Go With Your Palate
Joe Wagner, 5th Generation Winemaker, presents the podcast "Go With Your Palate." A podcast about wine, entrepreneurship, and whatever the F else. So buckle up - this isn't your normal wine podcast.
Go With Your Palate
E91 Matt Heil pt 2 | Joe Wagner
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The guy who finds the grapes behind Belle Glos Pinot Noir and Napa Valley Quilt Cabernet is finally on the podcast.
Matthew Heil—Copper Cane’s Director of Fruit Supply—is the energizer bunny of the wine world, constantly on the move scouting vineyards and building the relationships that shape every bottle.
In this episode, we go deep into what really happens before grapes ever hit the crush pad.
🎙️ Go With Your Palate: Matthew Heil | The Man Who Finds the Grapes
This week we go straight behind the vines with Matthew Heil, Director of Fruit Supply & Grower Relations at Copper Cane Wine & Spirits and one of the original team members who’s been with the company since day one in 2014. A true wealth of knowledge—and what we lovingly call an energizer bunny of the wine world—Matt is constantly on the move scouting vineyards, building grower relationships, and helping secure the fruit that becomes some of Copper Cane’s most celebrated wines, from the legendary Belle Glos Pinot Noir to the renowned Napa Valley Quilt Cabernet.
Coming from a lineage of farmers, Matt walks us through how he found his way into the wine world and what he’s actually looking for during those long vineyard walks across Napa, Sonoma, the Central Coast—and even Oregon during Copper Cane’s earlier chapter there. We dig into grower relationships, fruit sourcing, climate challenges, and the behind-the-scenes decisions that ultimately shape every bottle.
We also uncover the origin story of Matt and Joe’s Napa Valley bromance (which somehow involves two World Series and Fat Mario getting a lil jelly lol), plus some candid insider vineyard stories from years spent traveling wine country.
This episode only scratches the surface of Matt’s knowledge, which is why he’s officially joining us as a recurring expert guest to help break down the winemaking season—especially during harvest later this year.
Wine nerds, this is your chance: drop your vineyard, grape-growing, or wine industry questions in the comments, and we may bring them back to Matt on a future episode.
If you’ve ever wondered what really happens before grapes hit the crush pad, this one’s for you.
Grab a glass and come walk the vineyard with us. 🍷🌿
All right, welcome to a little episode of Wet Your Palette, where we tell you a bit of a preview of what we just did. Now, we just had a two-part series, the first time we've ever done it in two separate days. Uh, but with the one and only Matt Heil, who is the director of fruit supply at this boutique wine company called Copper Cane Wines and Spirits. It was a pleasure having you, Matt. We got to get into the ins and outs of what a whole growing season looks like when you're working with growers, managing vineyards, uh, running logistics. I mean, any highlights and beyond like the kind of stories that are a little close to home and secretive in the Napa Valley. How you know, but what yeah, what any any highlights that we talked about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's challenging. Um it the the environment that every year is a different, it's like talking about art, as we were discussing. Every year is a new a new framework or a new uh palette or whatever you want to do. There's a new new canvas to be painted for each year, and every year's different. And you know, I had new guys down the central coast that always said, I don't even know what normal is because every year is a different year. He's never seen the same year twice. And it's it's so true. And I the guy's name is Rich Smith, he was down the central coast, really great guy, passed a few years ago. But I always thought, you know, like, come on, there's got to be some continuity between years that are similar, but I've never seen it.
SPEAKER_02And it's so I think that I think the continuity is the uh is really just the the flow of the season, but every year has different challenges. Yeah, absolutely. Um and I I think we or you outlined and demonstrated a lot of the details of of what goes into it. Now, while we did this in two parts, there is gonna be a third part because we didn't get to go through all of this stuff. So you're getting this little preview for these first two parts in the series, but we're gonna get into the nitty-gritty at some point, too. Like six pages to go, right? Or something, Christian. We didn't even touch a page, dude. We just started talking and it was like.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of crazy stories.
SPEAKER_03But there's there's also gonna be an opportunity for you to drop in the comments to ask questions because we're gonna bring those back for when Matt comes back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we're gonna put him, we're gonna put him through a huge rapid fire. What'd you say, two hours?
SPEAKER_02It'll be two hours of rapid fire questions and probably a whole lot of shit that we are gonna have to edit. All right, go check out the episodes. Cheers.
SPEAKER_03We're here with the same Matt Heil, dude. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh hung out with mom and dad. So I thought you had more.
SPEAKER_03I was like, what did you do last night? It was wholesome.
SPEAKER_00That's it. No, uh, we celebrated with the glass of uh our bottle of Chevre uh Chevre Chambertine.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if you're saying that right, but I'll let the Psalms comment.
SPEAKER_00The Salmy commies?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's actually Gri Chamberton. Chamberton, yeah. Chamber with a hard channel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we enjoyed that last night.
SPEAKER_02Uh was it good?
SPEAKER_00It was wonderful. Deb was like, this is an amazing wine. So where's this from? Like, well, give them we do go through the country game, like playing options wine options, yeah. Is it New Zealand? Is it Central Coast? Is it Western Oma Coast? Is it Oregon? Is it California? Is it France? He's like, I'm going with France. Okay. Nice. Is this Loire Valley? Is this um uh Burgundy or Loire Valley or Burgundy? And he was like, Loire Valley. I'm like, yeah, nope, wrong again. So anyway, it was kind of funny.
SPEAKER_03I was I was trying to prevent myself from getting back into my addiction, uh, mayor of Kingstown. But just can't help myself, dude. I just I told my girlfriend because we're just so addicted, we've just been burning through all those seasons because of Joe. Have you seen this show? Nope. On Paramount? Oh my god, Jeremy Renner, dude. Oh, I've always been a big I've always been a huge fan of Jeremy Renner since Hurt Locker. He like it was like his breakout role. I think it was like 2008. I don't know, you might have to fact check me.
SPEAKER_02It's a pretty deep series, though. Like you'll you'll get into it and want to watch it. It's it's good. I mean, it took us like over a year to like get through it, and then I think like we told Chris about it, and then now they're they've almost finished it in like two weeks.
SPEAKER_00No, I've got uh 21-year-old son and an 18-year-old son, and they decided to put on Mandalorian, gosh knows what season, but they'll say if they if they watch We ended up binge watching like three or four episodes in a row on like Friday night. It was pretty much.
SPEAKER_02If they watch mayor of Kingstown, they're probably gonna never want to break the law.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So it's about prison.
SPEAKER_03What's the one that's I'll tell you what it wants. It makes me want to run for mayor, though. The mayor of St.
SPEAKER_02Helena?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, dude, they run it like he does, dude.
SPEAKER_02Just rolling around on a Lincoln Town car all the time, telling people like coordinating fucking shit everywhere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you like show up at crime scenes, you get to go beyond the yellow tape, just look around with shit. You're like, what do we got here? Yeah, it's just it's a lot of violence. There's violence. I watch a lot of TV. So where where did we leave off? Yeah. Yesterday, we gotta jump in.
SPEAKER_02We finished up on the vegetation discussion, yeah, talking about all the things that go into farm plan, yeah, and and you know, how to how to properly work with not just your own vineyards, but also work with and and really be a consultant slash buyer of grapes with growers in that case. So here we go, into the post-vegetative cycle, into the ripening cycle.
SPEAKER_00Which what did you call it yesterday? You had a funny word. It wasn't varation, it was something else. It was gonna set everybody on their head.
SPEAKER_02No, I didn't I think art said that.
SPEAKER_00Oh what was it that art had said yesterday? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Mispronounced varation.
