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
E100 Belle Glos 25th Anniversary | Joe Wagner
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100 episodes. 25 years of Belle Glos Pinot Noir. One incredible journey.
For the first time in a long time, we're putting our own host, 5th-generation winemaker Joe Wagner, in the hot seat to tell the story behind one of the world's most iconic Pinot Noir brands.
This is where Go With Your Palate—and Belle Glos—come full circle.
🎙️ Go With Your Palate: Joe Wagner | Celebrating 25 Years of Belle Glos Pinot Noir
For our official 100th episode, we're turning the tables and putting our very own host, 5th-generation winemaker Joe Wagner, in the hot seat to celebrate not one—but two incredible milestones. As Go With Your Palate reaches its century mark, Joe reflects on the 25-year journey of Belle Glos, the Pinot Noir brand that helped redefine American Pinot and, over the last quarter century, earned Joe the nickname many affectionately know him by: The King of Pinot.
Long before Pinot Noir became one of the country's most celebrated varietals—before Sideways helped spark a nationwide obsession—Joe was one of the young guns betting on a grape he believed deserved its moment. He takes us back to those early days, sharing the risks, the lessons, and the unwavering belief that ultimately transformed Belle Glos, named in honor of his grandmother, into one of the world's most recognized Pinot Noir brands.
As we celebrate our 100th episode, we're grateful to reflect on the roots of Go With Your Palate with you—back when it was just Joe and Fat Mario swapping stories over a glass of wine before this wild ride evolved into conversations with some of the most fascinating guests we've ever had. It felt only right that this milestone brings us back to where it all began.
Of course, this is Go With Your Palate, so we don't just talk wine. We dive into the impact of Sideways, what makes Pinot Noir one of the most expressive (and misunderstood) grapes in the world, the evolution of California wine, and the passion that continues to drive Joe a quarter century after the first bottle of Belle Glos.
Whether you're a lifelong cork dork, a Pinot lover, or simply enjoy hearing how iconic brands are built from conviction, family, and a willingness to bet on yourself, this is an episode worth raising a glass to.
Here's to 100 episodes, 25 years of Belle Glos, and the stories that brought us here. Cheers. 🍷🥂
🍷 To everyone who's watched, listened, shared, subscribed, or simply believed in Go With Your Palate—thank you for helping us reach 100 episodes. This is just the beginning.
Yeah, thanks for closing the door. You made chat up to get up. So what's up? How do we do this, dude?
SPEAKER_03I don't want to do this, dude.
SPEAKER_01Chris wants a better Chris wants a
Let's kick off our 100th with tummy talks cool...
SPEAKER_01better guest. Can we get him a better guest to talk about being a remote? We have it, dude.
SPEAKER_03I didn't want to go back to this. I didn't want to go backwards to like the first episode that we ever did. Can we go back to like peptobismol, like covering your fart smells?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So guess what happens after being in the industry for 25 years? You take b Peptobismol.
SPEAKER_03To cover your flatulence. Okay, so does it just make it less smelly or does it add like a little scent to it? I just thought it was amazing.
SPEAKER_01Smells all chalky, like pink chalky.
SPEAKER_03Just like stuff you never knew. They never marketed that to us. Exactly. They never marketed that as I as I No, I've never heard that either. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you say that? I feel like that's a big marketing play right there.
SPEAKER_01And isn't Tums the same kind of thing as Pepto?
SPEAKER_03Well, it's like an an acid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, aren't they both? Is it I actually I don't really know. I is Pepto for diarrhea to stop diarrhea.
SPEAKER_03Yes. If you if you have if you got diarrhea going, you take Pepto, you could take Mylanta. I'm not gonna go through them like I have experience of like how to deal with diarrhea.
SPEAKER_01And they made it fucking pink just to make it look like oh, it's gonna make it so soothing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. They also made your stomach look like like it's pretty. Like it's just like this like beautiful like jar. You know what I mean? They didn't show like the inner workings of all your intestines. Like marketing, dude. Marketing. So whatever. I'm just saying if you were making a product that like like I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. They're all focused on AI right now, but where's the technology in that, you know, covering up your your gas smells? That'd be kind of cool. Like, say you could take a product that like made your farts smell like I don't know, like potpourri. You got a million dollar idea right here, Chris. Okay, you're in the elevator and you're and you got like ten people in there.
SPEAKER_01You would you would flip the script, you'd have people actually like looking forward to a fart. Yeah. Like, oh my god, you're taking potpourri today? You're like, oh, I just I switched it up. I'm going with the ocean.
SPEAKER_03Walking the red carpet at the Met Gala. Yeah. You just be out and they'd be like, holy shit.
SPEAKER_01You go seasonal.
SPEAKER_03Be like, dude, you got pumpkin spice. Is that polo? Is that polo's new scent? You're like, yeah, I just got it. No, well, actually, I made it my own because we were doing a collaboration and I just kind of thought like this fart like really represents like who I am and the craft and my acting skills. I don't know. Arts like the fuck up. All right. He's just like, let's get started. We're not gonna, yeah, we're gonna cannot we're gonna cut all this. So, anyways, uh I want you to know, which I'm sure you already know that this is like officially our hundredth episode.
SPEAKER_01Oh this
Happy 100th EP of GWYP!
SPEAKER_01is it's our hundredth episode celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary. Yeah. Not ours, but I was making I was about to get pissed because we've been we've been together longer than almost 45 years. We're going on 45, yeah. So yeah. Yeah, but no glass ain't got nothing on us. Yeah, but yeah, we got the 25 years, yeah. So 100th episode, 25 years.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. All right. Yeah, here you are. Joe Wagner, fifth generation winemaker. Right? Yeah. When you're talking about celebrating 25 years of the most recognizable renowned Pinot in America, if not outside of it.
SPEAKER_01Maybe.
SPEAKER_03I think so.
SPEAKER_01Maybe, yeah. I mean, I don't I don't I don't know. That's pretty cool though. I if if that is the case, I mean I think that it's pretty well known in the luxury space, but what is the most well-known luxury Pinot Noir in the world? It's gotta be Burgundy, right? Like Echazot or Richborg.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, I mean what do you I tell me, man. You're the I mean you're the expert.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say I was gonna just say Bell Gloss, but I'd like to think it's up it's it's it's uh it's luxury, but it's almost like can perceive be perceived as like mainstream.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like it's accessible luxury. Like we're not the Gucci bag. We're like we're the coach bag. You know what I mean? I mean, okay, I'm following you. I'm not like maybe that's not the right reference, but like, okay, we're we're not the we're not the fucking Lamborghini. We're we're a Corvette. We deliver every day, people rely on us. Yeah you don't need to bring it into the shop all the time and complain. It's gonna be in your garage and it's gonna be a fun time, and you don't need to spend a fucking you know, down payment on a house on it.
SPEAKER_03You're not just known for like a signature body style, but also what's inside the machine.
SPEAKER_01That's yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, because it's recognizable, the red wax, that dip signature, right? Yeah. That beautiful writing that you did yourself. Did you write that yourself? Did you is that how you came out with the with the bell gloss with the that was?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I actually that's just how I write my notes too. I just it all looked it all looks like that. I've never seen you write in cursive. I actually can write incursive, which is almost a lost art. It is a lost art.
SPEAKER_03That's why I thought I was like, did you never share that with me?
