the Pavle Milić show
Pavle Milic has spent 40+ years in the hospitality business — co-founding FnB restaurant in Scottsdale, building Los Milics Vineyards across three Arizona tasting rooms, and writing about wine for Phoenix Magazine for the past decade. Now he's pulling up a chair with people from well outside his own world and seeing where the conversation goes.
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the Pavle Milić show
008: Why do we use Oak Barrels? With Sean Adamowicz
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Unlock the secrets behind the art and science of winemaking with our special guest, Sean Adamowicz from the Boswell Company. With a rich background in environmental chemistry and a passion for wine nurtured in southern France, Sean takes us on an enlightening journey through the essential role of oak barrels in aging wine. Learn about the diverse coopers Sean represents, and gain a deep understanding of the intricate science and craftsmanship that make oak barrels indispensable in the winemaking process.
Get an insider’s look at the painstaking process of barrel making, from the size of barrels to the critical toasting techniques that enhance wine flavors. Hear about the meticulous craftsmanship involved in coopering, the increasing presence of women in the industry, and the collaborative nature of the winemaking community. Learn about the logistics of shipping custom-built barrels from Europe to the U.S. and the personalized service that ensures seamless delivery to wineries.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Transition from environmental chemistry to winemaking
- Role and importance of oak barrels in aging wine
- Challenges of taking over a family business during the pandemic
- Detailed process of barrel making: provenance, size, toasting techniques
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Episode Credits
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Welcome to Wine World, the podcast that takes you from vineyard to glass. Each episode, your host Hopley Millet, winemaker, restaurantur, and columnist explores wine grape growing, winemaking, and wine and food parents, focusing on Arizona and beyond. Join us as we visit Vineyards, chat with restaurant tourists, and meet the pioneers behind top wineries. Whether you're a wine enthusiast or curious about starting your own winery, Wineworld offers the perfect lens of education and entertainment. Pour yourself a glass and tune in to discover the stories behind the bottle.
SPEAKER_02Growing up, he also spent a great deal of time in southern France, where he worked in close proximity to the alluring culture of vineyards and wine growing, which led him to become a traveling winemaker, stomping fruit in places like France, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. We kick off the conversation by talking about his background. We then talk about barrels and the broad stands, answering that very question, why do we use toak barrels? Then we get a little granular, and by that John takes us through the roster of who first he represents and why. So sit back and enjoy the show. Let's get a little bit of uh the uh background story on I I know you are a local pee from the state of Arizona where we are located. You were born in Tucson. So take us through not necessarily your whole entire life, but however did you wind up with Boswell?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My parents are both professors at University of Arizona, and that's a pretty sweet gig because they had their summers free. My dad's originally from Poland. He came here in the 80s, and science helped him to get over to America, and he would take sabbatical. So we would go live in Europe for the summers, and then when I was five, we lived for six months in France and six months in Sweden. And then we would started going every summer to Toulouse, France, in the south. And eventually he bought a house there in 2002. And so him and I started redoing this old stone house there. We're still redoing it. I don't know if we'll ever finish that project. And we never had enough tools. We always were working with our neighbors, and one of our neighbors' families had a winery. So we started drinking quite a bit of wine at that point when I was after a long day of lifting rock, you a good glass of wine. It helps move how sore you are. Yeah. So then that was a part of our it still is very much a part of our life. And I studied chemistry at University of Arizona. And for a moment there, I thought I was gonna go. I was really interested in geochemistry and soils, and I thought I was actually in Arizona. I I honestly, the natural segue is to go work in the mining industry. Okay. But I had gotten I had a doobie and I got arrested one time, and the mine was like, absolutely not, you're that's on your record. Funny you're talking about now. Oh wow. So then I had to segue from there, and we were working on the House of France, and my dad was like, What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_02Now, how old are you, Sean, when this is going on? And and before you answer that, the entry into the world of chemistry and the sciences, needless to say, hugely impacted by your parents' trajectory in life, or or did you have the natural Mac already?
SPEAKER_01Or I did well in science growing up, but um my dad's a theoretical chemist and my mom's a nutritionist, so both of them were on the science side, and they encouraged me to move that direction. And with that chemistry environmental chemistry degree, I looked at what I could do, and I knew I wanted to travel. And as I was looking at what the options would be, I went, I finally landed on I'm gonna make wine. My parents were like, that doesn't exist, but I did.
SPEAKER_02But but how did you get to that point, Sean? I'm gonna make wine. Where what was the experience or what was the catalyst? Or were you just Googling what would be a good career for uh for somebody with a chemistry major?