SPEAKER_00Mispronounced varation, we called it something else.
SPEAKER_02Persuasion, no.
SPEAKER_00Aversion? Aversion.
SPEAKER_02Transition. We are in transitioning. We're not talking about transitioning.
SPEAKER_03I I just throw it out there. I thought that's what he said. Is that what you said? We already talked about this. Okay, sorry. All right. More than 20 minutes. I've long forgotten.
SPEAKER_02Again, I am going to reiterate the point that we do not put hormones into our vines. Okay, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No animals are harmed in the process. No.
SPEAKER_02All right, so basic is on track. Moving back to post-vegetative cycle. We talked about, if you missed the last podcast segment, we were talking about everything that goes into establishment of uh a proper vineyard for the season, pruning, shoot thinning, leaf pulling, um, suckering, uh, initial crop then for decongestion. Then comes varasian. And varasi is simply the uh beginning of
Let's get back to it! Post-vegetation/Veraison
SPEAKER_02the vine um creating sugar in the fruit to simplify it. So uh at varasian, um, you also see color begin to go into the red fruit. Uh a little bit of yellow character going from those like green hard berries to to uh softer berries just after sizing. Um and and you'll see a little like yellowish tinge. Uh so that's where we know we're into varasian. Now, this is an extremely important part of the season, and we do something you can call it a green drop, you can call it a 80-90% uh varation pass. Uh people have different words for it, but essentially color thinning pass. You want to talk about what it is?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So you're basically going through and trying to narrow up the bell curve of what's ripening on the vine. So you've got some clusters that are fully colored and ready to go or on their way to maturity, and you've got others that are say 10, 15, 20% of the crop that's still green and it's not coloring up, it's delayed in maturity, the seeds aren't ripening up properly. And so we'll go through and do a varasian-thinning bass to say 75%. I like to use 75 because you want to get going at 50. So when you hit 75%, you get guys to do it and they're not waiting until you get to 100% color change, and then now it the bell curves kind of wiped out, like everything's starting to color up. It's hard to determine what's what's pink or what's green.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, you can't once it's all colored, you can't tell what is lagging in maturity, right? So it's all gonna look too long. Yeah, it's all gonna look the same. So I agree with Matt, and I think Matt, you gotta look at it, like you said, at 50% and then start executing at 75%. Yes, and then hopefully be done by 90%. Because if you are that like just imagine that you're looking at all of your crop load and you see most everything is colored up, but you have you know one or two in ten clusters that are still pink or green, those are not just gonna be delayed in sugar, but they're also delayed in maturity.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02It's your last ditch effort to be able to get a consistent um level of maturity throughout the entire crop. Very important pass. Sometimes it's more than 20% of the crop. Yeah. Um but uh but that is that is what I would say from from my perspective, because you might have a strong-looking shoot and a good looking cluster, but it'll have delayed ripeness. And you don't want those green elements, even a fraction, like 5% of it, going into the hopper, going into the fermenter, and creating those green flavors. Uh, because again, once they're colored up, you can't tell the difference in maturity unless you taste them, and it's totally illogical to be able to taste every single cluster.
SPEAKER_00It's hard to find the ones that are not fully colored, you know, that are fully colored up, but they're or 80% colored up, but you're looking to just narrow up the uniformity of what you're trying to pick. Uniformity, uniform ripening of the crop. We're trying to get what rid of the outliers that aren't gonna make it and get ripe like the rest of the crop.
SPEAKER_02So what happens if you do taste every cluster?
What happens if you taste every grape cluster in the vineyard block?
SPEAKER_02If you do taste every cluster? If if you were to put somebody in the field.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, you're gonna get a hell of a stomach ache. That's the first thing you're gonna get. You're gonna get really shitty because if you're eating them, it's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_02It's just like diarrhea.
SPEAKER_00It's perfect diuretic. Nothing's better. Um juice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you if you're if you're going in for like a colonoscopy, just drink like two big glasses of grape juice.
SPEAKER_00Grape juice and have some tacos from La Luna, and then it's on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that dude, that's what we grew up with as kids, dude. We were like eating. Just all that like uh disrespect to La Luna, it's a great place, but you know we were cleansing.
SPEAKER_00Good little pickups.
SPEAKER_02Dude, I I do remember like growing up, you know, around around the winery, and we'd get like the first Sab Blanc in. Oh, yeah. And it would go in, so like pressed, right? So it's just it's turbid juice, but still it's just juice, no no solids. And then uh they'd slam the chilling on it, right, to to cold settle it for a couple days. So you're trying to get all those like those heavier solids out before you rack it off and then start fermentation. And I just go into the cellar and just put my mouth up to the valve and just like like through a fire hose, just chug grape juice. It tasted so good. Oh, yeah, yeah, that I was willing to just blow my ass out for a day. And and it'll do that. It will. But it so here's another thing I want to that if people don't know this, like everybody's eaten
Table Grape vs Wine Grape (Fruit Sugars)
SPEAKER_02table grapes, or most everybody's eaten table grapes, right? The ones you buy at the store, they're big, they're plump, they're usually like generally green, red, or sometimes pink. Um, the level of sugar in those is somewhere around like 16 bricks, right? And so if you if you don't know there. Bricks spilled B-R-I-X, it's a measurement of the soluble solids, it's glucose and fructose. And so uh, and they're they're sweet, right? They got they got good acid, but they're sweet, they taste sweet. Wine grapes when we pick them are oftentimes nearly double that amount of sugar. Yes. Lower acidity, but double that amount of sugar. Like getting up to 28, 29, 30 bricks. Um, so you're you're dealing with one of nature's most effective producers of natural sugars. Yes. As far as a a plant goes.
SPEAKER_00Um, do you know of any other plants that produce just naturally from like stage one without any refinement processing or anything that produces as much sugar as getting up to like to go to like say sugar beets or sugar cane or you know, like you have to try it and process it.
SPEAKER_02But if anybody knows a more effective plant at producing sugar in a fruit or a liquid, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Art look it up, baby.
SPEAKER_00Plums and cherries can get way up there too.
SPEAKER_03Wait, but are you saying that's what that's what's blowing you? That's what was blowing you out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you just got yourself is that what's blowing you? No. Um Wow. I think it's I think it's I do think it's a lot of the sugar. I think it's everything though. It's just got acid, it's yeah, you know, it's a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's the pulp and it's just it's got in the acidity. And the other thing is if you're tasting fruit, like we used to call it like tasting at night, and you reach into a cluster in a canopy, walking through a field, and as you're saying 24, 25 bricks, you can tell whether it's there or not there. And at night, you're not you're just tasting what you're tasting. You're grabbing clusters, and if the you're tasting fruit that tastes ripe in the darkness, you've got a headlamp on or a flashlight with you. Um, you can tell whether you're in the zone or not. And if you you can walk in like 50 yards in a vineyard and after like the third plant, if the acidity is cleaning the enamel off your teeth, it's probably not ready. That's usually what you can tell. But you know, and it was the what we were trying to do is take your natural bias of reaching for the ripe cluster. And if you do it in at night, which is really weird because sometimes you get in areas where there's mountain lions and they're howling and that gets a little creepy. But um anyway.
SPEAKER_02All right, you got sugar cane, sugar beets, wine grapes, and and then corn. But again, uh processing is required on sugar beets and corn. Uh so yeah, sugar cane from a plant perspective, up to 15 to 20 percent by weight in sucrose specifically. Yep. Uh wine grapes, 18 to 29% sugar concentration. Okay, well, that's bullshit. You looked it up wrong. Um there's there's if you squeeze, I wonder what well, I wonder what sugar cane's bricks are, but you're not able to measure that because uh you are not measuring glucose and fructose. You are measuring sucrose.
