Full Transcript
Doug Shafer:
Hey everybody this is Doug Shafer back with another episode of “The Taste.” A lot has changed since we recorded our last podcast. We are all in what you call shelter-in-place mode here in California, so today we’re recording this podcast with our first call-in guest. It’s all about social distancing and we take that seriously out here in the Napa Valley. So sound quality won’t be quite what you’ve heard here before but we thought we’d give this thing a go. Since things seem to change every day I’d like to mention that we’re recording this on Monday, March 30th, 2020. By the time we post it who knows what else might have changed. But we’re all hanging in here and keeping our fingers crossed and hope you’re doing the same. So, with that, I'd like to talk about our guest today. He's a long time friend, fellow wine maker, vintner, known him for many many years, one of the founders and owners of Saintsbury Winery in the Carneros region, David Graves. David Graves, glad you're here man. How are you doing?
David Graves:
Well thank you for taking my call. Oh no, it's not call in talk radio, oh.
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*
David Graves:
Hey it's great to be here. I, I wish, as you said, I wish we were yakking face to face but, yeah, circumstances intervened. But uh-
Doug Shafer:
Well I tell you what, we'll, we can, we'll just do it again. We'll do part two at some point when we get together. How about that?
David Graves:
There you go. Yeah. Hey, how about this virtual wine-tasting thing.
Doug Shafer:
Well I was going to ask you how you're surviving with this whole stuff, day to day, but um, to those of you out there in the wine world you probably know this, there's lots of emails going out where people are doing virtual wine making, virtual wine tastings like on your computer. How's that, have you done that David Graves? What's going on?
David Graves:
No, I, we're pretty excited about doing it. I guess Karen MacNeil's doing it like once a week with a designated wine, so we're going to do it with our wine club members because they're going to get a shipment pretty soon and we're going to say, "Hey," you know maybe a week after they get it, "at a designated hour we're going to pop a cork and our winemaker Tim Colla and I are gonna be on and we're gonna have like a Zoom wine-tasting. So I'm pretty excited.
Doug Shafer:
I like it, I like it.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Let me know and, you know, if I don't have Saintsbury wine, I'll have something else and I'll just pretend, how does that sound? *laughs*
David Graves:
Well you, we've all faked it before so why not?
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*. So bad. Anyway, so are you guys surviving? How are you surviving? Have you come up with anything to survive these long, sheltered home days. Anything, any tips out there for us?
David Graves:
Well a couple of... Somebody said, and I laughed out loud when I saw this, three o'clock is the new five o' clock in terms of pulling corks. So, but we have, you know we're a small team, we have the people that are normally hosting visitors here, they're at home checking in with our wine club members and people that visited the winery and seeing how their wine supplies are and it turns out we're actually doing pretty well with sending wine to shut-ins. I feel like such a, you know, like a Florence Nightingale for people that are shut in. So, I came up with, I mean there's a lot of lines people are, people have come up with that are funny and I think it's all sort of gallows humor of making the best of a pretty bad situation, you know?
Doug Shafer:
Right, right.
David Graves:
Was about, you know with all this hording going on, our tagline for a while was, "You don't need to horde wine, we've horded it for you, it's just a click or a phone call away."
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*. You are good. You're, I'm glad, I'm glad you called in today, it's great to hear your voice. Um, how about new hobbies? Netflix, you watching old movies? What are you doing, reading books?
David Graves:
Well, I am reading, I read em on my iPad now but I, you know I really like book books. So I just found out there was a sale on a book that I had wanted for a while sitting on my desk, the Oxford Companion to Cheese, which is sort of a companion to-
Doug Shafer:
Wait, wait, wait, Oxford Companion of Wine, that's the only one I know about.
David Graves:
Yeah. Well this is sort of the same idea, not written by Jancis but every bit as thorough and, you know, everything you always wanted to know and the useful Oxford university press high production values. So that's, that's getting some time.
Doug Shafer:
You getting some, you getting some time, good. So anyway, let's change gears. Let's talk about you and the winery. I want to go all the way back. So where did you grow up, where, where were you born? What year? Where did you grow up?
David Graves:
Well, to the extent I have grown up, uh, I, I was born in post-war suburbia in 1952 on the cusp of two towns that blew up in the post-war baby boom time between Walnut Creek and Lafayette, right on the edge of the two of them. So we used to, we were within striking distance for the proverbial Sunday drives so I remember going to like Wente and Concannon and Cre-, even Cresta Blanca when it was open down there. And then the first time I ever heard the "Every year is a vintage year in California" line, I could tell you I was-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, good line.
David Graves:
Yeah. Beringer, probably 1960 on a, was still owned by the family. You know the Raymond-
Doug Shafer:
Oh wow.
David Graves:
The descents of the original Beringer.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, the Raymond, the Raymond family.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Anyway, Walnut Creek as a kid I'm imagining it was probably kind of like San Jose at that point in time, it wasn't all built up and there was like lots of rural areas and farmlands and, is that true? Or is it all paved over like it is now?
David Graves:
Well there was, there was, it was, you know the idea that there's a Tiffany's and a Neiman Marcus in uh.
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*.
David Graves:
Neiman Marcus building used to be a Penny's where in the basement I used to buy my, my mom would take me there to buy my new shoes for school. But, you know, it still had its, there was still a Walnut co-op there when I was a kid.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
And you know the other thing is uh, I'm a really, I love baseball for example but I'm a terrible baseball player. But I, you know, I was in the, kinda the local version of little league and I was always the guy out in right field. But- The organized sports thing didn't sort of, it hadn't taken over kids lives and parents lives quite the way it has now I think. So there was a lot more kind of like, "Hey, Alec, you want to hop over there and go over to the creek and see how the tadpoles are," and woop, there we were.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, exactly.
David Graves:
Sort of made your own fun a bit more. And uh, I'm old enough to remember when Pong was an exotic video game.
Doug Shafer:
I remember Pong, it was great. Drinking beer and playing pong. Um, now they play beer pong anyway and I heard they do it virtually. So I haven't seen that, my kid told me that, I've got to check that out.
David Graves:
*laughs*. You're right, I've heard of that too.
Doug Shafer:
If I find, if I find out, we'll have to get Zoom, we'll Zoom together and we'll play a little beer pong. So talk to me, in Walnut Creek, brothers, sisters?
David Graves:
I had two older brothers, one of whom was a grad student at Cal and so, he and I, I, he's quite a bit older than I am but we're very close. And he actually lives in Australia because his wife is Australian and he's lived there for a long time. He makes wine in Australia but that's not his day job.
Doug Shafer:
Oh. I never knew that.
David Graves:
But the point of, the uh, story is that he introduced me to Davis Bynam who had a, like a little retail store on San Pablo avenue back in the day.
Doug Shafer:
No, he had a winery. So he had-
David Graves:
Yeah but and then he had a winery.
Doug Shafer:
So he had a, he had a retail store first.
David Graves:
Yep. Well he had a, like a, there was sort of winery in the back and a retail, you know, storefront in the front. And, the way this connects to me very directly is that the first Pinot Noir that really opened my eyes about California Pinot Noir was, I think it was the first Pinot Noir that had the Rochioli Vineyard name on it, it was made by Davis Bynam. This was before Rochioli made wine on their own. It was a '73. I had it in the fall of '75, right after it was released. And it was just like, Whoa, this is amazing. And I didn't have, I didn't have much understanding of Burgundy at the time but it really, I had sort of a gap year, then I went to grad school at the University of Chicago, so I know a little bit about the place where you grew up.
