vianna:
I started as lab director, and then I became assistant winemaker there. So I call it my Napa Wine Company University. You know?

Doug Shafer:
Oh man, you, you learned all the secrets from everybody.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh, it was so cool.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And, and not only that, but like, it was a really warm welcome to the business. You know, Heidi would be doing like trials, and she'd be like, "Elizabeth, come over. Taste with me."

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know? Uh, Aaron Green would do the same. Like, it was such a ... Pam Starr was there. I mean, there were so many people. Uh, John Gibson was making Frazier there. There were ... I mean, Sean Catheo.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I, I could go on. There are so many like the who's who of Napa, right, were making wine there. Um, so I just can't tell you how grateful I am for that period.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Uh, it was, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Well, because, yeah, because if you're at your own place by yourself where you got your assistant winemaker maybe, or something like that, it's just, that's all you have is your fruit and your wines and that's it. It's um-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly. And, and, and also just the discovery, you know, that there's a lot of routes to making great wine.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right? Um, there's a lot of ways to do it. There's a lot of different approaches, philosophies. And to kind of get exposed to all of that under one roof, um, was just, you know, kind of a great, um, a great launching pad, I think for me. And a great way to get to know, um, get to know all of Napa, you know? So.

Doug Shafer:
Well, you get to know people, you get to know growers. You find out, you, you kinda get, you know, because that's like, when we start sourcing grapes, you know, you see, it's usually somebody who knows somebody, who knows somebody. You know, that type of thing. So. I gotta ask you one question, did you meet a guy named Randy Mason?

Elizabeth Vianna:
I love Randy Mason.

Doug Shafer:
You p-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Randy Mason was the best (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
You-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yes, absolutely. He was making his Sauvignon Blanc there.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, and this was like before Pomelo. He was making just the Mason brand.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
And he was also the winemaker for, for Napa Wine Companies, uh, wines at that time.

Doug Shafer:
Right. He, uh, he's just retired a few, a few months ago. But, um, have yo-

Elizabeth Vianna:
I haven't seen him in like forever.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, he's doing great. You probably don't know that he and I have quite a relationship. He, um, he was my first boss in the business.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh, and I didn't know that.

Doug Shafer:
Did, there you go. That's why we-

Elizabeth Vianna:
And wha-

Doug Shafer:
... do the podcast (laughs). So.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And where, where, where was that?

Doug Shafer:
That was in a little place called Lake Spring Winery, which was south of Yountville on Hoffman Lane. I think it's owned by Joel Gott now. That's, it's a facility.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh wow.

Doug Shafer:
And I started, I was his cellar rat assistant winemaker, truly just a cellar rat. God, what was the first year? In 1981. Uh, I came back from teaching school and got a job. It was just a two-man operation. And we were making Cab, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay. But Ra-, Randy, Elizabeth, you know, I had the, the, the whole oenology thing, but Randy taught me how to work a cellar. You know?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right. Right.

Doug Shafer:
And how to move wine, how to hot-wire a forklift.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
How to, you know, bottling.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
You know, filter those.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
How to wash a tank right and wrong. I mean, I was with him two or three years before I came over to Shafer, but man, that guy taught me how to ... He, production. His strength was just fantastic. It was so efficient.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So those skills stayed with me forever. And, um, he's still a very, very good friend. But, um, I figured you didn't know that one. So that -

Elizabeth Vianna:
That is a cool connection.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I, si-, six degrees everywhere you turn.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
It's awesome.

Doug Shafer:
All right. So how long were you at, um, Napa Wine Company?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So I was there from 2000 to 2002.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
A couple of years.

Doug Shafer:
A couple of years.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And Leilah Backhus, my old friend who had been Doug's assistant. Um, and this is kinda funny. Uh, she decided she was kinda bored with wine, believe it or not. I don't know how that happens, but she decided she was gonna go to medical school. So she applied to med school and, uh, got in. Now she delivers babies in Chicago.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Oh great.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And I was asked by Doug to come join him. So, um-

Doug Shafer:
That's great.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... I, yeah. And I, you know, I, I had learned a lot at Napa Wine Company, but I really was ready to get my feet in the vineyards. Like, that was the component that I was missing there in some ways. And so, I came running 'cause I knew it was a Cab estate and, um, and Doug and I had gotten along. And I just, I knew that was, that would be a good f-, next move.

Doug Shafer:
Super. So, so off to Chimney Rock you go. So let's take a break from your story. Um, give us the, give us the Chimney Rock story.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. So Chimney Rock, uh, kinda got started in the early '80s. You know, so kinda that heyday post-Paris tasting of '76, right?

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Which kinda put our little neighborhood on the map. Um, so Hack and Stella Wilson were the founders of Chimney Rock. Hack had been a Pepsi executive. He's the guy who brought Pepsi to South Africa.

Doug Shafer:
That's right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I'm sure you knew-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... Hack and Stella.

Doug Shafer:
I did.

Elizabeth Vianna:
They decided, uh, in the late '70s that they were interested in owning a winery. They, they first actually went shopping in Bordeaux-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... and, um, Hack actually knew Alexis Lashine. And Lashine's counsel to him was, "You should go look in Napa. Napa is gonna be, uh, uh, the next great region-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... that's developing.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. And so, so, a-

Doug Shafer:
A Frenc-, a Frenchman said that. What do you think? That's g-, that's great.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Y- yeah. How about that? How about that? Um, anyway, he came out and found this 140-acre property and bought it. And as you know the history, it was an 18-hole golf course at the time (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
It was a great course.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And-

Doug Shafer:
Uh, I used to play with my dad all the time (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. And that, and that-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Just, you know, just a mile away from the home ranch here. It was great. No, it's okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. And we still, we still find golf balls out there, by the way.

Doug Shafer:
I know (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Spirit, the spirit is still alive.

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, anyway, they pulled out the f-, the, you know, the first nine holes. Planted some vines, and first vinage of Chimney Rock was 1984. And, um, you know, Hack's kids were not really interested in taking over the business at the time.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
And so, Hack knew that he had to find somebody to, you know, make, continue to make his dreams come true about this super premium, you know, appellation dedicated, uh, Cabernet house. And, uh, the, the story goes that he, it was sold at a blind auction. And it was sold not to the biggest bidder, but, uh, to the family that Hack thought would make the investments that he thought were required to make the property really blossom.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And that family was the Terlato family out of Chicago, as you know.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, so they, uh, they became part owners in 2000, and then, uh, full owners in 2003.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. And then, they also owned, or still do I think, Rutherford Hill Winery up the street.

Elizabeth Vianna:
They do.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Elizabeth Vianna:
They own Rutherford Hill. And then they also own Sanford down on the Central Coast. And, uh, they've actually just bought a little vineyard up in Washington. They have a Klipsun Vineyard, which is a famous vineyard up there. So they've continued to make some investments. And, uh, and, and, and actually a little bit of, uh, property in Friuli as well. I don't know if you know about that.

Doug Shafer:
No.

Elizabeth Vianna:
But there's a Terlato Pinot Grigio, as you know, they, uh, the patriarch of the family, Tony Terlato, who sadly we lost-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... um, last year, uh, Tony really was the guy who put Pinot Grigio on the map in the U.S. ... with, uh, the Santa Margarita brand. And, uh, so they, they really wanted to pursue their own brand and, uh, started doing that a few years ago as well.

Doug Shafer:
That's neat. I like that. So they, they took over ownership, I think it was 2004. And then, um, in 2005, what happened to you?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So yeah, I, I, Doug got me the, you know, the head honcho, VP winemaking for all the properties. And, um, I, I got promoted to winemaker. So my first, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... head wine-making gig at Chimney Rock had been here for three years and, uh, just jumped right in.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, that's neat. And then you were, but you were still working with Doug 'cause he was overseeing all the properties of the Terlato's.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Cool.

Elizabeth Vianna:
absolutely. And Doug, Doug was super involved-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... in the vineyards. He, he kinda let me do the winemaking, but he was very much, um, involved in, you know, all of the farming, et cetera.

Doug Shafer:
I would guess that was probably a pretty smooth transition. Yeah. Knowing Doug.

Elizabeth Vianna:
It was-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
It was very smooth. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Nice. Nice.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Really easy, really easy.

Doug Shafer:
So you didn't get thrown into the, you know, the big pot. Like, "Good luck. See yeah. (laughs)"

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly. No, not at all. Not at all.

Doug Shafer:
So you're making wine, and then, uh, something cool happened in 2009, I found out. And which I did not know about. I think-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh, that's funny.

Doug Shafer:
... uh, went back to Davis. They asked you back. What happened there?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. I got-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... uh, I got a phone call, uh, uh, and I was asked to do a commencement speech for the, the Graduate School of Sciences. Which, I, I mean, I have to tell you.

Doug Shafer:
What (laughs)?

Elizabeth Vianna:
I was 10, I was 10 years out of school.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I was like, "What do I have say (laughs)?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
I'm like, uh, you know, I'm, uh, I, I don't know. I don't know, but I, I of course, heard the call to action. I was like, "Listen, if somebody thinks you have something to say, maybe you do. Maybe you should just, you know, listen." And so, I, I did the commencement speech to a room of 5,000 people (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Which was-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... whi- which was definitely my biggest public speaking gig, uh, till then. Um-

Doug Shafer:
Super. What was, do you remember what the topic was? I'm curious.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, I think I talked a lot about, um, I talked a lot about getting to know the people and, and keeping your relationships with people that you're in school with.

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Because they become your professional family. And kind of drawing a parallel to how, how that had transpired for me. Um, and that, and tha-, and that's a true story. When I went to Davis, I remember I went to the, um, like the welcome barbecue. And I was talking to Roger Bolton and I said, "So Roger, like, if you were to sum, you know, what I should get out of Davis in one sentence, like, what would that be?" And he said, "Get to know your peers."

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, "Taste with them, spend time with them, nurture those relationships." And that, that surprised me, that that's what he said, you know? I thought he would, uh ... And, um, and I, but I took his advice to heart. And, um, you know, I think, uh, not just the network of people that you went to school with that was in your class, but beyond that. Right? Davis does become a family. And then, once he moved to Napa, it's all one big ha-, you know, happy family.

Doug Shafer:
Right. Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So.

Doug Shafer:
You know, we are, and people, you know, w-, I tell people that, and they kinda look at me like, "Come on, you bs'ing me ." You know, "You guys all don't, you, you guys all don't get along that well." It's like, "Well, yeah, we do." I mean there's really no animosity. We're all kinda working with mother nature and hoping for a good year. And nobody wishes ill will on anybody else around here.

Elizabeth Vianna:
No.

Doug Shafer:
It's like, "Let's, let's all-

Elizabeth Vianna:
I mean-

Doug Shafer:
"... let's all grow ho- ... You know, let's have a good season, get some grapes and make some wine and go for it, and .."

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. And I, I think that's unique to Napa in some ways.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
I think the sense of comradery here is sort of extraordinary. I can't say that I've visited a wine region where I felt kinda those ties as, you know, as strongly. And I, and I honestly, Doug, like, that's how I feel. I believe that, I, I don't care if, you know, a consumer drinks my neighbor's wine. What we all want is, um, to have, uh, a greater appreciation for wine, I think in our culture, um, ultimately. And of course, we want our businesses to do well. But whether love Shafer or they love Chimney Rock, or they love, you know, Clos du Val, like there's plenty of wine to go around.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And there's plenty of people, right?

Doug Shafer:
Well it’s fun.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So we do-, we, we don't have to compete.

Doug Shafer:
No, God, just one wine in the world (laughs) would be really boring.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Exactly. Exactly.

Doug Shafer:
I gotta, I gotta tell you a funny story. When you're talking about Davis grad school experience, I had, gosh, I was probably about 35, 36, 37. And s-, they, they might still do it. They had a, during the spring. Yes, they have a Friday afternoon, Friday evening barbecue. But the deal was, they'd get a speaker come in and speak to the oenology grad students, you know, for an hour or so. You know-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... a little talk, a question after you probably have done it.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And then afterwards, you, there's a barbecue with his grad students and hang out, and chit chat and all that. And so, they asked me to do it. I said, yes. And then I was like, "Oh no, grad students." 'Cause I was, I was never in grad school. I was, I got a teaching credential, but, you know, in oenology I was just undergrad. And the grad students-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... were always those, those older people. Those-

Elizabeth Vianna:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... really (laughs), those really mature people. You know, s-, you know, it's like, "And they're really smart 'cause they're grad students." So. All of a sudden, you know, I'm 36 years old going, "I gotta prep this talk to grad students. What am I gonna do? They're so smart."

Elizabeth Vianna:
That's hilarious.

Doug Shafer:
"They're so smart. And I'm scared. I'm, I've never ..." You know, by this point, I'd been on the road for 10 years doing winemaker dinners and sales meetings, and everything. And I was, Elizabeth, you woul-, you would have cracked up. I remember Elias was like, "Why are you sweating it so much?" (laughs) And I said, "Because they're grad students." And so, I, I worked on this like speech. You know, you know, um, got a talk with talking points and what my experience has been and, you know, challenges I've had, and successes I've had. And I threw in some jokes and, you know, I got in, and it was like 30 students in this room. Was a Friday afternoon at four o'clock, and, and they were so young (laughs). They were so-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh (laughs), that's hilarious.

Doug Shafer:
They were like, they looked like they're in high school. And I, you know, I, I'd laid out the whole thing, and they all kinda just looked at me. You know, knowing maybe a couple of questions. I was thinking, you know, there's gonna be a lot of questions. No, a couple. And it's like, "Let's go have a beer and have a barbecue." And that was that. But boy-

Elizabeth Vianna:
That's funny.

Doug Shafer:
... ain't that funny?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Perspective, right?

Doug Shafer:
Grad, grad students. Grad students.

Elizabeth Vianna:
This perspective. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Anyway.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So, you know, your, your life, your career, pre-med track, all science, you go into winemaking, a couple of different jobs, winemaker. And then, and then you get, uh, general manager. When did that happen at Chimney Rock?

Elizabeth Vianna:
So that happened in 2011.

Doug Shafer:
Wow. 10 years ago.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And yeah, 10 years ago. And I, yeah, it's funny. The Terlato family approached me about doing that. And my first reaction was, "Wow, I'm so flattered, but, um, I really wanna keep my hands in wine and in the vineyards. That's my love." So I, I kind of said, "I, I wanna have an if, an out clause (laughs)."

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
"I'll try it out."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
"If I feel like I'm, you know, only looking at PL-, PNLs and doing spreadsheets, I, I, I wanna reserve the right to come back to you and say, 'You know what (laughs)? I, I'm not having enough time to make wine and to the vineyards.'" But, um, as it, as it turned out, um, I, it was okay. You know?

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And it was kind of learning the side of the business that I wasn't that exposed to, which was important too. Um, and I felt like we're small enough that I, I still had time for the winemaking.

Doug Shafer:
Oh good.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And I still had time for the vineyards. And, um, you know, I was definitely intimidated by it because I, I didn't have an MBA, so it was learning on the job. Uh, but, uh, but it, uh, just immensely flattered with the trust that they put in my hands. And, you know, they knew that I had a passion for the place. And their priority was, you know, quality first. That's one of Tony's mottoes. And they thought that having the winemaker in charge of the business would help keep quality the priority. And, um, so I felt very fortunate, and I've been doing it since then. So.

Doug Shafer:
Wow. What, yeah, I don't, I don't know how you do it. How do you juggle it all? You must have, you must be super organized. Well, you, you are super organized. I know that (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Well, you know, strong team. Right? We all know the-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... term winemakers a little bit of a misnomer. I have an amazing assistant winemaker, an amazing cellar master. Um, and I, I could make wine without them, obviously.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, but, uh, I still, my priority is still the wine in the vineyards, Doug. Like, I will tell you that. And, and kind of the way the business is structured. Like, we have a vice-president of direct-to-consumer, so there's somebody who's actually doing the DTC.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, kinda the logistics, et cetera.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. Well (laughs), and, and speaking to vineyards, you've got, how many, are all your vineyards in Stags Leap?

Elizabeth Vianna:
They are.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So we have a, 105 acres planted right around the winery. Um, mostly Cabernet, about 80%. A little Merlot, a little cab Franc, a little petit Verdot, a little Malbec. And, um, I don't know if you know this little secret, well-kept secret. We have a single row of fiano, uh-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... in the middle of our cab Franc, which is kind of strange. Fiano is an Italian grape from Campania, from the southern part of Italy.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And, uh, Doug, I don't know. He, I guess he went to Italy with his wife, and they had a lovely time. And he loved the grape.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
And he, he convinced Hack to plant a row. This, it's been there since 1995. And it actually does quite well in Napa's heat. Like, it, uh, retains acidity. It's like-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... it's kinda awesome.

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And, uh, it wasn't, we never made it commercially until a couple of years ago. And so, we make a whopping like 16 cases of this little Italian grape, which is kinda funny.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And then we have some, we have another vineyard that we work with for whites. And that's up in Rutherford on Mee Lane.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
So we, we have both Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris up there.

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Elizabeth Vianna:
And those are the two white grapes th- that we primarily work with.

Doug Shafer:
Super. And what's current lineup varietals-wise, as far as what you guys are selling? What do you have?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Well, in, in distribution, we do our estate cab, which is kind of the ambassador.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
It's like a blend of the entire property. And then we do our proprietary blend called Elevage. And we do, we do a number of single vineyards out of the property, but only Tomahawk is distributed in the market. Um, and then we do, uh, a white blend, which is a blend of Sauvignon blanc and Sauvignon gris. And those are kinda the four wines that go into distribution, so restaurants and retail. And then the rest of our wines are pretty small production, you know, 200 to 400 cases of this single vineyard, that single vineyard. And, um-

Doug Shafer:
And, and those-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Like-

Doug Shafer:
... are those available what, at the winery and-

Elizabeth Vianna:
At the winery, exactly.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Or, or mainly being in the club, uh, a lot of them are kind of clu- club exclusives. So.

Doug Shafer:
That's kinda neat. Tell me, yeah. If people-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... are looking for your wines, obviously restaurants, retail stores around the country, I'm, I'm assuming. But, um also, is there, you mentioned the clubs, is that another way they can do it?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. We have our little club called The Palisade Society, and, um, you basically commit to getting a case of wine a year. And you get, you know, a bottle of each of these special wines. We do, like I said, seven single vineyard Cabernets, and then we do a little bit of Cabernet Francs, some Merlot. Um, I think that, that's, that, that's kind of it. But you get those, and you get the other wines that we distribute, um, in advance of release. So, um, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty cool-

Doug Shafer:
Cool.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... club.

Doug Shafer:
Good, good to know. Um, a new projects at the winery for you, anything in the, in the hopper right now?

Elizabeth Vianna:
Oh God, no (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
No. I think-

Doug Shafer:
She says with relief. I love it.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. I think right now the focus is really, um, you know, we, we worked on getting Napa Green certified both in vineyards and winery, and we're gonna continue that. Um, so that involves, you know, quite a bit of work. And I think really, um, I think thinking actively about sustainability is front of mind. You know, given the couple of years that we've lived through in Napa, we know climate change is a reality. So I think really thinking about those things and what our long-term plans are, uh, I think that's, that's sort of where my head's focused.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Good. Good. So kinda wanna end on a personal note. So it's been a tough year. We're getting our vaccines. We're venturing back but, back out, but, uh, I saw on Instagram that you got to do something pretty cool recently. So tell me about seeing your folks after 14 months.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah. Oh-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Elizabeth Vianna:
... yeah. My, my parents are just the loves of my life. My dad is 93.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Um, and mom's 77. And I literally, prior to the pandemic, I would go see them once a month. That's how close I am to them. Um, so-

Doug Shafer:
And they live, where do they live? 

Elizabeth Vianna:
They, they live in Maryland-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... now.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Uh, with my sister. And so, um, it was, it was really challenging to be far away from them-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Vianna:
... and know that I couldn't see them. As it was for th-, you know, the entire country. We all went through the same thing. Um, but to see them, see those smiles again was, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Elizabeth Vianna:
... I, I can't even put it into words, you know, kind of the emotion. And you realize, you realize when you see each other what a tough thing you've just been through.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
You know, and, and we've all been very brave and, you know, resilient, and managed, managed our businesses, continued to work, but, um, this is stuff that really hits you at the core. Right?

Doug Shafer:
... you know, we're, we're people people, and, uh, you know, I don't care what you say about virtual and Zoom and, some things changing in the future, you know, to be more virtual. But, um, I don't know. I think people, the people's really important. Um-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... it is for me. I know that. So.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Absolutely.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I totally agree. Totally agree.

Doug Shafer:
All right. So I'm gonna get my car and run down and give you a hug in, in your parking lot. Or a virtual hug (laughs).

Elizabeth Vianna:
Uh, I know. We need to actually have lunch or something. Um-

Doug Shafer:
Well, we stop by when-

Elizabeth Vianna:
... I need that. Would be really fun.

Doug Shafer:
... we can stop by and we drink in the parking lot. Well, you know, we can tailgate. You know, as I remember seeing kids doing that. I mean, I'll pull my car and we'll sit on the tailgates in, you know, the parking lot and-

Elizabeth Vianna:
Totally.

Doug Shafer:
We can do that.

Elizabeth Vianna:
New, new Stags Leap tradition (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I love it.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Friday afternoon tailgates (laughs). Yeah, I like it.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Awesome. I love it.

Doug Shafer:
All right.

Elizabeth Vianna:
I love it.

Doug Shafer:
Elizabeth, thank you for your time. This has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Such a pleasure, Doug. Thank you. It's been an honor to, to be chatting with you.

Doug Shafer:
You bet. Well, take care. And we'll see you around. See you soon. Have a good one.

Elizabeth Vianna:
See you soon.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Okay.

Doug Shafer:
Bye. Bye-bye.

Elizabeth Vianna:
Bye.

Full Transcript

Doug Shafer:
Welcome back everybody to The Taste. This is Doug Shafer, and today we've got a great guest on. He's a longtime winemaker, I think over 20 years at Opus One Winery, Michael Silacci. He, uh, used to be my neighbor here when he made wine at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars in the mid-90s, but he, he left. He went to Oakville, to Opus and now I don't see him anymore because Oakville is really far away from Stag's Leap. So, uh, good to have him on. And, uh, Michael, welcome, welcome.

Michael Silacci:
Thank you very much, Doug. It's, uh, we spoke about this a while ago and I'm glad. I've always wanted to do it, and it just seemed we never had the, we never would able to, were able to synchronize our calendars, but this is fantastic.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
Good to hear your voice.

Doug Shafer:
You too, man. You too. And, uh, things are getting better out there in the world. So, uh, we'll be able to go have lunch together soon. I'm looking forward to that (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
Exactly.

Doug Shafer:
So anyway, got a lot to cover with you. There's your story, there's the Opus One story, but before all that let's go all the way back to the beginning. You know, where did you come from? Talk to me.

Michael Silacci:
I was born in Gilroy, California at the Wheeler Hospital at 2:53 in the morning on July 6, 1953.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
(laughs) So, so I'm a moon child.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Michael Silacci:
So I grew up in Gilroy. We, uh, lived a little bit in Morgan Hill, which is not, yeah, just on the edge of the sticks. Um, and uh, basically my formative years, I grew up on, um, my grandfather's dairy farm and we had, my grandparents both sets live close to each other.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And so I had one pair of grandparents that had plum orchard in a dehydrator. And to this day, I just loved the, uh, smell of prunes and the other, um, it was just my grandfather, he had a dairy farm, you know, and when I smell a Brettanomyces wine, I kinda like it. (laughs) But, um-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs). We're all products of our early educations for sure.

Michael Silacci:
We are. And then the, uh, third smell in the neighborhood was when I drove forklift at the, uh, at the local garlic and onion plant, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
... on the graveyard shifts. So, um, I got exposed to those types of aromas fairly early.

Doug Shafer:
You were a farm boy, you work on the, work in, in ranches and farms. Yeah?

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, yeah. And a shit kicker because you know, we'd walk down the, uh, the pasture, um, between the levees and we, that's how we fertilized. We just kick the cow pies and let the water take them around and, you know, spread it out and fertilize. So yeah, I've done it. Uh, (laughing) my boots have seen ... the bottom of my boots have seen many things.

Doug Shafer:
I love it. I love it.

Michael Silacci:
But no necks, no necks.

Doug Shafer:
Very go- Yeah, yeah. So, uh, growing up in the country, kind of the country, the sticks. And, uh, how about high school? What were you into?

Michael Silacci:
Uh, Gilroy High School, I played football. I took, uh, Latin, I took the first year of Latin knowing that the program would be discontinued, but I still wanted to start learning Latin. And then I switched to, um, uh, to German and, uh, I r- I really enjoyed school. Uh, I was, uh, in student council and just had a lot of fun and playing, you know, playing football, lots of, you know, of course you hanging out with all your friends there. But I didn't, in all of my school years, I never like was in a clique. I was, uh, like a hummingbird of cliques. I'd go from one clique to the other and just try to be friends with, uh, is- with everybody, um, 'cause I didn't wanna get, you know, I didn't wanna fall into a, a group mentality. Um-

Doug Shafer:
But I, I got to ask you, I gotta stop you for a minute because anytime I've ever heard anyone speak about Latin or taking Latin, it was just like, "Oh, I had to take it. It was a requirement, oh, I don't want to do it." So you actually, I, I got to ask you, why did you want to take Latin?

Michael Silacci:
Because it's the root of, uh, so many romance languages.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And uh, and you can understand with Greek or Latin, the meanings of many words without having to look them up in, uh, in the dictionary or now Google. That's why, that's why I took it.

Doug Shafer:
Well, it just shows that you were kind of tuned in because, um, I certainly wouldn't have been in that head space at all. So it kind of, I think that kind of leads into my next question because what happened after high school?