SPEAKER_01I think it was having these neighbors that had had a family winery, and I knew that it was something I was interested in plants. It was really hard to grow plants in Tucson, so I wanted to move to a place. We have a beautiful Sorrow garden. You just don't touch it, you don't do anything. But I got a feeling I wanted to work in the business, and I applied to some jobs, and I traveling I knew it was a global thing that you could do. And first opportunity was in Washington, armed with my chemistry degree, $10 an hour.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01They my parents were not impressed by that, and but I lived in the basement of the Episcopalian church, $400 a month, had to make it happen. And then from there, I started to travel the world and make wine, and I stayed on after harvest, then came to Flowers in Sonoma County and met Janice down here during 2014. This was 2014, and she didn't tell our audience who Janice is. Janice is my wife, my better have my boss also. Yeah, I definitely fell in love with her before I fell in love with Sonoma County. And she encouraged, she wanted us to go travel and make wine. She had just finished college at Fordham in New York and she'd moved back to Sonoma County. And so we went to Australia, and then the next year, it's like a snowball rolling down a hill. And when I was in Australia, Michael Twelftry at Two Hands had Frederick Johansson from Staglin as his intern in the past. So he connected me with Frederick. So I worked at Staglin, and then we went from there to South Africa, and then from South Africa we went to Burgundy, and from Burgundy we went to New Zealand, and then we settled back in Northern California after that. And Janice was doing harvests simultaneously. We did South Africa, New Zealand, and Burgundy together, but then she worked while I was at William Sallium, she was working at Ridge and she worked at Hudson, and so we're paralleling ourselves, but decided we were gonna settle back in Northern California. And we're working full-time at wineries, and Janice's dad, I think he looked into his crystal ball in January of 2020, and he decided he was ready to start taking a step back. Her older brothers had been involved in the business and decided that they didn't want to do it, and she's the youngest child. So in 2020, we jumped in with her dad's business, which started in 1975. It had a lot of history, and we're interested in it because we've loved wine and loved the opportunity to work with France. So we figured it would fit well with us, and we've really been enjoying it quite a bit. But it was a very challenging time to jump into the business.
SPEAKER_02So with Janice's parents in 1975, was the main part of the business? Was it always barrels, Sean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So Janice's dad was um Northern California hippie, and his sister had actually moved to Burgundy, and she um fell in love with Jacques Cess from Domain du Jacques, and Jim was still figuring out what he was gonna do with his life. He was working in real estate, and Jacques actually recommended to him that he get in touch with the Sarug family in Louis Saint-George, and they're right related to Henri Gouge, and so they were Jacques and knew Henry and knew the Sarug family, and so they got connected at that point. And Jock was really important for everything for Jim starting the business. He actually in 1981, before the 80s, people were still using wooden bungs, and in 1981, we introduced a silicone bung to the wine industry, and so that all came from Jock and different tools that we think we things we take for granted now, I think, in the cellar that my father-in-law really uh had a part in introducing to the wine industry, and that took off, he said by the truckloads, silicone bungs everywhere, and we're still riding that wave in a way. I got uh I got a lot of them in my lab right now. Yeah, no, they're the best in the business. So I'm happy to hear that.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so when right before you took on the business, right before COVID, obviously, uh, what were you and Janice doing at the time?
SPEAKER_01I in 2019 I worked until about June at William Sellium. I was uh full-time at William Sallyum and a property in Dry Creek called Flanagan Wines. The winemaker was going on maternity leave and asked me to jump in and help make the wine for that harvest. So in 2019, I made the wines at Flanagan, and it was a really great experience because he has a beautiful estate in Healdsburg, but he also owned at that point the Platt Vineyard out in Freestone. So we got like our choice blocks. Platt was designed by a fellow named Lou Platt, and he chose winemakers and allowed them to pick out the clones. And so we were getting blocks that Ted Lemon had planted and blocks. Our neighbors chose Bela was in there. Eric Sussman at Radio Coteau was making wine from there. And so we got some really nice blocks, and it was really a fun place to make wine, excellent Pinot Noir. And we still actually on the barrel side now work, those wines are made by it's owned by a French company, Platno, and we work with them on the barrel side with Thomas Brown.
SPEAKER_02So, Sean, between you and Janice, let's say you were on the winemaking side almost for 10 years, give or take, parallel to each other. The decision of because that's a hell of a trajectory, Sean, to go from what you know and what you ostensibly love to basically reframing your whole life and what you do for a living. How was that conversation?
SPEAKER_01One of the things that was important for us is that we would still be able to work harvest. We're really busy in the spring, and in a perfect world, by August, September, all the barrels are delivered and we can continue to uh make wine. And so that was one thing that was really important for us. Also, we our goal eventually is to have our own project and learning to run a business and learning to sell things. I think every winemaker should first learn to sell things. So it was a good experience. We knew that we wanted to understand how to run a business, how the accounting worked, how, and then very importantly, how to approach people and sell people things. And you can make the greatest wine in the world, right?
SPEAKER_02But if you don't know how to sell it, it just sits on the shelf. Yeah, a lot of winemakers say the the winemaking part is CC selling it, uh that could be a challenge.
SPEAKER_01So barrel sales are the same way. It's hard to sell barrels, and so it's a good experience. It's a lot of humble, it's a very humbling experience, and allowing yourself to be humbled like that is important.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Before we jump in, Sean, into obviously the the portfolio of the cooperatives and barrels that you carry, let's for the aficionado unpack a little bit this idea of why do we use barrels, why they're important. So let's start off with perhaps uh provenance, where barrels come from, and and we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Oak is the primary wood source that people use now for barrels. It's a really dense wood and uh very hard, and it has a good sealing ability, so it doesn't leak. The most important thing is that they don't leak. What we're realizing more and more is that they also have a lot of other benefits besides just being a vessel. One is that they have tannin and they are uh as you age in them, it's very interesting to taste two barrels side by side, an old barrel or a new barrel, and see how much fresher the new barrel is. So that's one really very important fact. I think probably the most important trait. And then second is that they offer really nice flavor into the wine and in a lot of ways can fill in gaps for you can make an excellent wine without barrels, but to truly make a great wine, there's something that a barrel will do in terms of lengthening the palate and filling it out that you can't do without a barrel. And barrels are primarily used on high-end wine. I would I think it's important to say that. And that is the market that we're really working with is people that are trying to do the great, make the great wines of the world. And that has some to do with flavor, but it more has to do with the texture of the wine and the way that it holds up over time. That a barrel is really helpful on that front.