SPEAKER_01If I need to cover my tracks, I write in cursive. Yeah. That's when I do it. Otherwise, I'm typically block letters. If you need to cover your tracks, yeah, like if I gotta write a note that nobody knows is from me, I'll write it in cursive. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now they know.
SPEAKER_01Now you know. But you don't know what my cursive looks like. I don't I don't like, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Um so dude, fucking A man. I think this is like it's congratulations, dude, by the way. Because like I think I think that's really cool. You know?
SPEAKER_01No, but I mean, I I do like, I don't like to, you know, I don't want to be gloating or anything or like saying, you know, I mean, I I'd pat the whole team on on their backs. Uh 25 years is like, I mean, for me at least, that's a long time. Um I haven't been in it. I mean, I know a few people in this industry that have got
Happy 25th Anniversary of Belle Glos Pinot Noir!
SPEAKER_0150 plus harvests under their belt, and like you look at that and you're like, dude, that's that's awesome because that's not just like, you know, when did you start? Like, did you start at 20, 25? And and now you're if you're 25, you're 70 years old or 75 years old by the time you've got 50 harvests under your belt. That's like 10 years past retirement age. I know a guy, I'm not gonna mention any names, he's in his early mid-ish 80s, and I think he's pushing 60 harvests.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Rick Foreman.
SPEAKER_03All right. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01No, it's over 60. Over 60. I don't think anybody else has that many harvests, but um, I hope to I hope to do that. So I'm not gonna retire, so like, yeah, I'm gonna keep on going until I can. He's out there, like he's out there on his vineyard and in his garden and in his cellar like every day. He's doing it all, and and he's got a great little program and all that stuff. Like that that seems like a good gig. He's got a great gig and his wines are awesome too. But you know, I feel like taking that kind of like approach and looking towards that, even with my dad as one of those people thinking 25 is just a start, right? I mean, it I guess you could look at it as kind of a midpoint, but it's still just a start, you know. Like you think about what the first 25 years brought, and we're like, fuck, we did a lot. We like accomplished things that I never thought were accomplishable. Um like what? Well, we uh Pinot Noir was not a popular item.
SPEAKER_03That's why I want to go back. I want to I kind of I want to go to that that beginning point because I think that there's maybe people that are just kind of like the for the younger generations or people that are just kind of getting into wine or learning about it. But I mean, right now, Pinot Noir is probably I would I would think one of the most uh popular varietals. It's top ten globally.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I I think it's actually top, it might be like six or seven. Yeah. I actually just looked this up because I was curious about it. Like Cabernet still reigns king. Uh there you've got like some like for for wine at least, Cabernet is king.
Snapshot of Pinot Noir now? 6-7...
SPEAKER_01Um you've got some like funky varieties in like Spain and France that are that are really well known. Um, but they don't go into like varietally branded products, right? So it'd be like Rioja, that's a region. But you don't so they they don't really give credit to the variety. In America, we've always focused on the variety as as first and foremost, right? Pinot Noir, where is it from? Uh Cornelos, Russian River, whatever. In in Europe, it's like, what is this? Oh, it's a it's a uh it's a burgundy, right? And you know that if it's a burgundy, it's gonna have to be one of really two varietals, red being Pinot uh Pinot Noir and White being Chardonnay. So there's a little bit of a difference there, but um when it comes to Pinot Noir, like it is now very popular, but back in you know 2000, 2001, it wasn't a a namesake varietal, so to speak. Um you had Merlot and Zinfandel that were like, you know, kind of crushing it top of their game. You always had the King, Cabernet, and you always had the Queen Chardonnay. Um and and so those always dominated as like the most well-known varieties, and they still are. But Peter Noir has made a ton of headway in in becoming a you know everyday varietal that people look for. And and you know, back then it was kind of like when I first started, I just thought, yeah, we're making a, you know, maybe we'll make a couple thousand cases. Like that sounds awesome. Um and you know, it turned into something else because of necessity more than anything, and then timing was a huge part of it. Um you know, if I went back to my early days at in what became my career in Pinot Noir, it started off with growing or planting a vineyard in in uh Sonoma Coast, like what is now known as West Sonoma Coast, out by Occidental, and uh spent time out there with a guy named Charlie and uh used to be an apple orchard, and then we planted over to Pinot Noir. Kind of a risky bet, I think. It was very, very coastal, like extremely cold vineyard site looking over the Pacific. That's Taylor Lane Vineyard still. Um, but I didn't know what we were gonna be doing with it. And so when I decided to drop out of college, um and what what options do you have when you drop out of college? You're like, okay, I'm either gonna go to work or I'm joining the military. Like those are really your two options.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And this is like right about the time of like 9-11, right? Um, and I actually thought about joining the military. Uh, and then kind of thought, well, I'm gonna let me just like take some time and figure it out. I went, that's when I went down to Mexico and I was farming table grapes down there. Fell in love with it. I fell in love with getting like a real paycheck, like really making money and feeling like my work was really appreciated. And um, and I was learning a ton. And I was like, man, my my like year, year and a half in college, I don't feel like I learned near as much as I did in like even the first six months of work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I got your hands dirty. Yeah, it was more about the experience. It wasn't now I I want to ask though, when you when you went to college, what what were did you have in mind something else
Before Joe became the King of Pinot, he was...
SPEAKER_03that you might be chasing? Yeah. What was that?
SPEAKER_01So did every every kid, right? So I've I had worked with my family uh in in the vineyard and in the winery and kind of understood just about every like um I'll say grunt job, right? So whether it's like leaf pulling, crop thinning, uh, even spraying, uh, like running tractors, discing cultivation all the way through to you know fermentation and didn't quite understand the science behind it all at that point, but it was like, hey, go do this pump over, go do this punch down.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so you you did it and you kind of knew you watched and you saw and you understood, but you didn't understand the chemistry behind it. So I was kind of like, yeah, I don't know, maybe I'll maybe I'll do this someday, but not my thing right now. And my older brother Charlie was already doing it, and you know, so like whatever ego part of me got in the way and was like, you gotta go chart your own course and do your own thing. And so I went to school uh because I I love photography. Um, and I thought I thought I'll I'll be able to be a photographer and like make this work and like travel around and like that whole lifestyle, right? Was really appealing to me. And so I thought I'm gonna go to college and uh go to college for photography. And and I realized real quick, like, there's not a lot of money in photography. You can't really make it.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, you know, fast forward, right? But I I want to just say it's not to like state that like our ages or what you know how old we are right now, but at that time, there there was no social media.
SPEAKER_01You're right. There was no social media, and we were still on film. Yeah, we weren't doing digital. There was no digital cameras then. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, it was it was still a very creative art was respected one, is what I'm trying to say. But yes, yeah, you couldn't.
SPEAKER_01You couldn't go take fine art photos with your goddamn iPhone. Like that was, yeah. Yeah. So I was I and and I I love photography. I still do it today, um, just as like a hobby on the side and whatever, but um that and that that skill did actually help me out, like because then websites became a thing, and websites needed pictures, and so I used to be like all around the coast. I'm kind of like skipping back and forth here at different time frames, but like I'd be in all the all the vineyards and in the winery, and I'd be snapping pictures every once in a while. And so those became our uh our our like you know, in the toolbox of what we used for the website. Anyway, so I realized, you know, pretty quick, I was like, Yeah, this isn't gonna, you know, make it like and and everybody I talk to, they're like, if you want to make money like a living, you're gonna have to be a wedding photographer. And I'm like, fuck that, dude. That's that's like I'm cool with wildlife landscapes and naked girls.