Michael Silacci:
Well, I didn't, uh, I was accepted at UC Santa Cruz and I decided I didn't want to go to university until I found what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I worked, um, at my, with my grandfather, I worked, um, at a local, uh, clothing store. I drove a Pepsi-Cola truck, delivering, um, cartoon glasses to Taco Bells. Um, I worked for Pepsi-Cola for a while and then I, um, decided that I was going to travel and I wasn't coming home until I found what I wanted to do in life. So I headed out to Japan.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
I stopped in, stopped in Hawaii Honolulu for just a, it was gonna be a weekend. So we went to, we went to Maui and, um, camped on a beach north of Kaanapali Beach Resort for three months and I didn't want to spend any money. So I got a job, busing tables and washing, uh, dishes at the Sea Scoop Restaurant in the Kaanapali, Kaanapali, uh, Village Resort or Village. \ And, and I hadn't been to Maui forever in a day. And I was with Steve Palumbo who's our, was, was our West Coast sales manager. Um, and we went to do an event. I, I think it was, I think it was a Ritz-Carlton.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And I said, "Hey, can I borrow the car?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And I th- I think that that resort was built on the area that I actually lived on the beach. And s- so I had come back. I had closed yet another circle.

Doug Shafer:
You, you closed the circle, but so what, what year are we talking about when you're out, out of high school?

Michael Silacci:
I graduated in 1971 and this was in '75 when I left.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And then ended up in Japan. And-

Doug Shafer:
But I got, I gotta stop you 'cause camping on, camping on- I'm just cur- I'm curious from my own ... I'm just curious. You're camping on the beach for three and a half months. How do you do that? Like, well today, maybe you couldn't do it today, but as far as, you know, legally, safety, you know, that type of thing. That was o- that was okay to do is what you're telling me.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, but we did, uh, we did have to move once because there was a hepatitis outbreak nearby.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) oh.

Michael Silacci:
And so, you know, that whole area was being, you know, we were s- we were alone.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Michael Silacci:
There was just a few of us there. Um, and, uh, so we had to find another spot, but, uh, left shortly after that. (laughing) Also some Sunday, some Sundays we'd go to Hare Krishna, uh, events, you know, where you'd chant and have great, uh, um, vegetarian food. Um, anyway, so it was, it was fun.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Okay -

Michael Silacci:
Then I went from Hawaii to Japan in, uh, in winter time - I went to Japan because I wanted to go to a place where it would be very difficult to go home. For example, let's say you go somewhere and you know how, when you first start something, um, a trip or university or whatever, you kind of you're, you're not really secure about it and, and you can easily just give up on it.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
So I wanted to go to a place that would be difficult for me to get home 'cause I had a one-way ticket if I didn't like it, or if I panicked or whatever. And I fell in love with it. I, (laughs) so I arrive on a night flight, I mean, late afternoon flight. And I showed the information booth people, the, the, um, um, what do you call it? The youth hostel-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... where I wanted to stay. And so they wrote down instructions for me, and then they called somebody over and had that person get me to, uh, the first subway. And then, then they, they got somebody to get me off at the next stop to get me on the next s- I was passed off like a baton-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
... from person to person. I arrive in the, the final subway stop in the, the police booth. They showed me how to ... I had to walk across this big park ... uh, which you'd never ... I did once in, almost did once in New York city, uh, which was foolish - at really late at night, but I, this was not a dangerous park. I ended up at the youth hostel like 9:59. And if I were to have arrived at 10:01, they would not let me in.

Doug Shafer:
Oh wow.

Michael Silacci:
They were very strict. So stayed there and then, uh, wanted to go to Kyoto to see the temples. And, um, so they, (laughs), so they pu- they put me ... I go to the train station to get a ticket and they put me on the Shinkansen which is the fast bullet train.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
I had no idea I get on this train 'cause I had never been on a train before, other than, you know, like Santa Cruz, you know, where you go through the redwoods-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
... big basin or whatever. So I get on this train and holy smokes, hold onto your hat and get your seatbelt on. Cuz, it was ... I think it was the fastest train in the world at that time. The French with the TGV were always competing with the Japanese to have the fastest train in the world. Um, so then arriving in, in Kyoto and also I had known about the Shinkansen because my grandfather was really into stuff like that. And he always said, "Look at this bullet train," and, and, uh, and so I got to write a postcard telling him that I had been on the Shinkansen, excuse me. And stayed in this, um, uh, place called Tawny House. It was a t- Tommy Matt, um, private hostel-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... and I just went back to work. And, uh, no, I went back on vacation, uh, last week of February, first week of March in 2020 ... and went to see the Tawny House just to, just to compare, you know, places where you've stayed. Um, and then from there, um, I went back to Tokyo. Um, my sister had gone elsewhere. Uh, we split up and then she was going to Tokyo so I went to meet her in Tokyo and in the youth hostel, there was a French woman. And my sister said, "Yeah, there's this French woman just wearing clogs with no socks." And s-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And so I went over and, and she was w- I was talking to her and I said, "Do you know where the French woman is without any socks?" Because she spoke perfect English. And she said, "Well, I'm French and I don't have any socks."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And so I, I gave her my favorite pair of green socks. And, and then I headed off to ... where did I go, Taiwan in, uh, then Taiwan and then Philippines ... and bumped into her by chance in a market in the Philippines. So my sister saw a Canadian woman who we had met named Ellen, and she, Debbie said, "Ellen." And then Ellen said, "Debbie." And I said, "Rashaan." And she said, "Michael."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And, um, so anyway, we had, uh, we were in ... every, every country that I visited, I stayed the maximum, uh, for a visa. If I had three months, I'd stay three months. But then-

Doug Shafer:
So you were tra- you were traveling, uh, so you're traveling, just going to different countries. So what'd you do about money? Were you working, um, how, how'd that work out?

Michael Silacci:
No, I saved up money.

Doug Shafer:
You sa- okay, so you just traveling.

Michael Silacci:
And, yeah. And, and, uh, for example, the most expensive place I would have been was Japan ... but I had actually made more money than I, uh, needed to live in, in Hawaii. So I had that money-

Doug Shafer:
Great.

Michael Silacci:
... uh, of course, camping on the beach (laughs) what are you going to spend money on it.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughs), right.

Michael Silacci:
Um, and, nd then, um, eventually made my way to, um, to Europe went to Locarno, near Locarno ... Olive Rosasco where my grandfather was from. All my grandparents came from, uh, this was, uh, the Italian part of Switzerland.

Doug Shafer:
So I, on all your travels, I gotta ask you this at some point. Um, was had the wine thing kicked in? Was that part of your traveling experience? Were you drinking wine? Were you drinking beer? I'm just kind of curious, 'cause you're in your early to mid-20s at this point. So I'm just curious about that.

Michael Silacci:
Yes. So, beer in Japan, uh, along with Sake and then in, uh, I’ll never forget this island, the Chocolate Hills are Sa- was it Saber or the Chocolate Hills? Where, y- 'cause we ha- San Miguel Beer was amazing and it was only f- you know, like five cents ... a bottle. Had some Thai beer also in Thailand, but basically it was beer, but I had, um, been turned on or my grandfather always drank wine.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And so I drank wine with him and we would go to, uh, Peter Scaglione's winery out on the Hecker pass. My grandfather (laughs), he always had a white Cadillac. He had, uh, uh, four gallon jugs in the back of his car in a cardboard box. So we go and he w- Peter, Mr. Scaglione would s- would siphon wine and fill up his jugs and they would have a glass of wine and tell dirty jokes. And then we get back in the car and go home.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And we'd have a, (laughs) a- and so I had a little bit of wine with him every now and again.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And then the first bottle of one ever purchased was, um, uh, 1974, I think, a ‘74 Robert Mondavi Reserve. And that was $7.50 and everyone thought I was crazy for spending that much money on a bottle of wine. So I li- I liked wine.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
So anyway, fast forward to when I arrive in France, I knock on the door of the woman who I had met, who I had given these green socks to and, in Paris and she, and the only French I knew was bon voyage.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And she said, if you want learn to speak French, eat well and earn money, you should pick grapes.

Doug Shafer:
Ah.

Michael Silacci:
So I got, got a haircut borrowed, a car, went to Nault and drove out in the countryside of Nault and drove into this little domain, this courtyard. And there was a fellow named George loading, loading sacks of sugar into the back of a little van. And I (laughs) said to him, 'cause I had practiced all the way down like a good Californian or a good Hare Krishna, "I want a job picking grapes. I want a job picking grapes." So I-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
I said to him, bonjour, I want a job picking grapes."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And he smiled because he had figured that that's probably all this kid knows. He said, he made me understand that if I helped him finish loading the van with, uh, the sacks of sugar, he would find a job for me because he w- he had had a full team. So we, um, went and delivered the sugar, and then he takes me over to, uh, Domaine du Grand Mouton, uh, which is Louis Metaireau's property. And I got a job there. And so I didn't speak any French, but it was like working at McDonald's if you don't read English. You just look at the pictures and press the, you know, the big Mac or whatever. And so I would just look at what other people were doing and at the end of the rows ... and it's funny, um, even though it's more of a social democracy there (laughs), you get to the end of the rows. You know, here when people are picking ... because they, they pick as a team-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
... they, when somebody finishes their row, they'll come back and help their neighbor, their neighboring row, right? There, social democracy I think at the end of the row, they have a glass of wine from the vet, and you're on your own to get to that end of the row, because you're picking, picking as a team, all right? The whole country of France, because you're all being paid the same, no matter what you do (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Okay. That's true.

Michael Silacci:
And then I would, um, follow people when they usually tell me it's time for lunch and we'd go inside. And Doug, I fell in love with two hour lunches and wine. And that's where-

Doug Shafer:
Oh, so that's where it hits.

Michael Silacci:
That's, that's where it hit.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, wow.

Michael Silacci:
And I'll never forget the time where I, where, when we went to pick at one of the reserve blocks, right adjacent to, uh, Mr. Metaireau's house. And (laughs) he came outside and he, we're all standing around the, at the end of the rows and he looks left and he looks right and he says, he asks, "Where's the Buvette?" And the foreman was trying to get away because he had forgotten to bring the Buvette. Buvette is just a little like wheelbarrow with all the wine and water. And he had to confess that he had forgotten it.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Michael Silacci:
Mr. Metaireau runs into his house and comes out with bottles of his reserve cerlie, um, uh, Muscadet which, you know, this is not an expensive wine, but it was so hot that day Doug and I was so thirsty, we just passed it around-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
... drinking out of the bottle and it was the most del- 'cause it's just a fine, fine, fine effervescence. It was just the most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life. So that's where I really ... that's where I got the, uh, uh, the bug. And what I wanted to do is I wanted ... I had read about, uh, the Compagnon which is a, a group, it's like a tradesman group, craftsman a trades group in the middle ages in France, and they worked with wood. And they would, um, they would go to one area to learn how to make, let's say wooden chairs. And then they would work during the day as an apprentice and study at night under a c- with a candle light, candle light.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And they would be there for about six months. And then they'd go to the next area of France and they would do a tour de France, a tour of France, sorry.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And they would go to each area learning how to make d- work with wood in a different way.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Michael Silacci:
And I thought, that's what I wanna do. Um, in Muscadet, I want to go to Bordeaux and then I wanna, uh, they I wanna go to, um ... I actually worked in Cognac as well.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
Then I wanna go to south ... I wanted to do a tour of France, learning how to make wine. But I realized very quickly that although I have an I at the end of my name, Silacci ... it's not, my name is not Mondavi, nor is it Winarski. (laughing) So I had an absolutely no contacts. And, and so, um, I thought the next best thing would be to go to, uh, uh, to school. But I, um, traveled a l- uh, traveled a lot there on bicycle, uh, worked, doing, making, um, doing, making decorations for Estee Lauder and Lancaster and, uh, Revlon. Um, I worked for a company called Garlin, uh, 01. It was a commune. The thing that we did that was the most fun and exciting was we were going to do something for Estee Lauder when they, um, brought out the Orient Express line of-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
So we went to the, um, the, um, train yard in Paris, where they had all the antiques. And these, you know, all the workers in, in France, they wear these blue coveralls. And so we told them we wanted to talk to them about that. And they just put, brushes said, "No, no, no, you know, no, no, no, you know, we don't know what you're talking about." So we just stuck with them. And what did the trick was when I agreed to, to have a shot of their homemade, um, of spirits. And I'm just praying that there's, this is not methanol city. And knocked back a couple and we were in like Flint. We could have whatever we wanted.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
So we built these for three, in three different perfume, perfumeries in Paris, you'd walk by and you look into the big window and you would be looking into a cabin of the orange express, like the dining car or a sleeper car. It was, it was so much fun doing that. What was also fun is that I would always get help from the staff in a perfume shop, especially when I went on my own, because I had an accent, I was alone and they felt, and I, and I gave that puppy dog look in my, from my eyes. And they'd all helped me out. Whereas when I was with the French guys, they would just be told off, or, you know, don't park in the front of the ... you know, they'd be, they'd be kind of, uh, not very pleasant with them. So, um, they often sent me alone (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That's great. So you're, so you're doing everything. And, um, so when did you ... was this point your heading home? Is that what the next step was?

Michael Silacci:
Uh, almost. I rode, um, we r- I rode bicycle to Corsica and back up to Paris and then from Paris to Stockholm and back to Paris. And then, um, I went in, I did. We did one more trip. We rode bicycle to the middle, middle of the Sahara Desert and back out.

Doug Shafer:
Hm, wow.

Michael Silacci:
And then I went to, um, came home and I, so I got (laughs), I brought a ... my mom had this old car sitting in the, in, in the yard for, um, you know, as an extra car for people like me-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
... the pro- the prodigal son. And, uh, said, "Take this car," I'm going to Davis 'cause I'm going to, I want to go to school at Davis. And, um, the car breaks down in Dixon.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And it was when it, when it ... you remember, like -

Doug Shafer:
Just eight mi- eight, yeah, eight miles away or something like that. Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
And the air was filled yet with another rumor of that of a slaughter house.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
Um, and so get the, it was a fuel pump that went out, had it fixed. So (laughs) I go to the admissions office, stand in line and, and I get my turn and the woman said, "Yes, what can I help you with?" And I, I asked her, "Well, when does the next quarter start?" And she said, "Um, in f- in four weeks or five weeks, whatever it was."

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And I said, "Great, I wanna come." And she didn't know what to say, um, 'cause I, you know, I'd f- I hadn't been out of school, you know, I didn't really think about these things. And she said, "But I, I, you can't just come.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
You have to fill out an application and, you know, the earliest you could come would be, you know, the quarter after this one." And, and so I, um, I said, okay, but it's the best thing that ever happened to me because I did get a reality check.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
Um, and I went to s- I went to, I, I hadn't been in s- in school for a few years. So I went to City College of San Francisco ... and I took typing, library science, um, chemistry, uh, trigonometry, uh, and something else, French I think. I had a full load, but I learned everything I needed to, to the infrastructure, the mental infrastructure, you know, gotta know how to type-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
... gotta know how to use the library. And then I went to school at Davis.

Doug Shafer:
So I gotta stop you. So this is great. So you're probably what, how old are you at this point? Mid 20s?

Michael Silacci:
I was 20. I was, that would have been in 1983. I was close to 30. I was, yeah, I was 30.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. Okay. Okay. And so you've been, you've been traveling for years-

Michael Silacci:
Yup.

Doug Shafer:
... for three or four or five years, and you promised yourself, you weren't gonna go to college until you figured out what you were gonna do and you left on your worldwide travels. Um, and so when you came back w- where you ca- you came back, were focused on I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a winemaker. Was that, was that the deal?

Michael Silacci:
Well, according to Corneo, Dr. O, and Dr. Singleton and Dr. Dr. Kunky, um, I had blurred vision-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
... because I told them I want to have a degree in viticulture and enology. And they said ... they chuckled. They said, "No, no, no, you can't do that. You have to ch-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I remember that.

Michael Silacci:
... you have, you have to choose one or the other." And I said, "Well, why?" And I said, "In France, they do it." And they said, "This isn't in France, son." And so I, so I chose enology.

Doug Shafer:
That's funny.

Michael Silacci:
And, but, but what I did, Doug, is I took all of the classes, 'cause I was so motivated. I didn't have to deal with the social, uh, stuff. Uh, I was really motivated on getting a degree. And so I took all the classes that were prerequisites for graduate work, because I felt I'm going to do, take my, what I have to take anyway. I'm gonna take the harder chemistry, the harder physics, et cetera, whatever I need to get into graduate school so I don't have to - because you'd ha- you'd take the, the ... if you didn't plan, you'd have to take the m- you'd have to take the higher, the harder, the upper division course, um, um, again.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
So I didn't, I didn't wanna do that. So then I, um, went to ... I decided I was gonna go. I went, went into plant science too, because I wanted to be a viticulturist. I wanted to have that side. I wanted to have ... I had my degree in ... actually I have, I have to sidestep for a second. I did my general ed at Davis, and then I took, a, a PELP. Uh, PELP is, um, Planned, Planned Educational Leave something. Program. So I, after my general ed, I went to the University of, University of Bordeaux and the Institute of Oenology and I got a degree in, it was like, uh, just in oenology.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
Uh, and then came and did an internship with Denis Dubourdieu, and, uh, so it was all white wine, some reds. And then also worked a little bit ... didn't really work. I can't say I did an internship at Doisy Daëne but I was exposed to, uh, Barsac Sauterne with his, his father. So (laughs) his ... yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So what was, w- so you jumped over to Bordeaux b- so that just, you just wanted to get as much exposure to different things as you could is what I'm guessing.

Michael Silacci:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And the other thing was, uh, the, the green socks girl. U, she-

Doug Shafer:
Oh yeah (laughs). Whatever happened to her?

Michael Silacci:
Well, we eventually got married.

Doug Shafer:
Oh (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And we had, we had, uh, we have a daughter. We're no longer together, um-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
... uh, but you know, that those things happen.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
So anyway, she said, "I'm, I don't wanna, I need to go home for a little bit."

Doug Shafer:
I see.

Michael Silacci:
And, um, I mean, she was tired of ... she was bored with California. And so, uh, we went to France and she taught English and I went to school.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
So Pierre Dubourdieu (laughs), his son is a professor at, at the University of Bordeaux and he knew I had just finished classes there. He was, he was like, it was perfect. He said, we said, "Let's go check the temperatures of the fermentations."

Doug Shafer:
Right (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
We go into the ta- (laughs) we go into the tank room, he put his hand against the tank and f- (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I've done that. I do that all the time, you know.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah. But he would not even look at the temperature. Then he's doing this to a kid who just got out of college right?

Doug Shafer:
Right (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
Or was in midstream. And then he'd say, "Well, we got to chill this down a little bit," but he did everything.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, that's great.

Michael Silacci:
Just, it was fantastic. And it, and it was great to be exposed to that. Anyway, I just thought it was hilarious because-

Doug Shafer:
No excuse.

Michael Silacci:
... his son was doing all of these experiments at his winery and his father's t- feelings tanks to see if the fermentation temperatures correct. So-

Doug Shafer:
Well, I, you know, I'm, I get that. I think that's pretty cool.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And you know, and you do too at this stage, you know, we all, we're all kinda tuned in that way.

Michael Silacci:
Exactly.

Doug Shafer:
You know, it's a lot of feel, a lot of gut feel.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah. The, the best thing you can put, uh, in, in your vineyard or in your cellar are your own two feet.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). There you go. Look at you. You have to put that one on a wall somewhere. So cool. So you're Davis Bordeaux, and then you're back to Davis. Is that how it worked?

Michael Silacci:
Yeah. Went back to Davis, finished my undergraduate degree in enology fermentation science. And then I, um, spent a year. Um, I only had to be in, in, uh, class and doing my experiment for one year because I had gotten so many prerequisites out of the way. And I was with, uh, uh, Janice Morrison. And she was, uh, she was very proud that her first student master student had to rewrite his a- they passed his thesis back and forth like a ping pong golf eight times.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
So I had, I had, uh, applied for and gotten a position at Beaulieu Vineyard ... as enologist/viticulturist. And Tony Bell, uh, you learn a lot during interviews because first interview I show up and, uh, it's about a good half an hour, 40 minutes before I actually get into the interview with, with Tony and I think Joel. Joel, I think Joel was at the first, maybe that was the second one.

Doug Shafer:
Was Joel there?

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, Joel-

Doug Shafer:
Joel was there. Was he winemaker there at that point?

Michael Silacci:
Uh, yes. That was-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
Uh, yes, he, I think he was winemaker in '85 if I, if I remember correctly.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. Yeah. He and I were, uh, he and I were classmates at Davis, so he, we go way back.

Michael Silacci:
So, um, my third interview, it was like sitting in the little antechamber waiting room for about an hour and a half. And, and then I go into the conference room and it's Tony, Joel and, um, Tom Selfridge.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And Tom Selfridge said, "You know, you realize that you're going to be reporting to Tony and you're working with Joel too. And you know, you're not going anywhere. You're in an enologist, viticulturist. You're not gonna like move, be moving up the food chain anytime soon, because this winery was founded in 1900 and, um ..." on and on. I said, "Yeah, I understand."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That's en- en- encouraging too. Yeah (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
Yeah. But I said, "This is perfect because I want to be at a place where I can really start to understand how things go."

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And Joel is, was such a great, uh, mentor and teacher. Um, so I was good with that, but, uh, a year and, a year and a half later, I was, uh, in the role of production manager, and I was overseeing, um, grower relations. I think I was ... yeah, grower relations and, um, the ... crew and bottling, uh, and experimental winemaking. And then a year after that, I, um, they formed the Heublein ... and I was working also with Tony. We were doing a lot with Inglenook as well. So, um, then a year after that I bec- um, Heublein and Fine Wine, Wine Group was formed. So it was Quail Ridge, Christian Brothers, um, Inglenook and, uh, Beaulieu.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And I became viticulturist for the Heublein Wine, Fine, Fine Wine Group. And, um, I worked with, uh, five different winemakers, five different vineyard management companies and 85 grape growers. We owned, leased-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
... or worked with 4,000 acres of Napa Valley vineyard. And I did not have an administrative assistant.

Doug Shafer:
No way. You know, you've always been the nicest guy and the easiest to get along with and now I know why.

Michael Silacci:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
I mean, God, Michael, that must've been crazy. Think about all this stuff, especially like at harvest when everybody wants this and that, and it's gotta be this way and this guy wants it this way, this guy wants it another way. Oh, how'd you keep it straight?

Michael Silacci:
Well, I learned an invaluable skill and that is to convince other people that was in their best interest to help you accomplish something. And I, I became very good at that.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Michael Silacci:
Uh, so good at it that when I g- (laughs), my first, uh, when I first arrived at Opus, um, I was told ... actually, I had seven interviews to get here, but that's a whole nother story. But my first, uh, time, when I first arrived at Opus, um, a woman, a Swiss woman named Uno Shard came to my office. She was really buttoned up like all Swiss are, no smile, walked into my office and reminded me that I was responsible for three, uh, events. The, um, Cinco de Mayo because they started on March 5th, 2001. So Cinco de Mayo was coming up, the Harvest Party and the Blessing of the Grapes. I said, "Yes, that's great. Yes." She said, "But you know, Cinco de Mayo is coming, you need to plan that." And I said, "Okay, well, why don't you sit down?" "No, I don't wanna sit down." And finally, I got her to sit down.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
So I don't know, maybe half an hour later or so she leaves my office and with a big smile on her face, goes out the door and they're like French doors so I can see her. And then I see her stop dead in her tracks and the smile goes away and she gets a furrowed brow. She comes back into my office and she says, "Michael, I came here telling you everything that you need to do for the Cinco de Mayo party. And I'm leaving doing everything." And I looked at her and I said, "Well, yes, of course you are. I'm paid to manipulate people and make them feel good about it." So (laughs)-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Look at you. Oh.

Michael Silacci:
I did, I did. But of course I worked with her.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
I mean, but, but it was, it was just, but that's what I learned. I mean, you in, uh, you know, like working at, in that, as a viticulturist at, with that group, that's what I had to learn, how to do.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You bet. And you got to work with, uh, Andre, right?

Michael Silacci:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
Andre Tchelistcheff. Tell us, tell us about that 'cause his a, his name comes up quite often and he's, you know, wonderful, wonderful man and wonderful part of, you know, fine wine in Napa Valley. You got to work with him. Tell us about that.

Michael Silacci:
Well, I first met him. I mean, I first saw him. I never really met him until, um, till I was at Beaulieu, but, um, he, he was talking at Davis and he was just amazing. Um, the intensity, the passion, the focus. So then, uh, they told me that they had Ron Vitori, they had hired Andre as a, as a consultant and he was going to spend half a day in the vineyard every week and half a day, uh, at Beaulieu with the, with the winemaking team. So, um, I meet him at the Chile's house at Inglenook and he's sitting at one end of the table, I'm at the other and the room is ... we're, I mean, we're all sitting or I just happened to be seen at the other end of the table and they introduced me to him. Uh, and he said, "I'm looking forward to you taking me to your kingdom and exploring your kingdom with you."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Oh, wow. No pressure.

Michael Silacci:
And, and so the f- so the first couple of times we went out to the vineyard and he always ... I would pick him up at his house and he and I would have biscotti, uh, and coffee that Dorothy would prepare this and she would sit with us. And we would talk, the two of us would talk about what we would do together to make Beaulieu great again. And then we go off to start always at his favorite vineyard BV-5, which is, um, a vineyard in Carneros with Pinot and different clones. And actually the very, um, I was told that, uh, Andre was not ... we had a ... I'm sorry, I'm jumping around, but I have to give you some context. In To Kalon uh, Beckstoffer To Kalon, there was a, 10 acres strip on the w- on the east side. It's a beautiful, probably the best part of that vineyard that we had 14 different Cabernet clones randomly, in a randomized design pattern, eight different replicates of each. And we would make the wine in this room we called the clone room with, uh, olive oil d- in olive oil, plastic, olive oil drums. And so I was told, do not take Andre to ... Don't ever do anything with him, with the, with the, with the wine. Don't tell him, don't talk to him about the clone room drum, blah, blah, blah. And part of it was they ... I don't know why they wanted to keep him out of it, but they use the excuse that his son Dimitri's working with us on that and they don't want any conflicts. So San Francisco Chronicle wants to do an article on Andre coming back to Beaulieu. So (laughs) where do we get the picture taken? In the vineyard with all the clone wine, with all the clones.