SPEAKER_00I mean you go down a lot of rabbit holes because you start looking at sugar canes, you like start looking at corn, corn sweetener or corn syrup, that can get way up there, but yeah. Process it, it's not occurring actually.
SPEAKER_02So you you'd mentioned that the like you can get that uh enamel ripping acidity, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, clean the clean whatever's on your teeth, right?
What fruit supplier is looking for in wine grape ripeness
SPEAKER_00Clean off. Especially early in the season because the acidity is so high. So you go into a Pinot Noir vineyard, it's like, oh, it's you know, growers squawk and it's you know 24.5, and you go into it, and the pH is like, you know, 3.1, which is a measure of acidity, and the total acidity is like probably eight or nine, and you taste it, and it's just literally like you're you're you're cleaning your teeth with this stuff because it's so acidic. So sometimes.
SPEAKER_02So now that the green drop is done, now it's hang time, right? Now you kind of wait monitor, you might have some cultural practices going on, little refinements here and there. But say you're getting close to ripeness. What what are you looking for? You're walking up and down vineyard rows.
SPEAKER_00I'm looking for seed maturity, I'm looking for flavor development, um, uniform good flavor development. So if you can you're walking through a block of, say, a Pinot Noir clone and you're tasting um 828, and it's got consistently like ripe plum, ripe jammy characters as you walk down a row. And it's not just one row. You've got to walk through, let's say, a 10-acre block. You're probably gonna walk four or five different rows all the way up and down. So it's all on foot. Um, and that's the way you really get to know the vineyard whether you're getting close to the zone or not, if it's uniform. So you can walk from one side of the field, it might be really ripe on one side, and as you drop down towards in the swale, the maturity drops off and the flavors aren't quite there. They're more like um like high-toned fruit, like uh Jolly Ranch or raspberry or or um strawberry, like candy characters. The sugar's there, but it's still got that tart character to it. It's not quite there. And then you can tell with the seeds. I think I might got in this yesterday is that as the seeds dissociate from the pulp, it's no different than the plum. When you bite into a plum that's really ripe, that pit just separates from the meat of the plum right away in your mouth. If you bite into a plum that's not quite ripe, the meat's still stuck to it, and you're like, okay, it's not quite ready. Probably should have waited. You probably picked plums that weren't, you know, too ripe, uh, were ripe enough.
SPEAKER_02Do you do you ever get a because I I have this one weird thing that happens to me that is uh party foul. Is it really, Matt? Yeah, yeah. Come on. Who is it?
SPEAKER_03They're on the podcast right now.
SPEAKER_00No, we don't want them on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03Who is it? It's the other Matt Heil.
SPEAKER_00No, it's one of my buddies from uh I went to school with at uh Fresn State, Brett Escalera. He used to work at shout out. So Brett, um You're not on the podcast, sorry, bro.
SPEAKER_02So uh so okay, there's this one thing, you know, flavors, uh the breakdown of the the breakdown of the skins in your mouth, the separation of the pulp and the seed or from the seed, um, all those things. But uh I get this like itchy feeling if if the fruit is not ripe, regardless of sugar, regardless of like all the other maturity elements, I'm getting I get this like itch in the back of my throat if there are still like these green pyrazines in the fruit.
SPEAKER_00Or the the the uh seed tannins can have that green character to them, and they'll like they'll they'll be like a phenolic character that's green in nature and it it does bite into your tongue and bites into your palate. You could taste that. It's just really if you don't have that, then you're like you're on you're on your way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a really funny, it's a really funny thing. Like it's a it's truly like almost like an alert, like a light allergic feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and so like I just got used to that. Now it if I just walked into a vineyard, I'd be like, taste a couple of of vines, and if it's like just everything's itchy, I'm like out.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of like smoke taint. You taste fruit with you know that's when you're exposed to to fire and it's got that ashy character in the back of your throat and you want to gag, it's like the same kind of thing he's talking about. Yeah. But that's a whole nother story. That's an organ story.
SPEAKER_03So you mentioned you brought up the seeds too, um, with maturity, and I
Grape Seeds...testing testing 123
SPEAKER_03know that you've done some tests as well, too. That when you're when you're chewing when you're chewing a grape and then you can kind of spit the seeds out in your hand, aren't you also looking for things too? Like if the seeds are whether they're green or brown, uh and that's maturity. You don't want to spit them.
SPEAKER_00I used to do that, but I spit them on the ground on the berm and I'll look on the berm rather than you know your hands get all sticky and I still spit them in my hands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's yeah, he's you're more man than I am. No, no, I just ask ten different people how they do this, and they're all gonna be different, right? So I'll do like a little assessment. I'll I'll, you know, okay, there's no adhesion from the pulp to the seed, and then I'll take all the pulp off of the skin, I'll look at the skin, like kind of flatten it out, is that sound uh however that sounds, and then look at it up to the sun and kind of see how consistent that coloring is. Um, and then as you're doing more of a walkthrough, I'll just be popping berries in my mouth, different parts of the cluster, different parts of the vine. Yeah. Morning side, after afternoon side, uh interiors, exteriors, whatever. Um, and then what I'll do is I'll I'll uh suck the uh skin off of the pulp and then like put it in my mouth like it's a it's a chew and hold that skin, like multiple skin. So I'll have like 20 skins in my mouth, and I'll generally get the get the taste during that period, spit all the juice and pulp out, and then spit seeds into my hand and just keep holding the seeds until I've gone through a row, and then assess overall the whole thing, and then as this like chew of skins is in my mouth, then I'll chew it down a little bit more and then spit that in my hand to look at the color concentration coming out, like if it's bleeding out. Because I think if you think uh sometimes color is not so easily attained, I think is how I'd look at it.
SPEAKER_00You've got to really chew on the berries and the skins to get the color to really dissociate. And and if if you can another thing you can you asked about if you're determining ripening is as you're tasting fruit and you're chewing on the on the clusters, if I spit out and it looks like I'm spitting out blood, like I've got a broken tooth or something like that, it's like all right, you're in the zone. Yeah, you chewed up a little bit on say five berries as you've walked 20 yards, and that and you're sp I hate saying spitting blood, but you're spitting lots of color. No, but that's what I when I say bleeding color out, then it's you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Um and I just come it just coming out easy. Like that's yeah, that's when you know, like, okay, we're we're getting there. Yeah, what are all the other little factors? We want to make sure it's perfect.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then measuring the acidity of you know, the pH, the bricks, and the TA, the total acidity of the wine just to make or the fruit or the grape juice. And then you run it by winemaking and say, okay, here's where we're at. And you know, sometimes you're like, Yeah, get it in now.
SPEAKER_02Um, but and other times they're like, we don't have any space.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So you're like that doesn't happen so much anymore since we got out of Oregon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for whatever reason, I don't know. Change the staff a little bit. Um he's spicy. He wasn't anyway.
SPEAKER_03Um shots fired.
SPEAKER_00Shots fired. Yeah. Um but usually there's like there's always that crossfire that you're in between like the grower wants to pick, they'll wound up like an eight-day clock. You got winemaking who's like, all right, we're not really sure. You bring in a load, and like, okay, let's get going. Or you'll you'll send in a couple loads, and we all think we're good. And then Joe comes in to taste the wines, you know, two days later after it's soaked in the tank. We're like, you know what? Let's hold off a bit. Like, okay, we're gonna hold off a bit. Meanwhile, the growers like turned into a lunatic, they're losing their minds. Like, we started picking we're at 26 bricks, and you guys said go, and now you said no, and now we're gonna wait another week, and they're like, you know, pulling their hair out.