SPEAKER_03Like, that's I would like I would like to I would like to go to like the metaverse where Joe Wagner becomes the wedding photographer. Just get a little stimmant of like what that could have looked like.
SPEAKER_01Dude, how unappealing is that? I've I've had two weddings and I've been to plenty, and I can tell you the photographer is never the happiest person there. They try to be because they're supposed to like get everybody jacked up and explained.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's what I'm saying. There's great ones, like the great ones I feel is like what really it's it's not so much if I could go into yes, like the quality of the photos and the art the artistic kind of flair that they put on that as a part of it, but what you were I think what you're about to touch on right now is the vibe that they bring because that's what's gonna bring in people that are not experienced. They're not like you're gonna go to a wedding, you know, what's the chances that everyone's a model or has some kind of experience to turn it on? Yeah. They need like they need the boost, they need the hype, you need the phone. And that's how you're gonna get those magical moments. Yeah, and you're good at that. You're good at hyping people up. No, you are.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's not something I want to do on a on a daily basis. So, anyways, I was like, Yeah, all right, I'm gonna so I I I decided I'm gonna take my general ed that I was doing. Yeah, and I was like, I'll apply that to uh to Davis. And so I applied over at UC Davis to go to their viticulture and analogy program, um, which I was planning on doing when I returned back from Mexico. So I was taking like a semester off, and then that turned into a multi-year thing. I was dealing with Mexico, and I was like, I'm not going back to school. So pulled out of that and then decided to go into working. And at that at that time, Pinot Noir was was like a new thing for my family to be doing, and nobody was really, you know, managing it or or handling it like taking it seriously, right? There were there were some grapes being grown and grapes coming into the winery, and so it was kind of like, hey, you want to try this project? I was like, Yeah, I I remember I, you know, worked on planting this vineyard, that'd be cool. Um and then there was another vineyard down in Santa Maria that that uh uh that that had just come online. It was actually an old old planting, the Clark and Telephone Vineyard from 1972, but it was uh it was a lease, and so we were farming that, and so that was like, all right, we'll make some Pinot Noir out of this. And that lease was actually more for the Chardonnay that was planted there, and that was for uh other project projects that were not that I was not involved with. But there was some Pinot Noir on the property, and that's kind of where it all started. And and uh so it was that first vintage of Clark and Telephone that made the first bottling of Belle Gloss, which is the 2001, and it was just called Santa Maria Valley, because there was no like there the the general population didn't understand Pinot Noir, and then to try to explain to them what vineyard designation was was an uphill battle, right? That I'm talking like general you go to a wine buyer at like any, you know, chain store or just major restaurant group, and they're gonna be like, who gives a shit about a single vineyard? Like they like they they want to buy, you know, a Pinot Noir that tastes light and fruity. That's kind of what everybody thought. And and if not, they're buying something that's extremely special, that is one of those Burgundian, like uh um, I'll call them like powerhouses. Uh they're not because they're they're big wines and whatever, they're just the amount of cachet that they have, the pedigree of what they are, um they're collectibles. They're not even like drink worthy level anymore. You're you're looking at like thousands of dollars for a bottle. I mean, if you're a baller like that and you're spending like, you know, 25k for a 10-year-old bottle of like Echazo, by all means, man, go for it. But like that's that's not that's not normal human behavior, right? Like normal human behavior is like I have a an idea of what this wine is that I that I'm gonna try, and hopefully I like it. And it's not overpriced, but it's also not like the second cheapest bottle out there. So so uh anyway, so we were we were like making some Pinot Noir, had some decent wines. I felt pretty confident about it. Um I was more on the vineyard
Making the best Pinot: It all started in the Vineyards...
SPEAKER_01side, actually. I think it's what people don't know. I was more on the vineyard management side than I was in the winemaking. And so I would just kind of fill my other time with winemaking. If I had some extra time, I'd be like back in the cellar and blending and just screwing around and and trying new things, new experiments, like every single fermentation, every single barrel was an experiment. So that took a lot of tasting. Um, and so we'd cram, I'd cram that in like early in the mornings typically, and then go out and do all my shit. And then, you know, and and it was like we learned, like everything we did, we learned, and finally within a couple years, crafted a style that people um know now today. And it's it's evolved from that point. But back in like 01, 02, 03, uh, those first wines were much more of a lean style. They had a little more of like an austerity to them. They didn't have this, they were they were powerful, don't get me wrong, but they were not like the powerhouses of what we make today, like that are just in your face, full force, California, like unabashedly uh characteristic of the coast of California. That's that's my opinion on them. Um but you know, even back then our wines did stand out. Um and so we would go to these like few tastings, and fortunately, there was a following, albeit small, there was a following for Pinot Noir. And there were only a few producers out there. So like we would start off doing these little like rendezvous, and they were events, but they turned into actual events over time. But they were like small events where you'd pick one spot and you'd have like a dozen people that would show up that are producers, and you know, being that small, you get to know everybody pretty quick. Um, and and I will tell you that everybody that was producing Peter Noir was like a very eclectic, eccentric type of person. Um, kind of ranging from almost like hippie, like I'm, you know, I am the maverick of the industry, kind of like that's kind of how they everybody saw themselves, and they all had their own kind of shtick to them, almost like, you know, UFC fighters have their shtick, right? Yeah, and you could do that with Pinot Noir because it wasn't just those, so that say that that dozen or 15 producers, but it was also the customers that were coming to that that were curious about Pinot Noir. And that might have only been 80 to 100 people, and some of them would travel from around the country, a few people from international. Um, and Oregon already had its kind of own thing going on up there in like their their Pinot Camp and whatever else, and and uh and so we were really focused on California more than anything. Um, but those 80 to 100 customers that would come to these tastings, they wanted all the details, which all of us geeked out on. We're like, oh, okay, this is this clone, this is that clone, this is the aspect of the slope, this is the soil type, this is like all the management practices, and they wanted to know every detail about what you were doing. And then they would compare it to like all these other wines. And the producers who went there weren't just pulling out like, here's one wine. It'd be like, here's six wines, like, you know, and here are the differences. And I think that that can be confusing for people, right? Because you you you typically go to a producer's table at one of these uh um tastings, and you're like, okay, I'm just tasting one wine, what they're best known for, or whatever this event is about. If it's focusing on a varietal or a region. Um, and with Pinot, it was like, no, each one of those wines from the same hand, from the same producer, is very unique. Now, why is it unique? Well, because the vineyard determined those characters to be different. And Pinot Noir being a very people call it a thin skinned varietal, which it is.
Pinot Noir OG's and the camaraderie that shed light on Mother Nature's delight...