Doug Shafer:
Oh know.

Michael Silacci:
And he, of course, he s- he starts talking to me about it. And so one day when I, um, when I, uh ... well, I'm gonna go back to this pickup story. We're in the vineyard, uh, and the third time, you know, he'd, we'd be driving around and he'd be telling me, this is amazing what you're doing. And just patting me on the back and telling me how great, you know, the vineyards look, et cetera. Third visit, we're in B-V5 and I stopped, turned off the pickup, and I looked at him and I said, "I think that they're paying you a lot of money, not to tell me what I'm doing that's great. But to tell me where I can improve and what's wrong with what I'm doing." He said, "Well, what do you mean?" And I said, "Well, all you're doing is telling me nice things. And I think you're supposed to critique my work, not, you know, tell me all the good side." And so he said, "And that's what you want me to do?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "And we'll be, will, will you promise me that we, we will still be friends at the end of every session?" (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) 

Michael Silacci:
And I said, "Yes." And he reached his hand out and we shook hands and he said, "I will do that." (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh man.

Michael Silacci:
So I don't know if you remember, um, um ... that Dustin Hoffman f- Little Big Man.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
When he meets, uh, Custer and he tells Custer, Custer our general George Custer. "Should I go down there?" Mule, mule skinner, he said, "If you go down there, you will be, um, uh, massacred." And he said, "So the mule skinner thinks that if he tells me, blah, blah, blah." So he's trying to reverse logic to the guys, he goes-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Right.

Michael Silacci:
"Let's go down there." So he goes down and they get ambushed. So that's what it was like with Andre-

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Michael Silacci:
... men- mentally. We'd go out and then he'd lead me down into the valley and then he'd bury me with criti- criticism (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
But, um, but one day we were walking, uh, he said, "Let's ..." Oh, so I asked if we could buy a, um, like an ATV. And I was told no because that would be an asset and everything was judged, um, by a return on asset.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And so I said, well, but he can't walk very far and we just get barely to the edge of the vineyard.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
We'll just drive between the, in the avenues. Then I, and I said, "Well, how about ... can I rent one?" And he said, "Oh yeah, you can rent one." And he said, "But you realize that the rental just for one season will be more expensive than if we bought one."

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
It doesn't matter. It's not an asset. (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh man.

Michael Silacci:
And so we c- we, um, Mike Walsh took it out and had it ready for us at, um, Carn- uh, Carneros Hills vineyard. And, um, we go out and I said," Andre, do you know what that is?" And he says, "No," it was one of those John Deere, um, ones with the two seats and the-

Doug Shafer:
Right, right.

Michael Silacci:
... the gator, I guess they call it.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
And he s- he said, "What is it?" And I said, "Well, most people would call that an, uh, ATV, Andre, but I call it an AVT." And he said, "Well, what is an ATV?" I said, "An uh, all-terrain vehicle." "Well, then what is an AVT?" And I said, "An Andre Victor Tchelistcheff mobile."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And we would go between the rows and he'd stop me, back it up, taste this, taste that. And, and we were in a Chardonnay block and he said, "Let's ..." We're tasting the fruit and then we, and then we were going up this hill and he said, "Stop. Did you notice a change in flavor?"

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Michael Silacci:
I said, "Not really." We went, we backed up, went forward, backed up and went forward until I could find the place for the flavor change. And then he said, "Okay, now back up again." He said, "Just look ahead of you. Do you see anything that might indicate why the flavors were changing?" And I'm looking and I said, "Yes, the soil got lighter." And he said, "That's it." And he said, "Do you see any other area where it might change?" And I said, "Yes, up there almost just below the crest of the hill, where the soil is yet a third color." And he said, "Very good grasshopper."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Michael Silacci:
And, uh, so (laughs), but he taught me how to, how to taste fruit to make harvest decisions.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
And it was eye-opening because, you know, when I first started, uh, in the industry, it, you know, we had those grape contracts and there were windows of, um, of ripeness. And if you were off a 10th of a degree, uh, like if you were anywhere, uh, right or left at 22, seven, I think was the number, um, you would be penalized. And so I th- he had opened my eyes up to this whole new world. And so I called, uh, Joel and them and I said, "Hey, can we pi-" He, actually Andre asked me. He said, "I know it's not a large amount." We defined an area that could be picked. He said, "Would you call and see if we can pick this?" So I called and they said, "Well, what is the sugars?" And I said, "It's this." And they said, "No, the sugars are too low." And I said, "But it tastes ... you know, come down and taste with us." They, they wouldn't, they were too busy to come and taste, they couldn't taste with us. Next time we're, we find this as in a, um, Pinot block where we had Cordon versus Cane, um, t-bar versus, uh, vertical. And we found one of the treatments that was perfect. Call again. Can we pick this? What's the sugar? 21, eight. You're crazy. There's no picking anything at 21. Well, come and taste it. And no.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
Third ti- third time's always a charm. Right? I went to, um, B-V1 right across the street from Beaulieu and the numbers were textbook perfect. And I said, "But the fruit's not ready. Just come out and look at it. It's got this purple-ish color that's just not quite ripe yet."

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And they said, "No, we're, let's bring it in. The numbers are perfect." And then they saw it in the, in the gondolas and they said, "Okay." And they stopped. We'd picked half the block.

Michael Silacci:
But that was the first time where we made any headway, um, um, and Andre, one day, um, now going back to the clone trial, um, we're sitting at the house having this biscotti and coffee and he said, he asked me, "So how are the clone wines doing?" I s- and I said-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) He knew about them.

Michael Silacci:
Oh, he knew about them.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
I said, "Oh, they're, they're great." And then some, a thought came to mind and I, and I s- asked him, "Would you like to taste them?" And he, it was like, as if I said, 'cause he's in 14 different selections. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
It was as if I asked a child, "Do you wanna go taste all 31 flavors at Baskin Robbins?"

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Michael Silacci:
He, he was so excited. And why, why did I do that, Doug? Well, all the top brass was in Hartford Connecticut.

Doug Shafer:
Oh … yeah -

Michael Silacci:
All the-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, but what ab- what about Dimitri? He was his baby, right? Dimitri was-

Michael Silacci:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
Was it Dimitri everyone was, uh, Andre's son and he was the winemaker at the time at BV or was it, he was on the team I think.

Michael Silacci:
He, he w- he was a consultant for the-

Doug Shafer:
Consultant, okay.

Michael Silacci:
... the clone trial.

Doug Shafer:
Got it.

Michael Silacci:
And he, that guy's a fantastic ... was a fantastic taster. He'd tell me, I said, "How d-" he s- asked me, "Michael, do you wanna know how I make the final decisions on blends and s- whatever?" I said, "No, please tell me," 'cause he'd always say, "Well, I think this one's probably it." And then he'd say, "Well, I go take the, the glasses home, takes the samples home. And when I wake up in the morning and look at the table and see which one's empty or the lowest volume, that's the blend." (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) There you go.

Michael Silacci:
So, so I call ahead and I called Jeffrey Stambor. No, I called Linda Hanson, who was a, um, an intern at the time. I think she's at Hanzell now. Um, great person. Um, we used to have ice cream every Tuesdays after work. Anyway, I said, "Could you get all the clone wines and set it up in Lee Knoll’s old office? A place for four of us, you, me Jeffrey and, uh, uh, Andre."

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
So we go, we go to Lee Knoll’s old office and I said to Andre, "So these, this is the clonal trial. As I, as I explained to you before we were in the vineyard and the objective is to determine which one of these wines best fits George Latour Private Reserve." He said, "Okay." So we tastes through twice and then he gets my, and he whispers to me across (laughs). He said, "What was the objective?" And (laughing) I said, "The objective is to determine, which is the best suited for George Latour Private Reserve." So he tastes through a third time and he sits quietly waiting for us. And we, we finished tasting. And I said, uh, he asked me, "Would you like to know what I think?" I said, "Well, kind of the objective here, Andre." So (laughs)-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
So he say, "There's one on the table that I think is, would be perfect. And, um, it's got ..." he, he described it's, you know, beautiful concentration, uh, the, the intensity, um, the finished link to the finish, the, the fruit character, but mostly mouthfeel. He said, "But I think that the bean counters in Connecticut, won't, there's pro- the problem with this one. I think, I think it's probably yie- low yield and you won't be able to use it. It's this one that you have, it's the green one, the green clone." He said, "And then there's one that is not ... it's really good, but it, it is more restrained than this green one, but I think it's probably gonna be fine quantity and quality, uh, the yellow one." And he said, and (laughs) he said, "And this one over here, the red/black one, that's the one my son Dimitri likes the best." He was spot on.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
The green, the green clone was the Jackson clone, which, you know, has a problem with infertile pollen.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
So very low yields, but incredible wine. The yellow one was clone four, the one that came through Mendoza-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
... and is used quite a bit. And the third one was, N-ra, 5197. And it had a problem with stem pitting, but it was the one that he said Dimitri liked the best. But-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) No, he's good. He was great.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, he was.

Doug Shafer:
That's a great one. So BV, I think you were there for two or three years, is that right?

Michael Silacci:
No, I was there for, I was there for, uh, li- over six.

Doug Shafer:
Over six years. My, my mistake. I apologize. And then, uh, and then you got hired away by my neighbor.

Michael Silacci:
I was be-

Doug Shafer:
Tell me about that one.

Michael Silacci:
No, no, no. There was an interim stop. Uh (laughs) You know, Andre said to me one, one morning, um, "There's a place that needs you in there and you need to be there. You need to be a winemaker. You can't be asking people to pick grapes and they don't want to do it. So, um, you're, you have, you're going to be a winemaker, but so you're going to that conference in, at the IPNC conference and you're going to see me there and I'm going to make eye contact with you. You're gonna come over. I'm gonna, going to introduce you to some people, and then you're gonna just say like "Hello," and then you're gonna say, "Well, it was very nice meeting you," and turn around and leave." (laughing) And so I did it. And then, uh, the next day I left for France, um, for three-week vacation. You remember those when you're able to do that?

Doug Shafer:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
Um, you probably can now, but um-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah. Not really (laughs) but carry on.

Michael Silacci:
Um, anyway, so, and I never, you know, never called in those days. And, and, uh, anyway, I did call in on the payphone and there were a slew of messages from Dorothy, "Please call Andre." And he said, "These people really want to meet you." And, and so when I came back, I went and interviewed at King Estate. And, um, I, I got the job.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, that's right. Up in, up in Oregon, right?

Michael Silacci:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
So I was there for a little over a year and a half, and then I came back and the good news was that, um, I, we had a house, we ha- we were just finishing up. Like we had built a house in St. Helena-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And we were doing the, all the wood frames and staining them and sanding them. And, um, then, um, the bad news was, I didn't have a job, but I had gotten enough money to get me through, um, February. And so, um, I said, we finished working on the house and I said, "You know what? I need to get out of here because now's not the time to find a job." And so we, I said, "Let's go to Hawaii." We went to Hawaii for a month and every morning my daughter, we'd take ... uh, my daughter was just a, a little one.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
She was f- four or five. And we'd go into a, a place for breakfast and I'd say, "May I have a glass of orange juice, and a double order of bacon." (laughs) That's, and that w- that, 'cause she needed a ba- a piece of bacon in each hand. Um, and, uh, she'd bury me in the sand every day and just had an amazing time with her. Then I came back and I worked, um, uh, 50-hour work weeks doing informational interviews. I'd s- call somebody. And like I interviewed with Justin Meyer with, um, Corey Gott, uh Carrie Gott, um, Mike Fischer, Linda Pawson. Linda Pawson teaches, um, the, the executive speaking experience.

Michael Silacci:
So she'd say, "Well, why in the world would you want to interview with me?" I said, "I just, I bring my in- I bring my resume, resume. Once you look at it, I want to tell you what I've done and what I want to do, and just critique my resume." And my, you know, my, when I'm talking to, in my, in my presentation. And she said, "But why do you want to come and see me? I don't, I have nothing to do with these people." And I said, "You have eight students every month, at least. And who are they? (laughs) They're, they run wineries, they're winemakers. So you're gonna, at lunch when they're, when you overhear somebody saying, "I need a winemaker." You're gonna say, "Oh, I've got a resume for you (laughs)."

Doug Shafer:
There you go. Good moves.

Michael Silacci:
Mike Fischer, same thing. But I had the time doing that Doug because I saw, I could draw a caricature in my mind of a corporate owned winery, which I cut my teeth in, family-owned winery, which I experienced it as King Estate. All these different, you know, I saw the, the cultures. And then when I, um, uh, interviewed at Warren, with Warren, I had 10 interviews with Warren. The shortest was two hours. The longest was four.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
And I had, um, two take-home assignments. One was okay, take these, uh, this bottle of, um, reserve Chardonnay, this bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and this Cask 23 home tonight, taste them and write a report on what you would, would have done during the growing season, harvest, um, blending, et cetera, to have made the wines better.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
Now that's, that's something you either just freak out at, or you just say, "This is gonna be fun," and have fun with it. And, and I did, and I got in trouble for it with him because, um, George Schaeffler had given me a bottle of, uh, Opus and I bought a bottle of Pahlmeyer because that was the, the hot Chardonnay at the time.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And Sauvignon Blanc I had just gone through with, uh, his team doing a competitive tasting. So I didn't really need to focus on, I didn't need any reference points on that one. So when I turned it in my report the next day, I mean, you've worked with Warren and you've seen him.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
He puts the paper down and he's got that look on his face and his eyes are burning through me. He said, "I didn't ask you to taste Opus One or Pahlmeyer. Why in the world did you do that?" And I said, "Well, I thought you would appreciate some frame of reference."

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And, (laughs) you know, and I, so I did a little song and dance around it. And so it was okay. Um, and the other one was, I had to re- write a report on how to get better color out of Cabernet Sauvignon. About-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) So, okay. I just, I, I just wanna make sure people know who we're talking about. This is Warren Winiarski owner of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. So you've got 10 interviews. 

Michael Silacci:
Um, at interview seven or so, he asked me, uh, he said, "You know, um, I don't, you, you don't have any re- red wine on the shelf. You only have white wine on the shelf. And I've tasted your blends of Pinot, but it's not Cabernet. And I know you worked to BV, but we've got a job here. There's two jobs, the associate winemaker job for Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, and then the job for the Napa Valley Program and Hawk Crest and grower relations. I know you can do those. So how about taking this other job?" And I looked at him, he knew I had no income. He knew I had just finished building a house so I had a mortgage, and he was trying to find my limit.

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Michael Silacci:
He was trying to see what I was made of. Right?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And I looked at him. I said, "You know, I have enjoyed these interviews so much and s- I'm gonna miss, uh, hanging out with you. But no, there's no way I'm gonna take that job. That's not the one that we've been talking about." And his, he shot back kind of, you know, slightly in his head, his head went back and he was like, "You're kidding me." And he said, "Okay." And I, and I said, "So anyway, it's been nice chatting with you." And he goes, "No, no, no, no, no, no, wait. I think we have more to talk about."

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Michael Silacci:
And so, we had, uh, three more interviews use and the last interview you said, "Well, this is André Tchelistcheff again," and this almost makes me ... it kinda makes me tear, it tears me up because he said, "I called Dorothy and I asked her, what would Andre have said about you?" And he said, "So I want you to be my winemaker."

Doug Shafer:
Ooh, boy. Boy.

Michael Silacci:
But there was a catch. (laughs) There was, there was a catch Doug. He said, he offered me $10,000 a year less than what I'd been making in, in, in King Estate. And he said, "You are on one year probation. At the end of one year, if you don't feel this is the right place for you or if I don't feel you're the right place, the right person for the place, then we'll go our separate ways, no hard feelings." And I said ... I held out my hand and we shook hands. And right away what happened, that was, I started March 5th, 1995. And, um, in s- uh, the beginning of the gr- because they were, it was like a, a pyramid top-down hierarchy-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... you know, where the cellar master had ... the winemaker had every, all the knowledge and would dole out just enough to the cellar master to be able to, to dull out a little bit to each of the cellar workers to, to get things done. And I, um, and I said, "I'm going to flip that." So if you look at a triangle and you break that triangle up into triangles, there's one triangle that has ... that the base is wide. The top is wide and the tip is down.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
Um, and I said, "That's gonna represent production, winemaking and viticulture." And so I said, "We're gonna put together a training program so that everyone goes from the entry level to cellar position four, which includes some supervision and management, and we're gonna bring everyone up to level four." And so the cellar master didn't like that and, and left.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Michael Silacci:
And so, uh, this is like we're approaching harvest. And Warren said, "Go out and fi- you just find what, whoever you want as cellar master. I don't care how much it costs, just get someone." And I'm was thinking about, and I spoke with, uh ... Brooks Painter was the Hawk Crest winemaker in Napa Valley Winemaker-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... and Julia Winarski was working with me. And I said, "You know what? I want Benjamin to be the, the cellar master." And they say, "You can't put Benjamin there. He's never ... he's just one of our, he's one of the two top cellar workers." And I said, "No, but he will be ... we can teach him how to do this."

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Michael Silacci:
And they were s- they were afraid of that. And they said, "No." And, and I said, "Listen, you, I can teach someone how to manage. I can teach someone how to run a team. I can teach someone how to follow through on things. I can't teach people interpersonal skills like he has. You know, one could, he's got the ... he's ready for this." They, so they, I s- I said, "I'm, I'm sorry I worked by consensus, but it's one to three here. I'm gonna go, um, with my gut and I, I want him to be Benjamin." So then I have to go present it to Warren. Warren, same pushback. "No, you're gonna fail.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
You know, it's not gonna work." And then finally, he says, "You remember Michael, that you have one year, and if he fails, you fail." And I said, "I would bet my career on no one other than Benjamin Ochoa." And I said, "It's one to four, but I, you gotta let me do this." And it was the best decision to secure my career now.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah. Well, good for you.

Michael Silacci:
And after one y- after one year, sometime in late March of '96, I went and see Warren and I said, "Warren, when are we gonna meet to talk about, um, uh, you know, the job?" And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, my year probation's up." And he laughed at me and he said, "Go back out into the vineyard." (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That's great. So that was, Warren was, kind of had a great winery for sure. And so you were with him, that was the beginning of a good, a good stint. You were there for gosh, what? Five, six years.

Michael Silacci:
Six, six years to the day.

Doug Shafer:
All right. And then, uh, and then did you, uh, did you go out looking or did somebody come find you?

Michael Silacci:
No, I was, I was so happy there. You know, people criticized, uh, my decision. They said, uh, 'cause I had three different offers. And they, they say, "W- we told you, you should never go there. Um, I mean, you've, you know what Warren is like." And, and I, and I said, "You know, people have pools of people that, there are people in their pool that, with whom they can work. Some people it's an ocean. Some people it's a lake, other people, it's a puddle. I happen to be in Warren's puddle." And I had such a great time there. But I, I was approached in at first, uh, and that was in July of or June of 2000. And then I, I, uh, that was with the recruiter and I said, "Okay, well, I'm going to go on vacation in France for three weeks. So, let's chat when I come back in August." Uh, what I really wanted to do was I, I called, uh, Denis and I said, "Denis can you ..."-- 'cause he consulted for all of the, he knew all the, the top, the, the first growths -- and I said, "Can you hook me up with the first growths?" And, um, the person who sat next to me in class every day in Bordeaux was Eric Turvy who was the technical director at Mouton. So I got into Mouton easily.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Michael Silacci:
But he set me up with all these visits and actually Denis said to me, he said, "If you really wanna learn what's going on in Bordeaux right now, you should just go to the garagiste." And I said, "Okay, I'll visit some garagiste, but I need to know classic," because he didn't know what I was doing this for, but I needed to be able to interview intelligently with the French-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
... uh, Patrick Leon. And, um, so that was preparing for that those interviews. And, um, so you do the personality test, you do the, all these different tests and meet the, I think it was three, three interviews with the recruiters and one was supposed to be recorded interview. They had, um, Dawnine Dyer was their consulting winemaker to write questions, you know, for interviews. And I was, I was supposed to be recorded and I told Jody Shepard, who was, it was her first, um, um, first assignment at placing someone. And-

Doug Shafer:
And I, I gotta jump in here, just I think you and-

Michael Silacci:
Sure, please.

Doug Shafer:
Um, just making sure everyone knows we're talking-

Michael Silacci:
Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

Doug Shafer:
Now we're talking about Opus One. So it was because Patrick Leon, he was, uh, he was the president of Opus One at that point or running it?

Michael Silacci:
He w- he was winemaker out at, at Mouton. And-

Doug Shafer:
Oh, at Mouton.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, yes.

Doug Shafer:
But he was involved with the Opus One project there.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah, he was on the bo- he was on the board. He was the co-winemaker with Tim Mondavi.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. Okay.

Michael Silacci:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
So the original team.

Michael Silacci:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And so this is ... so, so they're, they're recruiting you for … a position.

Michael Silacci:
I was, I was gonna be a DOVE.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
So you have the t- the two co-winemakers. There were co-CEOs. I had two half bosses and I had two, and there were two co-winemakers. Right? So it, I really, and it was perfect. I was a dove of peace. So you'd have, um, differences of opinion between Patrick and Tim. Tim, if you put on a blindfold and had those UN, um, translator earphones so you didn't know who was who, you would swear Tim was a French winemaker and Patrick was a Californian because the restrictions that they have in France, you know, they, he wanted always bust out of that and do whatever, do things that were more extreme, Patrick.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
Tim was, had learned from Lucian Enciano, who was a co-winemaker with them for the, from '79 through '84. And so he was very, had a very restrained, goal or, um, style. So, so, so-

Doug Shafer:
Sure, style. But so you have that, so you were the g- you were the go between.

Michael Silacci:
I was, I was the DOVE.

Doug Shafer:
The peacemaker.

Michael Silacci:
And w- we, we were like a three, three-legged stool. So DOVE, what is it? That stands for, um, Director of Viticulture and Enology.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
So, it, but I like to find correlations between these things, you know, like, oh, that has a meaning here.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
And it did. And then, then, um, in May of 2003, uh, I was, uh, uh, asked to fly at the last minute to, uh, Miami and they say, "Get a room at the Mandarin Oriental and come to the board meetings." So I reported it to the board meeting. And that was where I was told that I was now the sole winemaker first sole winemaker. Uh, O-L-E and O-U-L, uh, a of Opus One.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, I didn't know that. So you were, you hired, you started Opus One 2001 as the DOVE-

Michael Silacci:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... Director of Viticulture and enology and then so '03, so, 03, you're promoted ... I didn't know that. So you were ... that was the first time there was just one winemaker, not co-winemakers, France and US.

Michael Silacci:
Exactly, exactly.

Doug Shafer:
Mi- Michael, I never knew that. Congratulations. That's, that's, that must have blown you away. Geez.

Michael Silacci:
It, w- it, it did, but it lasted only one year.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Oh.

Michael Silacci:
(laughs) No, no. Th- this is what I mean, Doug.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Michael Silacci:
So I was w- sole winemaker for 2003, and then in May of 2004 I'm on jury duty in, uh, in Napa. And I'm a big daydreamer, and I was daydreaming about ... and I wasn't on trial when this happened.

Doug Shafer:
That's good.

Michael Silacci:
I was daydreaming about the vineyard workers how we taught them the principles of viticulture and practices we wanted here. And, um, and they had done things that helped us to improve the quality of the, of the grape berries coming into the winery. And I was thinking about how they did that. They improve the quality. And then I started thinking about the cellar crew and I, and you've got one of our, the first s- cellar crew members that worked here, Fernando.

Doug Shafer:
Fernando, yeah.

Michael Silacci:
Who's fantastic, one of the nicest people on earth.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, he's great.

Michael Silacci:
Um, anyways, so, um, I was daydreaming about them and I th- and I was thinking, "Well, they know the mechanisms of winemaking, but I don't know if they feel it in their tribes."

Doug Shafer:
Hm.

Michael Silacci:
So come back to the winery, get the six cellar, six cellar workers together and I told them my story, except I didn't tell them, I don't know if you're passionate about what you do or have any feelings for it. But I said, "I'm going to divide you into two teams of three. I decide who goes on each team, because I want you to have some differences of opinion. I don't want the three buddies together with three people, uh, three others. I, I want, um, you to, um, learn to reach consensus on everything. I'm giving each team 22 rows of vineyard in our best vineyard, and you're going to prune, sucker, do green harvest, fruit drops and taste to make harvest decisions. And you'll each have, uh, small stainless-steel tanks in which you will ferment two tons of fruit making 120 cases of wine or 1400 bottles." And they looked at me and they said, "No, no, no, no, no. We don't make decisions. We do what you tell us to do." And I said, "That's the problem, until everyone had Opus One is engaged in the pursuit of absolute wine quality, we can't get to the next level fast enough. So I'm not asking you if you want to do this, I'm telling you we'll do this. And I'm not ..." I was thinking about everyone. "And so what we're going to do is you three will each be together for as long as you're at Opus with the same 22 rows of vines for, for this project, which will be an annual project. And each year we're gonna have for each team, a vineyard worker, um, a tour guide, and an office worker on your teams." So since, uh, then, Doug, up until this year, we have had 110 non-production employees make wine at Opus One. So beginning in 2004, I was no longer the sole winemaker.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Yeah. But you're the leader. Good for you. So was Constellation purchased Mondavi in '04 how w- so now there are 50% owners of Opus One. What was that like for you? Big, big changes or things stayed the same?