SPEAKER_02Another question that I frequently get asked on tours when guests come to visit the winery, Sean, is the difference in vessel size and if that does have what impact does that have on the wine?
SPEAKER_01There's some tradition involved with that, but for me, and I will go on the record saying it, bigger is better. In your cellar, I see that you have quite a few large vessels, and I think it helps to tighten up the wine so that it has uh slower evolution, and that really is very important, but also there's tradition involved with that. And in Burgundy, they traditionally used 228 liters. In Burgundy, you're dealing with a lot of very small parcels, so that I think also they needed a vessel that they could use if they had a half acre of one vineyard, they couldn't use a huge food rug to do it. Another aspect of that, and then in places like Austria and Italy, they just traditionally used larger vessels. The vineyards were also bigger, but they and there so I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, and it's there's cellar logistics involved that sometimes you have to use small barrels because you're going underground and it's difficult, or you don't have the capacity to use the big you don't have the space in your cellar. So sometimes small barrels just make sense logistically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Even something Sean has the touch points on a barrel, the difference between sampling from a food and and sampling three 225s is just a little bit in terms of labor, it does have an impact as well. Another question, toast level on barrels, Sean. What can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_01Almost all barrels are toasted because raw wood can be sappy a little bit or green. Uh once you toast it a little bit, you have the ability to remove some of that greenness. And then it goes on a scale to from quite light, typically used on white wines. There's a balance between tannin and toast. So as you toast more, you have less tannin, with certain varietals that they really lend themselves to lighter toasts because the tannin works. But there's other varietals that are quite tannic that if you use a light toast, you're going to be a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of tannin you have there. So that's one aspect of it. There's also a flavor involved with the toasting. As you toast more, you get more of the mocha and the kind of chocolate flavors out of the oak opposed to the brioche or just lighter flavors that you get. Typically, we see that certain bridals prefer more toast. For example, Pinot Noir. Uh, I think it enjoys a little bit of toast there. It tends to lend it. Cabernet likes a little bit of toast. But I see, for example, Syrah sometimes benefits from a lighter toast. It already has quite a bit of savoriness. And so sometimes that extra structure also fills out the palate and gives a little grab on Syrah that can be coying occasionally. So it's a very important thing, and it's something that really trial and error has a lot to do with. I and it varies from Cooper to Cooper. So you see medium plus toast from one Cooper, it can be substantially more toasty than another Cooper. Also, then we there's the far side of the spectrum, which is like what you see in bourbon or scotch. Less so in scotch, maybe, but more so in bourbon, where it's charred completely and it's sweet. You get a lot of sweetness, not a lot of structure from the barrel. We are much lighter than that on the wine side. We don't have if you get your barrel and it's completely black on the inside, I think it probably will give a little bit of an ashiness or something to your wine that wouldn't work very well with the delicate fruit flavors. You'll lose all of those.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And then less, since we're going through the anatomy of all things barrel, let's just wrap it up with a bow talking about tight grain versus loose grain in in relation to the wood.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So then most of I I will preface by saying most of what we use is quite tight grain. The forests in France have been chosen for what we use for barrels. They've been, it's a long time they've been doing this that we use very tight grain. And that has a lot of factor, a lot of factors play into that, whether it be the amount of rainfall they get, the age of the tree definitely has uh a part of that. So we're dealing with extremely old trees that have been growing really slow for a long time. And it has to do with the flavor, and it also has to do with how the oxygen ingress from the barrel into the wine goes. And tight grain is really the chosen method for wine making. It uh the flavors are a lot softer from tight grain. They and we do offer some, and some people want that just punch, really a lot of impact. And so as you widen the grain, you tend to get a lot more aromatic contribution, and you notice the barrel a lot more in the wine. So it's an interesting thing. And we're talking when we talk about grain tightness, we're talking about the annual growth rings, and you can look at the circles, which actually University of Arizona has uh an incredible tree ring research lab, which is a beautiful building, if you haven't seen it, but it tells the story of the year. And so, what they did at University of Arizona was looking at what we can tell about the climate and everything from the rings of the trees, and it's something measurable. We have quantities, so we're dealing with less than two millimeters is tight grain, and most of the barrels that we deal with are in that range.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02The last question pertaining to barrels on this specific topic. Let's say someone is on a budget, Sean, and they are interested in using oat chips or oak on a rope. What are your thoughts on that? And have you had any experience in your winemaking career using those?