SPEAKER_01But I think it's a very transparent varietal in it telling the story, which is, I think, the the best part of it, right? So it it captures the essence of Mother Nature. That's how I describe it. Better than any other variety. So your predominant factors in that, those are going to be your climate and your soil. And secondary to secondary to that, it's going to be your clonal selection, your rootstock selection, your trellising, and then after that, it's going to be your overall management. So cultural practices, how you manage the canopy, how you manage your crop, irrigation, et cetera, all those things. So but site soil, meaning site being slope aspect, like what way it's facing, site soil and uh and climate are the key factors. And that's what really drives the differences. And you could have like five miles in between vineyards. And that's what a lot of people were doing. Like some of those old school guys like William Sellium, they were one of the OG, like real OGs. I think we're an OG because we were in it before sideways. But like the real OGs are like the guys who were getting into Pinot Noir in like the 80s and the 70s and before. Yeah. So uh, but they focused all in like Sonoma County and maybe a little bit up into Mendo, Mendocino County. Um, but they would be able to showcase their 20 different lines and tell the story of why this one is different from that one within a a pretty tight uh uh proximity to each other, like just a couple miles at times. And and so I kind of took a different approach to that and I thought, well, that's very cool and it works. Like it it they do tell the story, and people were interested in that. But I wanted to take a broader scope and say, like, all right, we're already farming in Sonoma, we're already farming in Santa Maria. There's like over there were about 300 miles in between those vineyard sites. Um, and then in between was kind of Monterey County, which is Santa Lucia Highlands, always well known for uh for Chardonnay. Um but I had tasted a few wines from there, like the Pizzoni Vineyard, the Pazoni estate, fucking awesome, still crushes it. Uh some people were buying fruit from there and uh and and making some phenomenal wines. I think Peter Michael was making uh a Pizzoni Vineyard designate that they called the Moulin Rouge. Um that was one of the most awesome wines I had had back in those days. And then you had Gary Francioni and Gary Pizzoni with Gary's Vineyard. Um they were they were selling their fruit to producers and making some awesome wines, and so got interested in that.
SPEAKER_03We now they were part of the group that you were meeting with, like this.
SPEAKER_01Gary Pazzoni was. Francioni Francioni was he was more a grower at that point. Then he started making his wines, I think, probably in the first like five years of the Pinot Boom. Um actually it was it was Adam Lee that started making his wines. Okay. Adam Lee from Seduri. And Adam Lee was also like an OG. I think he started making wine in like '97 or '98, maybe even '96, uh, making Pinot Noir. And that's like, again, way before it was cool. Um, so he already had a good grounding as to like, and he was actually working in Santa Rita. He was doing wines from Santa Rita Hills, Santa Lucia Highlands, Sonoma. Like he was already kind of like what we were what we were doing. But uh I really wanted to showcase kind of that one, you know, one winemaking ideology, like one hand, so to speak, but seeing really what a broader perspective of vineyard sites throughout California's coast could bring. Because it's not just it's colder as you go farther north, it also has to do with how close you are to the ocean. So you can say Taylor Lane is very close to the ocean and very far north. It's one of the coldest sites that we farm. But then you go down to, you know, Santa Maria Valley where Clark and Telephone is, and it can be pretty warm there, especially in kind of that that eastern edge where we farm the Haribach Vineyard. That's quite a bit warmer than Clark and Telephone. There's only about, I think it's like 13 miles between those two vineyards. And then you get to Santa Rita Hills, which is also in Santa Barbara County, and that is as cold as Taylor Lane, but it's that far, it's 300 miles south. Um uh so it, anyways, I think that that's kind of the beauty of Belle Gloss, and it was a very simple approach. It was like we have these three vineyards that are our kind of go-to, you can rely upon these all the time. And we always made some little like fun vineyards off to the side as well. But the three that people could find most accessible were Clark and Telephone, Santa Maria Valley, Santa Barbara County, most southern vineyard of the main three. I'll call them that. Move up about 150 miles, you've got the Los Alturas Vineyard from Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County, and then 150 miles north of that, it was Taylor Lane, and then we moved that into a very special program that was Mag's only, Magnum's only. And um, and then we had also uh reintroduced a Sonoma offering out of Russian River Valley, which was the Dairyman Vineyard. Um, and so you had this kind of spance of this 300 miles where you get to see what it what do what does this winemaking philosophy deliver uh to this broad spectrum of locations and climates.
SPEAKER_03Okay, and so when you're because I I love that you're kind of meeting at this is the time before the boom of Pinot Noir, you're meeting with this kind of eclectic underground group of like growers, you know, you're all kind of like meeting together, learning from each other, um, really having fun geeking out on on the process, right? Yeah, and and this is also just this is NorCal, SoCal, like they're also there you have growers that are also growing in these different like climates and regions and stuff like that, learning and and playing around, stuff like that. So if you started out with Clark and Telephone the beginning with your first vintage in 2001, yeah, was it was it meeting with these groups too that kind of got those gears turning what you're talking about to start expanding to these other areas, or were you already was that already like on your top of mind?
SPEAKER_01No, it wasn't it it was already there, but like the curiosity just grew because you'd be hearing, you'd be tasting their wines, you'd be hearing from growers and producers that are working in these different areas. Um, and you're you know, we're just curious by nature, right? Yeah as humans. And so you're like, all right, well, I'll go check out that vineyard, like up in Yorkville Highlands of Mendocino County, and you're like, you know, yeah, well I'll buy some fruit from you, like this guy Bill Weir up there, and like he was selling fruit to William Sellium, and I went ahead and I was able to buy a block from him, and and the fruit was awesome. We did like a bottling and whatever, like just fun little one-off shit like that. Yeah, because you kind of want to challenge yourself and understand like what is our idea of winemaking and our idea of what Pinot Noir should be? What does that even like look like in a completely foreign land? Um, and while Sonoma to Mendocino may not seem like it's that foreign of land, it's foreign land. Like it's it's it's new territory that you're crossing into that you you have no idea, no barometer for what you're supposed to do to maximize or or get the best of what Mother Nature can give you out there. So yeah, I mean I think that that I think that that drew everybody to push themselves, where there were there there was so much uh not just the curiosity, but like there was like a level of hype in that little group where like we all kind of hyped each other and we also shared like everything.
What it was like being the young gun of Pinot Noir...
SPEAKER_03Were you the youngest of that group at the time?
SPEAKER_01By far. By far.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, by far. So I think that which I think is also very interesting because you're you're coming out, I mean, you're just you're just kind of getting into your 20s. Right. And so like, and then you and then you have all these uh I mean, and I I'm guessing that they'd already been in the game for a while too. Yeah, yeah. And have already kind of that that that wisdom. And was it were you were did you feel like were you welcomed in it? Like, did you feel like was there any kind of like hazing, dude? Or like in in coming into this, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_01There should have been some hazing, but no, there were there wasn't. That would have been fucking great though. Like, that's what we should do with the Y business. Like, yeah, you gotta you're gonna get fucked with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, no, there wasn't any hazing, although that was that was a missed opportunity on their part. But yeah. Um there, I mean, you you know, there there was an appreciation of everybody's philosophy, right? So if you had somebody like Jim Clenden from Aubon Clement, um, which was you know one of those like I'd say like kind of like hippie edge, edgy, hippie brands, and he kind of carried that same thing, like Hawaiian shirt all the time, big old beard. I mean, his business card would always say it was Jim Clendenon, the mind behind. That was his title. Yeah. Of of a bon clemott. Um, and his label was like ABC, and it was like the blocks, like the the building blocks that like kids would play with. Yeah. So it was kind of like a little, but it also had a traditional look to it. But that's kind of who you were dealing with. You were dealing with these guys that just had this like eclecticism to them and and a real passion for what they were doing, um, but still very, you know, open and honest. So, like if he said, Oh, I only do native yeast ferments, and and like I'd be like, Oh, I I prefer to use these yeast strains because I like the reliability to have consistency vintage to vintage, um, and and we're generally picking at a higher level of maturity. So we had our reasons for that. He had his reasons for native, but it wasn't like there was no shit talking, which there is now. Like that's everything in society, it seems like though. If you don't agree with my philosophy, then you're fucking wrong. Like that's that's how it is. And so you see that same thing play out with producers and Psalms right now, where they're like they they like the idea of something, and if you don't do that same thing, then you're on the outs. It wasn't like that at all back then.