Michael Silacci:
It was, there were changes because before, you had two families, um, trying to work in a 50-50 joint venture, and sometimes it was a little tense.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
Um, and then when Constellation came in, uh, Philippine de Rothschild and Xav- Xavier de Eizaguirre negotiated extremely well to make sure that, um, that it was understood that Opus was to become independent, and that Opus was, um, uh ... so my decisions, the sales and marketing decisions, all decisions were made by the team on site. And we would have one, a CEO, uh, no co-CEOs. And that CEO would be paid by Opus. The co-CEOs were paid by the mothership's by Mondavi or by, Mouton.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And so that was another big change, and that happened in 2004, but, um, th- there really wasn't that much of a change. I just felt that, um, a l- more freedom and there was less tension, uh, because Constellation, they were s- they were great. Um, they, they s- they saw, we knew what we were doing, and they let us do what we were doing. Um, so that was, that was, uh, I thought it was a very positive change.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, good to hear.

Michael Silacci:
I, I've been in ... everywhere I'd been, Beaulieu, Tom Selfridge, there'll be no change here and I had four different positions while I was at Beaulieu. The last position was where they sold, um, Christian Brothers and Quail Ridge and Inglenook and Beaulieu came back to Beaulieu and I was on the winemaking team at Beaulieu, winemaking/vit team. Um, King Estate was an, uh, in constant ... I mean, there was an entrepreneurial, um, atmosphere.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
Um, and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, we had constru- ae had construction projects going on every single year.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Michael Silacci:
My first year they were, the, the welder was still welding, uh, spots in the platform for the, that w- w- where we would bring the Chardonnay in macro bins and empty them into, um, into a conveyor belt, which would go into the press. As he was finishing up his last touches, the first truck came in. I mean, that's the way it happened at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. They peeled off the whole outside of a building when ... every year we had a construction project. And so, um, I was used to-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, used to.

Michael Silacci:
... uh, used to that. So then here we have, you know, had changed also. I would have expected less change here, but there has been an evolution here as well.

Doug Shafer:
Well, I was gonna ask you about that. You've been there quite a long time, 20 years, I think. So you've been there for lots of changes in the vineyard and the cellar, anything that, that stands out as being that worked really well, that, you know, while you've been there, improved quality?

Michael Silacci:
Yeah. One of the biggest improvements was what I did right off the bat. And I ... well, first of all, I came in with my, um, my lips sealed-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... and my ears wide open, and my eyes wide open. And I, my question to myself was what can I do that would have the biggest impact on improving wine quality? And, and it's like, in life, you have, whether it's your professional life or your personal life, you have a honeymoon period. Right? And your personal life, you never want the honeymoon to end. Your professional life, I, I've always wanted to end it with something that would not get me fired, but would have the biggest impact on wine or grape quality. So I determined that we needed, I needed 27 vineyard workers. 24 vineyard workers, two supervisors and one vineyard manager to be dedicated exclusively to Opus One out of the, carve them from out of the Mondavi team. They had, I think, 11 different teams, all I needed was three. And so I convinced the Mondavi, uh, vineyard management team to let me to do this. And I remember they said, um, this is, I started, uh, on them right away in April of ‘01. And they said, "Okay, yeah, we can do that, but let's, uh, get through harvest and we'll, we'll do it." And I said, "No, Tim and Patrick are gonna be coming for the, the, um, summer technical meetings. And I want them, when we go to the vineyard to see that there's no barrier between ... no hedge between me and the vineyard workers, they know who I am, and I knew who they are, so it has to happen now." So they did it and we didn't ask permission. We just did it. And they sent out a memo saying this. So that was the first, um, uh, sin, so to speak. But the cardinal sin was that they named (laughs), they named in one team Opus One in the second one Opus Two.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, no, no, no, you can't do that (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
So I get called into the co-CEO's office and they're both at each other's throats. Not really, but kind of, thinking that the other orchestrated this, and here I am, the little lamb that comes in. And I said, "No, actually it was me, uh, and these are the reasons, this is the reason I did it." And I explained it to them. And they're sitting there with their eyes, you know, like looking at me like they, dumbfounded, who does this guy think he is? And I was excused from the, um, from the meeting and brought back in, they called me back in and they said, "You know, that you can't just do things like this.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Michael Silacci:
You, you have to, that's why we have co-winemakers, you know, you have to consult with people and you, you have to go through the process." And I said, "Oh, darn." You know, but, but what, they, they were amazed that I did it, but, you know what I think they were more amazed at? Was that I actually admitted that it was me.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Silacci:
And I said, "Well, I just asked them, they're the ones that made the decision." No, I said, "It was me. I talked them into it." And they said, "Don't do that anymore." Now, granted, Doug, I knew that I had to do, reach consensus, but did I have five years to work on that? No, because every time, you know, I could see this being a negotiation between the two, each getting something out of it to give me a team. And I just said, I just did it. So I didn't get fired for doing it, but I got a severe looking, look over.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Right.

Michael Silacci:
Um, but that, that I think is to this day, one of the biggest contributions to wine quality at Opus One.

Doug Shafer:
Huh. Good for you. Congratula- yeah. Well, I that's a, and I, I'm, I'm in your camp, you know, 100% the relationship between vineyard and cellar and making sure everybody's on the same page, you know, the upside down pyramid is, uh, is vital to quality for sure. Yeah. I got a question for you. I, tell me about Overture. I've never known the story of that, which is it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, another wine that you make it Opus, right? What's, what's the story on that?

Michael Silacci:
Um, first of all, it's a true second wine. Uh, we make Opus from our four estate vineyards-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
... and whatever lots don't go into Overt- uh, Opus One, are available for Overture.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
So we, once we finished the blending process for Opus, we then, uh, start the blending process for Overture. Blending for Opus takes about four to six weeks, you know, just going back and forth, taking time in between. Uh, Overture is, um, uh, done a little bit more quickly, but it's not just like the "worst lots."

Doug Shafer:
Oh no, I'm with you.

Michael Silacci:
Because, because y- you know, as well as I do that, you can take the five best basketball pl- pro basketball players in the United States and put them on the Olympic team and they might lose because there's no chemistry, there's no teamwork.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
So there are some outstanding lots that are excluded from Opus because they just don't fit.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
They take the wine, the blend in it, in the wrong direction, and those are available for Overture. So the first Overture was made in 1993.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
A couple of reasons for why they did it. One was they made this wine and then whatever was left over, they sold it in the, on the bulk market, uh, at a very low price. Secondly, that put a lot of pressure on the winemaking team to put as much wine into Opus to make the biggest blend possible because, for financial reasons. I, I'm not supposed to think about the cost of things. I'm only supposed to be thinking about wine quality and that's the way they should have been thin- they were probably thinking.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Michael Silacci:
I'm sure they were. Um, so then that, and that started in 1993, I, and it was available at the winery in the, in the partner's room. We never poured it, uh, for people to taste, you buy a bottle and, you know, trust us. And it developed its own little cult following. And then, uh, I can't remember, I'm bad with years now, but I don't know, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago, um, we started to offer a taste at the beginning of a tour. And then we wanted to see what, how it would do in the, in the market. So there was a test market in the summer done in Southern California, and then don't, laugh in Florida, 'cause, you know, who's buying red wine in Florida in the summer? But, um, but it was successful. And then it was put into 10 or 12 states and now it's sold ... you know, 60% of our wine is sold outside of the United States-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
... through Laplas in Bordeaux, through 22 negociants. And it just now started to go through the Laplas, and so some is sold internationally. It's always been, um, uh, sought after in like a cult wine in Japan. David Pearson and I were on, uh, on a market visit in, in, in Japan. I think it was '04, or '07. And, uh, we went to the New York Grill at the top of the, um, Park Hyatt in Tokyo. And I said, (laughs) I said, "Oh, David, they have a, a vertical by the glass of Opus."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And he goes, "Oh yeah, that's great." And I said, "Oh my gosh, they got Overture. That's not legal."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And he said, "No, it's not." He goes, "But don't say anything." A glass, and you know, the pours are short there.

Doug Shafer:
Yes.

Michael Silacci:
$180 for a short pour of Overture.

Doug Shafer:
There you go (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
And we were just blown away. But what, what would happen is, you know, people would come to visit, they, they buy a case of Opus and take it back and sell it to a restaurant or whatever.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. That's, yep. Yep. Those things happen. So yeah. You mentioned your distribution, Opus One. I mean, the wine is well-represented all over the world. It's beautiful. And um, but for all our folks out listening, I mean, there's, are there other ways people can get a hold of Opus? You guys have a website, can, uh, where else can they purchase Opus or Overture?

Michael Silacci:
Well, the best place to purchase this is to come and visit. We have a brand new, uh, partner's room which is beautiful-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
And it has a really nice view. Um, so that's the best way to, to come and taste and then buy some. We do have a website and you can dry it, buy it directly from us.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Michael Silacci:
So we have direct to consumer. Uh, we, there are plenty of retail shops in the United States, uh, that bottle shops that, that sell, uh, Opus One. Um, we used, we actually, we were 60%, uh, on-premise 40% off for the longest time.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Silacci:
And then a year ago, you know what happened.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, that changed.

Michael Silacci:
And we, I have to give credit to Chris Avery, who was our, the VP of sales and domestic sales. He saw that and he went, boom, went to 80%, um, uh, retail and 20% or 10%, uh, on-premise. With 10% just to go wherever, you know, just to have as a backup. But that was, uh, you know, just another change in our lives, right?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. For all of us, without a doubt.

Michael Silacci:
For all of us.

Doug Shafer:
You bet. Well, Mr. Silacci, I want to thank you for taking this time. This has been great to hear your story. There's a whole lot about your life that I did not know and I do now. So, um, I look forward to getting together and having a glass of wine and hearing more stories. So thanks for your time, my friend.

Michael Silacci:
And like, like to hear more of yours, Doug.

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Well, yeah, we'll have to do those off air. They're not, they're not PG.

Michael Silacci:
Yes (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Okay (laughs).

Michael Silacci:
All right.

Doug Shafer:
All right, man.

Michael Silacci:
Thank you so much.

Doug Shafer:
You bet. Take care. We'll see you around.

Michael Silacci:
Okay. Bye-bye.

Doug Shafer:
Thanks, bye.

Full Transcript

Doug Shafer:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Taste. Uh, we have had some wonderful guests: famous, successful winemakers, chefs, restaurateurs, professional athletes all here on The Taste. Today is our first famous, accomplished novelist, and part-time wine writer, and full-time wine lover, Jay McInerney. Jay, welcome.

Jay McInerney:
Thanks, Doug. Good to hear your voice. It's been a while.

Doug Shafer:
It has been a while, and, uh, again, I'm, I'm sorry we can't do this in person, so we'll have to find a time later to share a bottle of wine.

Jay McInerney:
Soon.

Doug Shafer:
Soon, I hope.

Jay McInerney:
Soon I'll be, I'll be returning to Napa.

Doug Shafer:
Good.

Jay McInerney:
Can't, I can't wait.

Doug Shafer:
Well, speaking of returning to Napa, the first time we met... I was thinking about this last night... I think it was you and Lora Zarubin, from House and Garden, were in Napa doing some research, and Annette joined us, my wife. We had dinner at Redd, in Yountville.

Jay McInerney:
Oh, that's right.

Doug Shafer:
And we, remember? And we drank a lot of wine. That was a good time.

Jay McInerney:
We drank a lot of wine, including, it seems to me, a '78.

Doug Shafer:
God, good memory. I wondered if you remembered that.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
That was the first, Dad's first wine. We popped one of those.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, it was... Yeah. And it was very good. It was very special, obviously. We'd given the, the history. But, uh, yes, I, I do remember that.

Doug Shafer:
That was a fun night.

Jay McInerney:
That was, uh, that was something. It was back in my, my very first, uh, wine-writing incarnation, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... for House and Garden. I think it was 19... 1996-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... when I started that column at the request of, of then-editor-in-chief, Dominic Brown. I think it was a close friend of mine, and knew that I was a wine nut.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
And that I liked to bore my friends talking about wine, and she thought maybe I could do it in print. Uh, (laughing) and she asked me to, to do a column, which was, initially I found very daunting because, you know, much as I loved wine I, I, you know, I had no formal education in wine appreciation and I, uh, you know, I wasn't even sure what malolactic fermentation was at the time of that (laughing). But... she said what she was looking for is passion and, and somebody who could, who could write, and, uh... and I think, you know, some of the, some of the skills I had developed as a novelist were, were, were transferable, you know?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
And I loved, I loved to write about the people who make, make wine, and, I decided that metaphors and similes, uh, you know, comparing a wine to an, an actress, or a car, or a poem, or a pop song, uh, could sometimes be just as effective as, as literal taste descriptions, you know.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
I'm not a huge fan of the, the piling-on of flavor descriptors. So, uh-

Doug Shafer:
(Laughing) Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... So, anyway, I, I, I, I, I went for it and I said, "Oh, I'll do it for six months," and then, years later, I was still, I was still at it until the magazine folded ... in, uh, I believe 2007.

Doug Shafer:
But, I wanna go back farther than that. I'm gonna take you way back. I want, I wanna... 'cause, you know, you and I have talked about wine many times through the years, but I don't, I want to know more about you. Where'd you grow up, where were you born, family, where did it start, man?

Jay McInerney:
(Laughing) Well, I was, I was, um, the... my, my father was a bit of a corporate gypsy. He worked for Scott Paper Company as a director of marketing-

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Jay McInerney:
... uh, which entailed, uh, moving between different markets. I grew up, uh... I think I, I think I attended 14 different schools by the time I, I got into high school.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, wow.

Jay McInerney:
I was born in Hartford, but it seems kind of irrelevant since I certainly don't remember that. Um, my family's from New England and, uh, we used to spend summers on Cape Cod, which was one of the few consistent, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Jay McInerney:
... locations in my life, and, um, we lived in Vancouver, Canada; in, uh, Geneva; in London; and kind of all over the States while I was growing up.

Doug Shafer:
That's, and this is, like, this is before, before graduating from high school.

Jay McInerney:
Yes, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Gee, that must have been crazy. What was that like?

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. It wa-, well, it was kind of unsettling.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
I mean, on the one hand it, on the one hand I think it made... it made me, probably in the short run, very insecure and neurotic (laughing), but I think in the, in the longer run it made me, uh, very comfortable with new situations and, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Jay McInerney:
... with mee- meeting new people and I can't really wish for a, a different background, but there were certainly, certainly times when, you know, chan- changing schools and being the new kid in school, um, is not something I would-

Doug Shafer:
Oh man, yeah. Well, especially, you know, multiple, 14 times, you know.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah. I was, uh, yes. I was always the new kid.

Doug Shafer:
(Laughing) Always the new kid. So-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. So I, I, I developed survival skills.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Well, you have to. So, quick question.

Jay McInerney:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
With becoming a novelist and a writer, did, was that happening when you were a kid? 

Jay McInerney:
You know, I, I was a, I was a big reader, um-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... and, uh, I spent, you know, probably spent an inordinate amount of time alone since, uh, it, it inevitably took, took a while to make friends-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... and, uh... But I loved reading, and the first things I remember reading were the Hardy Boy Mysteries-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... I don't know if you're familiar with those.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I am. I know those.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, when I le-, when I was... I moved to England when I was six years old and developed a big interest in English history. Later we moved to Vancouver. I became a big fan of the novels of Jack London.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
You know, set in the West, and Alaska, and the Yukon, and so on.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
And, somewhere along the line I started writing stories.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, inevitably they were imitations of whatever I was reading at the time (laughing), but it became writing became a, uh, outlet, and, and eventually passion. When I was in highschool I discovered poetry, initially, through the work of Dylan Thomas, who's, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... the perfect poet for the adolescent sen- sensibilities.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
So, he's so purple, and passionate, and florid, and, his language really approaches the condition of, of music, I think, and, um, the, the first thing I remember reading of his was A Child's Christmas in Wales, which is a wonderful piece of writing. Uh, I guess originally it was a radio play, and, um-

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Jay McInerney:
... and I just decided then and there that I was going to be a writer, and I never really changed ambitions after that. For a number of years I was a, I thought, I thought of myself as a poet, which made my father cry-

Doug Shafer:
Well (laughing)-

Jay McInerney:
... writing that stuff. I wasn't meant to be a poet.

Doug Shafer:
Well, Jay, I would argue that all writers are poets. 

Jay McInerney:
I think, I think all wri-, all writers aspire to be poets.

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah. But, uh-

Doug Shafer:
So, do you still, do you have any original poetry? That's what I want to know.

Jay McInerney:
Oh gosh, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
God (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
I, I, I do have, I do have a lot of poetry. I'm not sure that I would want to expose too much of it to the world. I do remember that my first, my first poem, um, which I wrote when I was five or six and living in England was, as I said, I had an interest in English history, and the, the first few lines went, "Old King John was a dreamy lad. He went swimming in the sea, he got bitten by a crab."

Doug Shafer:
(Laughing) At six years old? I love it.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, and it, and it, and the poem went on to... Sadly, they could not remove the crab from the king, and so they had to bury them both there on the beach.

Doug Shafer:
Oh (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
I have no idea where that idea came from. But, that was my first poetic production, and I think they, they got better from there, but, uh, maybe not so good that I decided to become a professional poet. I did publish a few poems when I was in college and grad school.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
But, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Jay McInerney:
But, happily for my readership and my bank balance, I eventually decided to write fiction instead.

Doug Shafer:
Right, right.

Jay McInerney:
Well, it's a somewhat more popular medium. It's a sort of a ridiculous ambition, really, and, uh, uh, it's an unlikely vocation. At least, unlikely in the sense that not that many people really succeed in supporting themselves as, as writers of fiction, let alone poetry. But, but fortunately, um, when you're young you're, you're bold and ignorant, and so I boldly set forth on this path and, and, and, and, and improbably was eventually successful at it (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Oh, it's great. You have been, very, very. So, switching back to wine, and... was wine in the household growing up?

Jay McInerney:
You know, wine was a little bit in the household.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
Um, I remember Korbel.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
For special occasions, my, my parents would break out the Korbel sparkling wine-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
(Laughing) And, uh, we would have, we would have, you know, the occasional bottle of Paul Masson would appear on the table. But my parents were, my parents were really the cocktail generation, you know. Um, whiskey sours, and old-fashioneds, and there was a brief period where they were drinking stingers, which was pretty disastrous.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, my mom used to-

Jay McInerney:
Apparently-

Doug Shafer:
My folks used to do that.

Jay McInerney:
My parents' friends, they had this stinger period and they were all just, like, trashed. They were staggering around our house doing terrible things, ending up, ending up in bedrooms with the wrong-

Doug Shafer:
With the wrong-

Jay McInerney:
With the wrong person. 

Doug Shafer:
Oops (laughing). 

Jay McInerney:
But, yeah. Wine wasn't very much a part of my upbringing, and I think that's, uh, I think that's one of the reasons that I was, was attracted to it, because, you know, I first really became aware of wine, um, wine and literature were somewhat intertwined for me because you know, for instance, Hemingway was one of my first, um, literary enthusiasms, and, there's certainly a lot of wine-drinking, particularly in his early novels, you know, in Spain, and in France. And, also another writer that I liked quite a bit was Evelyn Waugh, lot of wine in novels like Brideshead Revisited.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
Waugh, Waugh was quite a wine connoisseur and a wine snob, and, um... So, for me, wine became associated with, not only with literature, but with, you know, uh, sophisticated taste, with Europe, with a life which was far more glamorous to me than my suburban life.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, you know, as much as we moved around the world, we, we always ended up in, you know, one suburb or another. (Laughing) They were all pretty interchangeable and, you know, I couldn't wait to sort of get away from suburban life, from, you know, the, the middle-class, uh, conventions of my upbringing. So-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... so, so wine was ver-, was very much an aspiration for me and, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Interesting.

Jay McInerney:
... yeah. And when I went off to college, uh, it was, uh, during that, that happy period when the drinking age was 18 instead of 21 (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
I do remember that one, too.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. So I, um, you know, so I was able to explore, you know, on my limited budget, of course. I was able to explore the world of wine somewhat. I do remember that my, my wine of choice for dates when, when I went to, uh, Williams College was, uh, Chateau Neuf du Pape, which, you know, is a, it's a crowd-pleaser.

Doug Shafer:
It's a crowd-

Jay McInerney:
I mean, yeah. I mean, I was, I, I, I... Remember, I was an East Coast guy, um, really-

Doug Shafer:
Sure.

Jay McInerney:
The wines that we tended to first become familiar with were the, were European ... uh, you know, Chianti and, uh, Chateau du Neuf-

Doug Shafer:
Chateau du Neuf, yeah.

Jay McInerney:
So, I, I, I was, I was, uh, you know, happily drinking wine-

Doug Shafer:
So, you were a wine guy.

Jay McInerney:
... in college.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
Without, you know, with enthusiasm, but without much sophistication.

Doug Shafer:
Okay, but... I'm with you. So, that's where you and I div- diverge. So, 'cause when I was doing research on you, you and I have some parallels that you don't know about (laughing). So, first of all, we were born the same year, which we aren't gonna mention-

Jay McInerney:
No, don't mention that.

Doug Shafer:
... um, and, uh, I grew up in suburban, and my parents, you know, maybe there was a bottle of Lancers, but it was, it was the cocktail, like you said, and they ended up with Stingers. Yeah, and these guys would go til 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, crazy (laughing). So, I got a similarity there. Uh, growing up in Michigan, it was Boone's Farm in the summer, on the beaches, and if I wanted to impress some gal... 'Cause I read you did, you had the same move-

Jay McInerney:
Ah, yes. Lancers?

Doug Shafer:
No, no, Mateuse, with the bottle.

Jay McInerney:
Oh, Mateuse.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, that I used to work.

Jay McInerney:
No, the... Yeah. Those, tho-... Yeah, actually, I should mention: Mateuse and Lancers were, were, were two great date-

Doug Shafer:
It was the date, it was the date wine. Yeah. Same, same age.

Jay McInerney:
It was, you know, yeah. Everybody liked them, you know, and the bottles were really cool, and-

Doug Shafer:
Sure.

Jay McInerney:
Yes. My, my very first date ever was a bottle of, uh, I guess Mateuse, uh, at a restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, and I thought I was so sophisticated (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
So cool, I knew exactly what to order ... or so I thought. You know? Probably, it was probably, it was probably about four or five bucks a bottle, then, at, at the restaurant.

Doug Shafer:
Sure. (Laughing) So-

Jay McInerney:
But, uh, but you know, it's like, it's... wine appreciation is, you know, it's situational, and-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
There, there is, there is a sense in which that was one of the best ones I ever had in my life, because at that moment, in that occasion, with that girl, you know, um, that was just the perfect one to drink ... You know, I've certainly, I've had more e-, more expensive and complex bottles since, but (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Sure. That's true. It's, you know, the enjoyment of wine, and your... You know, people always say, "What's your favorite wine?" It's like, it's, it has more to do with a situation, like you said, than the actual wine itself.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
It's because it's that memory of whatever was going on. 

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, the other one... the other one I remember at concerts was Almaden. (Laughing) We, we would get the... we would get these big jugs of Almaden.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, but oh, it was, it was a little bit sweet. Get a headache.

Jay McInerney:
But, you know. Yeah, very sweet, I know. But, yeah, and it seemed to go really well with the sort of cheap cal- the cheap pot that we were smoking-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... at the, at the time (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Oh, we have a lot... Oh, we have a lot in common. Oh my goodness.

Jay McInerney:
Yep. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad, but it, but it got the job done.

Doug Shafer:
I love it. All right, so here, here's one more parallel.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Um, we both took road trips. You did it after college-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... I did it, I, I taught school for a couple years and after my first year of teaching I did a big road trip for, you know, two or three months. But, uh, it was about the same time. So, tell me about that. You, you, you took a big road trip after school?

Jay McInerney:
Well, after. Yeah. Grad-, I graduated from Williams and, and I wasn't quite sure what the hell I wanted to do with myself and my parents had given me a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle for my, for my graduation.

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, and, yeah. It was already more than a decade old, but hey, it was transportation. (Laughing) So, um, a friend of mine and I a classmate, uh, jumped in the Volkswagen and decided to do a Kerouac, basically, and drive across country and see, you know, see what we could see, and who we could meet, and ... we probably were on the road for about three months, and eventually... the eventual goal was San Francisco, where, uh, we decided we would try to get newspaper jobs. Um, (laughing) this was, this was right in the sort of middle of the Watergate days, right afterwards, and unfortunately Woodward and Bernstein had made journalism the most popular profession-

Doug Shafer:
Sure, right.

Jay McInerney:
... probably in the country. Even though, you know, there aren't, there are never that many jobs in journalism anyway. But, but that was our eventual goal, but in the meantime we visited every place we could, we had ever wanted to see. We went to, we went to Nashville, you know, looking for Willie Nelson, and, (laughing) uh, we went to, um, you know, Oxford, Mississippi to visit Faulkner's house-

Doug Shafer:
Oh yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... and we went to New Orleans, and, um, we kind of zigzagged around the country, probably, I would say almost three months, sometimes sleeping in the car. When we got to, when we got to Las Vegas, we were pretty much out of money. But, we, we stayed, you know, we sat down at the blackjack tables for eight or nine, eight or nine hours and made, made about 1000 bucks-

Doug Shafer:
Keep (laughing)-

Jay McInerney:
... and were able to keep-

Doug Shafer:
Keep, yeah. Keep going.

Jay McInerney:
That kept, that kept us going for another few weeks. It was a great adventure, but eventually we, we got to San Francisco and nobody, nobody wanted to hire us as reporters, or at, or much of anything else, you know. Ironically, my future wife's family owned one of the papers.

Doug Shafer:
How funny.

Jay McInerney:
(Laughing) The San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle, but I didn't know that at the time. So, so eventually I drifted back to the East Coast and I did find a, a job at a weekly newspaper in New Jersey. Um, not very, not ver glamorous-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
But, uh, but it was a start.