SPEAKER_01I haven't used them very often. We have a colleague at our business who has quite a bit of experience on that, but I'm not opposed to it. And I my number one, I think the most important thing with wine is getting wine on the table for people. And so if we can make help make very good wines at a lower cost using those tools. Another thing that we see quite a bit, even at high-end wineries, is with the chips and using putting them in at the crusher and into the fermenter and using them as a sacrificial tannin, and it helps bind color and can help remove some of the green flavors. And I see that you'll find $300 bottles of wine that they add chips there. Or I've seen people, some people use just tannin. Certain there's products available on the market that are just tannin. But I think these are tools that winemakers use typically when we're and they we have we also have line a line of very I think they're very high-end. They're 36-month age barrel stave quality wood that work inside barrels. So you still get the gentle microox that you get from a barrel, but you can put these things inside of barrels to help balance the budget on those things. When we're typically talking about that, though, we're talking about a big tank that you add stuff into. And I'm not opposed to that at all. I think that if that's a way of usually at that point, we're dealing it with oak as somewhat more of a flavoring agent, opposed to the other benefits we talked about earlier. When you look at winemaking, I think you look at all the tools in the tool chest and fit the ones that you think apply to the different situations. And so when for the wines that we see those going into and our biggest clients, they're really big tanks of wine. That's getting wine on the table for people.
SPEAKER_02All right, Sean. Let's talk about Boswell and what's underneath the tent, sir.
SPEAKER_01So our business is multifaceted. We have a winemaking equipment side, which is bungs, wine thieves, and some other tools, and we're expanding that a little bit just to offer some other tools that people use in the cellar. And that's a really important part of our business. It's not as seasonal as the barrel business, so it helps us to stay active. It also opens the door with a lot of people that our bungs are in a lot more places than our barrels are, so it gives us a big database of people to reach out to about the barrels. So it's a really helpful part, and it's a historical part. So the golden goose, I'd say. And then we also represent Coopers. We focus entirely on European Coopers. We have worked with American Coopers in the past, and that's something we're interested in doing. But the American Coopers have so much success with the bourbon industry. Brown booze is just going wild. It seems like they're coming down to Earth a little bit, but I think if you went to the moon, you'd probably find a bottle of Jack Daniels there. And I there's Jack Daniels everywhere. And so the American Coopers are a little bit less interested in the wine industry as a whole. And we historically have been based, our the companies we work with have been European. So we have three French companies, one Austrian. The French companies, two of them are in Bordeaux. One of them is in Burgundy. And then we are Austrian coopers in southern Austria on the Slovenian border. And in Bordeaux, the two Cooperages are Tolnerie Bosue and Ecla by Tonnerry Vinea. So it's interesting that the reason I geographically specify where they are is that these guys really are specialists in the wines from those regions. They've been making wines or making barrels for those wines for a very long time. They live in the area. So that I think is a really because these are not products made by machines. These are products made by people. And these are people that are trying to do the best that they can for the products that they for the wines that they work with. And so in Bordeaux, Tonary Bosso is a he we've been working with him since 1994. And he has a great list of clients in Bordeaux. He's very well respected, old school guy. It's interesting. We lived also when I was 13 years old, and I was a skateboarder. We lived in France, and I was a skateboarder at that point. And my friends were not the academic group. And they were at that point, it was clear to them that they were going to go towards trade schools. They, one of them, I remember my best friend at the time was going to be a mechanic, and he was going to start going the mechanic route at 14. He was going to go to a technical high school and start moving. The same as for Coopers. And so this is a skill that these guys have been refining for a very long time. They are true experts.
SPEAKER_02It's people on that are younger tend, I mean, in this field, do they start always younger or they identify whether it's a family business and they want to be involved?
SPEAKER_01Or yeah, and I think there's something for us to glean from that here. That it's not education isn't a one-size-fits-all for people. And I think that in France they have a much better understanding of maybe we should encourage you to start working with your hands a little bit younger. And we I definitely see that. And they have a the wine industry is pretty good about this, where you apprentice to learn. And that's what Janice and I did around the world, but we obviously started a bit later. But in Europe, for example, at all of our Coopers, there's young people, mostly men, some women now, but it's becoming more and more. I'm seeing more and more women in the Cooper's world. And they start young and they it's a part of you have to do a certain amount of hours until you become certified that you can become a Cooper. And so they have this already as a part of their system that we see. I always see young, and they make small barrels first, and they graduate and they learn all the different stages, whether it's planning the staves, then they start. I think the last phase is toasting because it's really a quite a human-driven. I I still some companies are starting to use machines to do this. They have sensors, and every Cooper that we work with, they always say the most important tool for a cooper is their nose, and that they really it's up to the cooper to decide. So that when how to toast and how to do that. And I think it's really an interesting something that you have to have time of doing to uh master that art.