SPEAKER_02But weather does play a factor, and you're
In-house climatologist? Weather vs Vineyards
SPEAKER_02you are like the in-house climatologist or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why don't you tell us a little bit about your weather data sets that you get, what what you use first?
SPEAKER_00Well, for the last 30 years, um, when I worked at Mundhavi, um, I met um an admiral in the Navy who ran the U.S. Naval Fleet Meteorology and Oceanography Center in Monterey. So the Naval Postgraduate School for the U.S. Naval Academy is in Monterey. One of my growers um flew fighter jets and was friends with these guys in the Navy. All of his kids are in the Navy. And he came to a grower dinner, and we had a grower dinner, and I got to meet the admiral who ran, he came as the guest of our grower, and we're talking about weather. And he's like, Oh, you know, son, you ought to check out this website because it's called the uh USN F M N F N M O C for it's a fleet numerical meteorology and oceanography center website, which is a DOD website, so you're tracked on it.
SPEAKER_02Now DOW, no.
SPEAKER_00No, well, yeah, or Department of War, Department of Defense, Department of Offense, I guess, D O O do, because that's what they're doing. Anyway. Um so um anyway, that's a whole nother story. Um long story short, so you go in there and you we would look at these these satellite views of they're doing um weather forecasting for the US Navy fleet, like the whole fleet globally. And they're looking at the whole entire planet with satellites that you can't even imagine, they're all around the around the planet. But the cool thing was they'd have these weather forecasters say when is the front gonna come in? So you'd have like the state of California, the front's coming across the Pacific Ocean, and would tell you within the hours, like we think with our 85 or 90 percent probability that it's good the the the front's gonna come through Mendocino County at like 10 o'clock at night, and it'll be into Napa Carneros by like say two in the morning, and it'll be coming and whipping into the Central Coast, like when our I was on the Central Coast for a long time, but it hit. And you could we pick one year, we pick within an hour, like hundreds of loads of Chardonnay in Monterey County, and within an hour the rainfront came over the Big Sur and came down the Silenius Valley, and we got all that fruit pick tarped and off to the winery um by looking at these weather forecasts. Now the DOD, and I I can't fault them for it, you know, the the weather forecasting. It's not shared, it's not open to the public anymore. So um, which I get, you know, it's it's a private thing.
SPEAKER_03I mean just brought this up. So this is what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02You know, I'm sure that some of this stuff is given out, right? But he you can't you're you're saying you can't live track what's going on.
SPEAKER_00They used to you used to be able to do it here and you could go into forecasts under the this website. They're they're you know doing forecasts for the US Navy for the fleet. You don't want to have a nuclear submarine come up for Yeah, there's some sort of resupply mission in like four-meter waves.
SPEAKER_02There's some in investment on the ocean uh there that the uh Department of War has. Um Department of War.
SPEAKER_03But once you're that when you're that dialed in, do you see a um big differences like between that and say, like, you know, what Apple's saying? Or Apple's for weather underground or whatever. Oh, yeah. No, it's what I mean. Like you you can see things coming that people think it might be sunshine this weekend, and you actually know of a typhoon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so for example, a few years ago up in Oregon, we had a front coming in. It was the end of the year, and we got all the fruit out of Oregon before this like nasty storm came in, and we got like six inches of rain like a day later. Like we had we'd use this weather forecast as a tool, looked at it, said, okay, we've got to get going, got trucks up there, we got harvesters going, we got guys with a schedule. We were looping trucks, so we ended up, I think we had 14 trucks, seven on their way down, seven on their way back up. We're literally doing a rotation of 14 trucks between southern Oregon and Central Oregon and the Willamette Valley to get fruit out of there before this front came through. And the last truck went out. I've got it somewhere in an email. I'd have to dig it up, but um, it was hilarious. We get the last trucks out, and the front was literally coming in. The truck had left like maybe three or four hours before that. And it was, it was really, it was like really fun. I don't like geek out, but I mean, half your battle is you're we all work with nature all year long. When the storm door is open, the door's open. And you can't, I can't be like, oh, please wait a day. And I could you don't pray for the weather to change, the weather is the weather, and that's what happens.
SPEAKER_02There are some years where like you want to wait until the last possible second pick. Yes. And and you want every bit, and when I say second, you know, like a a day or two, right? But uh last year was not a bad example of it. We you it's like, hey, if we're gonna, if we're gonna pick, if this is right on the edge, if this is like just right there, and we think we got three more days of clear, let's leave it out for three more days and then and then make sure the pick is lined up for that. And and and it really does matter. I mean, the the I'd say the apps now that we have access to are decent, maybe not as thorough as as you know what you used to have from the Navy.
SPEAKER_00But but there's some other websites now that are out there that are they're pretty accurate that tie in with guys from like say Scripps, U.S. uh um U.S. Meteorological Center, NOAA National Oceanographic Administration. Um, and there are climatologists that work for there's a guy that used to work at uh Diablo Canyon uh nuclear power plant, John Lindsay. And so the Canyon Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is down in San Luis Obispo County. It's they use the ocean to cool the reactors, so it's ocean water. So you've got to really make sure that when you're drawing ocean water in and there's a high swell event, you probably don't want your reactor running at a really high efficiency level when you've got heavy sea activity, which could cause problems with the intake pipes or whatnot. Or anyway, it's but they look at that type of stuff. But he was really good about uh giving you a forecast of like, here's what I think is gonna happen. Those seven to ten days um outlook and forecasts.
SPEAKER_02So I I think that's and guys subscripts too. So is it fair to say that there are many, many times, probably more often than not, where we would nearly be waiting until the day before winter weather start sets in, right? To pick. Absolutely. That would some that that oftentimes becomes becomes the optimum uh possibility. Yeah. Um so yeah, weather does play a key factor, but that hang time, I think that that's one of the
Weather affects and we learn from past vintages for the future
SPEAKER_02the the parts that we need to dive into a little more because you're getting all of this physiological maturity that's just like it's free to get, you know, like your your days are longer, it's October now, and you know, you're I'm sorry, your days are shorter, they're cooler, um, you're you're not having really any photosynthesis going on. The grapes are just sitting there and beginning the process effectively of rotting on the vine. They haven't started that.
SPEAKER_00When I think concentrating flavors too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So they're dehydrating a little bit. Maybe well, there are years we get rot on the vine. That's not cool. But um, but uh, but no, so I I think that that that like that it could be two weeks, four weeks, whatever, where it's just bonus time where you're not rushing to get stuff in uh and and you're getting your best quality fruit by and large at that point of the season.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And there's times where we will wait on purpose if we know we've got a storm coming through and it's like, well, it's only going to be a quarter of an inch, and you've got the next two weeks or forecast to be dry and warm, then we wait and get through that. And typically they'll bounce right back. Um if the canopies are still functionally active, I think we don't give them enough credit for what they can actually do. And the grapevines still have green leaves on them, and they're still saying let's say it's 75% of uh the full colored canopy that you'd see in say mid to late October. I think they're still creating flavor precursors and and they're still respiring acids, so the acids are still uh declining, total acidity is declining. Um, you're still creating precursors for flavor and more color up to a point after, say, 25 to 27 bricks. I think it starts to drop off a fair bit. But um, we've seen really good flavor development in some varieties, like Zinfandel's one where acidity is everything on it when we're picking. Um Syrah is one where you watch the acidity really strong as the acidity starts to fade and you see the flavors there across where you know the flavors are going up, the acidity's coming down. Um, it's really amazing to see, especially on Syrah. Pinot, we've got some clones of peanut or that'll do that too. Cabernet is another fun one. Cabernet, we're looking for the absence of pyrazine. We're looking for those green bell pepper, green asparagus um vegetable type characters that that can be there in some years. Um, it's a little bit troubling sometimes because sometimes, like um 1989, everybody kind of pretty much wiped that vintage out. I remember everybody talking about how what a terrible vintage it was, or 1998. 98 is probably the one that it's more appropriate to talk about, that it had a lot of green vegetative bell pepper characters, but you waited 12 years later, and they're like, Oh, this could be the wine of the century. Everybody's like looking at it, like, oh my god, this is an amazing vintage. You just had to wait. Well, who's gonna wait 12 years to age your wine and then release it? Not many people.