SPEAKER_03That's why I like to touch on this piece because I felt like it's just really interesting to let people know what that time was like to give them like a real true snapshot about how how you came up, and like it was almost it was a supportive group.
SPEAKER_01It was camaraderie, there was good camaraderie. And and every walk of life that was in it, um nobody cared. Yeah, everybody just like you know, hey, you're you're a young guy trying to, you know, figure your shit out, you know. Yeah, you you come from a winemaking family, and like they they like that wasn't even like looked at as like um a negative, right? I got that negative, that negativity from the uh channels of distribution more than anything, where you had to prove that you you weren't just writing on coattails.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so um, and I think over time, as people like people would come out and visit and they'd see our kind of micro winery where we made the Pinot Noir, and they'd realize, like, oh fuck, these guys are actually like this is this is the real deal. There's no like factory making Pinot Noir. This is you know, one guy that's and and that then a team that we started to build after that, uh, that were really focused on bringing Pinot Noir into a new light. Um, and then getting on the market, telling the stories, and then you know, once you have proven that like you're you're really in it, you really care about it, you really want to win, then they're like, oh shit, okay. Yeah, this is legit. But it took years to get there. But not on the grower and not on the uh winemaking side. The the producers and and growers, they were all everybody was super chill and helpful, and I mean it's still the same thing kind of here, even in in wine country, right? Like you got a piece of equipment that goes down, you need some help, like call up two or three people. You're gonna get somebody who's like, I can do that right now, I'll be there. And uh, and and that's just how it is. Uh, it's gotten a little less so in I think in Napa more than more than anything. Yeah, I think the egos have kind of like made things a little more difficult. But uh, but yeah, back I mean, so back to the like those little events that we had, and some of them are still going, like like World of Pinot Noir was probably the most well-known one at the time done in uh Shell Beach, which was in like right next to
World of Pinot: The early industry (post-Sideways film)
SPEAKER_01Pismo Beach on the central coast. Yeah. And it was beautiful. It was like on this bluff, right? If you've been on the California coast, you know that a lot of the coast just kind of goes down to a bluff and then drops off, and then the beach is probably you know 50 feet down or more. Um, and and so these bluffs are beautiful though. You get to like uh you know, stand on them, you're overlooking the ocean. There's some like just vibe of awesomeness that you feel like this, like you know, Mother Nature is just there showing off her you know, beauty. Um, you get to see your favorite parts of Mother Nature.
SPEAKER_02The hills of Mother Nature.
SPEAKER_01Uh so uh so and and so there was a tent set up there, and then you'd have like the cheesemonger, like the local cheese guy, like they had their own little like culture that you would show up, and uh so people had snacks and stuff, and then you had just a you know number of people pouring wines, and then uh your customers would come in and like they're just enjoying this awesome setting, like on grass, overlooking the ocean, having their cheese and wine, getting all the stories, whatever they wanted. It was it was like a great event. Um, and so before I get into what happened after Sideways with stuff like that, I should get into kind of the the the first few years of what what we went through. Because that first year, first two years of Bell Gloss, the shit wasn't gonna sell itself. And so I had to get out in the market and tell the stories. The last thing I learned how to do was sell wine, and I think that that's something that like if I had learned that maybe first, who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have gone through the whole process of like vineyard management and then learning winemaking and all that. But like the progression that I took, I think was the longer path. But I I like it because I think it helped me understand all the elements of the industry. And what I see with people getting in the industry right now, especially if they came out of like, you know, a program, a college program, is that they're kind of pigeonholed into one place in the industry. Like, oh, you're you're gonna be in the lab, period. Maybe you can work out of that at some point. You're gonna be in vineyard management, period. Like um, you're gonna be analyzing soils, uh, you know, that like very specialized jobs. And and the industry has grown to sustain, to support that, right? But I do think that that's limited the the future opportunity of having multiple people that have a fully integrated understanding of the industry from planting and growing a vineyard to making a wine, bringing it to bottle, then bringing it to market. And that's what a lot of the people that are a generation or two above us had, because that's just what they had to do. Like they all started in grape growing, they all started making wine because maybe they weren't getting the prices that they thought they should for their fruit. So they're like, you know, fuck these big buyers and that are there making, you know, a bunch of trash wine. I'm gonna make my own wine, make my own brand, put my last name on it, and I'm gonna, you know, see how that goes. And then they built a brand, and now you got, you know, you got some major companies out there because of that, like because of that grit. Um and and a lot of those old timers, I'll call them old timers. I think a number of them are still like in in their 60s, so but sixties to to like the eldest, um, they have a full understanding of like what goes into every aspect of the industry. So I was pretty happy I was able to to experience that. It wasn't by design, but it happened. Um, but when I got out in the market to sell it, I was just telling the stories. Um, and the the funny thing was that I really had to combat at that point was the wine spectator, which was it mattered back then. Uh the scores mattered. Um and and we got like 77 points, 78 points on our wines, which are like if you look at their rating scale, like that's deemed undrinkable.
Battling the early years of critics and ratings (perseverance!
SPEAKER_01Like above below 80 is deemed a wine that is undrinkable.
SPEAKER_03I feel it's like at a restaurant getting like a C. Like when they're going through for like for health code shit. For health code shit, yeah. Yeah, that's it's at least like it's not real, but like you like the the effect or like the impact, like you're explaining, you know. Yeah, like we're gonna do it. Exactly. Customers are gonna still serve food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But if you walk out and you see the sign that says a C, it's gonna hurt, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Inter at your own risk. Yeah. Uh yeah, that that is what it felt like. So I'd be meeting with you know wine buyers and somaliers, whatever. Um, sometimes it was just a a a you know, manager of a restaurant that was managing their wine list as well. And so we would just open the bottles and taste them. And they'd be like, they they all knew the scores, right? Because everybody at that point was reading all these ratings publications. And they're like, this isn't like a 70 something. Like, this is actually this is really good. It's like, I know. Like, like I I don't know how else to tell you that I like I know that. I'm glad you're tasting it because you wouldn't buy it based upon just the ratings alone. But I'd love to see it on your menu and see if people try it out and like it and what they think of it. Like, yeah, I know our style is already a little bit bigger than the most uh the majority of producers out there, and so I maybe that's what was offensive to that palette at that time. I'm not gonna mention any names, but that that like that rating, uh, that um that editor. Uh so but nonetheless, uh got out and it was it was as simple as telling the stories from a very authentic point of view, but I also didn't understand the the value of like entertainment either. Like we weren't it was all brass tacks. It was like here's our tech sheet, here's all the information, you know, tell you I'll tell you every detail about the wine that I possibly can. If you have questions at the end, then we'll go through those questions. Like it was very I don't know, like very informative back then. It wasn't it's more fun now, honestly. I'll say that. Like there's actually like kind of like an element of you know, just bullshitting a little bit, getting to know each other rather than like just straight down to the brass tacks.