SPEAKER_02Hence the difference in medium toast from cooperage to cooperate, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And slightly arbitrary. Exactly. And I think I went to a presentation recently, and one of the cooperators said we make 31 different permutations of barrels. It's just one nose cannot do that. It's not possible. Then it becomes a little bit of a machine-driven process, which I find the beauty in this craft to really be the human aspect. Like wine, I think Los Milich, I think it's a great example, or Jacques Cess at Domain Duj, or I think that having a person there makes things really special. And it's really the person and the skills that they transfer to the people that work with them that makes these projects unique.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so their energy, their signature, all of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we are based very close to Napa, and we've historically worked, we started really early in Washington, and so Bosaway is positioned at top producers in both of those regions. And he makes excellent barrels. We see them across many Parker Hundred wines have involved Tony Bosway barrels. And then also in Bordeaux, we have a cloth by Tony Vinya, and they have changed because almost all barrels, when they're toasted, are toasted over fire. And they have created another way of cooking the wood, which is now it sounds like machines, but it's really not. It's humans operating these tools that it's fascinating. Their cooperation smells almost like a bakery. It's such a light cooking of the wood, but not without allowing any raw wood, fully caramelizing the sugars all the way through. And you get a lot of fruit preservation. And in certain regions that we work in, whether it be Pasaroblas or different varietals, preserving fruit can be a little bit challenging. And so this has a great ability to really preserve that fruit as it's in its original form throughout the aging process. It's uh it tends to be a little bit more voluminous on the palate, not as structured because they are degrading the tannin through their cooking process. But when you mix a fire toasted barrel and those barrels, you get this whole cornucopia of flavors from a barrel that you would never be able to get just from fire toasting. And that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to build complexity and layers into these wines or highlight certain different things. And a claw will highlight things that both away just no matter how light we toast it, or we just can't achieve the same flavor profile.
SPEAKER_02What is the specific technique that the CLAT is using? Is that what they're using on the hydro barrel?
SPEAKER_01The hydro barrel is actually even another evolution. The original idea is the CRL barrel, the ceramic radiant long. So they use uh radiant heat toasting. So there's it's not directly in contact. There's a radiation of the heat out about 400 degrees Celsius, and that is enough so that you're not burning anything, but you're transforming the sugars to from the raw phase into more of a caramelized sugar. It bubbles, it's amazing. It looks like almost a creme brulee when you have the it like bubbles the sugars in the wood. And so that's really interesting, also, because cooperatives can be a lot of fire and it's it's a pretty hardcore work environment. These are solar powered and it's very little smoke in the cooperage. It's a totally different environment in there. And you literally walk in the door, and it's this enticing smell of not burning wood but caramelizing. It's it's a really interesting technology. I've seen some different methods to try to also, because we're other coopers are trying to replicate different ways of getting the full flavor wheel that you can get out of oak. And so there's other methods that I'm seeing out there. Then the hydro barrel is really interesting because they do that same process with fully saturated, they use steam and then to because as you wood bends with heat, so they have to shape that the barrel. They start as planks that are flat and long and then they bend to make it the shape that we know that and that is holds the liquid. And so they use steam instead of fire. Most cooperatives will use fire. So they use the steam, they shape the barrel, and while it's still saturated, they then put it on the ceramic units, which is interesting. It's like putting a boiling pot, is how I think about it. If you put a boiling pot on the stove, you're not going to get over 220 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the where you boil, that's the temperature you boil water. So as you toast with fully saturated, it moderates the temperature even more, and it's almost like sous v cooking the wood. So it's uh very soft.
SPEAKER_02So thus yielding a barrel that exercises restrain, maybe aromatically, but keeps that very same texture we're all looking for.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, and different aromatics from the wood. You get more floral aspects of the wood out of that process, a little bit more less of the kind of croissant, slight toasty, buttery croissant toasty notes. You get a lot more of the like floral aspects of the wood that show through from that lower temperature cooking. Okay, so let's head on to Burgundy. What I noticed is it really Carignan can be quite rustic, right? And I see a lot of preservation of the fruit, more of the red notes than just pure rustic Garique out of the Carignan. It's a little bit more red-fruited, which isn't normally necessarily something you would always see in Carignan.
SPEAKER_02Sean, let's move on over to uh Burgundy.
SPEAKER_01Okay. We have historically had a long-term connection with Burgundy. It's a region we, Janice's aunt and uncle live there. And so we've always, it's somewhere we like visiting. And we've represented several Coopers there, three over the history of the business, the 50 years of the business. So we had Sarug, and then we worked with Tonnery Mercury. And Tonnerre Mercury, we built it up to a very successful business, and they went how are now have their own representation. And we were in this phase where we only had Bordeaux Coopers. And in 2019, Eric Miard came Boris Champi, he was the winemaker at Dominus, and then after that, he went to Claude Lambray and Louis Latour. And Eric had been working at Louis Latour and in 2019 decided to start his own Cooperage, and they came to us for American representation. And that's been a really fun process for Janice and I, both because we worked a lot of our career with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but also because it was the opportunity to truly build a Cooperge and the business for a Cooperage here. So we started really small with about 60 barrels in 2019 and have grown him over the last several years. And this is a very capital-intensive business, the Cooperage world. The wood is expensive, the tools are expensive, and you do not see a lot of new companies coming out. So we were excited for just that fact. It was a man that had a ton of experience and had great references in Burgundy that we introduced into the American market. And we're seeing a immense success. A lot of doors have opened with wineries that we hadn't opened before. And they're really special barrels that we you can truly see when you look at the barrel that they're handcrafted by this man. He now has two employees, but when we started with him, it was just him in his shop. He's a triathlete, so he was able to do work very hard, but now he's in his own. He knew a thing or two about endurance. Yeah, he knew a thing about two or about endurance, and this is a very physical job, but it's been a very fun experience for us. And so we work with quite a few wineries in Oregon and here locally. He also, so the Bordeaux Coopers are primarily focused on that there's some 10,000 wineries or something in Bordeaux, and so they have a lot, but Burgundy they work a lot more with the Loire, and he works with in the Rhone region and has designed barrels that work very well for those varietals. It's also been an interesting experience to get to see how to fit barrels with those different varietals.