SPEAKER_02But I think an important point on that one because you had these back-to-back vages, right? You had 97. Yeah, I was still like a kid, right? Like, so I didn't really pay attention to all this, but I remember hearing about it like during the process of it, right? 97, big crop, warm year, high level of ripeness. Very showy wines. Like, I mean, I remember tasting those in like the early 2000s. I mean, like, boom, fruit bombs, like Napa Valley Colt Cabernet, like on steroids. And then you had 98, which everybody like critics bagged on it. Like if you said 97 was probably a 97, 98 point, if you go to the point system year, you had 98, which was probably like an 85 by critic standards.
SPEAKER_00Or an 81 or 82, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then just knocked it off. But then 10, 15 years later, you taste those wines, and those those big 97s, they fell apart, and those refined ninety-eights worked well. Now the problem is it's the dilemma, right? Who's aging their wine for 15 years?
SPEAKER_00Nobody I know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, there might be a few. There's collectors that do, but you know, that's how much of the population is doing that.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, so you gotta they gotta be they gotta be showy and also I think have some age worthiness. I've never been a fan of aging cabs in in either case. Like that's very rare. I think Peter Noir does a better job of doing that, but it's it's it really comes down to acidity, which again in your point of 98. 98 had a higher acidity. Yes. For uh for cab.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
Aging wine and acidity
SPEAKER_03Could that be a rule to live by if you have if you have a wine that's very high in acidity from the get-go, that like that's something if you held on to that you should age for a while for that to like kind of break down, for that to smooth out, or I think you first need to be an enthusiast to even want to do that, like a big enthusiast.
SPEAKER_02And uh from a collector point of view.
SPEAKER_03Like if you got a case, you know, and you have a spottle and you're like, well, I guess these I'll see these other 11 and 15 or 10 years unless I want to I mean I always worry that if I'm aging wine for like 15, 20 years, that like I might die, and then I wouldn't have enjoyed it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And like, you know, that happens to a lot of people's wine cellars. But your kids would. Well, given that they like wine. No, that's what I was gonna say. This happens a lot. Like, people will have these like 5,000 bottle wine collections. Yeah, yeah. And and they'll they'll you know, try to drink it away and whatever else over time and share it with friends, and those probably all make great memories, as as they should. But at some point, you know, they they pass away and the kids you know inherit this collection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and they're not into wine.
SPEAKER_02They're not into wine, they'll bring a like an auction house in, or or in many cases, like a Somali or a a uh restaurant group. Their Somali A'll go in and be like, all right, I'm valuing all this at, you know, whatever hundred thousand dollars. Uh, if I were to buy it wholesale, I'll give you a hundred thousand. I'm gonna do a three or four times markup, and I'm gonna have this massive seller of like these crazy ass wines, and and immediately have like a wine spectator worthy wine list.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and it happens like all the time. Those are the boomers. Yeah, we love you boomers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we do. Love you, mom and dad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Uh pick is called. I think the next step is kind of a it's an interesting one because all of a no, all of a sudden you you're not just calling picks, you're not just monitoring harvests and and some of the shit you have to monitor because there are times when people do shady shit. Um which we'll get into that, but then you also become uh a dispatch logistics manager for trucking companies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Coordinating that, coordinating the schedules. I mean, it's cool. I'm blessed to have worked with the winemaking staff that you that I got interacted with starting in 2013, that that crew all the way up and through this year has been wonderful to work with, all of them. Um, some that are here, some that are not here. Um, but um in general, it was a really good experience. Um, the challenging times are uh like there's the top top five things that happen during harvest that you know you can't control that are guaranteed like Murphy's Law. Like the second you start shaving at five o'clock in the morning, you'll get a phone call from an angry Irish winemaker complaining about something. And by the time you're done talking, the shaving cream will have dried on your face. And you'll have to uh you get off the phone, you're good, you make your notes, you wash the shaving cream off, and you re-lather up with shaving cream to shave. All right, now it's like 5.15 because somebody's been rambling on the phone for a bit. And then you start to shave, and they guarantee you someone else is gonna somebody's gonna call with a trucking issue or harvest issue or something like that. By the time you get off the phone the second time, you will have shaved the shaving cream will dry on your face. Now you have a red rash and you don't shave for like two or three days.
SPEAKER_02And then you have some experience with this, man. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's no different than like if the second you um you cook dinner in your house and you get done with your dinner, the phone will ring and you'll be on the phone, multiple calls, and your dinner's freaking cold. And you put it back in the microwave. The second it's done, I guarantee you the phone's gonna ring again, and you're gonna end up with your cold food, and you just basically eat cold food, and that just is what it is. It's just harvest, it's just one of those things, you know, it just happens. But it is interesting. It's fun to interact, you know. You get the trucking schedule set up. Other challenges at harvest are like it never fails. Same thing. Irish guy calls around five in the afternoon, and he's like, Where's the truck? You told me to be here at 445. And then you call the truck driver. Well, he just left. Well, when did he leave? Well, I don't know. And you're like, okay, well, I need to find out. So then you're calling multiple people to try and find this truck that's somewhere between Cloverdale and Rutherford. And by the time you find out that the truck is five minutes away from the winery, the winemaking staff has completely lost its mind and mad at you because the truck's not there. The seller operator, um, he's a really great guy who who dumps the fruit in the hopper. I'm like, say, you know, great dude. But he gets a little trippy and um everybody's a little bit um wound up on edge. And then when the truck does show up, like you don't dare go by the winery because someone's gonna throw a rock at you or something. Because, you know, how dare you? It's Friday. We had one load and you couldn't get it to the winery in time. It's it's always a challenge. But yeah, it is what it is. I mean, there's nothing I can do. I can't control the trucks, but yeah, you know, so and so that there's that fun line.
SPEAKER_02So that's early morning, right? But then you've also got late nights. Um harvest is an interesting time because you never know what hours you're gonna need to be working. But um there there are some stories that uh I mean, we've kind of had some experience with this, but uh needing to
Insider info: Importance of Grape Growing management
SPEAKER_02monitor growers that you know you you you learn real quick who you want to work with, who you don't want to. Yeah, um, because there are good operators and bad operators in every business in the world, right? But there are people, um, I won't mention any names, that that you would have to be out there in the vineyard during the pick to monitor the blocks. Watching them. You've done this a lot more than I have. Watching them pick the blocks that that are contracted to you. Yep. Because if you have a contract with them that's a higher price than whatever the rest of their fruit that may be unsold is, then they're gonna say, like, I'm gonna max out the contract.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And let's say their estimates, you know, 250 tons, which is let's say it's keep it simple, it's like 11 trucks. But your estimate was say, um, that's the contract max. On a contract, we have maximums so they don't exceed the contract maximum of what it is per acre or the amount of tons that we want to get from the blocks we're contracted from. So let's say they have 180 tons out there, but they've got other blocks that are um at a lower price, and the temptation to jam your contract with lower fruit that they have at a higher price is very tempting and real. So the fun thing I've had in my career is I'll be up looking at vineyards in Sonoma County and you talk to the guys in the Central Coast. Again, I'm not naming names um at all. Um, but you make a phone call and they're like, Where are you at? I'm like, I'm Russian River tonight. I'm like, oh, okay. How's pick going? Oh, we're doing great. We're picking, you know, eight loads of fruit from a ranch. And if they're a shifty operator and you know that, the best thing in the world is like you can leave Sonoma County at like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night, check all your picks and drive to the Central Coast and get down there at like 3:30 in the morning. And you show up and they look like they've been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And they're just like, What are you doing here? I'm like, I don't know, where are the harvesters? Well, they're all here. I'm like, oh, really? What's the one over there? Well, that's in so-and-so's block. We're picking for so-and-so. Oh, really? Where's the truck you're loading for so-and-so? And they're like, uh, well, it's it's over there. And you're like, oh, okay. So then you take license plate numbers down. Wow. Yeah, because then you can like track, like, all right, there's six trucks. Let's say there's you're picking seven loads, but there's there's seven trucks there and they're picking for another guy. It's like, well, where's the other truck? And then you like catch them and you're like, okay, well, that fruit's not mine, just so we're all clear.