Doug Shafer:
There you go.
David Graves:
And then it was really cold that winter. Even by Chicago standards. It, I was unlucky in love, I had no money, and my academic advisor and I were, shall we say, not best buds. So, I-
Doug Shafer:
All right I'm going to put you on hold for a second, I want to come back to this. But I wanna, I'm not done with Walnut Creek. Because I wanna know-
David Graves:
Okay.
Doug Shafer:
You had two older brothers. Two older brothers, what about your parents? What were they up to?
David Graves:
Well my mum was actually, she taught elementary school in the Lafayette school district.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
And she, she was descended from a family that had come to... Her great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather had come to San Francisco in 1851 from New Orleans. But he was born in Alsace-
David Graves:
So there's a, you might have stumbled into this bar in North Beach called The Saloon?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah, I know that bar. *laughs*.
David Graves:
Well that was opened originally by my great-great-grandfather in 1861 as Wagner's beer halls.
Doug Shafer:
Holy cats. Jesus.
David Graves:
So, I, I come by it honestly.
Doug Shafer:
David Graves, I, I've known you for how many years, I don't know all these things about you. Go ahead, keep telling, this is too good.
David Graves:
Well, we've never, we've never done a pub crawl in North Beach. Probably better for both of us but-
Doug Shafer:
That's good.
David Graves:
So on my wall behind me is a menu that my mother's father wrote and he and my dad, his son in law, had birthdays close together.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
So this was 1956, uh, and he wrote a little wine card that says, wine selection for Jim Graves and pop Wagner's birthday dinner. They drank some Liebfraumilch, remember that?
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*. Yes I do remember that.
David Graves:
They had a, they had a '46 Inglenook, 10 year old Inglenook.
Doug Shafer:
Oh wow.
David Graves:
And then they finished, and I don't know what Pop was thinking, but they finished with an Almaden Grenache Rose, which probably had a little residual sugar.
Doug Shafer:
Probably.
David Graves:
But they, I know they had had some cocktails beforehand because I still have my grandfather's Martini pitcher and Almaden was, in his reckoning, it was in Los Gagatos. He added a syllable to Los Gatos. So, and at the bottom it says "Above served in order as listed, selection by wine connoisseur Pop Wagner." So that's framed and above my desk.
Doug Shafer:
1956?
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
Wow. That's pretty cool. Very cool.
David Graves:
And, and those Sunday dinners at my grandparents house were... You know, we'd drive over from Walnut Creek and have Sunday dinner with them and it was just a really sweet, sweet thing. And that's- That was in the Richmond district. My grandfather was in the, he worked for a wholesale hardware company called Baker and Hamilton. And this is, sounds like I'm making this up but it's true. You know when you're learning the alphabet there aren't that many words that have Z in them? You know there's Zebra, Zoo?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah.
David Graves:
And in my world there was Zinfandel. Because there were bottles of Zinfandel on the table.
Doug Shafer:
Well I was about to ask, where did the wine thing kick in? Did your parents drink wine at home or was it the Sunday meals?
David Graves:
Well it was when I was desperate and, you know, happy in Hyde Park, I decided that academic science and I would both be better off if I didn't do that. I was studying ecology and evolution and-
David Graves:
So I'm like 25 and now what. And I kind of did a little inventory of what I was really. What really floated my boat and it was going to the local wine store. And even on my little graduate student stipend, buying bottles of wine.
Doug Shafer:
I'm with you. But okay, but you had been at, this was post college. So college was Santa Cruz for you right?
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
And that's where you did the whole biology deal?
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
So was wine happening in college or was that beer?
David Graves:
Oh yeah, I was, I remember in our, in our dorm people looked at me funny because I'm like, "Hey try this, this Campari stuff is pretty good." I mean, I know it's not wine but-
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*.
David Graves:
You know, it's like, "Wow, bitter, weird color, what is wrong with you Graves?" But when I was in college is when I, or right after college is when I had that eye-opening Bynam, Rochioli Pinot.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
So I'm unhappy in Chicago in the Spring of 77 and I'm like, "Now what?" I just took a wild, like, Well hey, I could move back to California. And I investigated the wine program at Davis and you could, you could be like an extension student without actually applying to the master's program and kind of get your feet wet. That's what I did is I found a room in a house with some, a pal from Santa Cruz and that Fall quarter of 1977 I took Viticulture and Oenology 124 I think it is. Anyway, this is way long ago.
Doug Shafer:
So those were, you were doing that, that was long distance.
David Graves:
No, no, I was there living in Davis, taking the classes in Davis.
Doug Shafer:
Got it.
David Graves:
And I met a whole bunch of folks, including my future business partner Dick Ward in Michael Lewis' brewing technology class.
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*. All right, so '77, people who have heard this podcast they've heard too much about my, my career. But I was at Davis but I was an undergrad and with no idea what the heck I really wanted to do, I was just doing Viticulture but uh, I got to ask you about one class because everyone was in that class. Vit 116 A and B, were you in that one?
David Graves:
That was the-
Doug Shafer:
Dr. Cook.
David Graves:
Oh yeah, no, I was there.
Doug Shafer:
You couldn't forget Dr. Cook, remember him?
David Graves:
No.
Doug Shafer:
He was a nut.
David Graves:
Well somebody who, whom I met that, that fall of 1977, he was a very good friend of mine and I just talked to him on Friday, he was his TA, Fred Peterson, who has a winery over in-
Doug Shafer:
Oh, I, I know, I remember Fred. He was a TA.
David Graves:
Fred. He was a TA, and boy, he could do a very good impression of Jim Cook. Um.
Doug Shafer:
*laughs*. Oh, because I remember that class, I think you were in it because you and Tony Soter and Kathy Corison and Dick Ward, your future partner, I think you guys were all in it. You were all in the front row. Is that, is that?
David Graves:
No, that was the year before.
Doug Shafer:
I think Randall Br-
David Graves:
That, I thin Randall Brand was maybe in it the year I was in it. But yeah I mean it was sort of - I don't mean to brag about, not about me but I mean the people that were there like John Williams, John Konnsgard, Dan Lee from -
Doug Shafer:
Right. Lee, Konnsgaard.
David Graves:
Um, yeah, I mean, Kathy, Tony Soter, I mean this is just. Tom Peterson, Fred Peterson.
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
It was uh, kind of a magical time in a way. And so when I look in the mirror and I see-
Doug Shafer:
No, you were part of a crew.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Um, I was behind you a few years but I had Kathy in here and she put it
Doug Shafer:
And wonderful, Cathy Corison, um, what'd, what'd she say? She said it was a, it was a short ladder.
David Graves:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yep.
Doug Shafer:
In other words, there's so many wineries just starting out, and very few "trained" or experienced wine makers. So she, and all you guys coming out, I mean, there were wine maker jobs were all over the place. You didn’t start as a cellar rat, you were the winemaker. And so, all you guys had, you know, trial under fire. Crazy times, when you think about it. And um, just some of the folks you mentioned, you know, are all fantastic, wonderful long-term winemakers. But they were the ... you were the, the, the pioneering group that really did it.
David Graves:
My first job was working for Tony at Chappellet, actually.
Doug Shafer:
Okay. Wow. Was Tony there-
David Graves:
And then-
Doug Shafer:
... or that, when was that? So were you out ... You were done with Davis at that point?