SPEAKER_02Just out of curiosity, he was a one-man show for how long, Sean? For three years, he was making all the barrels himself. How many barrels can you make by yourself? He was doing really I'm talking about this is like grassroots EDBD production at the beginning, right?
SPEAKER_01And he has an extremely long toasting process, like uh two and a half hours on really low flames. That you have to personally babysit while he's toasting. He can do a couple of them at a time, but he was uh doing five barrels a day at that point. Now and so we had to figure out because at some point we started getting a the barrels were getting a little bit late because he just could not make them faster. And we were growing our business. So he now has a little bit of help with him there. They're more working on the shaping. He's still the primary person in charge of the toasting. But five a day was his limit when he was alone. And the guy was I've seen him, I've seen gray hairs pop. The guy is working hard over there.
SPEAKER_02I want to put a pin on the part where he is still very much involved, which is the toasting. And you touched a little bit on this, but would it be safe to say that's everything is important, but the toasting is the part that you really have to be careful with, Sean?
SPEAKER_01The buck stops with him, and that's the signature, I'd say, at the end of the whole process. That's what we're gonna really notice. If they leak, then we're gonna have other problems. That's not allowed. That's the really what we're gonna evaluate about him is how they taste. And I think for him, because the Cooper just called La Fabrique Eric Mia, and his name is Eric Mia. So it's his name on there, and he uh was protective of that part of the whole process. It was really important for him that he and he has a very unique long toasting that it's not something you just hand over to somebody. So he was very protective of that part of the whole process. Okay. And then I hope I can bring some of these guys down to meet you because they're very proud to be a part of what you guys are doing in Arizona, and I think it'd be interesting for you to meet these guys.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Sean, are they in some trade show?
SPEAKER_01Do they ever go come to the symposium in Sacramento or actually we prefer to have them just go out and taste with us at wineries. For us to have them standing there and just we like to go to the clients and interact with them like that. And also at the trade show, because we do represent multiple cooperages, it can be a little bit complicated for us to just I don't know, I don't think they would hate each other, but I don't think they really want to be in a 10 by 10 little space with each other that much.
SPEAKER_02Enough said, enough said they're like, get out of my way, I'm the best Cooper.
SPEAKER_01It's uh competitive, there's a pride aspect to this because they have their names on it.
SPEAKER_02So in the barrel room at Los Me Leaks, we do have some large format boti food casks, whatever you want to call it. And as of uh last year, we had a new member, a new sort of what was that thing for Sesame Street? One of these kids is not like the other. We had mainly Stockinger Fudras before, and now we have a new one, thanks to you. Let's drive over to Austria, my kind sir.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And this is parallels what we were talking about, the Bordoleus focusing on the Bordeaux market and Eric being an expert on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at Eric Mear, is that we looked, Janice and I, when we joined the business, we looked at our portfolio and we thought we would like to have casks. We like tasting casks. A lot of the wines we love are aged in them. They another thing that's beautiful about them is that they tend to really last a long time. You see them there for extremely long time. So we started exploring the world and we went, these are Austria has historically been the place that really focused on these things. There, the French do them. Our Coopers all have said that they could do it for us, but they it was they were focused on the smaller size barrels, and it wasn't what they were experts in. So we went to northern Italy, we met with some people there, and we went to Austria and met with a few Cooper Jesus there, and we were introduced to Jakob Pauscha at Tasbindrai Klaus Pauscha, and immediately we were very impressed by what they were doing there. He's the fifth generation of his family. He's a young fellow, his father was a master Cooper, and Jacob started with him in 2011, and then his father unexpectedly passed away, and the young fellow was ascended to the running the family business, and we were just completely taken by everything they were doing, the quality of how they did it, and they were absolutely experts at casks. The region there, I don't know. Do you know Styria or Stiermark in the south of Austria? It's a fascinating history. Yeah, it's an amazing place. But one of the things when we go to Bordeaux or we go to Burgundy, we see people that have usually a selection of Coopers. There's a couple houses that will be one Cooper houses, but we usually see multiple Coopers in wineries. When we went to this area in South Austria, they it was almost a hundred percent pouchra. There was very little other apparels, and having the local industry believe in their Cooper like that for us was uh great testament to what they're doing. And so we went and tasted also, and some of the this area they make, they have their own unique style of making wine. They have a lot of Sauvignon Blanc planted, some Chardonnay, not a lot of reds down there, mostly white wines. And they were doing some of the people we were visiting were doing two years in the cask unsulfered. They have really low pHs, so they have a lot of really quite a bit of acidity, but these wines were so fresh, and they're getting like Parker 98s on these things that are unsulfered for two years, hit with 10 parts and put in the bottle.
SPEAKER_02That makes me nervous. You're making me very nervous, Sean.