Doug Shafer:
Right. And then, and then, uh, very quickly, after that I think you ended up in Japan, but.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah. I- I, I, I very quickly get tired of, uh, writing about planning board meetings and dog shows, and, uh, and sewer board meetings (laughing). So, I applied for a fellowship, a Princeton fellowship, um, that sent me to Japan, it was just a graduate fellowship to study Japanese culture-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... and I, at that point I was, I was just at a, at a loss, really.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
It was, I just wasn't sure what the hell... I knew I wanted to be a writer, but it, it didn't... I, I couldn't quite figure out how to support myself while I... while I try, tried to, uh, to do this. And so, a classmate at Williams had told me that it was really easy to make a lot of money in Japan teaching English a few hours a week-

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Jay McInerney:
... and, uh, and I was, I was intrigued by the culture, you know. I mean, people like, you know, writers like Allen Watts and Gary Snyder were very much in the air at that time: people writing about Zen Buddhism and Japanese culture, and I was intrigued. Um, so off I went to Japan. I ended up staying there for two years. I completed the Princeton program, I stayed on for another year and taught English and tried to write the Great American Ex-patriate Novel.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
I studied karate, I studied the language (laughing). You know, it was wonderful, until finally I realized that I was just sort of postponing the start of my real life unless, indeed, I wanted to spend it in Japan. So I returned to New York, or I, or I went to New York-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
... since I never actually lived there before. But, New York, uh... this was 1979, and I was hearing... I don't know. I was feeling these sort of cultural vibrations from New York: the New Wave music, you know, CBGBs was, happening, um, and also, you know, it seemed like pretty much the literary center of, the United States, you know, where New York was where the publishers were, where the, you know, the Beat generation had pretty much been based there. Writers like Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote, and-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
Dahl had sort of started out there. It just seemed like the place to go, and in fact, I immediately fell in love with New York and, as someone who'd never really had a hometown, I thought, "Hey, this is it. This is, this is my pl-, this is my place." And I have never changed my mind about that.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
And, and New York became my subject, as well, you know. I mean-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
You know, Raymond Carver had the Pacific Northwest, and William Faulkner had, you know, Mississippi, and, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... but, and I'd, but I had never really been anywhere. I had never really lived anywhere long enough to particularly identify, and suddenly I thought, "Hey, why not write about New York?" It just seemed so exciting, you know. I mean, it, it was a really interesting time to get there because on the one hand, it seemed like New York was completely falling apart.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. I remember that. It was really edgy. I remember that.

Jay McInerney:
Really edgy. I, the city had almost gone bankrupt-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... two years before, uh, and it was dirty and dangerous-

Doug Shafer:
And, and crime, yeah.

Jay McInerney:
And everybody, everybody got mugged-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... and there was a heroin epidemic at the time. Uh-

Doug Shafer:
And this was your, this was your new home.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. My Volkswagen, I drove my, I drove my Volkswagen to the city, it was immediately stolen (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
But there was so much energy. Um, there was a, there was a real cultural scene that was, co- coalesced around downtown. Basically painting was almost being reinvented.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Jay McInerney:
You know, there was a... in the 60s, the 70s, painting had been almost declared dead, um, you know, in favor of, you know, conceptual art, of performance art, and so on and so on. And suddenly these guys like, you know, Basquiat and, uh, Keith Haring, Eric Fischl, guys that I was actually seeing on the street, you know... Julian Schnabel-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... they were reinventing painting. There was this whole, you know, sort of punk, new wave music scene that was going on at places like CBGBs and the Mud Club, you know.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
You know, I was a little too late to catch the Talking Heads at CBGBs, um, but, uh, you know, they had sort of moved on to bigger venues. But, I did, I did see, I did see them at the Mud Club. I saw the Ramones, I saw the B52s at these little-... little, little downtown venues, and it was sort of my idea that I wanted to, I wanted to create a kind of literary equivalent to these, uh, to the music and, and art scenes that were, that were flourishing in the midst of this mi-, downtown Manhattan squalor (laughing). I mean, and it was, it was squalor, but it was, it was sort of touch-and-go for a while whether, you know, whether New York was gonna sink into the, into the East River, or whether it was gonna, there was going to be a renaissance, and of course there did turn out to be a renaissance.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
Certainly culturally, and, uh, economically. Uh, although, you know, we, we did have this terrible, you know, tragedy of, of the AIDS crisis, which developed uh, a few years after I arrived in New York, which really kind of scythed through the artistic community. But, uh, but it was, it wa-, I, to me it was just an incredible time to be there. And eventually I wrote a book about the literary and the nightclub scene, the downtown, uh, music and art scene, called Bright Lights, Big City, and, uh, published it, uh, to increasing acclaim, and-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
At which point, I don't know, within a, within a year or two there was su-, there suddenly was, indeed, a kind of literary equivalent to the music and, and art that I had been admiring as a, as a young man.

Doug Shafer:
Well, you're be-, you're being-

Jay McInerney:
... it was a great time to be young in New York.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, you're being really modest. It's a fantastic novel, and Bright Light, Big City, I think most everybody is very familiar with it, so, um, you should take a bow. But, um-

Jay McInerney:
It was basically this autobiographical novel about-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughing)-

Jay McInerney:
... the life I, the life that I'd been living for two or three years in, in New York, uh, when I, when I was, uh, working as a fact-checker at The New Yorker, and, uh, and going out to nightclubs at night, and, crawling into The New Yorker office in the morning and doing a fairly bad job of being a fact-checker, to the point that I was eventually fired (laughing). Uh, I, you know. Rightfully so. I think I, I think I earned-

Doug Shafer:
Well this, this makes, this makes for great fiction. You know, I mean, come on.

Jay McInerney:
Well, that's-

Doug Shafer:
You know.

Jay McInerney:
... well that's, you know.

Doug Shafer:
... is it truth or is it fiction?

Jay McInerney:
It's, it's true, you know. Hemingway, Hemingway said that, you know, the worst thing that can happen to you as a writer, or the be-... He said the best thing that can happen to you as a writer is, is the worst thing that happens, so long as it doesn't kill you. In my case, in my case I, um, lost my job at The New Yorker, my mother died of cancer, and my wife left me, uh, all in the space of about se- seven or eight months.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
So, um, so it was a real trifecta of-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... of heartbreak, which, which ended up, I don't know, making, making for, uh, an interesting-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
(Laughing) and heartfelt novel, I think.

Doug Shafer:
Of course.

Jay McInerney:
And, um... yeah. At the, at the time it didn't feel good (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
No. And, and, uh-

Jay McInerney:
It did not feel good.

Doug Shafer:
I think-

Jay McInerney:
It didn’t feel good at all. I mean, on my, um... I mean, um, the, the fact-checking job was never one that was really dear to my heart, but on the other hand, it was The New Yorker, you know?

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
It was, it was, it was prestigious, and it paid, paid fairly well, and, uh, it was, it was very humiliating to get fired. Uh-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... and, and, and to tell my mother, who was sick with cancer, that I'd been fired. Um, and, uh, at that time I was dating a woman who was very successful, a fashion model, I'd actually met her in Japan. We went back to New York together.

Doug Shafer:
Hmm.

Jay McInerney:
And her, she had become a successful model, uh, and I, I, you know, my... after a, um, nine glorious months at The New Yorker I was, I was fired and, uh, her career was going up and mine was going nowhere, and... I don't know. I think, I think I thought it would do my mother's heart good if I got married, given, given her health problems and-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... um, and, and it, and it, it might have, except that within three or four months of getting married my, my wife ran a-, ran off with an Italian fashion photographer, so-

Doug Shafer:
No. No.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. So that pl-, that plan didn't work out very well.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, man.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. So it was-

Doug Shafer:
Oh, Jay.

Jay McInerney:
It was... these are, these are the circumstances from which I was like, my novel, Bright Lights, Big City, arose. So after, after losing my job and my wife in New York-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... basically, I felt like the city had beaten me. You know.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
(Laughing) I'd been there for two years or so, and I, I just felt, you know, like I'd been whipped out of town, and I, I, um, I applied to, uh, some graduate school programs, but one in particular that I really wanted to attend was the Syracuse University because Raymond Carver was teaching there. And Carver was, at that time, probably the most influential writer in America, and certainly one of my favorites, and I, and I had the good fortune of meeting him through, through my friend, Gary Fisketjon, uh, my road trip buddy- ... who had, who had gone to work for Random House. Carver had come into New York for a reading at Columbia University and, uh, after lunch at Random House he had nothing to do before his reading and my friend, Gary, called me up and said, "Raymond Carver is coming to your, coming to your apartment." (Laughing) "You, we want you to show him around the city." And I was, I thought it was a joke and I just, I just hung up. But, sure enough, my buzzer rang a little bit later and there was this big, big shambling bear of a man, name of Carver, and we ended up hitting it off and sitting around the apartment talking about literature, and his friend, Richard Ford, came by, who was on the verge of becoming a very important writer himself.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, we stayed in touch after that, and Carver invited me to come to Syracuse, and, and I, I applied, was accepted in the writing program, and that was the, that was the start of my, my wine store phase.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, to supplement my, my meager fellowship. I worked, I worked at a, a store called the Westcott Cordial Shop, which, in addition to selling, uh, industrial fortified grape juice to, to guys with bad hygiene, we also sold a, a few real wines (laughing). There was the, you know, there was, there was a few serious bottles on the shelf, and, and also the, uh, the proprietor had a wine library in the, in the store. He had all the, you know, Hugh Johnson books.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
And so on. So I would sit, sometimes, and read between waiting on these winos and sometimes occasionally getting, occasionally living through a stickup-

Doug Shafer:
Oh no, really?

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Like they pull, they're pulling a gun on you?

Jay McInerney:
Pulling a gun.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, man.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. It was a, you know, it was a bad... it was actually a bad part of town.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, okay (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
But, um, but I did, yeah. It was a tradition of mine with clerks that we'd take a bottle home every night, uh, since we were paid minimum wage. And you know, it, I started with, uh, I don't know. I started with, what, Yu- Yugoslavian Cabernet when there-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. This is, this is when there still was a Yugoslavia, and you know, I worked my up to, like, Freixenet-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
The, you know, the Spanish Cava. But you know, I, I started to develop a bit of a palette-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... starting at the bottom. Starting at the bottom, working my way up, and I was actually at the wine store when I got the phone call saying that Bright Lights, Big City had actually been accepted for publication.

Doug Shafer:
Oh. Well, okay, good. Things are turning around.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, right? Very excited, yeah. So I, I actually brought home the nicest bottle in the store. I figured I would pay for this one. It was, um, it was... I remember it was a 1978 Smith Haut-Lafitte. I think I was partly attracted to the label. It had, uh, the same sort of blue, blue-and-yellow label that it does today. But I, again, that was one of the greatest bottles I ever had in my life, simply-

Doug Shafer:
Very, yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Perhaps, because of the circumstances. The fact that my very first-

Doug Shafer:
Sure.

Jay McInerney:
... novel had been accepted for publication by Random House, it was, you know, great. A great day for me, and-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
And I... it seemed a great bottle of wine (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Well, of course it was, and you know, all of a sudden your life's turning around, finally.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, everything, it's... well, life was turning around.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
I was also at the Westscott Cordial Shop working with the cash register when I, when I get another call from, um, from Paramount, from someone at Paramount Studios, telling me that he had just read my novel and they would like me to fly west and talk about making it into a movie.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Jay McInerney:
And, uh, yeah. That was, uh-

Doug Shafer:
That's pretty cool.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. So there was, there was a pretty big turnaround (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
So that, that, that cordial shop was okay?

Jay McInerney:
It was. It was all right. So I flew the, the, within days of getting this phone call. So, I flew to LA and I, I stayed at a place called the Chateau Marmont-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
It was recommended to me. They said, uh, "You want to stay at the Chateau Marmont?" And I said, "Is that good?" And they said, "Is it good? Well, John Belushi died there." You know.

Doug Shafer:
(Laughing) Oh no, they actually said that?

Jay McInerney:
And I think, I think, I think given some of the, uh, you know, substance abuse in, in the novel, Bright Lights, Big City, I think they somehow felt this would be the perfect place for me.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
But, but one reason it was a great place for me is because they had a very limited room service menu. It was a tuna melt and a, you know, a, say, a Reuben sandwich. But, somehow they had this big cellar of... Pa- particularly of old burgundies.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
There was, like, there was a ton of old Bouchard burgundies from the s-, from the ‘70s, and so I worked my way through that, you know. I would just order a bottle every night, you know, like... You know, it was '78 Corton Charlemagne-

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
... or Montrachet, or, uh... it was-

Doug Shafer:
With a tuna, with a Reuben. That's great.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
That, that's perfect.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah. And then, yeah, and it didn't cost that much-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... and the studio was pay-, the studio was paying, so I didn't care (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
But, that, that was another little chapter of my wine life. I kept going back to Chateau for a number of years, and then ev- eventually, of course, the stock of burgundy was thoroughly depleted. Uh, I, I, I certainly had a lot to do with that (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
So, at this point, are... So, you're definitely... you're definitely got the wine thing going. So, are you, are you starting to collect wine …

Jay McInerney:
Ah, yes. Well, what... So, Bright Lights was published in 1980... Fall of 1984. I got $7500 for the, for the book.

Doug Shafer:
Uh-huh.

Jay McInerney:
Um, which was, which was pretty good, you know.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
It was, it was about... it was a little bit more than the average advance which, of $5000. Mostly that went to pay off debts and stuff-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... but some, but within a few weeks the, the book really started to gain momentum and, and the first printing, um, sold out, and the second hu-, a huge second printing was ordered. And, suddenly, um, I went from poverty to relative prosperity (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, at the exact moment that the 1982 Bordeaux were hitting the American market (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Good timing.

Jay McInerney:
So, a fair, fair percentage of my earnings went into buying '82 Bordeaux, you know. That was the world-shaking-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... vintage, the, you know, the vintage that made Robert Parker. But, uh, but, uh, for me these wines were, even on release, they were, you know, s-, fairly drinkable and opulent and delicious-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... and believe it or not, I still have, I probably still have one or two of the-

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
... bot-, of the bottles that I bought then, because, of course, you know, Bordeaux can last almost forever-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... and, um, and you know, I think the '82 vintage proved that Robert Parker was certainly right about that one.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
That was when I started to go a little nuts (laughing). I just... and, uh, and, and, and obviously, for, for a while, um, I was a Francophile.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
And Bordeaux, Bordeaux was my thing. I, I really didn't... I didn't know that much about burgundy, despite my depletion of the Chateau Marmont's cellar, and, uh, ohiIt was almost a decade later, really, that I discovered what was happening in California. Specifically in Napa and Sonoma. Um, when my friend, Dominique Browning, called me to offer me this, uh, wine-writing job, um-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, that was at House and Garden, right?

Jay McInerney:
At House and Garden.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, but that was, that was, that... didn't that surprise a lot of people? You know, all of a sudden-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
I'm just like-

Jay McInerney:
Absol-

Doug Shafer:
McInerery's gonna write about wine?

Jay McInerney:
Absolutely. Everybody thought, everybody thought she was crazy, not least her, her... She had already hired the food editor, named Lora Zarubin.

Doug Shafer:
Right. Good.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, uh, the, the woman-

Doug Shafer:
Your great friend.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, still my great... still my great friend. Uh, saw her the other night, and, uh... But, she was very suspicious and she said, you know, she, she ba-, she basically said, "What does Jay McInerney know about wine?" You know, "His, his," you know, "His sinu-, you know, his nasal passages are probably destroyed from cocaine, and..." Um, and so we had dinner, you know. So then, we were supposed to have lunch at the Four Seasons, um, so she could check me out.

Doug Shafer:
Check you out.

Jay McInerney:
Unfortunately... Yeah. Unfortunately, I arrived at lunch at the Four Seasons really hung over. I had been, uh, I had been, I had been out with Bret Easton Ellis the night before. So I, I, I don't think I made that good an impression, except that I blind tasted something that she, she ordered, um, and she was somewhat impressed. But, but her caveat was, if I was going to be the wine columnist for House and Garden, I had to go to California and I had to visit Napa and meet the, you know, the people who were - in her mind the most important, and the people who were really changing, uh, the whole scene there, including, for instance, Helen Turley. This was 1996, and, uh, Helen, uh, Turley and John Wetlaufer had - they had just bought their, uh, their vineyard on the Sonoma coast, uh, I think the, I think the year before.

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, I went, I went and met Helen. My very first wine, professional wine-tasting experience is meeting Helen at the Napa Wine Company, the Gulf Custom-Crush facility.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, right.

Jay McInerney:
She had this tiny little cubicle there, where she was making, uh, her own Marcassin label from, from purchased grapes. And also, Bryant and Colgin.

Jay McInerney:
So I tasted all of these wines, um, at 10:00 in the morning. Right, you know. At-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... at that time I thought it was quite extraordinary to taste wine at 10:00 in the morning. Of course, now I know that that's-

Doug Shafer:
That's what we-

Jay McInerney:
... when the palate is freshest, and that's what we do.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
I didn't know this. Um, but you know, she was pretty skeptical, too, 'cause she, she knew exactly who I was and she just thought, you know, "What the hell is this guy doing here?"

Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
Uh, and so, she said, she, she quizzed me before we tasted and she, she said-

Doug Shafer:
Oh, wow.

Jay McInerney:
"Oh, you know, what do you know about California Chardonnay?" Um, and I said, "Well, not that much." I said, "I, there's a few I like," and then I said, she said, "Like what?" And I said, "Uh, well, I really like this one called Peter Michael." I, I had no idea, but of course, until, like, the year before, she, she had been the winemaker.

Doug Shafer:
She'd been making it, yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Making, making the Peter Michael Chardonnays.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
And, uh, so she brightened up considerably after that and, uh, and we, we ended up, you know, forming a friendship. I, you know, I, and in the trip I also met her, her brother, Larry - who, who of course is, uh, behind the Turley Zinfandel, which she, she was making at the time.

Doug Shafer:
Yes.

Jay McInerney:
That didn't, uh, that didn't last much longer, but, um, I met, uh, Bart and Daphne Araujo, um-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
It was eye-opening for me because, you know, that, that was, you know, that was a turning point, I think, in, in Napa. It was '95, '96, '97. When people like Helen were, were, you know, kind of, kind of, kind of changing the predominant style-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... of, of the wines there, and it was, it was a very exciting time. You know, I, I, I... it was either that trip or the next one that I met Bill Harlan-

Jay McInerney:
And you know, I, I found these new, I found these new wines to be very exciting. there's, there's just been several chapters of Napa wine history since, but one of the things I loved was the fact that they were figuring out how to, how to make Cabernet Sauvignon after years of, of, you know, big tannic, uh, wines.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
They were, they were learning how to tame the tannins of, of Cabernet so that, you know, it was, it was drinkable at a, um, approachable at a much earlier age. And, and also, you know, discovering Zinfandel, I mean, you know, this... It's, it's a wonderful, exuberant, all-American taste sensation, really, and, uh, I just, uh, I just really enjoyed, uh, arriving at that moment, and I subsequently became a regular visitor to Napa, and eventually to Sonoma, as well, and, uh, met you somewhere al-, somewhere along the line.

Doug Shafer:
Somewhere along the line, yeah (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
No, the 90s were super exciting. There was a lot going on, both in the vineyard and the cellar, I, and I, you know-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... I was right in the thick of it.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So it was like, uh, you know, there was new s-, new ideas every other week, just new things to try and play with.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And that was, it was really fun. So, your timing was good, but you, you touched-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... on something earlier. I want to ask you again about... So, you're coming in as a wine, you know, to be a wine writer. I mean-

Jay McInerney:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
And you know, knowing you and, and, as I have through the years, but it's like, I'm sure you took a good, you know, look at it and thought about... did you have a, an idea of what you wanted to do, um, as far as, you know, what was your, what was your stamp gonna be?

Jay McInerney:
Well, I think, I think that, uh, at the risk of, of sounding, uh, arrogant, um, I knew that I was a better writer than most of the people writing about wine at that time, you know? It just seemed like, in terms of (laughing), in terms of, uh, incandescent prose, the bar was pretty low in the wine-writing community. But I also felt that, you know, that I would try to just bring some novelistic, uh, skills to the, to the table, you know.

Jay McInerney:
You know, as I said, you know, to, um, you know, I, I've, I'm pretty good at creating metaphors and similes and and also I thought that, you know, I wa-, I wanted to write about the people, I wanted the winemakers to be characters in my, in my, in my essays, and really it was so interesting, particularly at that time in Napa, when everybody... like your father, for instance... everybody there had come from someplace else-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... and some other profession, really, at which they had been successful, and then they'd gone to California to make wine. So, you know, there's so many great stories there about transitioning to, to, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... you, you know. And, and, and everybody, like me, had their sort of, their story about the wine epiphany and the thing that finally made them decide to commit to this, to this path. So, you know, I knew, I knew I was a pretty good storyteller and that I could, uh, and, and I knew that there were so many interesting characters, really, in, in the world of wine. You know, the Eur-, you know, the archetypal European wine story is usually quite different. It's usually somebody who's inherited this tradition, and has to wre- wrestle with whether or not they want to-

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jay McInerney:
... go back, go back to the farm, as it were, you know, after, after college or after exploring the world a little bit. But, um, but you know, certainly in California your, you know, your and your dad's stories is, is archetypal-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... you know, sort of a change, you know, a sort of radical... It, it, it's almost, you know, it's almost like the, you know, the 19th-century pioneers, you know, pulling up roots and going, going West in a covered wagon while that-

Doug Shafer:
(Laughing) Well, there was.

Jay McInerney:
... there's, there's so many, there's so many of those stories.

Doug Shafer:
It was a country, a Ford Country Squire station wagon with a-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... with a dog in the back. That's what ours was. It's pretty funny.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, the, the, the Mondavis were unusual for a-

Doug Shafer:
Yes.

Jay McInerney:
... and, you know, they'd been there for several generations, but, uh, but most of you are, I think most of your peers could, your contemporaries, had, had started somewhere else-

Doug Shafer:
Somewhere else.

Jay McInerney:
And wine, you know, they, they, they came for the love of, of wine, and it's fun, it's fun to write those stories. It really is.

Doug Shafer:
That's great. And then, you... So, so you banged out... You've, you've got how many books? You've got, uh, Bacchus and Me... that was your first one... Adventures in the Wine Cellar.

Jay McInerney:
Oh, I, yeah. So, eventually I, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Somebody asked me if, if they could publish my columns-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Jay McInerney:
... in a book, in a book, and it was a very small press, and I s-, you know, I called, I called my editor, Garry Fiskejon, who... my Williams road trip buddy who has since become my editor at Random House, and I, and I said, uh, "Is it okay if I do this?" And I think he was relieved that I didn't want him to do it (laughing), and he, and he said, "Sure." Um, but the book ended up selling a lot of copies in hardcover. I mean, you know, like, like, 40-50,000 copies in this tiny, tiny press.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
So then, uh, Random House sort of set, sat up and took notice and (laughing) ... uh, they bought the, they bought the rights to the paperback and they published the subsequent, uh, collections of my, of my wine writing, and, I like to think that I'm writing for... I, I, I'm not writing... I'm not writing for the specialists, uh - I think I'm wri-, I'm writing for wine enthusiasts who are, you know, a few-

Doug Shafer:
Well, you-

Jay McInerney:
... p-, uh, they're a few chapters behind me in the textbook, basically, and, uh, I like to help people appreciate wine more. I'm, I'm, I'm a lover rather than a fighter, so I, I very seldom write about wine in the, in highly critical fashion that is in a negative fashion.

Doug Shafer:
Sure.

Jay McInerney:
If, you know, if I hate something, then I just-

Doug Shafer:
You just don't write about it.

Jay McInerney:
Don't write about it.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah (laughing). You know, I think the books have filled a, a, a niche, uh, filled a need over the years, although, although I have to say that since, since I started writing about wine, the landscape has changed so much, and now there's an amazing amount of very good wine writing in book form, on the internet, and blogs. Uh, it's, you know, it's been a real renaissance. I think I could retire right now and nobody would, nobody would really notice. But, back in nine-... you know, back in the late 90s there, you had, you had these English critics sort of writing about, you know, the scent of hawthorn blossoms, and you, and you had the Wine Spectator guys, like, writing this really technical stuff about barrels and, you know, and fermentation-

Doug Shafer:
At this point, all these years you're writing wine columns, you're still writing novels, right? I mean, that's-

Jay McInerney:
Yes. Absolutely, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So you're doing-

Jay McInerney:
I'm, uh-

Doug Shafer:
... how's, what's that like, bouncing back and forth between novels and wine columns? 

Jay McInerney:
You know, I, I, I feel like I do it in different moods.

Doug Shafer:
Huh.

Jay McInerney:
The wine writing just feels right some days, and, and the fiction feels right other days, and, I probably shouldn't admit this, but I, I, I can write a wine column when I'm hung over (laughing), but I, but I can't write a good one, I can't write a good short story when I'm hunger over. Not, not, not that I ever get hangovers.

Doug Shafer:
No, no. Me either (laughing).

Jay McInerney:
But it's, yeah. I don't know, it's just different, different muscles. And also, I don't know. It's, it's always fun writing about wine for me. It's a little more, huh. Its' a little more serious, it's a little more daunting, sitting down to start a new chapter of the latest novel. But I am, I'm in the middle of, I don't know, what must be my 10th novel, I think, now.

Doug Shafer:
Wow. That's, that's great.

Jay McInerney:
Ninth or tenth. I really should know this, but yeah. I think it's the 10th novel. And, I mean, I certainly, I have a, I have a new book of wine columns kind of ready to go, but we haven't really organized that yet. It's been a, in case you haven't noticed, a very strange year (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Well, yeah. I was gonna, yeah, how are you doing? You know something, you know, you had a good run, but your, your luck ran out. Uh, what ha-, you got-

Jay McInerney:
Oh, it's been a terrible year.