David Graves:
No, I just spent a year there. I was going to go back. And I actually did later. But I ... so I spent a, um, a year, got enough skills to be, uh, dangerous. And then, um, I worked with Tony at Chappellet.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
With a guy who was there whose got his own label now. It was a guy named Rick Longoria, who is down in Santa Barbara.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
And um, I worked at Phelps with, uh, Craig Williams and Walter Shug was a wine maker then.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I was wondering about that, if he was there when you were there. He was a character, yeah.
David Graves:
And um, Mike Fischer was the controller there. And I met Mike because he studied winemaking too, so he's sort of a double, doubled edged sword there.
Doug Shafer:
And um, was Randy Mason at Chappellet when you were there?
David Graves:
Yes he was. I'm, I'm a big fan of Randy's.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, because he was ... I think he was doing a lot of vineyard stuff. But he, uh, he was the guy that taught me. He was ... my first cellar job was working under him at the place called Lake Spring, back in '81. And uh, Randy the guy that taught me how to work the cellar, man. How to do it logistically. He was great.
David Graves:
Now where was Lake Springs?
Doug Shafer:
Lake Spring was that little place, uh, on Hoffman Lane, just south-
David Graves:
Oh okay, yep, yep.
Doug Shafer:
... North Yountville.
David Graves:
Yep, that's ... I remember being there.
Doug Shafer:
It was, for a while, and it kind of ... yeah, it, it kind of closed up after 10 or 12 years, and I think, uh, I think Joel Gott and his group own the facility and use it for making some wine. But uh-
David Graves:
But in the meantime was also were-
Doug Shafer:
So how did, so-
David Graves:
But in the meantime, was also where Michael Havens was there for a while. Before his label was sold.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, Havens was there.
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah, he was there. You're right. Boy, it's a lot going on. So now, you met Dick Ward at Davis. And so was, was Dick running around? Were you guys, like, tracking parallel paths at different wineries? How was, how did it work out when you two got together and started a winery? I mean, that's crazy.
David Graves:
Well, it's amazing what you don't know, you can't do, or you shouldn't be able to do when you're young and, and you know, blinded by ambition, and uh, perhaps-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... an over estimation of your own talents. So I was working at Chappellet, and Dick, uh, was working for Warren Winiarski at Stags Leap Wine Cellars in 1978. And uh, so we were housemates. And then in '79, I worked at Phelps for the harvest, and he was ... he did a harvest down in Santa Barbara county. And then in 1980, I worked at, uh, Chandon as a cellar rat for their harvest, thanks to Dawnine Dyer… And in sort of a weird way of word was getting around, I ended up helping Pine Ridge bottle his first vintage. So that's when we met-
Doug Shafer:
That was, that was Gary Andrus, right?
David Graves:
Gary and Nancy, right. And so ... and then, so, 1981, it's like, "Hey, let's, let's put out, put out our own label." So that's where Dick and I made our first vintage.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
And what turned into Saintsbury.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, you made it at Pine Ridge?
David Graves:
It was made at Pine Ridge, yeah.
Doug Shafer:
What'd you do for grapes?
David Graves:
Well, we, we uh, I had met, uh, Zack Berkowitz, um, at Chandon, and so we bought some of Zach's grapes, which are right here at Carneros, right here at the winery, Rancho Carneros Vineyard. Thanks to Dawnine, I had met the Sangiacomo family, so our first Chardonnay was from their Green Acres Vineyard, which is still there. We make a wine that's from the original 1969 Garden A block, at Green Acres.
Doug Shafer:
Wow.
David Graves:
Which was the first ... the, the Sangiacomo’s were pear growers. And this was their first foray into wine, into wine grapes, was at Green Acres.
Doug Shafer:
I didn't know they ... I didn't know they, you know, they grew pears.
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
That's amazing.
David Graves:
They had a ... if you can believe this, sort of the total opposite end of, of wine-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... they grew pears for canning. Talk about a commodity business.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) To those of you who don't know, the Sangiacomos are some of the best grape growers in this area, in the Sonoma. And how many, how many ... they must have hundreds and hundreds of acres of grapes, don't they, David? How many do they have?
David Graves:
You know, I think it's, it's probably close to 1000 spread over various parts. I mean, they got, they got a property up in, uh, Petaluma Gap, they got property-
Doug Shafer:
Wow.
David Graves:
... in Lakeville near the Petaluma River. Lot of, lot of grapes around, um, the town of Sonoma.
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
And um, they were actually leaders in creating the Carneros AVA, which was, Treasury uh, --
Doug Shafer:
Which was one of the first ones, that's one of the first ones. That's one of the first, right.
David Graves:
... in 1983.
Doug Shafer:
So you guys custom crush your first ... what was your vintage, '81?
David Graves:
'81.
Doug Shafer:
And then, um, did you, did you build the winery right away, or did that take a few years?
David Graves:
No, no, we had, uh, we had a, you know that beautiful little, uh, stone cube up on Ehlers Lane?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
David Graves:
Well, that was, uh, that, it was a winery called Vichon that had moved out of that, and we moved in. And it had a ... was kind of, it was an amazing situation, because it ... for whatever reason, it had its own ... you kind of leased it with its own, uh, refrigeration system. So-
Doug Shafer:
Right, good.
David Graves:
What we had to do was sort of have a couple tanks and lease a forklift and get some barrels and we had a de-stemmer, and we, um, bought a used press. And we were in business as our own self-
Doug Shafer:
Holy cats, I didn't know you were up there. So you, you were up on Ehlers Lane, which is north of St. Helena, right?
David Graves:
Yep. So ...
Doug Shafer:
And how long, how long were you guys there? Quite a while?
David Graves:
Well, we would have been there longer, but um, the landlord decided that he's seen a couple ... this ... we were, like, the third tenants in that building. So he decided this looked like fun, and so he would get in the wine business. So we only had a one year lease.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
So ... so, um, the smart thing to do would have been to, to find another custom crush facility. But ...
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... that's not what we did. So we ended up ... we built the winery during harvest.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
Let that sink in for a minute.
Doug Shafer:
Come on, guys. Come on.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
I'm thinking, I'm thinking of you and Dick. Both of you.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
I mean, come on, guys. What are you thinking? What are you thinking here? (laughs)
David Graves:
So, um, and, and we were-
Doug Shafer:
Oh man. What a mess.
David Graves:
... like, living from hand to mouth in terms of financing that construction and, uh ... yeah, it was ... We hired our first French intern, whose family was from Burgundy. And, um ...
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
It was Frederick Hertzog. And our first employee was Bill Knuttel, who's gone onto fame and fortune.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, yeah.
David Graves:
He's got a winery facility over on Eighth Street East in Sonoma, and he's ...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
He was the winemaker for, uh, Chalk Hill, and um, yeah. He's had ...
Doug Shafer:
Worked, yeah, he worked for Dave Ramey for years.
David Graves:
... does a lot of work in Dry Creek. So uh, imagine also we decided that ... I think I remember saying, "Well, once you hit 100% of insanity, it, you know, there's no 11 on insanity."
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
So we actually helped make wine for, uh, Hagafen that year and the next year. So um, uh ...
Doug Shafer:
You were custom crushing other people's grapes and you were still-
David Graves:
Right.
Doug Shafer:
... trying to build the winery and do your own grapes.