SPEAKER_01It would make me very nervous, but I the proof is in the pudding. We were tasting these bottles and we were like, this is incredible. The texture after all that time and the quality of what they were doing, it was, I would say, generational knowledge to how beautiful their craftsmanship was on these. So we started working with them, and then we found that some people in the United States had already sought them out on their own, and so they are in certain sellers. I just saw a huge selection of them at Hayu in Hood River. He had uh a bunch of them, so both natural wine and more traditional sellers. You see them at Thomas Fogarty in uh in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and so these people had gone on their own to find them out, and Reese in the Santa Cruz Mountains also has a beautiful old Paucha cast that they use on their Syrah. So when we had a little bit of a reference, and another thing that's really important for us is looking at who in the world is using these, and their list throughout Europe was incredible. It was like Venus La Universal in Prirat and Ganova and Jura and some other Jura producers had them, Philippe Bonard. And so we were when we saw that we were like, Americans need access to this stuff, and we're really excited to be a part of it. I'm looking forward to going back and visiting them, and they're really beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Uh do these houses do they have different distributors throughout the United States, or do they normally just develop a relationship with one sole distributor?
SPEAKER_01With Eric Meard Yeah, with Eric Miyard, we have him entirely we're sole distributors. Uh Bosway does a little bit of self-representation. They manage the East Coast primarily. Okay. And that's something we've thought about. We're pretty busy, but maybe if we it's I I love exploring new wine regions, so it's something we've thought about perhaps expanding into other areas. Our bread and butter is really the west coast of the United States. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Let's briefly touch on getting these beauties stateside from the point of view, obviously, of when to order these barrels, what kind of logistical challenges should we be thinking about? And then once they arrived in your neck of the woods, especially for us here in Arizona, what are the best practices for lower moving forward?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sales is a big part of the business, but also the logistics are an incredibly complicated aspect of the whole thing. Actually, it's funny because you're are you from Colombia?
SPEAKER_02So born in Colombia, my name is not very Colombian, it's quite Serbian. My dad defected in 62 from Montenegro. Met mom in Medellin, which is where I was born, and I happened. But then I grew up in Queens, New York, and I wound up here and almost I can throw a paper plane to Mexico where I make wine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the reason I say that is that the container that has a few of your barrels is on its way up the west coast right now, and it just stopped in Cartena. They visited uh they visited the homeland real quick on their journey and stopped at the port there. But um what am I missing from you? What's coming? Yeah, exactly. Look inside. Maybe a surprise. No ouch. No, wait, what am I missing from you right now, Sean? That's coming. Oh, Klaus Pauscha and is on its way. It'll be there soon. And it stopped in Cartagena? It did, and it was needed to uh visit our friends down in LA first. And so I guess let's take it from the top. Yeah, sorry. It doesn't have a port right there, so most of the containers that leave France, so somebody will put an order with us. Uh almost everything we deal with is uh custom built to the order for the winery, whether it's specifications like the toast, which we were talking about, or certain More visual facts of it, a logo on the front or something like that. They all are, we're not doing any of that stuff on the United States side. So everything is built exactly to the order in France. So first thing we do is we get the order, we the Coopridge makes the barrel there, and then we fill shipping containers, 40-foot high cube shipping containers. You can fit 156 barrels, standard size barrels in a 40-foot high cube container. Then they go by truck from the Coopridge. Austria is landlocked, so they need to go. Those ones left from Belgium. And the French ones typically leave from La Have in northern France. And they load on containers and they go. Most of these containers won't stop on the east coast of the United States. They will go completely through the Panama Canal. And maybe there's a couple port stops in South America. And then usually they'll drop some containers in Los Angeles. And these, it's impossible to send these by. I've never sent a barrel by plane. I don't think it would make any sense. It'd just be double the cost at least. And so we almost don't send anything by plane. Everything is going by shipping container through the Panama Canal, which became a was there were some logistical issues with that. And I'm sure in the news everybody saw the Suez Canal. As soon as the global shipping gets tied up, it affects everything in the entire world. And in Panama Canal, they don't have a lot of water down there. So there was some concern about whether how many container ships, because there's a lock system, so they float them through this area. And we were a little bit concerned this year. Everything's been going very smooth. And then they come up the west coast of the United States. The closest port to me is Oakland, extremely busy, one of the most important hubs in the United States. Barrels are because of the we could drop them on the East Coast, right? And send them on a train. Is there a port in Vallejo at all? No. Everything from there's a lot of warehouses and stuff, but everything goes through Oakland for the big shipping container ships. Maybe Vallejo can take smaller boats. The major shipping container ships all go through the port of Oakland. And sometimes we send them up to Seattle for our Washington clients up there or Oregon. And they get to Oakland. Thankfully, we don't have to worry about temperature control with these. It's whereas shipping wine perhaps might be more of a concern. And seasonality is not as big of a deal for us. They tend to have enough moisture in the wood that they're not really dehydrating over the time on the water. It's about a four to five week trip over, which is really important. But in if you're in Burgundy making wine, you can just go knock on the Cooper's door and say, Can I have some barrels this week or something? But we need to plan. And we ran into some issues several years ago that it made everyone more aware of how much planning we need to do. Because if you're trying to barrel ferment Chardonnay and you don't have the barrels, you have a little bit of an issue. But so we really it's important that the orders get in early and we are able to get this process going. Because then it takes about a week or so at Oakland for it to go clear customs, get picked up, and then for it to get to our primary warehouse that we have here. They don't deal with anything else than but barrels. They're fully barrel delivery. Paul, who we've been on some emails with, and he has a fleet of trucks that he then takes the orders, consolidates different Coopers. He has quite a few, 20 or something, in-house with him. And there's two, maybe two other businesses like that here. And those go one here, two here, 10 here, 15 here. Sometimes we have several clients that we work with, full container orders, and so those will just come off the port, they'll get picked up by a truck and go straight to the winery. But for the most part, we then consolidate them here at the warehouse and send them out. Again, UPS is not an option for things like this. So you know this, you're pretty I'm impressed with how well you've gotten, how good you've gotten at this, Pablo at moving things down to Arizona.