Doug Shafer:
... you got screwed. What, what happened in 2019, after Christmas?

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, right after Christmas, uh, my house in, uh, in Bridgehampton, New York burned, uh, almost to the ground-

Doug Shafer:
Oh, Jesus.

Jay McInerney:
... and, uh, we were a-, we were a-, we were actually in it at the time. And fortunately, fortunately, we got out and all our pets got out safely, um-

Doug Shafer:
Good.

Jay McInerney:
But, um, you know, this, this really is our main residence, uh, and, and was, it was really heartbreaking.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, you know, I lost a lot of stuff. Uh, fortunately I'd, uh, I didn't lose my book collection.

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
I, I collect first editions, mainly of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, um, all of which are pretty much irreplaceable, as, you know-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
... they're signed to Dorothy Parker, or, you know, or Hemingway, or whatever. So I was running back in the house getting these books out. (Laughing) The firemen were yelling at me to get out of the house. Um-

Doug Shafer:
Oh.

Jay McInerney:
But, you know. No, first were the pets, then, then the books.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Jay McInerney:
It was very, very traumatizing. And then, um, then of course this, uh, general catastrophe. Started to unfold in, uh, in March and our, our dog died. It's just-

Doug Shafer:
Just, yeah.

Jay McInerney:
It was a... I... it was a very bad year last year-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Jay McInerney:
... and I'm very, very glad it's over, and, uh, the house is being rebuilt, and in the meantime we're spending some time on the West Coast-

Doug Shafer:
Good.

Jay McInerney:
... which is pretty nice.

Doug Shafer:
Good.

Jay McInerney:
But yeah. We, we, we got a house in Malibu and I'm, I'm spending, spending some time here (laughing).

Doug Shafer:
Well, bring some of those -

Jay McInerney:
Looking out, looking out over the ocean right now.

Doug Shafer:
Look at you. Bring some of those '82 Bordeaux out and I'll, I'll drive down and see you (laughing). That's motivation, baby.

Jay McInerney:
Yeah, that's actually the, the next... Yeah. The next step is, of course, I have to get a, a wine refrigerator installed here. I hope the pandemic is-

Doug Shafer:
No, we're, we're hanging in-

Jay McInerney:
... Hope you didn't do too badly.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, we're hanging in there. You know, we're, we're growing grapes, we're making wine. Um-

Jay McInerney:
Are you gonna-

Doug Shafer:
... you know, it's just different 

Jay McInerney:
... open up? Are you gonna open up the tasting rooms soon, or-

Doug Shafer:
Um, we're revamping it right now. We're kind of re-looking at the whole program, see what we're gonna do, and we're just taking a pause. So, we're working on that right now, so we'll see what happens. But, uh, already people are, you know, reaching out and saying, "Hey, we're gonna do a trade show in the fall. You want to come pour wine, and we're kind of going, "Okay, I'm not sure yet, but." So, I think it's just a... Well, you know. We're, we're all in the same boat and it's just kind of-

Jay McInerney:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... you know, baby, it's baby steps. Like, what are you gonna do?

Jay McInerney:
Well, I hope to be there before too long.

Doug Shafer:
All right.

Jay McInerney:
Uh, maybe even this summer. So, I will-

Doug Shafer:
Good. Let me know, will you?

Jay McInerney:
I will check in with you soon.

Doug Shafer:
All right, man. Jay, thanks so much for taking the time to do this. It's been great talking to you.

Jay McInerney:
My pleasure. Thank you.

Doug Shafer:
All right.

Jay McInerney:
It's great talking to you, Doug.

Doug Shafer:
All right. Be good. See you around. Bye-bye.

Full Transcript

Spencer Christi...: Hello, hello

Doug Shafer:
Rock n' Roll (laughs).

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) How you doing Doug?

Doug Shafer:
Spencer, I'm so great and this is, oh, I'm so glad we're doing this. I'm doing this with you cause it's just like rolling over, you know?

Spencer Christian:
Oh, man. Yeah, you're right, you're right. It's so natural.

Doug Shafer:
I just... you know. I just... I don't- I don't want any stress today, so you...

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Somebody I know and love. Get away with murder.

Spencer Christian:
Oh man, thank you. I appreciate it. Listen, this is a treat for me. A real treat.

Doug Shafer:
Well, this will- this will be fun, you know, and, uh, let's just have a good time, wing it, abs- obviously we can start and stop. You know, Andy might jump in saying let's do that one again. We'll just, um...

Spencer Christian:
Sure, sure.

Doug Shafer:
And, uh, since you're pro you know how to do that and I'm learning.

Spencer Christian:
Yep (laughs). Well I'm still learning, I'm still learning too.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
I'm- I'm in my 50th year in television, uh, uh, Doug and I'm still learning stuff (laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh man, I've got a long way to go. I haven't gone on TV yet (laughs).

Spencer Christian:
(laughs).

Doug Shafer:
Oh, all right buddy. You ready to go [crosstalk 00:00:59]?

Spencer Christian:
I think so.

Doug Shafer:
All right, I'll take it away.

Spencer Christian:
All right Doug.

Doug Shafer:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Taste. This is Doug Shafer. We've got us, a, uh, a different type of episode today. It's a-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... Q&A, questions and answers. And our co-pilot is Spencer Christian. Who, if you don't know, I'm gonna give you a little quick bio. He spent 13 years as the weatherman, weatherman on Good Morning America. He is a true wine pioneer. He created the first show on national TV that was all about wine, which was back in 1990 or the '90s called Spencer Christian's Wine Cellar, which was on HGTV.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
He's an author. He's a speaker. He's also a nice guy. I like to drink wine with him.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Uh, (laughing) he's, he's met, he's met everyone you've ever heard of, from Muhammad Ali to Bill Murray, to Henry Kissinger. He's now does the local weather here in the Bay Area on ABC 7. And, uh, we're lucky to have him back. Our first guest who's ever agreed-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... to come back. (laughs) usually, they-

Spencer Christian:
Well-

Doug Shafer:
... they, they get done and they run. Spencer, welcome back, man.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) Doug, it's always great to be with you and always great to talk about wine with you. And, you know, the main reason I'm back, uh, is that, Hey, you're a good friend. But the second reason I'm back is that you promised me s- a taste of some Shafer wine. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That's right. But we're, we're not together. So we're gonna have to do it a third time once this pandemic is over.

Spencer Christian:
I, I'm gonna have to ... Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was gonna say, I'll have to come up there and visit you as soon as this pandemic is behind us and we will, uh, we'll do some, some sipping.

Doug Shafer:
Definitely. Well, we're going, we're going to lunch for sure. I'm buying. So-

Spencer Christian:
That's, that's for sure. Well, you know, we've got a bunch of questions here today, Doug. Uh, you wanna get right into them and-

Doug Shafer:
Let's get ... You're the question man and I'll be, uh, at- the at-, I'll attempt at the answers and if I need help-

Spencer Christian:
(laughing) Okay.

Doug Shafer:
... you can help me out.

Spencer Christian:
All right. So I'll start with this one, this is from Sarah Barbers and she says, "Doug, love the podcast and notice that over the last year, the pandemic comes up, uh, a little bit, but not a lot. I was wondering how the COVID situation has affected things at your winery and at other Napa wineries. Do you think any of the changes you've seen in the last year are long-term?"

Doug Shafer:
Wow, that's a good one. Yeah, Sarah, we, yeah, we haven't focused too much on the pandemic. I think we've, I try to make an effort just to keep this thing a little bit of a break for everybody since it's been such a, you know, a long, tough year with the whole pandemic thing. But, um, it, it definitely hit the Napa Valley and the wine country. It hit our winery. Um, I mean, it's not literally, just figuratively just with the stay at home. Basically sh- we shut down the winery to visitors, uh, in March, 2020, um, and are still closed to visitors. Uh, I sent everybody home and some folks are working remotely. Some are coming in. It's been very, very casual. The, the priority at Shafer is safety and, and safety and healthiness of all our folks that work here. So it's been a, an interesting time. It's kinda wild. The, the vineyard guys and all vineyard operations are totally normal. Um, but they're, because they're able to work 10, 15, 20 feet apart, the guys for the most part. So it's very safe out there. And the cellar has been totally normal. We've got three guys in the cellar with Elias. They've got masks on. They can, he can-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... they, they don't ever have to work side by side. So ... those two operations have been kind of normal, which is kinda, which is great because that's growing grapes and making wine. The, the whole hospitality thing in the, at the winery though, is totally shut down. So no visitors-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and skeleton staff, and basically we're doing curbside sales. If people drive up in the parking lot we can sell them wine. So, you know, will th-, will things stay, I don't know. You know, and it's slowly opening up right now. It's, um, early March in 2021, and there's a lot of wineries who are doing outdoor tastings. Uh, just last week, they, they're allowing some indoor tastings, I think. That's kinds coming and going. And, uh-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... so it's, it's kinda creeping back to normalcy. Um, we see, during the weekends, we see a lot tourists run around St. Helena and Calistoga in Napa. Everybody, you know, for the most part, everybody's wearing masks, which is great. So it's, um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... yeah, as far as long-lasting changes, hard to tell at this point. It's just kinda taking it one day at a time.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. Doug, uh, obviously, uh, based on your answer, it doesn't seem like production was affected, uh, but obviously hospitality. But, um, I guess it's, it's hard to tell then whether there are changes that will be permanent, right, in terms of the way you sell wine or, or, or in, or in the way you do hospitality.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, it is, it's, I think it's too soon to tell, but I think there's, uh, I think we've learned some things and, um, I think a lot of places have dawned to kind of a reservation system for visits. And-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... I've talked to some of my peers and they s-, they say, you know, it's kinda neat. Um, people can almost, you know, book a tasting like booking a table at a restaurant. Just for a more private, that type of thing. And so maybe there might be a move away from the, you know, mass tastings, belly up to the bar thing and more of a, um-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... kind of a reservation system. Hard to tell.

Spencer Christian:
Okay.

Doug Shafer:
We'll see.

Spencer Christian:
Sounds, sounds good.

Doug Shafer:
All right.

Spencer Christian:
Uh, well, there's a, there's a question from, uh, Tom Danczyk. He says, uh, "Doug, uh, uh, this is a great idea. Thanks for the opportunity to ask, uh, questions. Is there a high temperature at which you would immediately be concerned about the quality of the wine in the bottle? Uh, is, is there a temperature at which you would not be concerned for days or weeks or maybe even months?" He says he would assume that wine could take a higher temperature for a few days versus a few weeks or a few months.

Doug Shafer:
That's, Tom's definitely got it right. I mean, if, if a wine was at a high temperature, you know, basically the shorter time, the better. As far as the exact temperature that I'd be concerned about, I mean, if a wine was something like, you know, 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it'd be like, "Oh man, what's going on here? Let's cool this thing down right away." You know, ideal seller conditions is in the, you know, 55, 58, 60 degrees Fahrenheit, um. Constant temperature is the real key thing for, for wine quality and storage. I mean, even if you can't get 58 or 60, if you can get 63 or 64 and have that be consistent and constant, that's better than going from like 58 to 75 back to 55, up to 80. That's, that's gonna beat up a wine pretty good in storage. So consistent temperature. I try not to get over the low 60s. Ideally 58 to 60 would be great, a dark place, store the wine outside, keep the cork moist. That's important so the cork doesn't dry out.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
Um, but, uh, you know, that's why, you know, sometimes you, you, if you walk into a, a wine shop and you've got a, there's some great bottle of wine sitting on the top shelf, and it's not an air-conditioned room, and it's standing upright and it's a 10 year old wine, it's like, boy, I wouldn't (laughing) I wouldn't go there.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... you know, and so-

Spencer Christian:
I have seen that so often, you know, and I wonder don't people in the wine business know better. I mean, not keep a bottle standing up that long, especially an older bottle, you know.

Doug Shafer:
Well, you know, guess what guilty as charged. We've got a bo-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
..., we've got a three-liter bottle sitting out in the tasting room.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
It's, it's a very lonely bottle right now because there's no one there.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) 

Doug Shafer:
And it's a three liter bottle of 1978 Cabernet, which was our first cab, a gorgeous wine. I kinda really don't know where this thing came from. It's just always been there. It's a, it's an etched bottle and it's like, um, Elias started talking the other day, it's like, "Is it really the '78 or is it like fake wine? We just put for, for ..."

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... "you know, display purposes." So we really don't know, (laughs) but-

Spencer Christian:
Well-

Doug Shafer:
... but it's been standing up right in a, in a room temperature, which gets, you know, hot and cold throughout the year. And so-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... we're gonna have to pop it sometime and see what’s what.

Spencer Christian:
Well, if that lowly bottle ever needs some company, let me know. I'll (laughing) happy-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Spencer Christian:
... to make the drive. You know, just, just one more thing, if I can throw in a, a-

Doug Shafer:
Sure.

Spencer Christian:
... a, a personal experience about storing wine. When I first got into collecting wine, keeping it at home, um, this is like the late 1970s. I was working for ABC in New York. And I lived, um, in a, you know, nice little suburban community over in New Jersey. And I had, um, a, a full, a, a full basement in my home, right.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
So I'd partitioned off a section of my, uh, which was fully underground as my, my wine storage area. Uh, there was no window there, it, and it had a, it was on a part of the house that faced North, so it never got direct sunlight during the day. And without any temperature control device, if you could believe this, m- my, uh, room temperature down there and never got above 65 degrees in the heat of summer, it never got below 52 in the dead of winter. And-

Doug Shafer:
That's perfect.

Spencer Christian:
... my, and it kept my wine without a, uh, a temperature control device. So I guess I got lucky.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. I mean, anybody with a, if you've got a basement, you gotta admit, but this is the key. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm lucky I've got a whole winery here to store my personal wines and so it's-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... temperature controlled and you know, alarms and all that. But most folks, you know, you're dealing with, how do you do it at home? And, um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... years ago I had a garage where I'd built a closet and put a little tiny, uh, air conditioner in there. And that worked pretty well. You doing the basement thing works great if you've got a home that's got underground storage. So, um-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... but it can be a challenge. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Sure, yeah, it can. It can. Well, let me, let me move on to the next question 'cause people wanna hear their questions and not mine. (laughs) 

Doug Shafer:
No, I wanna hear yours. Yours are good. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) This is from, uh, Marie Fran Nieves in, uh, Tacoma, Washington. And she says, "Hi, Doug, I really enjoyed your book, which I finished recently. I noticed it was printed in 2012. So it ends talking about what things like, what things were like at Shafer and at Napa Valley during the recession from 2008 to 2011. If you were writing this book today and it was coming out in 2021, what else would you be able to write about how would you, um, how do you think you would end it?"

Doug Shafer:
Man, was it that long ago, (laughing) 2012? I can't-

Spencer Christian:
Can you believe that?

Doug Shafer:
That's like nine years.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Uh, well, I guess we'd have to add a few chapters. Um, let's see. Well, in '12, right, when the book came out with, that's when the, uh, 2008 Relentless was announced as wine of the year by the Wine Spectator.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And that was, and that was wild. That was a-

Spencer Christian:
Wow.

Doug Shafer:
... that was really crazy, um, and it was crazy, crazy good and great recognition for not just Relentless, but, but Shafer Vineyards. So that was a real fun one. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... 2014, I think that's the year dad turned 90 and, uh, it was, we had a couple of great parties. We had a big family party only, family only. It was about 40 of us. And that was, that was wonderful. And then, uh, a couple months later, we had friends and trade here at the winery. It was like 250, 300 people. And, you know, what was great, he was sharp and on it. And he was there to-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... be, uh, recognized and toasted and celebrated and gave a couple of great speeches. And, you know, and it happened while he was-

Spencer Christian:
That's awesome.

Doug Shafer:
... alive. That was so cool.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, that's awesome.

Doug Shafer:
'Cause we lost him in 2019. It's been a couple of years.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... but he was a great life, 94. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... in 2017 released, um, our new wine called TD-9. That was when we-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... moved from Merlot to, uh, Merlot/Cabernet Malbec red blend. Um, and that was kinda fun because I mean, we don't offer, we don't release new wines. I mean, we do it every 10, 12, 15 years. So that was a big one. And that's been a-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... a lot of fun. Um, that wine is-

Spencer Christian:
Where did that name come from-

Doug Shafer:
That-

Spencer Christian:
... TD, yeah, TD-9?

Doug Shafer:
... good q- q-, good question. Look, that tells the John Shafer moving from Chicago story. When he moved us out in '73, he went from, uh, riding a commuter train to downtown Chicago in a suit and tie to driving a TD-9 tractor here in our Napa vineyard.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
It was this old-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... tractor we found out here. It came with the ranch. And, you know, so all of a sudden he's got jeans and a straw hat and I've never seen the guy-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... I've never seen a bigger smile in my life. Ad I think that guy-

Spencer Christian:
He loved it. He, he loved it, right?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. I'd come home from school. I was in high school. I drive home, he's out there in the tractor and big wave and big shit eating grin on his face. And just-

Spencer Christian:
Right, right. 

Doug Shafer:
... and I, and I, you know, that, that actually, um, it kinda shaped me, uh, and my career choices. Because at the time I'd grown up watching him commute to Chicago, you know, doing that commuter thing-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... coat and tie. And all of a sudden I see him in jeans and a straw hat and, you know, we're working outside. We're really happy. And-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... I think that's-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... part of the reason I went to Davis was to study viticulture, to, uh, try to have a, an outdoor life if you will. So, uh-

Spencer Christian:
Ab- absolutely. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... it really affected me and what -

Spencer Christian:
What was with that, what was with tha-, that, uh, six-hour sheep video, that, uh-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) That -

Spencer Christian:
... it came out in 2020? Right, 2020.

Doug Shafer:
Well, yeah, so, and then to finish up these last nine years, we're finishing up with this pandemic thing. So it was about a year ago and we're all, you know, we're all, the entire world's like, "What are we doing with this?" And-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... and, uh, I've got this crackerjack, you know, team that keeps our name out there all the time. And, um-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... Mr. Andy Demsky, and he came up-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... with a great idea because he'd read some article about people stuck in their apartments sheltering with, uh, big screen TVs and, you know, cold and winter. And they'd, they'd get a YouTube video of, of a fireplace burning and they just run that on the TV just to kinda warm up the room if you, you know, not-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... literally-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... figuratively.

Spencer Christian:
Not literally, right.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. And, uh, and at the time we had our two, annual 200 sheep in into the vi- in our vineyards for two weeks 'cause they eat all the cover crop down so we don't have to drag tractors through the field. And, um, he got this great idea and, uh, we shot and pieced together six hours, six hours of sheep grazing (laughs)-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... in our vineyards. And it's really cute because there's a little baby sheep, 'cause there's always a bunch of babies born when they're here. And, uh, and there're, there's birds, you know, singing and so, and the, and the sheep were out there munching away. And, uh, you know, and baa-baa, a lot of that. And-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... and, and we put it on YouTube and it's gotten, I don't know, it's got hundreds of thousands of hits and it's because ... And people, and people writing in saying, thank God for the sheep.

Spencer Christian:
It's awesome.

Doug Shafer:
... they're keeping me alive. I'm stuck at home. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) That's awesome. I'm-

Doug Shafer:
So, well, check that out. YouTube, you know, hit YouTube and go, you know, Shafer sheep. I'm sure it'll pop up. It's pretty funny. It'll keep-

Spencer Christian:
I was just gonna say, I have to add that drinking Shafer wine is a sheer delight. And I say that-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
... and I, I say that with a sheepish grin, but (laughing) -

Doug Shafer:
God, God, you're on a roll. I love it.

Spencer Christian:
... I couldn't help (laughing) myself. But I couldn't help myself.

Doug Shafer:
Of course, you say that. This is what you do.

Spencer Christian:
Really? (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
Let's move along to, uh, Jeff Foeller's, uh, question. He's from Hutchinson, Kansas. And Jeff says, "I'm curious about the impact of longer barrel aging for wine. For example, the 2016 Hillside Select was aged for 32 months in 100, 100% new barrels. Uh, why that length of time and why new barrels?"

Doug Shafer:
Good question. Um, we like ... Well, we make really rich concentrated wines and the two that are the, the biggest and the most concentrated are Relentless and Hillside Select. And these wines, I mean, when they're first made, they, they're just black as night, black purple. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... there's no aroma, very little aroma and it's just, in their mouth it's just massive, massive fruit. And to get that wine to open up, you need to age it a long time in barrels to have that, there's a slow oxidation that happens through the barrel staves, the wood and that it, a, softens the wine. It also opens up the nose, so there's better aroma. And we found with our two big wines, Relentless and Hillside, they need 30 or 32 months barrel aging to open up and really blossom aromatically. So we've moved to that over the years, that length of time and new French oak is a beautiful thing if you have enough concentration, um, in fruit, in the fruit to handle it, to balance it. And these two wines do especially, Hillside Select. So it-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... it, it's a beautiful marriage and the, uh, the wine comes out very, you know, lovely balance. The oak is there, but it, it there's so much concentration of fruit, it does not overpower the wine. So it's, um, that's kind of the formula we've, after 35 years, we've come up with. Now, we have a couple other wines, One Point Five, and, uh, TD-9 other different reds, not quite as concentrated as Hillside Select. And, uh, we age those in barrel, a shorter amount of time, 18, 20 months, that type of thing. And also depending-

Spencer Christian:
Got it. Got it.

Doug Shafer:
... on the vintage. So it's kinda like being a chef. You know, you have to mix and match and know your ingredients and, and work with it that way. But, uh, uh, it's, it's basically, we've got big rich, beautiful wines and they can handle the oak and they, they need that time to open up.

Spencer Christian:
Doug, how much difference does one type of oak make versus another for, for your wine? For example, you know, French oak versus American oak or a Hungarian oak or Slovenian oak.

Doug Shafer:
Years ago we used some American oak in our, some of our cabs, but, uh, we've gone to 100% French. It's a, French oak, it's, uh, a little subtler flavor. American oak can be a little more aggressive. That, that doesn't mean it's a negative thing. It just means that-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... it'll be a little more s- ... You, you'll notice it quicker than a French oak.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
Uh, French oak, you, and the character with French oak is a little more vanillan, uh, if, you know, kind of French vanilla ice cream, if you will. And-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Doug Shafer:
... uh, that's, we've found, we like that, that flavor profile with our wines. That's how, that's where we go with that one.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. I, I guess, uh, of similar to, to grapes, uh, the, the, the wood is a reflection of the soil in which it's grown, just like grapes can be, I guess.

Doug Shafer:
Well, they can. There's different forests in France, the, and some of the ... We get, uh, get our wood from, uh, areas where the, the grain is tighter, if you will. So-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... the grain's tighter, um, so it doesn't impart as, uh, it doesn't impart the f- the oak flavor as quickly as a wider or looser grain would.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... 'cause there's forests that have that. Because, uh, for that amount of time in barrel, we've gotta have tight grain. 'Cause if it was a-

Spencer Christian:
Sure.

Doug Shafer:
... loose grain, it'd be way too much oak.

Spencer Christian:
Well, okay. Spencer Christi...: Rod Green from Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas wants to know, um, "On the podcast, you often ask people from family wineries about their, uh, uh, secrets of success? What was the secret with you and your dad or with any other family members?"

Doug Shafer:
Wow. Well (laughs)-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... uh, he's a, you know ... This guy, who is this, Rod? But Rod is throwing-

Spencer Christian:
Rod, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... it, he's throwing it back at me. Uh, it's, it's, uh-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... good for you, man. Um, we had a, my dad and I had a really unique experience, especially when I've talked to other people in other family businesses, whether they're wine or something else even. Um, I think the big key and obvious was communication.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And just as important was mutual respect. Um, even when I started here and I was green and kind of a knucklehead, um, he was-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... very patient and I, I don't ever recall one moment where he said, you know, he, he's something like, you know, "You're an idiot. What are you thinking about?" You know, nothing. It was always just he'd hear me out and we'd talk about it.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Um, we worked so closely together and making every decision because when I joined here, we were, we were not, you know, as, as popular, and we weren't making the quality wines we are now. So we really had to learn to figure it out. But w- we kicked our ideas around so often and so much, even Elias too. Um, by the time we make a decision, we kinda already knew we were gonna do it. For example, (laughing) I, I can remember-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... one time, this actually happened, um, he goes ... I was in his office and he goes, "Hey, I've been thinking about something. I wanna get your opinion." And I said, I held up my hand and I said, "Wait." He goes, "What?" And I grabbed a piece of paper and I grabbed the-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... pen and I wrote down, you know, "I'm thinking about, you know, opening up the, you know, the European market with Hillside Select." Or whatever it was. And-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... and I folded it up and I said, "Okay, what's on your mind." And he goes, "I've been thinking about opening up the European market with (laughing) Hillside Select."

Spencer Christian:
(laughing) My God.

Doug Shafer:
And, and I opened up the paper and I showed it to him and he goes, "Wow." Because I mean, we were just kind of like, even when we weren't together, we were kind of tracking.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And that happ-, that, I swear to you, I go-, I'm not BSing you, that happened, that happened five or six times. It was like-

Spencer Christian:
That's amazing.

Doug Shafer:
... yeah. It was really kinda cool. Um-

Spencer Christian:
You guys were in sync. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, we were in sync. And so, and we, you know, if we ever disagreed, it was never like, uh, uh, earth changer, like, you know-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... like line in the sand thing. It was just like, "Well, I really don't agree with that, but I, but I can see where you're coming from. So what if we ..."

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... "try this." And he'd go, "Well, what if we do this and take a baby step before we go full hog, full hog on something like that."