SPEAKER_03You're taking down that license plate because if that license trucks, then you know that that was the fruit that was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_02There's stuff in the contract with maybe unsold fruit from another block. Now, in times like this in the industry, I think it's quite a common thing. You really need to be watching.
SPEAKER_00Especially in this the downturn that we're in right now. Yeah, yeah. It's very tempting to go through, and you've got a three-load contract of, say, Chardonnay, and um, but you've got 150 tons of Chardonnay unsold, and the estimate for your blocks is two loads. It's easy to take a load off of that block. If I don't show up and you end up getting your 69 tons or three trucks of fruit off of that, and that's lame, but that's the one.
SPEAKER_02The proper way to do that would be like, hey, we had a light crop on the block, it's not going to max out tonnage. Would you like me to pull from another block and come out and take a look at it? And you know, you then you can have a whole other negotiation for kind of spot market stuff if you wanted to. But the opposite's also true. And I I do want to preface all of this by saying that just about all the growers we work with, I mean, we've had some bad ones in the past, bad seeds. Um not anymore. Yeah, I'd say we we've really weeded those out. Like, you know, you get rid of the toxic seeds and and then you you move on. Um, so it happens on the other end of the spectrum too, when you have a really high market, like it was only three years ago when Napa Cab was at a high market and you have low yields, and they're picking into your the growers picking into your blocks because you have a five-year contract at a price that was at the you know, it's got it's got adjustments, whatever else, but it was a high price when we wrote the contract, and all of a sudden shit goes through the roof and it doubles. Not I'm not kidding, like it doubles in the price per ton.
SPEAKER_00And suddenly you're not getting the fruit you see.
SPEAKER_02And then and then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, yeah, it's sorry, we don't have that 24 tons anymore. It just seemed a little bit light. We got eight tons for you, and you're like, fuck you guys, you know, especially in those moments where that's when you need the fruit. Yeah. Like, and now we're in a moment when like the industry doesn't need the fruit.
SPEAKER_00And a little stuff.
SPEAKER_02They're trying to stuff the contracts versus pull back on the contract. So it's always this like accordion effect. And so it goes both ways. Uh, but again, good operators versus bad operators. Good operators is not worth working with the bad operators. If you guys want a list, go to this website. I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_03Uh we'll do it in post.
SPEAKER_00The names going down. I'm not vindictive, but I keep score. I think you know that. So anyway. Um, and on a side note thing, like in vineyards throughout Napa County, mainly Napa County, the Central Coast, but Napa and Sonoma Counties. Um, I can't comment on Medicino and Lake, but I'm sure there's areas, but people would mark their M posts with wineries. So you have row one to thirty is for Copper Cannon, rows, you know, um 31 to 50 are for Pigeu, and then rows uh 51 to 75 are for Camus. So to rewind the clock back to 2014, I get a call from Joe and uh he says, We're gonna start looking for Cabernet. I'm like, oh, really? And this is and I don't even know what the program is, it's turned into quilt. Um, this is a true story. Um, and it's um at Harvest, and I'm in Santa Maria, and I remember it clear as well that you know I get this phone call and it's from Chuck. And he's like, Hey Matt, what's going on? I'm like, Oh, Mountain Vineyards, oh me too. And I'm like, Yeah, well, where are you at? He goes, I'm in Apple Valley. He goes, Say uh Matt, it's um Joey uh buying any cabinet this year. And um, and I'm not gonna lie to Chuck, Joe's dad, Chuck. I mean, give me a break. That ain't happening. I'm gonna be truthful. And so I said, Well, yes, we are. He says, Oh, really? He goes, uh, so where are you buying that? And then I tell him all the Appalachians and the areas, and he goes, Oh, any uh any vineyards around the Oak Knoll area? I go, Yeah, I mentioned the vineyard. He goes, Yeah. He goes, Um, say, uh um, how many tons you buy? And I tell him X number of tons, and it's like quite a bit. And he's like, Oh, small program. I'm like, um, yeah. So I answer all the questions properly. He says, So I I uh noticed, you know, your end posts are are marked with um it says copper cane on them. And at the time we had picked up some blocks that um were contracted, um perhaps to Camos, and they weren't renewed, and so we picked up these blocks. And so the end post says copper cane on one end post, and then the across the avenue it says the the arrow, the other one says Camus. And um so I tell him that, and he says, You mind changing that? I'm like, Um, I'll look into it. Half an hour later, Joe calls. Hey Matt, uh, how's it going? Good. He goes, So you talk to my dad. I go, yep. He goes, What'd you say? I I told him everything. I answered every question he asked properly. So we went through on all of our vineyards that year and changed all the inposts from copper cane that were all in all of our blocks. I swear it just was crazy. Every single block we had that was, of course, they're all right next to the cameas blocks. And so we had to change them to like C U, which is the elemental symbol, or CC, so that Chuck wouldn't see that it said cameos, or as people. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think it actually irked Harvest more than anything. It's I don't know. Oh, is that where that's not a matter? No, that's a shock. Um that's a person, by the way, not a not a time frame.
SPEAKER_00So no, she's a great dirt. Great young lady. She does she's really very, very passionate and very thorough.
SPEAKER_02She's also on TikTok. So I think it's Harvest Vino. She does like yeah, she watches like yoga in her videos.
SPEAKER_00And I thought you were the only one on TikTok. You're like the king of TikTok.
SPEAKER_02She's actually one of the other few that I'm like, good for her for getting out there. It's just, you know, and Harvest, I'm saying this directly to your face if you're here right now. Your content really resonates well with like this slightly hippie, lost, like middle aged white woman. And I think you're doing good stuff. I like it. I've I think I've told her this. Just a little more refined, a little more fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I find the joy. I find the joy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I think what Joe is trying to say is he would like to collab.
SPEAKER_01Oh, there you go. I would I'd collab with her. There you go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, that actually would be fun for you guys for a podcast music. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, hey, you and I.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know what? Hey, I don't even want to start. That's like men beating, you know, that's like WNBA versus the NBA. All right.
SPEAKER_03This is what's great.
SPEAKER_02Here we go. She is a strong rider. Well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think it's really interesting for people to people listening that that aren't from here and live around here, whatever, to kind of get this behind the scenes that you know you're you're have neighbors. You're basically neighboring in these in these blocks.
SPEAKER_02And the community is very tight with the rape. I'll say there's competition, but friendly competition by and large. So it's like where you're like, oh, that fucker's like he's he's getting into these blocks. There we go. This is harvest.