David Graves:
Even though we really didn't have a ... we didn't have a bonded winery license, really.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) no, you didn't have a license. (laughs)
David Graves:
So imagine-
Doug Shafer:
Oh gosh, I can't believe it.
David Graves:
Imagine ... we, we have a meeting down at the BATF's office on Market Street in San Francisco, and the guy that ... you know, we've sort of gone up the food chain there, because we feel like-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
... I can't believe you guys made a bunch of, in effect, moonshine, because it wasn't-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... you didn't have a bond, you know, didn't, you're, I mean, you'd apply for one but you didn't have one. And so, I remember distinctly the BATF guy saying, "Well, we don't want to be like jack booted Nazis and make you throw all this stuff out, but it's really moonshine." And I'm like ...
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Oh my gosh. Oh, I can't believe it.
David Graves:
So we sort of-
Doug Shafer:
What'd they do?
David Graves:
You know-
Doug Shafer:
What'd they do to you? What happened?
David Graves:
Well, we got a bond and, you know, all the stuff was, sort of ... they waved a magic wand and it was produced and bottled by Saintsbury and, uh, uh, that was my first exposure to Stewart's law of retroaction, which is, uh, the formal name for forgiveness is easier to get than permission. So-
Doug Shafer:
Aha.
David Graves:
... we get forgiveness.
Doug Shafer:
Well, I'm going to, I'm going to circle back to that when we talk about your days on the planning commission. But I love that. So you got permission. That was vintage. That was '83 harvest, and so-
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
... you had a building. You crushed grapes. You made wine. You're legal.
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
You're still selling wine, and things are, things are going okay, yeah?
David Graves:
Yep. We found a, uh, wholesale broker that sort of set up our three-tier network around the country. We didn't have any of our own vineyards, but we had ... the, the parcel where are has, uh, uh, 12 and a half acres worth of space for vineyards. And so, we took a long time to figure out what to do, which was pretty great in a way, because we got a lot of help from our friend Dave Addlesheim up in Oregon, who's-
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
... a extremely thoughtful ... he's just wise. I mean, I, I don't have a better word for it.
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
But he's also very generous and a lot of fun to be around. And so, a bud would ... of our, of our, uh, Pommard Pinot Noir block came from his vineyard. I went up and literally cut the canes in the wintertime and we came down and, and um, brought them back, and they were the basis of this first, uh, vineyard that we had, that we still have, which is also one of the first vertically trellised vineyards, if not the first vertically trellised vineyard, in the Napa Valley. And the reason that's important is there was, uh, because as, as, and you've probably talked about this, the whole AXR thing, and the ... made it so that the vineyard ... was kind of a big change in how people thought about vineyards in the late 80s and early 90s, because we had to.
Doug Shafer:
Right, because replants.
David Graves:
Uh ... right. And the reason this vineyard is still here is we were being contrarians. Dick and I did not plant it on AXR one root stock, because that was too easy.
Doug Shafer:
Aha.
David Graves:
So it's, it's on five-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
... speed 110R. I call it the ‘don't laugh it’s paid for’ vineyard
Doug Shafer:
You guys.
David Graves:
... vineyard.
Doug Shafer:
There you go. Oh, you guys. You two. Speak of be, being contrarians, I got to ask you, because you know, '83, I was just getting into it. I was just starting here at Shafer. You know, I didn't know anything. But, but I can't ... you know, I know Pinot is ... Chard's always been pretty popular. It's great. It's great grape. It's a beautiful wine. It's kind of a no ... not a no brainer, but I mean, it's a, it's ... it is what it is. But you know, Pinot noir these days is very popular and, and God bless all you folks making Pinot noir. But you know, David Graves, for a long time, Pinot noir was not the, you know, not the ... as popular as, as it is now. And you guys went into this thing, thing contrarians that you are, you know chardonnay and Pinot noir with Pinot noir really leading the way. And it's like, it's kind of like, "What were you guys thinking?" Because Pinot was a tough sell, unless I'm wrong. But help me on that one. What, what, what was going on with you two knuckleheads?
David Graves:
Well, knucklehead ... actually, that's a great name. Maybe that's a brand name we haven't explored.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I don't have it trademarked, so go for it, man.
David Graves:
So um, the first wine Dick and I made together was a really delicious wine from Stags Leap. Nathan Fay Cabernet.
Doug Shafer:
Did you guys used to go down pick grapes for Nathan when you were at Davis? And he'd, he, he got you -
David Graves:
We, thanks to Johnny Konnsgard, a bunch of us-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. (laughs)
David Graves:
... Jack ... oh, I forgot to mention Jack Stewart. Sorry, Jack.
Doug Shafer:
Jack Stewart at Silverado. Yeah.
David Graves:
So Jack, Mike Fisher, I think Tom Peterson, Johnny Konnsgard, maybe Doug Nall. Sorry Doug, didn't mention you either.
Doug Shafer:
John Williams, maybe John Williams maybe? Is it John Williams? No.
David Graves:
Maybe ... no, I think John was up in ... in '78, I think he was maybe in, uh, New York briefly.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, he was out ... you're right, he was in New York. I think you're right.
David Graves:
So, so Johnny, um, sort of arranged for each of us to get a half a ton of Nate's ... I don't even know which vineyard it was of his. But it was, um, intoxicating figuratively, and sometimes literally. To make wine. I was like, "Whoa." So ...
Doug Shafer:
Wow.
David Graves:
Dick and I made a barrel's worth. A half a ton, plus enough for topping.
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
Of, uh, Nate Fay Cabernet, and God, it was good. I mean, I'm, I'm ... still sort of in awe of it, because it's kind of like better lucky than smart, because obviously-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... 40, this will be my 40th vintage. No, my 42nd vintage, excuse me, coming up. So ... I've learned a few things since the first one. But you know, that, there's that same ... that, that bit of culture is always ... you know, the vineyards guys always say, the wine guys, "We do all the work. Don't screw it up." And for whatever reason-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... we didn't, we didn't screw it up. And um, so that was our first wine. And it was ... we, you know, we-
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
... had a really nice label design by the guy who's, uh, still our label designer, and um, that's a whole other story. So then we made another wine. We made a cabernet. But '80, '79 was a much less good vintage in the sense it has one of those scorcher heat spells about two weeks before the grapes were ripe.
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
And the vines just sort of said, "Screw it." So um, that year we made a dry Riesling from Sanford and Benedict, because Dick was down in ... in Santa Barbara County. I mean, we were-
Doug Shafer:
That's right.
David Graves:
... we were doing all kinds of weird stuff. But not, not commercially.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Right, okay.
David Graves:
So when it came time to start Saintsbury, we kind of looked at each other like, "Well, what's really, you know, what's a ... how could we really make a difference in a, in a category that's not very well populated?" And Pinot noir was ...
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
... the choice we made. And as you pointed out, Doug, looking at the, at the shelves in the liquor store now, really there weren't many Pinot noirs then. And you know, probably knew pretty much everybody, at least by name-
Doug Shafer:
Oh yeah.
David Graves:
... like, they were not necessarily as colleagues I knew them. I pretty much knew everybody who made Pinot Noir. And it was-
Doug Shafer:
Sure.
David Graves:
... still from Santa Barbara to Willamette Valley, but ...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... there were, like, three in each of those places, not 30. You know, so you had, uh ...
Doug Shafer:
But you ... so you were, you were swimming upstream, but you guys did it, because I think maybe you were onto something, too, because there weren't that many out there. And if you were making a decent wine, which you guys did, I mean, hey, it's a solid wine. It's a good Pinot, Saintsbury. Go to. It's, you know, it's been my go to for years, so there you go.