SPEAKER_03Do you have anything that sticks out in your mind of like a learning experience at that time where I feel like you're coming in, we already kind of said that you were kind of like a young gun, you know, um, coming into the industry amongst all these others that, you know, in your group that had the wisdom and and the teachings and everything like that. But then when you're going out in the market, like you might be seeing as like, what's this, you know, what's this kid know? You know what I mean? And then you're also working at uh what seemed like to me from what I'm hearing is an uphill battle because you're fighting for a relevance of this, of this varietal that and and trying to expand the knowledge of it and teach people about it and and spread the good word. But then you got like the critics because like we're saying like this, this was a different time. Like now, I think it's safe to say that critics are I think are falling off more because people have social. Yeah, people have like their influencers that they follow, their people that they trust that they feel is more authentic, and those scores are kind of like they're now battling with that.
SPEAKER_01Third party endorsement is the best selling tool. Yeah. So if a consumer, a customer, or a wine buyer, a restaurant manager is going to one of their like monthly get togethers with the other restaurant managers, and they're like, Hey man, I tried this bell gloss, it's actually pretty fucking good. Like, that's that's the best like sale you can get. Because that's people like, oh man, I thought I got a 77.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They're like, no, it's I don't know what's going on with you know Lobby's palette, but it's not a 77. You got to try it, and then they'll try it out.
SPEAKER_03But that but it goes, I was just wondering, did you so to go back to the original question of did you have a time it was like a learning experience? Maybe it was a little embarrassing at the time, but you're like, I'm glad that happened because you learned from it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, one that just pops up right now is like one of my first wine dinners that I ever did was
Learning Experiences of the wine world...
SPEAKER_01in Florida. Okay. And I don't know why Florida was like one of the first markets to go and like pedal Bel Gloss in, but that was one of those that it was Texas and then Florida. And to this day, those are like our strongest markets. So I don't know if we like got it seated right, and I went back there on a on a regular basis, and like, but there was a reaction to the wines, like a positive reaction. Um compared to a lot of other like go to New York and like fucking fuck that. No, it's like they were they would they're just yeah, I don't know. And I can get into that in a second.
SPEAKER_02You'll have to.
SPEAKER_01It's the roughest market out there. Um, no, but so we yeah, we had like positive reactions there. And so I was at this wine dinner, and I I should also say like the packaging, while it's like iconic now and it's much easier to open. When we first started doing the vineyard designates with the 2002 vintage, that was the first time we started doing wax. Okay. And the reason we started doing the wax was to showcase at the time we had two vineyard designates. It started off with Clark and Telephone and Taylor Lane. Those were the two. And we we had created another wine that was at a lower price point that was intended to be only for the on-premise, only for the restaurants. And I'll tell that story in a second. But I wanted a visual separator so that people knew oh, the red wax is the vineyard designates, the one that's just got a cork and a foil, that's your more like standard entry level, you know, like good wine, our style, all that was cool. But it wasn't one of our vineyard designates, it was multiple vineyards of Pinot Noir, all from Sonoma Coast at that time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But the visual differentiator was the wax, where I wanted to make sure we had that visual from the outside for people to understand, like, well, if this is whatever it was, $35 a bottle versus 20, you know, what like if I saw them side by side, why is there a difference?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and and so that was kind of the visual cue. Um, and so we were doing like one of my first wine dinners in Florida down in uh Boca Raton, um, at a at a nice like place. And like I mean, getting a wine dinner was pretty cool. And I used to fucking like I was so nervous, like having to talk in front of people was not my strong suit. Um, and I'd be like sweating bullets, and I'd like have my notes and I'd write down all the stuff I wanted to say, and between each chorus, and I want to make sure I hit all the menu items that the chef had had, you know, put together to pair well with each one of the wines. Um and uh and so I I go in the back and like they're just about to move to a new course and they're gonna bring out one of the Bell Gloss Vineyard designates, and the the like a couple of the staff members are in the back with kitchen knives, and they're like trying to hack the wax off. Oh shit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and this is before the pool tab.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, before the pool tab, before like this is the old school wax, it was like concrete on the bottle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, oh my god, this is gonna be a problem like going forward. So um I just jump in and and try to help him, and I'm like, I just give him some tips. But like teaching people how to do that stuff, I'm like, just if you get a like candle or you know, a lighter and just like hit it for a couple seconds, you can just cut it right off. Like it makes it way easier, but you can't demonstrate that to everybody, yeah, or get a corkscrew and go right through the top.
SPEAKER_03Or it just goes through the top.
SPEAKER_01That worked, that works as well. So uh, so help them out. Um, but and he and and they were like they were sweating bullets, like more than I was, and I was I was just nervous. These guys were back there like hacking away, and they're all in tuxedos. It was like a nice restaurant, and so I felt just absolutely horrible. I'm like, man, we gotta like we gotta change this. So that was a that was a quick learn. Came back and like realized, okay, we gotta do pool tabs, and that's when we started doing pool tabs. And I got I could tell that story too at some point. Um, but uh so that was one learning. Uh another one was uh based on those first like two sales trips, um, I realized real quick that like saying that I was in my 20s was not gonna fly. So I grew
Fake it till you make it ("Wine aging")
SPEAKER_01my beard out, um and uh that made me look a little bit older.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I started telling everybody I was 30.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Even at like 21, I'd be like, I'm 30. And nobody questioned it. So they're like, oh, what uh what have you been doing? It's just like, oh, I've just been working. You know, like finally got like this product coming out, you know. Like, so I lied to everybody until I was 30.
SPEAKER_03And this is very I I'm like, I'm like shaking my head, yeah, dude. I this is believable to those that that don't know. Like, I mean, when we were like 15, you were looking like 21 and over. We put that to the test. We knew it was true. I didn't know that's all I'm gonna say about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I did I so and that did help out a ton. But man, I had to I just realized I had to start lying because yeah, the industry itself was an old, like an old man's game. It wasn't like it wasn't common to see anybody young doing anything spectacular. Uh and and it was it was guided and run by typically like middle to older age men. Uh, you every once in a while see a woman involved, but like back then it was still very traditional. So so much has changed, I think, for the better.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, we don't have a problem with that because we just hire the best of the best. Yeah. And guess what? They're all genders, all races, whatever. It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so uh that was the like the beginnings of it with like some of the interesting sort of hardships. Uh I just knew at some point it was going to take, like, it was it was gonna work. I didn't think it was gonna take off, but I knew it was gonna work. It was I thought it was gonna be viable. Um, I thought it had a place in the industry, right? Like our Pinot Noirs. Um so let's see, even even going back to the kind of like that that release of the first two, the 2002 vineyard designates, and then that on-premise offering. That was from at the time three different vineyards. Um it was a woman that grew in uh in Sonoma Coast named Sally Connell, uh, a woman who was growing in uh near what is now the Petaluma Gap, uh kind of near that in Carneros, uh, named Joan Griffin, Griffin's Layer Vineyard, and which is an awesome vineyard. That thing was a performer. Like I should have done a vineyard designate out of that. Um, and then uh the third was the Peterson Vineyard out in your Kitati, but all all Sonoma Coast. And and so I just started working with these growers and and I'd gotten some advice from my dad. He's like, if you if you need fruit, call up like this brokerage, Turrentine. And back then it was like Bill Turentine was the guy, and I talked to him and I'm like, hey, I'm Joe Wagner, you know, starting this project and wanted to see if you know any Pinot Noir growers that are looking to sell their fruit. And so went and visited a whole bunch of different vineyards and found these three. And I was like, these look great, like look like they're well managed. The people behind them are passionate, they care, uh, they're tending, you know, correctly to the vines. So I bought some fruit from each of them. That created the first vintage of what we called Belgoss Sonoma Coast. That evolved into what became Mayomie over time. And I'll tell the story about that without talking too much about Mayommy because now it's a trash brand, nobody likes it, it stinks, it tastes like garbage, um and uh it'll be dead before we know it. That's what I think. Expensive management.