SPEAKER_00Childhood smell.
SPEAKER_02So I actually think like this is a good informative one. She does have a lot of good informative stuff. Um and uh oh, this is off the Kamas cab site. Yeah, but uh, she does stuff in the vineyards, like it's it's pretty like some of it's really funny, I think. Because and she's got her her fan base and all that, but like, hey, there's not enough people in this industry doing shit like that. And it's like, you know, expose people to it. I mean, just like your your story from yesterday when we were talking about how you got into it, it's like get out there and work in a tasting room, see if it like tickles your fancy, and then you know, work into the vineyards, work in the winery, whatever. Get to know this industry because I guarantee you it's a hell of a lot better than sitting in a desk for the rest of your life talking to bankers and counting beans. Like, you're gonna be happy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And there's there's a lot of fun to it, whether whatever field of agriculture you're in. But um, the wine industry is really amazing, and the people that you meet are really amazing too. And you know, one thing we didn't really hit on
Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation: Thank you to our hardworking Hispanic community!
SPEAKER_00yesterday is you know, the people in the field that are pruning it, they're picking it, they're leaf pulling, they're shoot thinning, they're doing the varasian thinning pass, the crop thinning pass, the you know, going through and removing pester-diseased fruit from the vineyard before the machine comes in there to machine pick or the hand crew shows up. Yeah, there's this base of folks that um largely Hispanic, that do a majority of the work in the industry, and it's absolutely amazing. We support the Napa Valley Farm Worker Foundation in the pruning contest. I think there were 150 contestants this year, and you have um folks from the field that have worked in the industry for a very long time pruning grape vines, and their families are there rooting them on as they're pruning the 10 vines that are being judged at for speed and accuracy and how clean they're pruning. And it was really, really cool to see, you know. So that's that's one thing. It's I just have to bring that up that when you see a crew in the field and they're singing as they're picking, or you get to a cellar, like you show up and poly's got the guys wound up and everybody's singing and they're pump doing pump overs and crushing fruit, and there's this happiness and joy and pride that you it's it's just really amazing to be a part of, and it's really cool.
SPEAKER_02So I I I think that that's something you know that that we should point out is that a lot of if like people come up here during harvest and they see these crews out in the field and predominantly Mexican descent, right? And generally first generation that have come here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but they're not like they're like people just think, oh, it's laborers. Right. It's like people have a passion for this, they get into it, this is not where they usually start, and then you know, they get into America, they want a better life for themselves, and then they work up the ladder. They get to vineyards, and and that's where I think a huge opportunity arises. And just look at what the prolification of vineyard management companies ownership is. Yeah, even wineries popping up that are that are Mexican owned. Yeah, um, that's what you want to see, right? They're living the American dream. I can even say that like my early career in in the vineyards, uh, I was I was working with a lot of Mexican guys. Yeah, I was, I mean, working with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then I'd bring them into the cellar. And now we've got cellar masters and assistant winemakers that started in the vineyard and have worked up to like now they've got, you know, family, bunch of kids, yeah, and and they're living their life, enjoying it, teaching their kids like not just their own culture, but what hard work is, and then and then also the the culture of America, which is the greatest melting pot. It's it's really cool to see. Like it's still alive and well. I one of the well, that's one thing I love about well, I mean, California agricultural in jet in general, but Napa Valley in particular, and I'd say Sonoma too, really has this amazing tie with the Mexican community. Yeah. Um, where I mean like it's you know, I know that there was a period of time when like they were called derogatory terms and whatever else, like that, you know, back in probably 75 years ago, maybe even somewhere like that, where every generation of of immigrant comes in and like there's some dickhead who's gonna come up with a slur, talk shit for a number of years, and then over time it's like, you know, when I'm over with like your culture, like and then all of a sudden everybody's like, fuck, I I'd I'd rather hang out with the Mexican guys than I'd hang out with most white people.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, and the amount of the level of the work and the dedication is just really, really cool. And it's cool to see guys like, hey, I met you out in the field and you told, you know, he was like, there was a gentleman I met a few years ago who was working for a harvest company, uh, working as a tractor driver, um, had operated a machine harvester. I gave him my card and I said, let me know if you're interested because I know of other companies that are looking for you know machine harvest operators. And later, like several years later, he's working for one of the management companies here in the area. And he was a guy, it was just, hey, you know, middle of the night, like 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night, and they hand him a card, and then you get a call from him later, and then he, you know, you connect him with somebody else and says, Hey, call these guys because they're looking. And it was really, really cool. And then I met him like three years later, and he's like driving a machine. He's like, Hey, he stops a machine, jumps out, takes my shakes my hand, gives me a hug. It was really it was kind of cool. It's not about me, it's just like you see these folks, and man, they're grinding, they're trying, they're trying to find their way, also. So back to giving people a chance. Yeah, it's really kind of fun to see in our industry, folks that give people chances. So, or I wouldn't be sitting here today.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah. And I I I always got kicked for social, you know, and and cat capturing that content of Harvest and being there at like Taylor Lane and it's like four or five a.m. and and they're all kind of gathering right before the pick. Yeah, and it's like the sharpening of tools, it's like all these like kind of other cool things, it's like this moment, and everyone's getting ready, and then you would just hear this like war cry almost, you know. I mean, just like yeah, and then they just like and everyone's just rushing out there. It's just like it's like a it's like a sport, it's like a it's there's just so much dedication and heart in it, and and then the speed and the accuracy of like getting those clusters and the bit. I mean, it's it's awesome. Yeah, it's a good idea.
SPEAKER_02What's really cool is that like the there is this competitive competitive nature, but also this um this drive or like a picking crew, so you know, there's a lot of mechanical harvesting and it's it's all very quality, but some things aren't set up for that, right? And so you'll still have a manual crew come in, and and so they'll generally have an option, they almost always choose one of these, uh, of hourly wages, yeah. Or like or tonnage. And so they'll have a crew be like, all right, it's it's I'm I'm the foreman, I got 10 guys with me, and they're like, How many fucking tons are we gonna get? We're getting paid $500 a ton. How many can we do in six hours? Yeah. And these guys are running like back and forth, getting as many tons as they can. They can make so much freaking money during harvest, like just by hustling. Depends. And and then they and then they sit down like right around lunchtime because usually start, I mean, probably like late morning, usually start very early and try to get everything off that they possibly can. And then it's like the classic, just like they're just hanging out, grabbing a quick bite, having a corona or whatever. They're just and you could just tell, like, they just like ran a marathon. Yeah. And they're just proud as shit of themselves. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We had our last harvest that was out, we were picking Sauvignon Blanc over Chiles Valley, and we had three different crews, and there was a bet. Whoever was the best crew, um, there was a beer bet. I don't know how much beer was involved, but the the team that won outpicked the other guys, and they track them by when they're bringing in macrobins of fruit for Sauvignon Blanc and they're weighing them. And they know crew one's got, you know, I don't know, let's say it's 10,000 pounds and crew two was 8,000 pounds, and crew three was 7,500 pounds. So crew three, I think, had to buy beer for crew number one. And but they were all, they all embraced like crew one embraced crew three because they were trying, and and but it was like a moment of joy. At like three in the morning, they just finish up and they're like, all right, who's got the totals? And they're all like waiting around. There's a guy who's like calculating it all out, like who's gonna win? And so like crew one's like thinking they got it, but they're not sure. And so they're on edge. Crew two and three are the three's not sure that they beat crew two, crew two is not sure whether they're you know, they catch caught up with crew one and and they announce it later, and then the crews they're all going crazy, and it was a moment of joy. It was really fun to see. So, but it was pride, and these guys are all H2A guys from down to Mexico, came through legally through the US system to come in to the United States to the work visa and work, then they're all from the same village. They all these there were like 45 guys, um, men and women, and they're and they're really cool.