David Graves:
Well, and it's, uh-
Doug Shafer:
I think, un- unless I'm missing something.
David Graves:
Well, we've, we've, uh, we had a brief foray into making some really delicious but really hard to sell Syrah. Um, but otherwise, that's pretty much what we've done-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
Is Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. And um ... but ... in the way that these, these two cocky young guys, um, they built a winery during harvest, who does that? That's crazy. Um ...
Doug Shafer:
A, a couple, a couple of knuckleheads, I'm going to ...
David Graves:
Yeah, knucklehead cellars.
Doug Shafer:
No, no. But ...
David Graves:
So how did we get the name Saintsbury?
Doug Shafer:
... and so Carneros, did, did you guys go after ... Yeah, how'd you get the name? Yeah, that's another point. Where'd that one come from?
David Graves:
So there's sort of ... So you got two ... You've identified Carneros, and Saintsbury-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... are like parts of our identify that are just, they're joined at the hip. Well, Carneros was because Dick was still living in Davis, and Carneros
David Graves:
So-
David Graves:
... there's about as far as made sense to drive, so...
Doug Shafer:
Oh okay, good point. (laughs)
David Graves:
Well, we actually did make some wine from Western Sonoma County that Warren Dutton had grown in 82’.
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
…but we sort of shrank our radius back to Carneros and in, in, in neighborhood back in '83, and we stayed with that until...
Doug Shafer:
Hmm.
David Graves:
... uh, the mid-2000s, when we, we started to make wine from Anderson Valley and, so now we think of ourselves as based in Carneros, not necessarily of Carneros, not from Carneros, quite the same way.
Doug Shafer:
But I, but I, I love the fact that the reason you landed in Carneros wasn't anything to do with it's a cool climate for Pinot and Chard, it was mostly because Dick didn't want to drive any farther. (laughs)
David Graves:
Well, it actually...
Doug Shafer:
Well, I'm not, I'm oversimplifying of course -
David Graves:
... your point's well-taken, though, because, I mean it is a really good place for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as you g... As...
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
You know about the Chardonnay world but...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).Yeah.
David Graves:
Um, it's one of those things where we did everything kind of backwards, 'cause instead of starting with high-concept, here's the label concept, here's the brand identity...
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
You know, the way stuff, the way people tell you to do stuff... We totally didn't do it that way, such that we're gonna move into that facility in... We, you know, we made our first vintage there at, at Pine Ridge. We're gonna move into the facility at Ehlers Lane. The guys at, at that winery, Vichon, they had a bottling line and they said, "Well, we'll bottle it for you...
Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughs)
David Graves:
... But you have to tell a..." you know, and so we made the labels that, you know, back in the... You remember, back with wet glue. You know, you had the...
Doug Shafer:
Oh, yeah.
David Graves:
The label... You had to have the label thing that was the right size, so our label...
Doug Shafer:
Oh, it was nuts.
David Graves:
… was the same size as their label.
Doug Shafer:
Right, I see, right, 'cause that's the label. Yeah.
David Graves:
And then, um, checking down to getting label approval (laughs) and-
Doug Shafer:
I mean (laughs)-
David Graves:
and getting a name, and we're like, "Oh, yeah, the, the, what, yeah, the name. What are we gonna call this thing?" You know. It's the name (laughing) and, "Oh, that's not so good."
Doug Shafer:
Dick and Dave's. Double Ds
David Graves:
Graves and Ward? That sounds like a couple of accountants. Uh-
Doug Shafer:
(Laughs) Good point.
David Graves:
We went through a whole bunch of-
Doug Shafer:
I guess so.
David Graves:
... names and, um, so finally it was, uh, a- an acquaintance of Dick's who said, becoming aware of the, our problem, he said, "Well, why don't you name it after George Saintsbury?" And George Saintsbury is a English literary critic and scholar who is remembered nowadays for his book, uh, called 'Notes on a Cellar Book', which he wrote when he retired from being literary critic and a professor, but, you know ... You know, my joke about this is after extensive focus group work ... not.
Doug Shafer:
(Laughs) Oh.
David Graves:
We, we kind of looked at each other and said, "Well, you got a better idea?" "Mm, not really." "Okay, let's pull the trigger on that." So, um (laughing) we ended up...
Doug Shafer:
It's a great name.
David Graves:
No, it's a, it's a great name and we're very proud of honoring George and, uh, again, in the, in the (laughs) ... Our label designer, the guy who's done all of our graphic design work, is somebody I met in 1972 when I was 20 years old 'cause we were drinking tequila sunrises because he was going out with a woman that lived in the house I lived in, so, so Jim Walcottaris and I go back, ooh, 48 years. Yikes.
Doug Shafer:
I've, I, I've, I've crossed paths with Jim before. He ... great guy.
David Graves:
Oh, no, he's a wonderful guy
Doug Shafer:
- long time.
David Graves:
... and he and I share a passion for wine, booze, and baseball, so.
Doug Shafer:
There you go.
David Graves:
What's not to like about that, right?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah (laughs).
David Graves:
And he's, he's a lot of fun, fun...
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, you got me thinking. My graphics guy, Michael Kavish, based in, up in Oregon, I met him sophomore year at U.C. Davis, which was 19- holy cats, 1976, '77, and he's been our guy forever. He was great. Enough. Wow.
David Graves:
Well, I think it's...
Doug Shafer:
Blast from the past.
David Graves:
So like a lot of things where, if you can communicate, if you sort of understand each other at some kinda non-verbal level where 'cause sometimes wine people aren't very good at expressing what they wanna do.
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
I'd like it to have this feeling, of da-da-daa, and Jim's been very good at, uh, capturing those feelings and turning them into, uh, you know, real labels, real graphic language, yeah. But we make a dry rosé, not a very important part of what we do but we started making it during the really terrible vintage of 1989 by doing what's called saignée, where you draw out juice from a...
Doug Shafer:
Yes.
David Graves:
... fermentor. Though the purpose was to make better red wine, not to make Rosé but you're sort of left with this juice, what're you gonna do with it so we, we fermented it and the Burgundian call dry Rosé, Vin Gris. So we go to Jim and we say well we gotta new label, a new product that we need a label for, so he mocks up one that looks like our other labels, just has correct information on it, but then he says, "Now, work with, with me on this, I've got this idea, how about we call it Vincent Vin Gris?" And Dick and I looked at him like ‘what?’ And he said, "No, no, no, work with me here, I gotta, I got an illustrator named Bill Shields and I think he can do a rendering, uh, pastel rendering in a winery that'll look like that other Vincent guy and I think it'll be kinda fun." And so we ran with that, and so now we have Vincent Vin Gris and I've literally had people say, looking at this label they say, "Oh, I saw that in Amsterdam, at the museum." I'm like, ooh, where were you before that, I don't know, you know what else you did in Amsterdam.`
Doug Shafer:
(laughs).
David Graves:
So Jim invented this whole backstory for Vincent Vin Gris' biography and, eh.
Doug Shafer:
Oh that's fun.
David Graves:
A lot of fun, yeah.
Doug Shafer:
So switching gears, um, your bride Elizabeth, when did you guys meet and get together, what's, what's, what's that story?
David Graves:
Well, we didn't used to have any hospitality program at all, I mean...