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
So it was, um, it was a lot of communication and mutual respect.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And my, I gotta give, tell you something. I gotta give him credit. He, when he turned this thing over to me in the mid '90s and said, "You run it." And he was still around and very ac-, and a very active guy. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... he really did it. He stepped back and people would come to him and say, "Hey, John, what about this?" And he'd go, "You gotta go see Doug. You gotta go see Doug." So-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... really let me run with it, you know-

Spencer Christian:
Wow.

Doug Shafer:
... and succeed-

Spencer Christian:
That's-

Doug Shafer:
... or fail. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Spencer Christian:
I love that story. I love that story. It's fantastic.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
[inaudible 00:22:58]-

Doug Shafer:
Cool.

Spencer Christian:
... you have a question from, uh, Sandi Leyva of Scottsdale, Arizona. She says, "What advice would you have for someone like your dad who wanted to get into the wine business as a second career, uh, in their late 40s or early 50s? What opportunities are there? And bottom line, do you have to be a billionaire?" (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Sandy, that, that last line hurts. That's what my answer was gonna be. You gotta be a billionaire. No, that's, um, no, you don't have to be a billionaire. Um, I think you've gotta be really creative. I think you need to, first of all, think about what you wanna do and what's realistic and what's affordable. And, you know, making a top end, Napa Cabernet might not be affordable, uh, with what's land prices are. So if you do like wine maybe there's another avenue, another type of wine, another style of wine, um, grown in a different area. I mean, you've got the Sierra Foothill, Foothills. You've got Lake County is coming on, that's North of here. Oregon, Washington, other areas where their lands not so expensive, but you can still grow and make beautiful wines. Virginia, Michigan. I've had some gorgeous-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... wines from Michigan and Virginia. Um, and the Arizona. You know, I taught school in Tucson, Arizona. They were growing grapes down there and making wine. Good wines. Um, so yeah, I think you have to be really creative. Um, I think you have to do your homework and pay really close attention to what's realistic. I mean, really what's realistic. And when you go into it, especially if you're gonna build a facility, I mean, you need to overcapitalize, because things will come up, you're gonna have, um, something that you didn't expect that's gonna cost another $80,000 or something like that.

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
And not, and beyond that, you've gotta have a game plan of how you're gonna sell the wine and who's gonna buy it and what they're gonna pay for it. And you really, you should need to do your research on that. And, um, you just can't do it and, and hope. Uh, trust me, I've, I've done that myself. You (laughing) gotta-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... you gotta have a plan. And, um, also there's some really cool things happening with people making wine in, in warehouses, in urban areas, um, in Oakland and South Napa. Instead of having this, having to pay all this money for a facility out in, you know, prime time, expensive land in Napa and Sonoma, you can have a warehouse space in Oakland or Napa in the warehouse district and bring, make wine in it. You know, I mean, you've got your equipment, you bring the grapes in and you go for it. It's a warehouse. I mean, uh, it's, I mean, that's how you keep costs down. So-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... so you can do it, but you've gotta be creative and do your homework-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... for sure.

Spencer Christian:
I've seen a lot of those urban winemakers out there. I've visited some over in Alameda and Oakland-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
... and, yeah, they're, they're all around. Um, there's a question from, um, Dave Glidden, uh, he says, "Doug, do you use open fermentation? And if so, uh, what do you see as the benefits? Uh, either way, what do you see as the pros and cons with this kind of fermentation?"

Doug Shafer:
Okay. I think he's referring, Dave's referring to open top fermentation where you just have a big vat and it's open to the air. Uh, we do not have that. Our fermenters are closed top. I mean, there's a, there's a big gate valve up on top. We can get a pump over device in, but we do not have open top. The, I think the tradition on open top was, um, I was talking to Elias about that, we think it kinda came from the old days when there wasn't, the, the cooling of the tanks wasn't available or wasn't as good as it could be now, as it is now. And so having an open top, it blows off heat 'cause fermentation, you've got, you're producing alcohol, but produces a lot of heat. And if it gets too hot, you kinda burn off some of the nice aromatics. So they could be a, it could be, it could be used, I think, just to get rid of heat, dissipate heat, and that's maybe where it came from. Um, some people might use it today to blow off, blow off some alcohol. So alcohol is volatile during fermentation. I think, um, in talking to a few people who've, who've mentioned that, you, you don't get a tremendous drop in alcohol. You might get, um, you know, half a percent or something like that, but that, that could be-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... a positive for doing that. Uh, the negatives, the reason we don't like it is because we think that you lose volatile aromas, some good aromatics. Because besides blowing off heat and alcohol, you're blowing off fruit and f-, and aromatics that we wanna keep-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... in the wine. So we like to keep, uh, close top fermenters. That's, that's our program.

Spencer Christian:
It makes sense. From, uh, from Mike Rife or it could be Mike rife in New York, New York, New York, my old stomping ground. He says, "Hi, Doug. I was wondering why you use such (laughing) he- heavy ..."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
... "bottles with Hillside Select. Have, have you considered using bottles of similar weight as Relentless. Um, I know you want to make them special, but does it need to be in the weight of the bottle?" And before you answer that, I'm just gonna say that-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
... the fir- first time I had a bottle of Hillside Select, I picked up that bottle and I thought, "I hope this is heavy because it has extra wine in it." (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Well, you know, Mike, Mike Rife, from New York, I have to agree with you. I'm wondering the same thing. Why are we using such heavy bottles? Anyway, they his ... You know, I've been doing this a long time, so you go through different, you know, different stages. But back in the day, uh, in the early '90s, I mean, we were s- Hillside was taking off and, you know, um, it was all image and brand was important. And, you know, all of a sudden it was like the, it was like the age of the big, heavy bottles. And, uh-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... I'm happy to say we weren't the biggest and the baddest, but we were pretty big and bad. (laughing) But I think I did-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... see somebody once there was actually more massive than ours. It was like, wow. Um, and we did it for a few years and it's like, "Wow, this is kind of ridiculous." Especially with, you know, um, the freight and, you know, fossil fuels and, you know, global warming and shipping this stuff. So-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... what happens unfortunately with, um, with the wine business is, when you wanna make a change in packaging, it takes a while for it to come around. Uh, Hillside is, th-, I think ... Let's see. It's, uh, it's crush and by the time we release it, it's four years later. So, and it takes time. So at one point, we went back to the '06 vintage, we shaved off about, I think it was about 25, 30% of the weight. And that now we were actually with the '17 Hillside, which we bottled last year, it's gonna be released this September. Uh, it's the same bottle that we use for One Point Five. So we've gone all the way back. So, but-

Spencer Christian:
There you go.

Doug Shafer:
... but, but Mike you're right, we were way too heavy.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
And so we were way wrong. I'm okay to say we were wrong on that one. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) Okay.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
From, uh, from, (laughs), from Andrew A. Ingram, uh, he ... This is a question I would like to know too. What wine do you drink that is not your own? But he also wants to know, um, how do you price wine and how much wine do you hold back from the actual release and what do you do with that wine?

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Well, we've got three questions. So what do I drink-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... that's not my own? Um, well, the, the short answer is everything. Um-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... I, I really, it's really fun to try new wines. I, um, even if it's a wine that doesn't taste very good, it's kinda like, "Why doesn't this taste good to me?" I mean, that's kind of an exercise. You and I have talked about that-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... but-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. Right.

Doug Shafer:
... but, um, I drink a lot of, uh, I'm drinking more white wine these days. I love Chablis, Sancerre and I really love S- Sangiovese from Italy. Um,-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, that's-

Doug Shafer:
... Fontodi, and, uh, once in a while I'll get crazy if I'm ever in a big bruiser night with, um, you know, like Michael Twelftree, my buddy in Australia and his Two Hands, some monster wines. And he, he says, Napa wines are monsters. This guy makes bru- (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... bru-, they're bru- brut, bruts. They're bruts out there. Um, but it's fun. Um, I'll do Pinot from New Zealand and Oregon. Um, I still-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... keep, um, I'm still searching for that, you know, $50 retail burgundy, red burgundy, that's really delicious. And that's-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and it's like, you can't get it at $50, but, um, that's an ongoing challenge. Uh, pricing wine, Hey, you know, um, we, we pay attention. We pay attention to see if wines moon or it's not. We pay attention to what's going on with our neighbors. Uh, we get feedback from customers. But the bottom line is, you know, we're in the business and, you know, I, I can't be losing money. And my prices are going up all the time. Barrels, equipment, um, you know, power, everything's going up. So-

Spencer Christian:
Sure.

Doug Shafer:
... so, um, we don't raise them as aggressively as we did back in the '90s, but, um, we're at a point where it's kinda leveled off. But, um, we've gotta cover costs and have a little leftover so we can, um, you know, take Spencer out to lunch. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughing) And there you go. I mean, like you said, (laughs) I like that part of it. It is a business, but it's also a labor of love. It, it, I know it absolutely is. So how, so how much wine do you actually hold back from release and, and what do you do with it?

Doug Shafer:
We, you know, years ago I ... God, I think we used to hold back like 50 cases of every wine we made. And all of a sudden, I, you, you kinda forget about it and it's in the warehouse, you know-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... which is not onsite. And, uh, all of a sudden you're looking at inventory report and you've got like 50 cases of a ten-year-old Chardonnay. It's like, "Oh no ..."

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... "that's no good." So-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... we made a effort to minimize what we hold back. We hold back some Hillside Select every year. Um, not a ton, but enough, enough that we can, can, it can, we can use it like, uh, for special occasions, for traveling, just to treat, to show somebody an older Hillside. Um, it's probably around 100 cases worth if that. And that last over like a 10 year period, which is perfect. And, um-

Spencer Christian:
Sure.

Doug Shafer:
... once in a while there're, there'll be a restaurant or somebody who wants to do a vertical selection. You know, I'll get three or four bottles of, you know, five or six vintages and we can do that, uh, for them. But actually people would probably be surprised, we have a very small library. Um, so it's just, um, 'cause we just wanna, you know, it's we want people to buy it and drink it and enjoy it. So that's-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... that's-

Spencer Christian:
That, that's what it's there for.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. And then you can oc- also hold over a bottle for when Spencer comes up to lunch. That'll be fun.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
And what was the one? You, what's your favorite? Was it night-, uh, it '97 or it's-

Spencer Christian:
It is the, the '87 -

Doug Shafer:
The '87.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. You wanna like, you wanna tell that story? I was, I was ... I'll start it. I was-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
... up there at Shafer, uh, to, uh, interview you, Doug, for-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... a little segment I was doing it for a little wine, uh, uh, vignette I was doing. And, um, you and I were out walking around the property and I just happened to mention something about loving your 1987 Hillside Select. So then after we left the, the vineyards ... You, you pick it up from there. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Well, we'd set this up. You were coming up and Andy and I were talking and Andy said, "You know, I think Spencer loves, you know, loves old Hillside." I said, "Great." I said, and I just off the cuff, I said, and I said, I said, "Why don't you pull an '87?" He goes, "Okay." He looked at me-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... and said, "Really? You know, you never go that far back." I said, "Yeah, but I know S- I've known Spencer forever. Let's ... What the heck? You know, that'll be fun I haven't had in a year or two. It'll be fun." So we pulled the '87 and then you said that in the vineyard. (laughing) And we walk in the tasting room and we got the '87 there for you. That was pretty-

Spencer Christian:
My eyes almost popped out of my head.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
I, I couldn't believe it. It was great. But, you know, we've got a question from, um, Mitchell Miller, St. Peters, Missouri. He says, "Regarding varietal composition ..." Excuse me, "Varietal composition, specific to the Relentless and the TD-9 wines, what is the process the winemaker goes through to decide what the varietal composition will be? And once decided, how is it, uh, controlled at the time of blending?" I guess he means the percentages of each varietal.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Yeah. Um, blending is ... Uh, last night, uh, we've gone full circle on blending. Um, people would probably be amazed and probably shocked at how we blend because we really don't blend. Um, so the story goes, when we started out, we'd be, um, we kept every s- every block separate. So every block and Merlot, every block of cab, you know, there'd be ... And every te- ... So there'd be tanks. There'd be, you know, four or five tanks for Merlot and 10 tanks of Cabernet, a couple tanks of Cabernet Franc, that type of thing.

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
And then we'd get in the, we'd put ... And after, you know, six months or so, it's like, let's work on some blends the following spring. So we'd have all these different wines in the lab, you know, and we start trying to put together. Well, so how about 10% of that or 15% of that? It was, you know, you've got basically about probably 13 or 14 different lots, you know, separate lots of wine, and you wanna make th-, you wanna end up with three, three red wines. It would be exhausting. It would be ... We s-, so, we were measur-, measuring little, you know, milliliters for, you know-

Spencer Christian:
(laughing) Right.

Doug Shafer:
... on 100 milliliter sample. You know, how much percent, 10 milliliters of that is five ... You know, it's just like, it was ridiculous. And we'd go all, for four or five hours, you're, you're not drinking, you're spitting, but you're still just exha- your pallet's exhausted.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
And we'd come back and do it again the next day. And anything we decided it was like, your palette changes the whole thing. So we, we, we said, "This is just a waste of time. This doesn't make any sense. We can't do anything." And we kind of, uh ... I think it just happened. We didn't really plan it. We just started making blends early on. And so here's how it works, because we, we know our grape sources, and we have consistent grape source every year, we're pretty sure what grapes, what blocks go into which wines. But he's got, let's say it's got two different tanks of Cabernet from two different vineyards. They're both solid. They're not Hillside. They're definitely gonna be One Point Five. They're both tasting good. There's no problem. He's, he'll just pull them together right there. Right at harvest. Right after they're done fermenting and take it to barrels. And, you know, he'll have, uh, two tanks of Merlot and a small tank Malbec and a small tank of cab.

Doug Shafer:
And it's like, you know, these are all solid. This will, this will definitely be a TD-9, you know, start of a TD-9 blend. Let's put these four tanks together and take it to barrel. And then, and then he racks. And so now he's got, instead of having 13 ... Let's just use the number 13, 13 different lots of wine. He's got like about, five or six. You know, and then next time he racks, you know, five, six months later, you know, he'll fine-tune it and make the final blend and then take it to barrel and let that, let that final blend age for a good year plus in the barrel, which we really like to do. We like to have it married and going.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Um, Hillside Select gets blended right at the crusher. We know which, which Hillsides are going into Hillside and they're, they just become Hillside tanks right then, boom. So-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... so Hillside Select is basically the blend is made by the time the wine goes to barrel, right, right, the vintage year. By Halloween, by Thanksgiving. And people are blown away by that. But, but that's, uh, that's kinda how we do it. So-

Spencer Christian:
That's amazing.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
It's, uh, it's fascinating stuff. Um, uh, Doug, uh, Doug. Dave, Dave Engen want's to now, uh, if ... So he says, "If Doug Shafer was stranded on a desert island and you had only one imported wine to drink until you got rescued, what wine would it be?"

Doug Shafer:
Wait, you said that was Dave Engen?

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, Dave Engen. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Dave Engen, my buddy, my long-time buddy from Utah, now, California, who's sold Shafer wine forever in Utah, in-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... California all over. Hey, Dave, I miss skiing with you buddy in Utah. And I really like his question. It's like, the, w-, the one wine to drink before I got rescued. Usually it's like before (laughing) you die on a desert island. So-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... I like the rescue part. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. I like that part too. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Imported wine, you know, I'd have to go ... Oh man. 'Cause I'd wanna tell him about it. I'd have to go Flaccianello from, uh, Fontodi. Gion- Giovanni-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... Giovanni Manetti, who's in the heart of Tuscany, a wonderful guy makes great wines, Sangioveses.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
His winery is called Fontodi, but he has a special wine called Flaccianello. And-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... uh, I'd wanna drink that 'cause then I wanna get rescued and go see him and tell him about it.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) What an-

Doug Shafer:
But-

Spencer Christian:
... what an amazing choice. I love that wine too.

Doug Shafer:
Good. Well, so how about you, Spencer? What would, ha-, what would you drink on a desert island?

Spencer Christian:
Well, you know-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
... my, my love (laughing) affair and, and hoping to be rescued, as you said-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... too, my love affair with wine, Doug, began with Bordeaux. Uh, and I was, I was seduced by a, uh, a bottle of 1966 Château Lafite Rothschild in the year 1976. And this was before I knew anything really about wine. And, but, you know, we now know that that wine was a great wine from a great vintage and it had 10 years of bottle age. And it just blew me away. So even though my, my love affair with wine includes all wines, I love all great wines from all regions, Bordeaux was probably still my favorite region. And because that was the wine that first stole my heart, I would take a bottle, a well aged bottle of, of Lafite Rothschild. However, much like you, Doug, I have totally fallen in love with the Sangiovese grape as it is grown in Tuscany.

Spencer Christian:
And, uh, well, I, I maybe next to a, a great bottle of Château Lafite or a great bottle of Shafer Hillside Select, I might go for, uh, just any great Brunello Di Montalcino.

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
The '66 Lafite, huh? Wow.

Spencer Christian:
'66 Lafite. 

Doug Shafer:
God, I bet she was beautiful. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
Well, yes. I can't ... I mean, do you have five minutes to tell you, uh, my-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
... experiences after-

Doug Shafer:
I want-

Spencer Christian:
... that wine?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
I, my, my wife and I were taking a friend out to celebrate his engagement for the second time around.

Doug Shafer:
(laughing) Okay.

Spencer Christian:
And, um, we (laughing) were, we were at, uh ... He lived in Baltimore, so we had gone to a, a steakhouse in Baltimore. And I knew nothing about wine at that time, I had a curiosity about it. So I thought this great occasion demands a great bottle of wine, right. Celebrating my friend's engagement. So I looked at the wine list having no clue what I was looking for and picked the most expensive thing on the list. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
And the most expensive thing on the list was the '66 Château Lafite. So the server brings it to the table, pulls the cork out. The bouquet, lifted out of the bottle and pulled me in like I was a, like a cartoon character, you know -

Doug Shafer:
Right. Right.

Spencer Christian:
... in a full ... But, and when I took that first taste, I didn't even wanna swallow the wine. The, the sensations that were exploding in my palette were incredible. And that's how I fell in love with wine right there.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Spencer Christian:
So, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Great story.

Spencer Christian:
And I began doing what you mentioned earlier, which is, you know, you find a wine that you like, and you learn about that wine or that region before you ... You know, you can't learn everything at once. You can't-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... go to every ... So I started studying Bordeaux and fell in love with all the Bordeaux varietals. The next logical step was to f-, you know, learn as much as I could about Napa Valley Cabernet and, and, and Bordeaux blends. And then-

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Spencer Christian:
... I started branching out after that. But, but I digress. (laughs) So from, from Hugo Castro in, uh-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Spencer Christian:
... Miami, Florida says, um, "Doug. I can usually afford a purchase of just one or two bottles of Hillside Select each year. I consider myself lucky, by the way, uh. Given the limited amount of, uh, the limited number of bottles for each vintage, uh, what would you say is the appropriate cellaring time before opening the bottles?"

Doug Shafer:
Hugo, good question. I, um, I think cellaring time is a matter of personal taste, definitely. Um, pers- for Hillside, I usually like them nine, 10, 11 years after vintage. Um, I'm happy to say I'm old enough now that Hillside lasts 20 to 24 to 25 or more years, which is great. But I like them around nine or 10 years because they've got some bottle aged, some bouquets, some softness, some, uh, we call them secondary aromas kind of herbal and tea and-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and, and tobacco. But still has, but at that point it still has some primary fruit, which I really love. So kinda that's me. But if you talk to Elias, my buddy here, you know, he's like, "No, no, I like him at 15, 18 years." He likes more age on them. So, you know, difference of opinions. Um, so you kinda, kinda go with your own gut and what you like.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
How about-

Spencer Christian:
And that's ... Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... how about you, Spencer? You like them old or young or in between?

Spencer Christian:
You know, I'm, I'm sort of like you, uh, Doug, I, I, I think, uh, I think my advice to anyone would be to go with your gut, but I'll go with your (laughs) palette. But, um, it, I think it depends on what type of wine you're drinking. For example, if I'm drinking Bordeaux, I like, I like them with at least 10 years of age. Sometimes more because, you know, that that's still how they make them over there. It's to be enjoyed at least a decade later. But if I'm talking about great Napa Valley cabs, uh, you know, I love your wine, as you know. I love, um, Groth Reserve.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
Uh, the-, those are wines that, uh, they, uh, they're beautiful when they, when (laughing) they're first released. So I like to sample them when they're young and then wait about eight to 10 years and then go back to them. And then maybe up to about like 14, 15 years. Yeah. So-

Doug Shafer:
How neat. Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah. It depends on what I'm drinking, you know. Um-

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Spencer Christian:
... and, and as for Tuscany, I mean, I like old Brunello, but I like young Chianti Classico Riserva. So -

Doug Shafer:
You really are a wine geek. I love that. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) I love, I just love wine. I just ... And, and I love the people who make wine because everyone has got a story. You know, like your story is amazing, and, you know, Bob Mondavi’s story was amazing. Uh, everybody in the wine, uh, world has a story that's, that's different and, and yet fascinating.

Doug Shafer:
That's true. That's true.

Spencer Christian:
So on we go to Amanda Sund from Atlanta, Georgia. She says, "Is there any wine that you haven't tried yet that you'd like to try?"

Doug Shafer:
Oh boy, yeah, there's a lot. Um, so we're going back to ... Yeah, I know, I know where we're gonna go. We're gonna go to Burgundy. I've written by the vineyard on a bicycle, but I've never tried the wine. Um, Romanee-Conti's La Tache, the La Tache vineyard. I've never tried that.

Spencer Christian:
Yes.

Doug Shafer:
I've never tried that wine

Spencer Christian:
You should.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
You should. (laughing) 

Doug Shafer:
I knew, I knew you'd say that. Damn you.

Spencer Christian:
You should.

Doug Shafer:
Spencer, you get all the-

Spencer Christian:
Let me tell you-

Doug Shafer:
... you get to have all the fun.

Spencer Christian:
Well, um, you know, h- here's the funny thing though. I, I, look, I love all great wines as you know, but I'm partial to the, to the Bordeaux grapes and I've never been a great lover of-

Doug Shafer:
That's right.

Spencer Christian:
... of Pinot noir. Yet, I have friends back in New York, you, you, you, you know, you, you, back in the East coast, when I was there, you could divide wine lovers into two groups. Either they were, they were Bordeaux lovers or Burgundy lovers. And one of my friends loved Burgundy. We'd always have these tastings and he'd bring a great bottle of La Tache or-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... you know, some of the other DRC wines. So I got to taste all those wines without having to pay for them because (laughing) he brought them to the tastings.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
And they were, they were pretty remarkable. (laughs) Pretty remarkable.

Doug Shafer:
Nice.

Spencer Christian:
So I -

Doug Shafer:
How about you?

Spencer Christian:
... think of.

Doug Shafer:
What wine you haven't tried?

Spencer Christian:
That I haven't tried. Um, gosh, I've been so fortunate. I've -

Doug Shafer:
You've tried them all. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
You know, uh, no, uh, (laughing) no. Um, uh, you know, I, there's some great wines from, from the, the, uh, Piamonte region of Italy, some of the great, uh, Barolos and, and Barbarescos I have not tried. Uh, and I love, uh, the way Angelo Gaja makes his wine. So I guess if I had to go for something I haven't tried yet, it would be Angelo Gaja's top of the line Barbaresco. That's what I would wanna try.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I'd-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... yeah, I'd like to try that one too. Yeah, I had a c- his ... He makes great wines.

Spencer Christian:
He's, he's amazing. He is amazing.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
Um, Bill, Bill Harkins, uh, want's to know, "Doug, can you talk about what role yeast has in wine. Does yeast, uh, help deliver an aroma that the winemaker is trying to achieve and how do you achieve consistency in your wines?"

Doug Shafer:
Um, good question. Yeast, well, yeast is the workhorse. Um, basically, you know, making wine is, is kinda like making bread, um, don't quote me. But-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... basically, you know, the, the yeast, uh, takes the sugars and, uh, from the grapes and, um, consume it and replicate and they, they give off heat, alcohol and, carbon dioxide gas. So basically without yeast, we can't make wine. Um, and there's different types of yeast, different strains. Um, some, you know, do better with certain white wines, certain red wines. It, I think it's very subtle and, and they do co- compart or they do give different flavors, but it's very, very subtle. I mean, it would be tough, I mean, it's tough for anyone to, um, discern. It's more of a ... Sometimes there's a textural feel they might, you know, one yeast might give to a wine compared to another. But it's again, super subtle. On that same vein, I think, I think he asked about consistency in wine. I mean-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... the, the most, the best thing for consistency for us in quality is quality of fruit. Um, so vineyards, which when we used to start out, no one paid too much attention to vineyards, I mean, that's where the action is. Because you've gotta have top grapes to make top wines. I mean-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... El-, uh, our wine maker Elias in the summertime, he's in the vineyards two or three days a week just working and making sure things are getting done right to get the best grapes possible. Because if you, if the grapes aren't in tip-top great shape, there's no way he's gonna make great wines. Um, so it's, it's having that consistency of fruit year to year is, is what's important for consistency in top wine quality. That's what-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... that's our program. Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
You know, since you mentioned the fruit, uh, Doug, you know, I know it's become a cliche now, but, uh, people still tend to refer to California wines, especially in Napa Valley, uh, cabs as being more fruit driven than say their, their counterparts in Bordeaux or maybe Chile, uh, made from the same grapes. Is, is that because we have a, a warmer, longer growing season here or is it, does it have to do with catering to the American palette, which tends to like big, rich, robust flavors?