SPEAKER_02And they're looking for that opportunity to become American citizens, too. Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're so thankful to be here, and it was really, really cool to see. And and then the work, I mean, they're just going for it. Like you said, when the when it goes like start, man, they're running. These guys are hustling. So it's and yeah, you don't you don't see that too much. And a lot of people, I wish you know, folks that enjoy wines could understand what starts from the very beginning at pruning through the whole season. The amount of work and effort goes in just to get the fruit picked into a bin, if it's hand-picked or machine picked, and into a winery, and then the amount of work that goes on in the winery to make it into wine, and then you get the whole production crew. All the guys have got to get it bottled and patiently waiting for the blend to be done so they can get on the bottling line and then hit and get bottled and then off it goes. So anyway.
SPEAKER_02You know, it it's yeah, I mean, most of the work's in the vineyard, and then the winemaking just kind of does itself because we're non-interventionist, as everybody knows. Um I've given the natural wine.
SPEAKER_03That is a joke.
SPEAKER_02No, but uh that is a joke. Uh, but uh yeah, so the but you you mentioned all of the work that goes into it, right? Yeah. Through growing, through winemaking, all that. So I heard this interesting point um just recently that that the the value of a glass of wine and the value of a
What is the value of a glass of wine?
SPEAKER_02like a nice glass of wine and the value of a cocktail are about the same at a bar or restaurant, right? Let's just call it 20 bucks. 15 to 20, depending on on where you're at, on on like the kind of upscale, you're pushing the limits of people's comfort level to don't in general buy that cocktail at that price or that glass of wine. There is a showmanship to making a cocktail that people want to see. That's being made by hand right in front of you. Yeah. And people feel like they're getting value from that performance. Right. And and that's I think one of the issues wine is having right now is that nobody sees the value of everything that went into making that bottle when it's just somebody opening it up and pouring the glass, and like, what value is this? Like, I mean, you know maybe serve your Chardonnay in like a uh shaker thing with ice cubes, and then like here's your Chardonnay and you But I but I also think there is an opportunity for showmanship there, like in that in in the service world where I don't know if it's taking one of those venturies or something and saying, like, hey, would you like me to present this to you in a venturi? And you know, you pour the glass through this thing, it aerates, and yeah, you explain it in the period of time. But like I I think that like that's I thought that was a really interesting point where you're looking at like the because you can't convey every bit of effort that goes into a bottle of wine.
SPEAKER_00No, not at a bar or table side. Yeah. Yeah. No. But you know, if you make the wines like the way we make wines that are very fruit forward, very expressive, um, very intense, good structure, a lot of intensity and depth, but they're ready to drink and enjoy. And you pour one of those wines versus a wine that that is made that's an aged wine, but you're looking to just enjoy a glass of wine, but yet it's got really strong acidity, and the tannins and the oak is really overpowering. It's not really ready to drink right now. It's like something you want to have with like a filet mignon or have with a really big, hearty meal. It's not something you want to have as a wine by the glass at the bar. I think that's the the challenge, the beauty that we have is we bring that to the table to um get people to enjoy the wines that are presentable and enjoyable in the now.
SPEAKER_03Um, I think they're also very authentic, and I think that's what people are seeking out there, especially with you know, we hear from like the younger generations. Uh, you know, these stories are true stories. These the you know, the the heart that are going into these wines, it's all true, like from what we're experiencing like what we're expressing right now. Yeah, this wasn't a think tank, this wasn't some marketing play, right? This is all this is all kind of like real life. So I think it's it's nice to as much as we can continue that storytelling and finding different ways to get that kind of message out.
SPEAKER_02Because I think that's what's important to any anything that's inspiring, right? I mean, and that I'm not just saying that from a marketing perspective, but like that's what we're all looking for. We're all seeking for something that is it's like take it as art, right? Like, so Rachel doesn't understand art. Like, I mean, I generally don't either. I'm like a banana duct taped to a wall, that really gorgeous. So but um, but she saw this thing, like we were on on a sales trip and we were down in Southern California, and I'm referred to as like the bear, right? Whatever from however I got that. And there was this like wax, this little like wax workshop that was like really interesting, really weird, uh, in in this town. And she walked by it and it was this little like wax uh statue of a girl riding on the back of a bear. And so she tries to get a hold of this artwork to like see if she could buy it. And the and the lady's like, Oh no, we're not selling that. But she's like, I don't know, that was like the first time art ever spoke to me. And and it was like, Yeah, well that I mean that's what it that's what it is. So now you're inspired. Yeah, same thing with with wine or the story that comes with wine or whatever, like the you know, story on the back label of wine, and people still read that stuff. But it's about like, you know, once you get into it, once you get inspired by one thing, then you go deep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and then you learn about it. And then hopefully you come and visit wine country and then you you get to see it real life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and getting people out to enjoy the vineyards, and if you could do a tasting experience where you're out in the vineyard, like overlooking a vineyard or next to a vineyard where you can actually see where it's happening. People are just looking for simple and fun, and they want to get out and see like Napa Valley, enjoy a glass of wine, enjoy the view. If they can walk out in the vineyard, then great. If they see sheep running around the vineyard or whatever, you know,
Sheep are trending in Napa Valley
SPEAKER_00a lot more sheep now. There's a lot of sheep there.
SPEAKER_03There's a lot of I heard through through the grapevine that there's now like there's more business of the sheep around here that there's people that are just taking the same sheep and just kind of taking them to all these other wineries, especially if you're on 29. They love to have the sheep out there because they do, yes. All the tourists is taking that road and being like, oh, Instagram photo, right? Yeah. Um, but this was something that I'm not trying to toot our own horn, but it was something that like the first time I saw it was actually at Taylor Lane. Yeah. Which was at like our vineyards there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But that was full time. We were able to graze them out there full time. Yeah, you had them there out there. But I mean, I I think that was years and that was since we went vertical on the trellis. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um Trentina. Well, I okay, we still have so much stuff to go through that we're gonna have to do another segment like in the next few weeks or month or two. We didn't even talk about the wine. We we literally just got through like, I mean, some sidebar conversations, but like mostly about like the growing season and the basics of what you do and where you came from. So, um, because we got to go to another thing. So let's let's shut this down now. And everybody that's listening, come back for the next chapter of Matt Heil, um, where we actually get into all of the shit and some of the fun stories and experience the trials and tribulations of working in in the vineyards and in wine for uh four decades almost?
SPEAKER_00No. Well, yeah, it's been the 36 vintages since almost four decades. So yeah. In the fourth decade.
SPEAKER_03All right. This is also a chance that's why I chime in while you're you know smashing that like button and you're sharing and subscribing. Uh go ahead and let hit up the comments. I mean, what do you want to know about right now from Matt? Like we that's good. I mean, we can dive into anything. He he he's the professor here. So um you got some off the wall questions.
SPEAKER_02Ask him records to make them uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And let's hear what you got. Because I will say, Matt, as he has said a few times in this uh extremely like uh open book and honest to his core. So uh if if if you got some salty stuff that you think might come out of his mouth, man, ask the question. That's all you gotta do.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that cool? We can put you on this mouth because then I'll just bust him out. Yeah, and then we can read them all off and try and be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02It's just gonna be two hours of rapid fire trying to do it.
SPEAKER_01You will come back, right? Oh, yeah, okay, good.
SPEAKER_02All right. Till next time. Thanks, man. Thank you.