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
... 'Cause we didn't have any staff, we didn't really know what to do so, we weren't open on the weekends for people to come visit, so, I got a call from a, a mutual friend, who just passed away last October. Stellar wine merchant and a great poet and somebody I also shared baseball with, um.
Doug Shafer:
Mm.
David Graves:
So, uh, his name was Bill Mayer and he worked at a really great wine store in San Francisco called Pacific Wine Company, you probably remember them, you probably...
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
Sold wine to them. The had world's greatest...
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, we have.
David Graves:
Wacky covers, wacky wine story catalog covers. So...
Doug Shafer:
Right, right.
David Graves:
He... Bill called me and he said, "Hey, I've got somebody I know who wants to come up for a wine tour, um, would you be available to entertain six people on Saturday, blah, blah, blah?". I said, "Oh, sure." Cause I was, you know I was single and didn't have a lot going on in terms of tying me down to a schedule so, uh...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
The woman, who is now my bride, Elizabeth McKinney, came up here with her then boyfriend, which I always remind her of, um.
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I love it.
David Graves:
And, um, so showed them around the place in 1986, which she then somehow word reached her that we were having our fifth birthday party, which was really kind of an invitation event but she didn’t know that, so she came with another guy, uh...
Doug Shafer:
(laughs).
David Graves:
This has been like four months later and, um... though she was very impressed that I remembered her name but then she realized that I'm pretty good at remembering peoples names, so she's like, "Oh, that wasn't that special, jeez", but anyway, um, so Bill introduced us and then she introduced Bill to her sister and so they, they were married so, kind of a nice reciprocal thing.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, that's nice.
David Graves:
So, um, yeah we got married right here at the winery in 1990 and we live in in Old Town, Napa. The Victorian neighborhood of Napa. She's a, an artist, has a BFA and an MFA and has a studio in, uh, town of Benicia which is about
Doug Shafer:
Yeah I was gonna ask you 'cause I, I wasn't sure if she was in Napa or somewhere else, so she's based in Benicia for her gallery.
David Graves:
Yeah, she's, she's got a great studio in the, it's in the Benicia Arsenal Building, which is, a lot of it has been repurposed as artist studios, so. It’s about...
Doug Shafer:
Cool.
David Graves:
Well, it's about half an hour on a good day like today 'cause nobodys driving but, um...
Doug Shafer:
I mean yeah I can seriously get around the Valley really fast right now there's just nobody on the roads. Um a lot of folks don't know what you've been doing besides making wine. But, um, through the years, David Graves, you've been on the Land Trust Board, the Land Trust, those who don't know is a wonderful local organization that puts uh, lands, wild land into Conservation Easements, you were the president. Been on the board of the Oxbow School uh, the water... also the Watershed Conservation Council, but the one that really stood out was back, I think it was in the early, late ninet... late '90s, you joined the Napa County Planning Commission as a local dude on the Planning Commission, which was crazy 'cause I think I remember going up in front of you for some use-permit change. But it, I, you and I never talked too much about, I think it was a wonderful experience for you but it had to be kinda crazy? Crazy challenging, crazy wild, what was, what was going on with that whole thing?
David Graves:
I had, um, 'cause of my interest in ecology and evolution, the science-y part of it, uh, I'm very interested in kinda things like, how the, habitat preservation for critters and making it so that our footprint is as light as it can be on the land and...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
...I was, uh, I got to know the guy who was then a city council member but is now the supervisor for where I live in, in the county and so Brad Wagenknecht asked me if would entertain the idea of being on the Planning Commission 'cause each supervisor nominates one person to be on the five, there's five supervisors and so there's five members of the Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission is a, there's a lot of the sort of the work of land use administration in, well, almost city in Cal... In every city in Cali, in California but Napa's is particularly important because of our history with the Ag Preserve, the so-called Agricultural Preserve.
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
The idea that we would not subdivide and spread all over the Valley which was you know kind of in danger of happening back in the, in the, you know, during the boom years of the '60s and, um...
Doug Shafer:
'60s right.
David Graves:
So, I got on the Planning Commission, late '90s and I was on it six and a half years and, you know, there's some, some high notes and some low notes of hearings, um, (laughs). A lot of, a lot of controversial stuff ends up in front of the planning commission and...
Doug Shafer:
Right, some of you, some of the folks are neigh... your neighbors and your fellow vintners and uh, you know.
David Graves:
Yeah and, I never gave anybody a break 'cause they were a colleague, at least I don't think I did.
Doug Shafer:
Hmm.
David Graves:
And sometimes I think people were kinda disappointed that I didn't do that but the other part is 'cause I, you know, running a winery I know stuff like wastewater and, you know, truck trips and, you know, just a, the, kind of the nuts and bolts that... ... Was, I could ask questions that really nobody else could ask, um, not because I'm smarter than anybody just cause I've my day job.
Doug Shafer:
Exactly
David Graves:
So …
Doug Shafer:
Being on the Planning Commission, you know when, back when you were there, even today, it's tough 'cause you're getting it, you gotta make those hard calls and but you gotta think about, you know the greater good, not that you wanna get on a soapbox or anything right now but that's, that's what, you know, that's what keeps me going every day, um.
David Graves:
Well I think you're, you know and I think that, you know, you've got a good neighborhood in Stags Leap it seems to me. In terms of your...
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, yeah.
David Graves:
... colleagues being, you know, generally embodying that spirit that you're talking about, there's, um I remember something that was, something Hugh Johnson wrote in a book that I read when I was really getting excited about wine when I was in Chicago and it's, it has a very simple title, it's called, "Wine" and...
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
I think in the introduction or the first chapter, you know he's talking about the history of wine, but he says, "All wine starts at sap up a stick" and...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
Which is to say, you know, it's agriculture, it's farming, it's, it's an annual cycle that every year is different but there's been 5,000 of them, or 6,000 of them before, of vintages, of, where humans have made wine and it's sort of a equivalent of putting your pants on one leg at a time I think, that statement.
Doug Shafer:
Right
David Graves:
And, you know, I think we're, I realize that when I say things like I remember when its one step away from ‘get off my lawn’ but you know...
Doug Shafer:
(laughs).
David Graves:
The technology has come so far, I mean we understand so much more about things like, you know, soils and you know, root systems and irrigation and pest control and you know, nutrition for the vines and, but it's always focused, I think on wine quality but it, nowadays, I think it's also focused on you know, conserving resources like water, make sure that our...
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
You know, the people who come after us will not be thinking what, ‘god what were they thinking, these people...’
Doug Shafer:
What were they thinking, yeah.
David Graves:
‘Back in 2020.’
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
So, um, and that's what, you know, when I think about things that like uh, human impacts on climate and prospects of growing wine grapes in a different environment than the one I grew up in, that's a ... really serious challenge that I think we need to take seriously, but I don't think we can be defeated by it, or crushed by the prospect that we have a, uh, a changing environment. I mean, we have to take responsibility for our part of being very careful about a, a light footprint in terms of, you know-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse gases, but there's going to be a fine wine industry in Napa. It just might not be the same one that I grew up with in 1978.