SPEAKER_03You don't want to expand on that?
SPEAKER_01It's it on the It's been run through. It's like the town bicycle.
SPEAKER_02I didn't mean to.
SPEAKER_01Like I knew that was rhetorical. Dude, I didn't Okay. It's I'm just saying, like, hey. And there's nothing wrong with you know, with that really, but it it's uh it's uh it's a different business philosophy when you're a large company, publicly traded or whatever, and you're managing just this monster of a brand and just maximizing distribution. And that's what happened to Mayomie after we sold it in 2015.
SPEAKER_03Well, you were true, I mean, I I can I can see that I get it. I mean, you're the true creator of it. And then these things happen. And it was a imaginary passing along.
SPEAKER_01Dude, it was it was like it was when that wine came out. Well, I'll tell the let me tell the story of it because it it's like it was it was a wild ride and it was so unexpected. So we we were, you know, Bell Gloss was the primary focus, but I realized
The creation of the powerhouse (at the time) Meiomi Pinot Noir & taking risks...
SPEAKER_01with like these 77, 78 point scores, we're not gonna get people excited. We need to have something that is a buy the glass option that goes onto the restaurant list in the buy the glass section that's going to be like the lone Pinot Noir at a reasonable price point so that people go and they're like, Oh, you know what? I'll try Pinot Noir. And uh, and it's whatever, 10 bucks a glass, 12 bucks a glass, like not break the bank, but you're not at you know, five dollar level. So um, and and we could we could make a good wine at that price. And so uh that became our our on-premise option. And it started catching on. Like people were like, Oh yeah, like oh, yeah, we don't have a Pinot Noir. Let's we'll bring it on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so just by virtue of availability on a by the glass menu for a relatively obscure variety at the time, it was the go-to where people were kind of talking a little more about Pinot Noir. They were curious about it, and so they were they were trying it and they got the Bell Gloss style. It wasn't a vineyard designate, but they got the Bell Gloss style. And lucky for us, people like that style. And like we were just making wines that I like that I enjoyed. That was the style that I thought best tasted best, first of all, but best conveyed the message we were trying to send from each vineyard site. Um, and so uh, and so it it was it was like seated correctly, if you want to call it that. It was making progress. We were getting phone calls and emails, which were like also kind of a newer thing. Um, people wanting to buy it, retail. And we're like, oh, we don't sell retail, it only goes to restaurants. And we would get, you know, so many calls and and emails that were like, there's like people are looking for this stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and uh, and so it had grown to be a surprisingly very strong brand. Uh like I didn't even know it was I didn't I was like, well, we're having success with it. Cool. Like my grower list went from three people to God, probably a couple dozen, uh, maybe, maybe thirty or so, um over a period of time. And then by 2006, that was the first time I I thought, okay, let's start to make this like its own brand, and started calling it Mayomy, but it was Bel Gloss, Mayomie, then Mayomy by Bell Gloss. And then by the 2008 vintage, we moved from Sonoma to Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara. So took a bigger approach.
SPEAKER_03Was 2008, hey Art, I if we just check it, just the when Sideways released? Or unless you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, actually, you want me to go back to Sideways? Because no, 2005, I think, was Sideways.
SPEAKER_032005 was sideways. I still want to we bring it up a lot because it's actually hey art, look it up.
SPEAKER_01I think it's either late 2004 or early 2005.
SPEAKER_00Limited release in October 20, 2004, formally released January 2005.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Okay. Okay. So right after. So yeah, but that was a wild ride. So that and that wasn't right after. That was a couple years after. And that was because Mayomi at the time and Belgloss, we were like, we had planted more vineyards, we had more, we had more grapes coming online. And honestly, like we didn't know if we had the market. We didn't know if we were gonna be able to sell uh as much wine as we we were were were bringing in. Um so this is right about 2005, 2005, 2006. Um, and I remember telling like our our you know, team, the sales team and distributors, like we're tripling production. And most of that was towards the Sonoma Coast bottling at the time. Yeah. That what became Maomi. But we also had some increases uh with Clark and Telephone with some uh newer plantings there. Taylor Lane continued on as it was, and then we had the new addition of Las Alturas. 2004 was our first uh vintage of Las Alturas. Um and so uh, and so that was the new introduction of a new vineyard designant. So now we had three vineyard designants that year, and everybody was like, There is no way you're gonna sell three times the amount of of Pinot Noir that you did last year or the year before. I was like, Well, I'm not gonna dump the shit down the drain. Like, I'll get out in the market and we'll sell the stuff, we'll figure it out. And uh, and so and and I I wholeheartedly believe like because once you put product in bottle, that's a big investment. So it's way easier to sell wine on the bulk market, even at a loss, and and more financially responsible than it is to say we're gonna bottle all this and have four years of inventory and just tie all that up. Um but I was like I was feeling really confident about it without even knowing that Sideways was around the corner. So Sideways comes out, and I don't know, so Sideways is like a very kind of like interesting movie about these two friends, and it's about kind of wine. But the reason that these two characters um in Sideways, one is kind of the the embodiment of Peter Noir being a little more like emotional and thin-skinned and uh and and kind of like eclectic and very passionate and uh kind of introvert. And then the other guy who was really characterized as what Merlot as a variety is known for, uh which is big, boisterous, loud, clumsy. Um, and so they so that the writer uh actually kind of took the two varieties and created two characters out of them, and it it started off as a screenplay, then turned into a book, and then turned back into a screenplay. And somebody like they made the movie, and uh it was Paul Giamatti was like the main character, um, and it became kind of like a cult classic, like almost instantly, and it lit a fire under curiosity for Peter Noir because there are so many scenes in that movie around Peter Noir and why it's so special, and it just resonated with people. And I think that that there was almost like a subconscious correlation between the varieties and the characters, but if you ask the the author, it was like that was intentional.
SPEAKER_03I love that insight about the characters actually. Yeah, is that the first time you've actually said it that way? Yeah, I don't I don't think people know that either. And I was like, oh yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And so that was that was that was the that was kind of the theme. It was like a nice layer to the story, yeah. Um, and so uh and so, anyways, like wine country for Pinot Noir became like a booming tourism area, whether you were like in, you know, Santa Inez Valley and Bulleton or you were up in Russian River and Healdsburg and whatever, uh it like Pinot Noir became a mainstay. But I oftentimes think that it wasn't necessarily the movie as much as it was the press after the movie, because that press went on for like a year, and it was like Pinot Noir was all the craze. Um, and then those events like the world of Pinot Noir, well, it wasn't just the world of Pinot Noir, then you had like Pinot Days and like all these other events popping up, and it went from you know a hundred customers and and you know, a dozen producers to thousands of customers and and hundreds of producers, like 500 producers. Um, because everybody jumped into Pinot Noir, all the big guys, yeah. Anyone who's like, fuck, we can we can make a brand out of this now, like, yeah, let's let's do it. And they'd be like, all right, well, we're gonna take our our well-known brand that has been doing Cabernet and Savion Blanc and Sonoma, and we're gonna make a Pinot Noir, and we're gonna sell the shit out of it because everybody's going after Pinot Noir, and there just wasn't enough planted. Um and so uh Pinot Noir had this major heyday that lasted for years. The events continued to ride in or roll in, um and uh and there were like massive tours to to that, so you'd have them spread throughout the country, whether it's you know, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas, California, Nevada, I mean there were there were events just popping up all over the place. And so you tried to hit those, um, maybe get on a panel, uh do stuff like that. I mean, I I remember I went to this is like right after Sideways, one of the first engagements I did was uh at the uh uh God, the Hawaii uh no, it was Kapalua. It was it was the Kappa Lua Food and Wine Festival. And um and so they they invited me to be on a panel
Making it to the Kapalua Wine Festival as rep of Pinot Noir (and a mic drop)...