Doug Shafer:
Um, I don't think it's palette. I think it's what we're, what we're dealing with with our climate. Um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... yeah, we're just a, a warm climate and we, our are grapes to g-, you have to get them ripe, um, to get the, uh, I call them non-green flavors. And, uh, and getting them ripe, usually it's higher sugar and it results in, you know, bigger, richer, fuller bodied wines. And it's just kind of a, uh, it's a, it has to do with place. And that's what's fun about the world of wine, is as you've spoken to, um, every place is different and, uh, that's, that's, what's fun about it. You know, um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... Cabernet from Bordeaux is not Cabernet from Napa and there-

Spencer Christian:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... there differences and it has to do with, you know, the, the locations where they're grown. So it's, it's fun.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, it's fun. That, that reminds me of something you were talking about earlier in the podcast. You were talking about your love of, uh, Chabu-, uh, Chablis and Sancerre. And, you know, you're talking about the, the Chardonnay grape, but yet the Chardonnay grape grown here, or maybe in Oregon, uh, has a, a different, um, character, a different, a different profile I guess.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, totally. That's why ... I mean, yeah, I'm really proud of the Chardonnay we make here. I really am. I like it. But man-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... man-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... I would, you know, I'd do anything if I could make Chardonnay, like it tastes like a Chablis. I mean-

Spencer Christian:
You gotta make Chablis. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and I can't, and so I need to, you know, go buy some land there or something. I need to learn French.

Spencer Christian:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no more buying land. You've got enough. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
No, no, no, why not? Why not? Wouldn't it be fun. Think I get to go to-

Spencer Christian:
It would be.

Doug Shafer:
... I get go to France a couple, three times a year, grow, you know, five acres of Chablis make a little ... It'd be so much fun.

Spencer Christian:
Well, only if you invite me over to do a little tasting once in a while.

Doug Shafer:
All right. The door's, doors, always open.

Spencer Christian:
Okay. (laughs) Here we go. For, uh, my Kevin Christie, uh, Boca Raton say, "What is your recommendation for building out a nice home wine collection, uh, regarding, uh, wine selection, variety of storage. Uh, and, and until I have a wine cabinet." So okay. So how do you build out a nice collection at home with regard to wine selection, wine storage, um, varietal. And he says, uh, "Any other advice for a home collector who's just getting started?"

Doug Shafer:
Well, I think, you know, the actual physical storage space we talked about earlier, basements, cabinets, you know, a little air conditioner if you got, so that's been covered, you know, until you get a, a wine cabinet. Um, but just again, try to keep the temperature consistent. As far as selection, I think you, you mentioned that earlier, Spencer, um, just the, you know, find, start out with wines you like that you really enjoy and then talk to a sommelier at a restaurant or a, a wine merchant. You know, wine merchants can be a lot of help. I mean, you go in and say, "Look it, I really liked this type of, this type of wine from this producer. I, you know, this varietal, you know, it's what else is like it?" And then they will steer you and give you some tips and, you know, so you try a bottle of that and a bottle of that say, "Yeah, I like that." Or, "I don't like." And, and talk to him about that. Go back and give the guy feedback, or the gal and say, uh, "It wasn't as much, well, good as ... I liked this other one first, but ..." And, you know, you know, and that way you can start to develop, um, kind of an awareness of different wines that are similar to the ones you started with. So I would start there and then kind of branch out slowly. And then, and if you find, uh, a merchant or a somm that you trust, um, say, "Hey, you know, give me something, you know, turn me on to something crazy that you think I might like." And, uh-

Spencer Christian:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Doug Shafer:
... you're either gonna like it or not like it. And even if you don't like it and you'd paid money for it, you learn something 'cause you're not gonna go back (laughing) there again. Uh-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... and that's how you start out. And, uh-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... when you're out to dinner, you can, uh, you're, and that's another, uh, place to get ex-, you know, experience with different wines. Um, different wine shops have, you know, wine tastings. You know, the wine makers will come in and pour their wines on a Friday night or a Tuesday night. That's how-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... and just in other words, get exposure to as many different types of wines as you can. And that'll, that'll, it'll start to happen. It happened to Spencer. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
It did well. Well, what, what sage advice ... That's, that is a, uh, almost the story of my, my wine education, uh, Doug. And when I, you know, had, had that wine epiphany with the-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... '66 Lafite I told you about, uh, I started going to visit this local wine, wine merchant whose, um, store was about a block or two from the ABC studio. So I worked in New York. And I would just hang out with him and-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... talk about wine. He gave me such great advice and such great guidance and really contributed so much to my, uh, my learning process, you know, and to my appreciation of wine. So, uh, and, uh, I think any decent wine merchant is always happy to offer advice and to talk about wine with, with customers, right. Especially with, with, with newcomers, like, like I was at that time.

Doug Shafer:
And-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and, and the other thing Spencer people forget about is, you know, there's no right and wrong answers. I mean, especially when-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... you're starting out and it's like, it's, it's a little bit overwhelming and, you know, it's just, this could ... You know, we shoot ourselves in the foot making it s- so special, special, special. You know, if, if somebody pours you a glass of wine and says, "Hey, this is the best thing in the world. You're gonna love this wine." And you don't like it, that's fine. You know-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... you know, you could actually tell them you don't like it. You, you might wanna be polite and not do that. But, but-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... but if you don't (laughing) like it, you, you, that's you, and that's your palette and you stick with that. You know, just because-

Spencer Christian:
That's true.

Doug Shafer:
... someone says this is the best thing since sliced bread, it doesn't mean you have to like it, you know, at all

Spencer Christian:
That's, uh,-

Doug Shafer:
... at all.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) It is so true.

Doug Shafer:
I (laughing) mean-

Spencer Christian:
... so true. That's that's also true, uh, very often I think with food and wine pairing, don't you think?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
You generally drink the wine you like with the food you like. I mean, you may not wanna have a glass of Chablis with a, with a, uh, a peppercorn steak, (laughs) but, but, you know, you know what I mean.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
You, you-

Doug Shafer:
I probably would.

Spencer Christian:
... maybe.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) You might, you might start with that, but, uh, you know, you, you match the flavors you like with, and, and there are no hard and fast rules.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
And no one, no one should dictate you, to you what, what is good and what's bad, I guess.

Doug Shafer:
No, and, and if, and if anybody does, they're not worth your time. So just-

Spencer Christian:
I agree.

Doug Shafer:
... move on.

Spencer Christian:
Rich, uh, is it, is it Rich Haibah or Haibah, H-A-I-B-A-H?

Doug Shafer:
Okay.

Spencer Christian:
... want to know, uh, when you bring in your Chardonnay grapes and, uh, in for crush, how long do you generally wait before pressing? Uh, what factors are you considering when deciding how long to macerate the white wine? Uh, are there any tests or sensory cues, uh, for this aside from just trial and error from year to year?

Doug Shafer:
Well, Chardonnay, we don't macerate. What we actually do with Chardonnay, is we bring the grapes in and we whole cluster press them. So the grapes were picked in the middle of the night. They're here by 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. And we, and we load them right into the press, stems, the whole clu- ... It's called whole clusters, the whole cluster, stems and everything, right into the press. So it does not go through a destemmer and we press those clusters and get the juice. And it's nice and cool. And, uh, the juice goes into the winery and, you know, it begins its, you know, path to becoming wine with barrel fermentation. So, um, macerating is, uh, th- what that means is when grapes are actually c- crushed and pumped into a tank. It's juice and skins, it's called must, and it's usually done with red grapes. They'll macerate on the skins for a while before starting fermentation. Uh, white grapes, it's not done very often, but some people do do it. Um, I think, uh, some of the trendy orange wines, I think that's how they get them to be orange color. They s- they macerate on the skins for a while before they press them-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... and ferment. Yeah. Because, um, years ago in the '80s, when we first started out, that was the deal. There was no whole cluster pressing or very little of it. And most people put their white grapes through the crusher and made must if you will, uh, which is juice and skins. And then, um, I remember back then we'd either press it right away. We might let s-, uh, skin contact is what we called it. We might let it sit for six or eight hours and then press it. Um, I think the thought was to get more complexity, but over time we found that it was better just to get rid of the skins as fast as you can. So that's why we just-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... whole cluster and go with that. So-

Spencer Christian:
Got it.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
Got it.

Doug Shafer:
Kinda fun.

Spencer Christian:
Orange wine. Um-

Doug Shafer:
Well, orange, I was in, I was in somewhere in Europe in, uh, some wine bar, a trendy wine bar, and they were doing the orange wine thing, which is kinda different and kinda cool. And I said, I said to the guy, I said, "So tell me how they make this stuff." He was a wine guy.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
And he says, "Well, they, you know, they crush it and they, they let it sit on the skins for, you know, eight or 10 hours." And I go, "I've done that." And he, (laughs)-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... he looked, he looked at me and he goes, "You have? You do?" I said, "Yeah, I did back in the '80s and it didn't work out very well. And the, the wine just didn't hold up." And he says, "Wow."

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
He looked at me like I was a, a pioneer. It was kinda cool.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
That's a great story. I love that. (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
Uh, James Gallagher says, um ... Uh, here's a good one, Doug. "It's a month until the end of the world ..."

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
... "what ..." (laughs) It might be. (laughs). He says, uh, "What new world wine would you be drinking to close it out? And if the budget was $30 a bottle max, what's on your go-to list?"

Doug Shafer:
Oh man. Okay. So now we've got the end of the world. All right.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Um, yeah, you know, uh, I've only got six bottles of it left. Um, it would be the '70, the Shafer '78 cab. The first one my dad made.

Spencer Christian:
Wow.

Doug Shafer:
Which was the-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... great-grandfather to Hillside Select. Yeah, that's what I'd drink.

Spencer Christian:
Wow.

Doug Shafer:
I had a couple years ago. It's still holding up. It's amazing.

Spencer Christian:
It is? Yeah?

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
It is? Wow. What's, uh ... Describe it? What, what, what's what's the character like? Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Uh, it's just soft. It's really soft.

Spencer Christian:
Wow.

Doug Shafer:
What's, um, the nose is just, it's all secondary tertiary aromas. There's no fruit left.

Spencer Christian:
Oh man.

Doug Shafer:
The color's, you know, pretty, you know, pretty orange brown. Um, but actually it was, um, but the nose is, is, is, um, it's not like off, it's not weird, you know, it's, it's-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... it's fine. And the thing that was, really blew me away, usually with an older one like that, once you put in a glass and you smell it, it's like you've got about 30 seconds or two minutes and then just like, there's no-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... there's no aroma.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
Because-

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
... which is, it's just gone. Um, we had this, um ... It lasted for like an hour, smelling great, great for an hour. It was amazing. It was really cool.

Spencer Christian:
I had a very similar experience with, um, with an old bottle of Lafite Rothschild.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
Excuse me. I was (laughs), you know, older than what I described before. I, I was born in 1947, right.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
And, and, you know, everyone raves about the 1945, um, vintage in Bordeaux, but '47, it was also a phenomenal vintage in Bordeaux. So in the night- early, uh, it was the late '80s, early n- ... Yeah. It was the late 1980s. That's right. I, I had turned 40. I acquired, uh, a few bottles of the 1947 Château Lafite Rothschild. And, um, I remember my, my tasting experience, you know, the, the first one I opened, you know, I had that, that amber, rusty edge you were talking about.

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
And it looked, it looks so light and kind of faded. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, what's this gonna taste like?" But it still, after 40 years had retained that, that elegant, um, Lafite bouquet, uh, and, uh, it tasted like nectar. It was just unbelievable.

Doug Shafer:
Wow.

Spencer Christian:
But, uh, but I guess I was lucky because you're, you're right, whether ... You, you, if you acquire a wine like that already 40 years old, you, you don't really know how it was stored-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... and where it was stored. So, you know, it's, it's a gamble, but that, that was a gamble worth checking (laughs), you know, I wanna say.

Doug Shafer:
That's great.

Spencer Christian:
The other question, other question James had was, um, uh, if your budget is $30 per bottle, max, what's, what's on your go-to list?

Doug Shafer:
30 or less, you know, I don't drink it very much. I'd go for a really good-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... I'd really go for a really good rosé.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
That's what I'm thinking. Yeah.

Spencer Christian:
I guess, uh, uh, you know, there are, there are a couple of cabs out there. I don't know if they're still under 30, but the last time I had a bottle of Chad, C-H-A-D, Chad-

Doug Shafer:
Right, right.

Spencer Christian:
... Cabernet, it was about 29.99. So that's a-

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Spencer Christian:
... it could be the one for 30 bucks. And I think Franciscan makes a pretty, a pretty nicely balanced Cabernet for about 30 bucks.

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Spencer Christian:
All right. Brett Wa- Wagoner from Moraine, Ohio, um, says, "How did the fires in the past few years and especially the 2020 fires change wine-making and vineyard plantings and storage." Um, I'll give you that one first, 'cause he's got a couple more questions too.

Doug Shafer:
Brett Wagner, I know Brett Wagner. He lives in Ohio. I've not (laughs) ... Brett, how are you doing, buddy? Good to hear, good to not hear you, but to read your question here. Um, the fires were tough. They basically, um ... What we've gotta do is make sure, you know, we've got clearance around vineyards and clearance around winery buildings and homes, and, uh, that's been going on for a number of years now. So that's, that's important and keeping, uh, keeping fuel loads down, grasses mowed, you know, clearing out deadwood in the hillsides, that type of thing.

Spencer Christian:
Right.

Doug Shafer:
Um-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... it's, uh, it's, it's, it's a reality here. Um, it's not just a local problem. It's a state and nationwide problem, and there's been a lot going on with research on controlling it and control burns, and, you know, basically getting ahead of the situation so you don't have these, these massive fires. So, um, we're working on it. It's an ongoing issue for sure.

Spencer Christian:
Um, Brett also wants to know what you see on, uh, pricing on, on high end Napa wines over $100, uh, SRP, uh, doing over the next five years. And what does your wine tastes so good? (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Well, as far as Brett's concern, if he's buying my wine, I'm gonna keep it way over $100. Come and get it.

Spencer Christian:
(laughing) Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... (laughs) 'cause that's, that's what I do for my good friends. No, (laughs) a special Brett price. Um, Napa cabs, Napa wines, over $100, um, even in these kinds of unsettled pandemic times, um, if it's a quality brand and the, and the, the wine's got the quality, it's gonna stay there. They're gonna stay above $100. This, uh, this is an expensive business. Um, it's, it's, it costs a lot of money to grow grapes. We don't get massive tonnages. So that's a, that's a challenge, uh, barrels are, barrel prices are going up. Labor, labor has gone up tremendously the last few years. It's not going down. Um, so I don't see, I don't see prices going down in a big way. I see ... And hopefully, I think they're gonna level, but, um, but, uh, the, the costs are here to stay. So, and why do our wines taste so good? Um, lucky. No.

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Um, a lot of hard work. Um, I, I mentioned before, great grapes. You gotta have good grapes. You have to have a great grapes and then you've gotta, you know, just take care of them and, uh, don't mess them up, pay attention. There's a lot of details in winemaking, a lot of details. So-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... we've been fortunate.

Spencer Christian:
That's true.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah. So-

Spencer Christian:
You have indeed.

Doug Shafer:
There you go.

Spencer Christian:
Uh, from, uh, Marc Cardona in the Long Beach, uh, if you were starting Shafer Vineyards today, knowing everything you now know, how would you do it differently or would you do anything differently?

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
Okay. Um, you know, the one that comes to mind is, uh, is equipment. Um, you know, we didn't have a lot of money in the beginning and, uh, you know, we were using secondhand crushers, stemmers. We were using, you know, funky pumps that, you know, work fine, but they just beat the heck out of the wines. They weren't gentle pumps. Um, the bottling line was just something we found in a garage somewhere. It was just like, you know, it was just like a, a rap trap. Uh, having better equipment would have been a ... You know, figuring out a way to afford better equipment early on would've helped because better equipment and technology we have found really helps you make better quality wine. Um, so, and then we f-, we found that out over the years as we started to make money, we could buy better equipment. It's like, wow, the quality is improving just because we have better equipment and technology. So that would be a-

Spencer Christian:
Sure.

Doug Shafer:
... big one.

Spencer Christian:
Sure.

Doug Shafer:
Um, I'd like to say I would have worried less, um, because I had-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... I have, I have and had, and still have, you know, not sleepless nights, but you, you wake up because your mind is racing. But I think it would have been nice to worry less, but I also think that's probably part of the deal. If you're gonna do it-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... you gotta be on it all the time. So not too many changes.

Spencer Christian:
Right. What, what about personnel, hiring, hiring and firing? (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
That's always a, (laughs), that's always-

Spencer Christian:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... a, a challenge. Um, we're a pretty small winery. I've been actually really fortunate. I think I probably would've done things pretty much the same. We've had, you know, the average, average tenure of the Shafer employee is probably up to 15 or 16 or 17 years. I've got people here that-

Spencer Christian:
Wow,

Doug Shafer:
... they stay here-

Spencer Christian:
That's a big-

Doug Shafer:
... a long time. Yeah. We, in fact, we need to fi-, we need to find some young folks because we're all getting kinda old. (laughs)

Spencer Christian:
(laughs) Though a good, a good red wine helps preserve us though.

Doug Shafer:
No, we've been, we've been very fortunate. We've, we've had great, great people working here at Shafer and, and it's a team effort. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are. So we're very lucky that way.

Spencer Christian:
My question, Doug, is wha- what do you love most about doing this podcast?

Doug Shafer:
You know what I love the most, Spencer, is, um, just what you said earlier, it's the stories. Um, 'cause I've had people like you in here and, um, people I've know well, and all of a sudden we're in a conversation and I hear stories about good friends I've never heard before. You know, from-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... their childhood, from this, from that, they, they did this. They, you know, they, how they met their wife or husband. And, uh, it's, it's always just really fun. It's enjoyable. And, you know, we don't spend a lot of time talking about wine techie talk, which maybe some people would want. But, um, I think the stories and personalities are a lot more fun. So that's my favorite-

Spencer Christian:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... part without a doubt.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, that, that ... My, my favorite ... Well, yeah, I mean, uh, other than just enjoying the taste and the aroma and the, you know, the, the, drinking the wine, I just enjoy being around people who appreciate wine and love wine. And, and as you said, have stories to tell that sort of enhance the enjoyment of the wine at another dimension to your understanding of the wine, you know. I think-

Doug Shafer:
Right.

Spencer Christian:
... it's fantastic. Gosh, this has been so much fun. I'm so glad you inj- invited me to join you for this today.

Doug Shafer:
Well-

Spencer Christian:
This is ...

Doug Shafer:
... you're the best question man I've ever had. So if we ever do this again, you're, you're, um, so you're, you're the guy. So will come back?

Spencer Christian:
Don't say if we ever, just say when do we do this again.

Doug Shafer:
When we do it again. When we get the next backs of, batch of questions, we'll, we'll call you up.

Spencer Christian:
Yeah, absolutely.

Doug Shafer:
All right, Spencer. Hey, thanks so much for doing this, buddy. Great talking to you again.

Spencer Christian:
Thank you, Doug. I hope to see you soon.

Doug Shafer:
All right. Be good-

Spencer Christian:
All right.

Doug Shafer:
See you.

Spencer Christian:
Take care.

Doug Shafer:
Bye-bye.

Full Transcript

Doug Shafer:
Hey everybody, welcome back. Doug Shafer. Another episode of The Taste. Um, you know, the cool thing about the wine business is, y- A, you get to grow grapes and make wine, which is really fun. But you meet so many people from different worlds. Artists, musicians, actors, athletes in all sorts of sports. And today we've got a great one. A special guest, a great NFL player and now making great wine, Charles Woodson, welcome.

Charles Woodson:
Hey, thanks for having me on, man. It's my pleasure.

Doug Shafer:
And before we go anywhere just, uh, 'cause this is late, well, mid-February, just a few weeks ago announced that you are now, you are in the Pro Football Hall of Fla- Fame Class of 2020, 2021. Congratulations, man.

Charles Woodson:
Man, how about that?

Doug Shafer:
It-

Charles Woodson:
I mean, that is, uh, (laughs) that, that, that is something, you know, that, that you dream of as, as, as kids really, man, that, uh, you know, be mentioned in the, in, in the same sentence with some of the greatest that ever played the game, man, so I'm, I'm certainly proud, man, and, uh, happy to be, um, a Hall of Famer.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, it's so cool. And I, I gotta tell you, full disclosure here, I'm a Chicago boy. Been a Bear fan-

Charles Woodson:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
...forev- been a Bear fan forever and I've been working with this kid, my winemaker, for 35 years, Mr. Elias Fernandez, who is diehard Raider fan. So I gotta tell you, man-

Charles Woodson:
Oh, yeah.

Doug Shafer:
... I've been hearing about you for years. Every God damn Monday morning I walk in, Elias is talking about-

Charles Woodson:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... the damn Raiders, you know, as they beat the Bears again.

Charles Woodson:
That's what I'm talking about. Uh (laughs). That's what I'm talking about.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, man.

Charles Woodson:
Well, you know, when I, when I said my speech after the, um, uh, Chicago Bears game when, when I was with the Packers and we beat-

Doug Shafer:
(laughs)

Charles Woodson:
... the Chicago Bears, and I mentioned President Obama, I shoulda mentioned your name, too.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Yeah, well, I can't, no (laughs).

Charles Woodson:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
That's a good one. Oh, I tell you. It's tough being a Bear fan. Anyway, um, listen. Uh, your story is pretty cool but it's lots of ping pong between, back and forth between football and wine and we'll, we'll, we'll process through all that today. But first of all, let's go all the way back. Talk, talk to me. Where were you born, where were you raised, what's, where were you?

Charles Woodson:
Fremont, Ohio, so I'm from, I'm from the Midwest. Uh, Northwest Ohio, a small town, probably, roughly a little more than, when I was growing up, a little more than probably 12,000 people. We, we've grown since then. I think we're around 16,000 now, so we're growing, man, so Fremont, Ohio's where I'm from.

Doug Shafer:
That's cool. That's cool. So that's, uh, I think it's, uh, east of Cleveland, right? Is that right?

Charles Woodson:
Yup. No, west, west of Cleveland. West of Cleveland.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, west, west. You're right. You're right.

Charles Woodson:
West of, west -

Doug Shafer:
Towards, out towards, yeah, Lorraine and then towards Fremont and then towards the-

Charles Woodson:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I got it.

Charles Woodson:
Tole- Toledo, Sandusky.

Doug Shafer:
Toledo. Right.

Charles Woodson:
Yup.

Doug Shafer:
I remember doing a winemaker dinner out at the Catawba Island. Is that something? What's that sound? Catawba, Catabwa? Just north of there-

Charles Woodson:
Cata-

Doug Shafer:
... in the middle of- in the middle of winter. And it was-

Charles Woodson:
Oh, wow.

Doug Shafer:
... it was like at a yacht-

Charles Woodson:
That's rough.

Doug Shafer:
... it was, like, this abandoned yacht club and they had this dinner and then they, I stayed there and I was the only one in this rickety old building and the wind's blowing in off the lake. I was, it was like-

Charles Woodson:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
... it was like a scene from The Shining.

Charles Woodson:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
I was freaked out. Oh well.

Charles Woodson:
Did they have you out there, uh, did, did you ice fish or something to catch, catch the food for the wine dinner or what? (laughs)

Doug Shafer:
No, I, I just, I just, I blew in and blew out, man. It was like, I'm getting outta here.

Charles Woodson:
Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
It's cold. (laughs)

Charles Woodson:
Yeah. That's a rough time to be in that part of the country for sure.

Doug Shafer:
Me, too, yup. So, family. Brothers, sisters, what was that all about?

Charles Woodson:
Yeah, so I grew up, um, with, um, three, three, uh, kids in my household. So my older brother, older sister, um, and my mother. So, it was, um, the four of us. Um, I had other brothers and sisters, you know-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Charles Woodson:
... I have, uh, you know, my father's relationships, but I grew up in a house with an older brother and older sister.

Doug Shafer:
Got it. And, uh, I've re- you know, I've done s- I've done some research on you. Um, your mom sounds like a pretty special woman. Tell me about her.

Charles Woodson:
Yeah, absolutely, man. She was a great mother. Um, as I mentioned, she was, um, you know, a single parent raising, you know, three kids, you know, two boys and one girl. And, um, you know, she was a, you know, hard worker, you know, always did whatever she had to do, man, to s- to p- to provide, um, for her kids, you know, by way of working long hours and working two j- three jobs, or whatever she needed to do. Um, she did those things, man, so my mom was a very strong, uh, woman, man, and I give her a lot of credit for, you know, the way myself, my brother, and my sister turned out.

Doug Shafer:
Well, amen to that, man. You know, moms, I'm with you. Moms are, they're special. They, they (laughs)-

Charles Woodson:
Absolutely.

Doug Shafer:
... I mean, you know, and you can't get away with anything, can you? (laughs)

Charles Woodson:
No, no, not, not at all. They got a sixth sense, man, and they can, uh, they can see behind their heads sometimes. Trust me. I know.

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.

Charles Woodson:
(laughs)

Doug Shafer:
I remember that. It's like, you know, I'm I'm messing, I'm doing something really gnar- gnarly with my brothers and all of a sudden mom shows up. It's like, it's like, how she'd know we were doing this, you know, out in the backyard?

Charles Woodson:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Doug Shafer:
Oh, yeah.

Charles Woodson:
They know it all. They know it all.

Doug Shafer:
(laughs). And so, growing up in Fremont, um, I, I'm sure, well, I'm assuming football for sure, but other interests, other sports? What was that all about?

Charles Woodson:
Yeah, I grew up playing, um, of course, uh, football. I started out playing flag football at a early age. Um, I was in to basketball. Um, played Little League baseball in the summers. Uh dibbled and dabbled in track a little bit.

Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Charles Woodson:
Um, but, but, so that was it, man. Uh, but always, always outside, always, you know, playing with, with all of the neighborhood kids, man. We, we stayed pretty active as far as, you know, our, our leisure time and getting out and, and playing any sport that we, any ball we can get our hand on. You know, we were gonna be playing something so we, we, we had a fun, uh, you know, community with guys and, and, you know, the kids and the parents would all get out and kinda get tog- and, and do things together. You know, we, we-

Doug Shafer:
Yeah.