Doug Shafer:
Uh, you know, lately, the last couple of weeks have been challenging for everybody, but, uh, it's been nice here locally, but, and it's probably happening across the country. It's springtime. Leaves are starting to bud out. Flowers are starting to bloom a little bit. Uh, grape vines are starting to bud. We've had a couple of frost nights last week where the wind machines were on, and all of a sudden, at 3:00 AM, you hear that hum of that distant wind machine. It's like, "Oh, it's a frost night. Someone's out controlling, you know, the fans that we are ... the, the new buds don't freeze," and that's, uh ... It's comforting. It really is. Um, I, I, 'cause these here are some crazy times right now. It's just nice to have, to see the, to see the new growth on the vines and hear those wind machines at night. It's like, you know, like, life will continue -
David Graves:
And one of the great things ... Have you been able to dig into some wines that you've had and, you know, spend some time with them that you might not o-otherwise have done in the last weeks?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah, I have actually.
David Graves:
Got time on your hands?
Doug Shafer:
It's funny you mention that. Yeah, because it's time on your hands, it's like, you know, "What am I saving this wine for? You know, it's a 15-year-old Hillside, let's try this. Ooo, that's good," you know, stuff like that.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Um, I found a couple of ... I found a couple of old Burgundies, which, you know, I didn't know I had. It's like, "What am I waiting ... What am I waiting around for this?" So, how about you? What, what have you found that's yummy?
David Graves:
Well, I, uh, one of my, one of my young team, we have some wines from our cellar. I think today is Open Your Cellar day, today and tomorrow, for the Napa vintners, where you offer wines that are-
Doug Shafer:
Oh that's right, yeah. [crosstalk 00:59:14]
David Graves:
... not-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
So, I got a, uh, email from one of my staff saying, "Well tell me, uh, what you think of the 2007 Stanly Ranch and the 2009 Brown Ranch." And I hadn't had the Brown Ranch recently, but I had the, uh, the Stanly Ranch earlier this month, and, um, I had it at lunch with, um, in San Francisco. It's kind of like it's ... It seems like so long ago. It's, like, four weeks ago tomorrow, I think, but, um-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Yeah.
David Graves:
Anyway, it was, uh, it was one of those things where I was not trying to sell this wine to the person I was drinking it with. I just wanted her to-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
This is kind of like what we do, it's a point of departure to talk about what we do at Saintsbury, you know, all the kind of the things-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... we've been talking about, and I had to, you know, pull the cork, and I was pretty confident it was gonna be good, but it, I really-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
... I just had to stop for a minute, and I thought, "Damn. This is, this is kind of why winemakers make wine, is for moments like this when you think it embodies, uh, a well-aged version of what we're trying to do," 'cause, a lot of times, we're selling wine that you're saying, "Well, boy, in five years, this could be really good." I don't think-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
You know?
Doug Shafer:
[crosstalk 01:00:37], yeah.
David Graves:
Brewers don't have that problem, but, uh-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. (laughs) That challenge. It's a challenge.
David Graves:
Yeah, uh-
Doug Shafer:
Um .
David Graves:
You know, that's like when you were pulling the cork on that Hillside Select, it was like, "Damn."
Doug Shafer:
Oh, no, it's, it's fun. It, it, I don't do it very often, but when I do, it's like, "Wow. This is, it's really good. It's a 20-year-old Hillside. It's really pretty." It's like, yeah, you take a moment and go, "Yeah. This is why we do what we do."
David Graves:
And a lot of it, I think, Doug, is, um, there's, there's mystery in it, too, 'cause y-you and I don't, you know, it get back to the dance on one leg at a time thing. We're not driving-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... the bus. We're trying not to screw up.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. Right. I mean, do you feel like you got it all together? You feel like you, you got it nailed down? You got all the answers?
David Graves:
No.
Doug Shafer:
Right now?
David Graves:
Never.
Doug Shafer:
No? No?
David Graves:
Never felt that.
Doug Shafer:
Never have?
David Graves:
And-
Doug Shafer:
Never felt that.
David Graves:
... but I think I, I am smarter-
Doug Shafer:
... I don't think I ever will.
David Graves:
Well, when we have interns-
Doug Shafer:
I think you're smarter. I think you-
David Graves:
But it's kind of like how far ... You, you're smarter, but how much more could you learn? It's like, wow. You only have what, 45-
Doug Shafer:
I know …
David Graves:
... vintages as a, as a winemaker, which is kind of, I think, that's why tradition informs winemaking, uh, historically, is 'cause, you know, y-you only have-
Doug Shafer:
Yep.
David Graves:
You have a finite number of chances, but, uh-
Doug Shafer:
Right. See you should have been a chef, 'cause you got 365 shots in a year. (laughs)
David Graves:
Well, yeah, I m- (laughs), yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Every night, baby.
David Graves:
Yeah, you-
Doug Shafer:
Every night. (laughing)
David Graves:
You know, you burn the sauce, it's like, "Well, okay, let's start over."
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. I've-
David Graves:
I mean, I'm-
Doug Shafer:
Let's start over.
David Graves:
I'm not ma-, I'm not making f-, light of the ch-challenges of, of, uh-
Doug Shafer:
No, I know. Either-
David Graves:
... preparing the food, but-
Doug Shafer:
... either am I. Either am I. Um-
David Graves:
... but it is, uh, it, it is a, I mean, it's a source of wonder to me, though.
Doug Shafer:
Yep.
David Graves:
And I think if, if you kind of lose ... If a winemaker loses that excitement, it's probably time to-
Doug Shafer:
Time to hang it up.
David Graves:
... to move on to ... Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Making beer you know, that's, but that's important, too. Hey, um, you wanna bring something up? It might be a tough one for you, but when you mentioned older wines, you guys had a tough gig in October ... Was it October 2005?
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
In terms of the wi-, the, the arson fire, was a wine warehouse, and it was a ... You guys lost a lot of wine, right? Is that ... Were you guys involved in that?
David Graves:
Yeah. Um, it happened I was driving-
Doug Shafer:
Hmm.
David Graves:
It was, the warehouse was in, on Mare Island, and it happened I was driving down 80 to go to see my, my uncle, who was great guy and somebody I was very close to. He was my mother's next older brother, born in 1910. So, it's-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... uh, we were driving down ... I'm driving down to see him, and there's this plume of smoke blowing across 80.
Doug Shafer:
Oh man, you saw it.
David Graves:
... and I'm like, "Wow. That's a big fire. I wonder, wonder whose stuff is getting (laughs) destroyed."
Doug Shafer:
Oh no, (laughs) no, no, no.
David Graves:
So, um ... so we lost a lot of our library, uh, 'cause that's what was down in that warehouse-
Doug Shafer:
Your library, okay.
David Graves:
... not our regular production wine, but this is a ... I think it speaks a lot about my late business partner's character, that his reaction to it was, in the biggest sense, he's ... I mean, it was a big pain in the ass, of course. Luckily, it was insured-
Doug Shafer:
Sure.
David Graves:
... but, uh, uh-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... he said, in the biggest picture sense, one of the wisest comments I've ever heard anybody make about, uh, a loss like that, it's just, "Well, I guess we'll just have to make some more history."
Doug Shafer:
Ah. Oh, oh, oh. (laughs)
David Graves:
You know, you can't ... You know. You're not going to go back-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... and re-, you can't rewind the spool-
Doug Shafer:
No.
David Graves:
... of time and r-, somehow recreate a wine that's 15 or 20 years old, but, you know, we've made ... Like, that 2007 Stanly Ranch I was talking about, that was made two years-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... after the fire, and lo and behold, now it's history. You know?
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
You wait long enough, there it is.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah. There it is, and you had it. You had that m-, and you had that moment-
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
... which, which are really priceless. They're the best. They're the best moments.