SPEAKER_01with other Pinot Noir producers. And these were like these are some kind of like the the gods of Pinot Noir at the time. You had like one of the guys from Costa Brown, um and uh I think it was Dan Costa was up there. You had Ted Lemon from Literi. He's out on the Far Coast, he's actually on the same ridge as we are on Taylor Lane. Uh and I think there were two other people on the panel, and then there's me. And you know, I'm like by far the youngest dude up there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but you got your beard, and you're lying about your age.
SPEAKER_01And lying about my age, but but so this all like kind of correlated at once. So before I jump into that panel, I I will say that that craze for Pinot Noir, when it hit, we had the product. Yeah, you were already set. We we were set, and so it became like we want a Pinot Noir, and we want a Pinot Noir that's at least kind of known. And it's like we've been out for a couple years and people kind of knew us, and the red wax was kind of the visual helper. Like I will I will say that that absolutely helped because Bell Gloss isn't like the roll off your tongue kind of name. It's very meaningful to me and my family, but it's not like you know, uh Kenwood, like something that you're like, oh Kenwood, that's an easy name to remember. Yeah, I don't know what it means, but is there an actual Kenwood? I don't know. So, but but so people would remember the the red wax, right? So we became kind of like the go-to, and and we're like, all right, well, I mean, we can't expand production all that much. We'll we can plan for that in the future, but you know, we became like this that that wine, that three times production increase evaporated like right away. It was gone. And um, and so you know, it it went from like, oh, it's everybody complaining about needing to sell three times the amount of Pinot Noir they did the sale the the year before, all of a sudden it's like, well, do you have more? You're like, We will, but not right now, not until we bottle um the next vintage. Uh and that continued on for a few years. But uh, that really helped us become more relevant, I think, in a quicker way. And that was just by accident, just by timing being a benefit to us. Um, and I think having a wine that people liked and and a story and a pr uh a brand, an image that that people felt good about. Like you see this red wax on your dinner table, and it kind of makes you feel a little better than a screw cap or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I think it's like also that that definition of luck, right? Where preparation meets opportunity. Yeah. But then also it's everyone loves a good underdog story. And at this point, you were, because the funny thing about Sideways, I thought too, was it's almost like was kind of this this time of like shunning the cool kids at the time, Merlot. Oh, totally. So Merlot takes a fall, and then and then you have Pinot Noir, underdog, yeah, now coming up being cool, and then you have like these new people kind of coming on the scene, and they're like, Oh great, I can get into something now that is not popular, but like at but is but is in the sense that it was it's like low-key, the cool thing to be getting into right now. Cause that's the way it was presented too in the movie, right? That like you're not jumping on the bandwagon of talking about Chardonnay and Cabernet all the time. Yeah, it's like I'm not drinking any fucking Merlot. It's like Merlot, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You wanted something that was gonna really, you know, speak to your emotions. Yeah. Rather than just get drunk, right? That was I think that was kind of the and that was definitely the vibe. And yeah, it was it was the underdog. Um yeah, so so all of a sudden Bell Gloss is like more relevant than than it was the year before, and much more relevant. And and so I got invited to be on this panel. And so I'm sitting there with all of these very key people in you know, high-end Pinot Noir production, kind of my first event of of this type, right? And I'm just thinking, like, I like I why why the hell am I here? Like, I'm still like I'm young, I'm green, I'm learning, I'm like, you know, I great, we got a brand that people know, and and that's awesome. But like I'm sitting up here with people I look up to that like I'm I'm just like envious of. I'm like, you guys are the kings of Pinot, that's who they were.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, and so there was a moderator. The moderator, one of the opening questions was because Pinot Noir was so still new and unique that there was always a story as to how you fell in love with Pinot Noir. And so the moderator said, Well, I want you all to tell your story about what made you fall in love with Pinot Noir. Okay. And I'm the last guy on the table in the panel, right? So I'm the last one that answers every question, which is which is good and bad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh but I think in this case it was good. It gave me some time to like think about do I want to be honest or do I want to come up with some like romanticized answer? Um, and they're all answering the question, you know, in in positive ways, but like, oh, I've I went to Burgundy and I fell in love with such such and such a place and this wine and the way that they produce it from you know, this helps out like all the details, and like they all had these really sappy good stories, and they were real true stories, right? And so it comes to me and I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna be honest. Like, what do I have to lose? And so I go, you know, actually, I I started in you know farming um for my family, and and uh and I started making Pinot Noir, and I actually didn't like Pinot Noir. Um, and so I decided I'd try to make it taste like something I'd want to drink. And I think I fucking offended everybody on that panel. Like so uh, but maybe I also put my stake in the ground of saying, like, I'm gonna do what I want to do and not be guided by these critics because a lot of people post sideways. They all went more towards like they were like, I I'm not gonna, I don't want to bag on like Costa Brown because they were making, I think, some of the most amazing wines that I'd ever had in like the late 90s and early 2000s. So awesome. But then they started to fall into the trap of the Somme who were like, you need to make these, they need to be delicate and austere and very like, and so they started instead of picking like ripe like we were, like they were one of the wines I looked at and I was like, that's that's getting like the style that we want. I you know, it was they were phenomenal wines. Um, and then they started to pull back like way hard on the style and being really delicate and almost like nose in the air about it, and they were still getting their scores, they still had all their wines sold on their club list and whatever. Um, but the wines, in my opinion, just lost their luster. And um, and and so they fell into that trap. And I I continued to stay with that, like, no, I'm I I want these wines to be boisterous. I want these, they're still delicate compared to a Merlot or a Cabernet, but they're they're you know, for a regular standard kind of idea of what Pinot Noir is, our wines have much more mid-palate and weight, um, but they're still balanced just in their own way. Um, and so that's that was kind of what what I wanted to continue on with. And so I think I put my stake in the ground at that event. And we had some good conversations. I mean, I'm sitting up there, dude. I am like drenched in sweat. Like I was still like I'm still like green to the whole thing. Yeah, I'm so nervous every time it came to me, it's like my voice is cracking, and it w it was comical, like looking back on it. Um, but uh but I thought we, you know, did a good job and got more of the story out there, and we started doing a little more of those things whenever given the opportunity. Um and I think that we had a unique story, right? Like it was it was like I was I was the young guy, like so. It's like yeah, you you you don't want just like four old white guys that have been doing this for a long time. Like you're like put the young guy on there that's kind of got a different idea, and like he's taking ownership of how he's doing it and not trying to kowtoe to the the uh the more traditional philosophies. And so I think that that really helped us make more of a name for ourselves and I think get our storyline correct out there for for the the buyers and for the customers. Um and so that that was something that was that was pretty uh pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02But uh Is this really the end? Unbelievable. Find out next week.