David Graves:
Oh.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, and your former partner, Dick Ward, uh, one of the wisest guys I've ever known, and we lost him in 2017, and it was a, it was a wreck. It was a mess. It was just, ah, tough to describe, and, uh, you're carrying on, and, um-
David Graves:
Well, I, you know, I, I, uh-
Doug Shafer:
I'm sure changed a lot.
David Graves:
On Wednesday ... I, I've been a, a blood bank donor for a long time. Uh-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... long before, uh, Dick's illness, and it happens that, uh, he had a, a, a bone marrow disease, and he went through-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... a lot of platelets, and what I do at the blood bank is I'm a platelet donor, which is to say they, they take your blood, and platelets are one of the components of your blood. You've got red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, and plasma-
Doug Shafer:
Right, [crosstalk 01:06:10].
David Graves:
... and so they take your blood and put it through a centrifuge, which sounds weird, but that's what they do, and they, they give you back-
Doug Shafer:
Hmm.
David Graves:
... your red cells and they take platelets, which are what cause your blood to clot. So-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... that, that's a really important function, and then they also take plasma, 'cause a lot of ... That's also useful for people with various blood diseases or other conditions. So, it's a-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... two hours, um, and-
Doug Shafer:
Wow.
David Graves:
... uh, every time I do it, there's a little voice in my head that says, "This one's for you, buddy." Um, you know-
Doug Shafer:
Hmm. Hmm.
David Graves:
... we're coming up on, uh, three years that he's been gone.
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
It's, you know, it's a small thing I can do periodically just to sort of touch base with, with those memories-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... and just telling stories, you know? Um, that's how, in our, in our years and years of making ... I mean, we made 20, no, 39 vintages of wine together.
Doug Shafer:
Well, yeah.
David Graves:
Starting in '78 and going to, to, uh, 2016. Uh-
Doug Shafer:
I mean, you know, you've got, we could probably talk, you were probably, you could talk for 24 hours, you know? The, the year that the press blew up, the year that the, you know, the bearing got thrown on the forklift, and we had to pitchfork it, and go on and on and on and on. I mean, right?
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
Like, you got, you got a million of them, yeah.
David Graves:
And, and, can you believe we hired so-and-so? I mean, I, I feel like we've been very-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs)
David Graves:
We've been very lucky in terms of the people that we worked with here, but, you know, you, if, uh, you do it for long enough, there's some people-
Doug Shafer:
Yeah.
David Graves:
... that are like, "Oof. Boy, that wasn't a good idea." Um-
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) Oh, David -
David Graves:
But on the other hand, you know, we've, we've got, we've got, you know, uh, alumni, you know, people that have worked here that have gone on to do really great things-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... like Bill. Byron Kosuge worked with Bill, and when, then when after Bill-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... moved on, he was our winemaker. Uh, we've had interns like Remi Cohen who's, uh, uh, doing great things at Cliff Lede. Uh-
Doug Shafer:
Oh, Remi's great. She, she's, yeah. She's my neighbor up here. She's super.
David Graves:
Yep. So, um-
Doug Shafer:
Uh, so, Saintsbury, so Saintsbury today, 40 years later, lots of changes, but still, still chardonnay and Pinot, and a little rosé, right?
David Graves:
Yep, and, uh, we, our geographic reach is a little bigger, uh, as I said. We're-
Doug Shafer:
Okay.
David Graves:
... we've got Petaluma Gap, we've got Anderson Valley, we got Sonoma Coast, we got Russian River. Uh, we even made a wine from the Santa Cruz mountains that's, I have to say, pretty damn good.
Doug Shafer:
Oh, neat.
David Graves:
Um ... so it's a great way to ... You know, if you have this ... I think we have some insight into what Pinot Noir does, and I wouldn't say we're masters at this, just because I don't think you're ever a master at it, but, um-
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
... we can take that expertise and apply it to different, different terroirs, different places, and so-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... what I like to say is, "It's ... When ... If I pour two glasses of wine, they could be from 500 yards apart or they could be from, you know, 100 m-miles apart." I'll say, "Well-"
Doug Shafer:
Right.
David Graves:
"... we're gonna have a 500-word compare and contrast essay, and I'm going to pass out the blue books here, and you'll have 50 minutes to tell me w-, you know, compare the wines, contrast, tell me why they're different," and what I always tell people is, "What ..." Y-y-you know, a lot of times, I'm sure people ask you this, Doug. "What's your favorite wine, or-"
Doug Shafer:
Right. Right.
David Graves:
"... why, you know ..." and, and I'm like, "Well, I can tell you what my wine that I like right now is, but I don't know that, uh ... I mean, it might be informative for me to tell you sort of what a particular site does over time in my experience, but, ultimately-"
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
"... what you, the wine drinker, thinks is the most important because you're the one experiencing the wine for yourself. I can't experience it for you. That's the great thing about wine."
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
"... one of the many great things about wine."
Doug Shafer:
W-well, it's, it's subjective. It's all about, it's, it's, it's one's, it's one's personal experience with something, and, and it's not the same for anyone else, but you.
David Graves:
And I learn stuff when I talk to guests-
Doug Shafer:
So-
David Graves:
They, I learn stuff.
Doug Shafer:
Right. Yeah, 'cause they, they come, uh, they come from a, from a totally different place, uh, wonderful places, actually, because they're not so wrapped up in it, like you and I are, every day-
David Graves:
Yeah.
Doug Shafer:
... but, uh-
David Graves:
Sometimes we're a little too close to it, I think.
Doug Shafer:
Definitely. Good to get away. Um, so, especially with people being at home, David, how can they find your wine so they can try it and take a walk in your shoes? What's the best way?
David Graves:
Well, the, uh, a-as I said at the outset, our wines are just a click or a phone call away, um, but-
Doug Shafer:
(laughing)
David Graves:
... obviously, you're not going to find them in rest-, I mean, you might find them in restaurants once restaurants re-open, but, um-
Doug Shafer:
Yes.
David Graves:
... uh, that's not going to be an option right now. W-we are in some of the, um, you know, we're in, in wine specialty stores like K&L in San Francisco and down the peninsula. We're in some of the grocery store chains, and-
Doug Shafer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Graves:
... but can't come get it here, but as I said, we are a click or a phone call away.
Doug Shafer:
The webs-, the, the webs-, w-website is saintsbury.com, something like that?
David Graves:
Yeah, really complicated.
Doug Shafer:
Okay, good. (laughs)
David Graves:
SaintsB-U-R-Y.com.
Doug Shafer:
Listen, my friend, the ... That's right. The B-U-R-Y. Saints B-U-R-Y.
David Graves:
Yep.
Doug Shafer:
Bury. Bury. Um, David, David Graves, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been super. I've learned, as always, I learned so much new stuff about fe- you know, that I've known you for 35 years, and I found out a ton of new stuff today, so thanks for taking the time, man.
David Graves:
Well, it's a great pleasure for me to, to have a yarn with you, and, and, um ... You know, there's a ... I, I say we hit ... I don't have old friends, I have friends of long duration, so ...
Doug Shafer:
(laughs) I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
David Graves:
So, and you haven't changed a bit.
Doug Shafer:
All right.
David Graves:
So. Okay, man.
Doug Shafer:
Well, I'm, I'm trying, buddy. You take care. I'll see you around.
David Graves:
Okay. Thanks a lot, man. Bye.
Doug Shafer:
Take care. Thanks, David.