SPEAKER_02I gotta tell you, uh one of the there's many challenges, obviously, in winemaking, but especially in Arizona and I think both in northern in southern Arizona is this idea of the remote nature of where we are in access. We don't have a Binner's Vault, we don't have ETS here or Scott Labs. So everything does in terms of logistics, it's a little bit harder to get. And the reason why I mentioned that is because it's it's my way of commending you, not only, Sean, for showing an interest, but it's amazing to have access to someone like you. You personally have delivered barrels, which is pretty freaking amazing service considering where we are, not only the aspect of getting the barrels our way, but the quality of the barrels that you're bringing us. So, having said that, first and foremost, I want to thank you for existing. And number two, talking about Arizona, my kind sir, though you are a native, what was your point of entry into the world of Arizona wine? And then we'll get ready to start landing this plane, my kind sir.
SPEAKER_01First of all, one of the things that I admire the most about what you guys are doing down there is how hard I see everybody working. So for me to do a little bit on my part to help you guys is a small piece of the overall picture of everything that you guys are doing. And so obviously I feel some camaraderie with you guys. But I think I started drinking Arizona wine as soon as I got into the business. I remember when I was in Australia, Maynard was running around with the Penfolds guys. And so I became, I think so. It was probably really in 2014 that I uh Were you also there when he was visiting? I didn't actually meet him, but there were he's uh the type of person that when he goes places, people talk about it. And so I think what he was doing was truly learning. He was there just to learn, and he was following around, I think, the uh Penfolds winemaker and just seeing what he could take that would apply to what he was doing. And I started buying wine uh pretty early when I would come home. I would we would have Thanksgiving Arizona wine on the table. And and then really what propelled it to the next level is I got in touch with you and with Todd. And now I'm Todd and Kelly are working, they work hard over there. It's really impressive to see, and it's something it's almost like that type of energy is infectious. I'm gonna come down this year to be a little bit of a part of it, but it's hard work that you guys are doing down there. So I'm impressed by it. And if I can have a tool that works well with what you guys do, let's dial it in and let's see how well we can do it together. And it's something I I'm quite proud of being a part of what you guys are doing down there.
SPEAKER_02So, Sean, besides uh those cabezas and los mealics, who else is getting some of your barrels here in our part of the world?
SPEAKER_01James is at Rune, and I've been James has been on my radar for a long time, following him since he was just beginning. We have friends that overlap in Northern California, and I've actually heard people talk about his stuff here that they are like they I see bottles sometimes at tastings, and Kent has a couple, and that's Kent's really doing incredible stuff. He's moved for many years. Yeah, he's really I don't even want to say pioneer, I want to say he's like the authority for me on what works, what doesn't work, what he's made so many mistakes, and I gotta pick himself up and learned from him that he's an incredible wealth of knowledge down there. And so I love tasting.
SPEAKER_02I call him Morpheus from The Matrix. I always like to go pick his brain because I'll in his laconic deadpan delivery, he'll tell it like it is.
SPEAKER_01Oh, completely. And we've had things that he's liked from our Cubers and things that he didn't like, and he doesn't shy away from saying that didn't work with my ones. And I that type of feedback is really what makes me better at my job. And but we're working with him with some of his older vine cabernet that he has out there. Uh Bosaway works really well, and he really likes how the uncertain bridles preserves fruit. He has them on whites and reds. But yeah, the Miard, for example, very well for him. Works very well for Todd, does not work that well for Ken. And I like that, but it's not one size fits all. We're dialing things in for each particular wine for each particular person. That's one of the complications of the job, but one of the most fun parts of everything.
SPEAKER_02But also, what makes it really exciting is to have this diverse conversation about what winds up in the bottle. Sean, where can folks find you? Where can they get a hold of you if they're interested in getting some of those amazing barrels in our state?
SPEAKER_01You can give me an email at Sean at Boswell Company.com. There's a lot of information on our website at www.boswellcompany.com and some good Cooperage pictures on our Instagram at the Boswell Co. Or if you're really interested, you can reach out to Pavle and he'll put you in touch for sure with Well dude.
SPEAKER_02Sean, I thank you so much, sir.
SPEAKER_01Pavle, thanks. I have so much respect for what you've done. So thanks. Right back at you, mister. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_02And that brings us to the end of the show. But before we say ciao, I wanted to let you know that if there are any questions about winemaking you'd like me to tackle on the pod, don't hesitate to email me at pavlamilic.com. That's P S T at Pavlamilic.com. Also, if you like the content and you know someone who would get value from it, please share it. And lastly, if you have been enjoying the show, head on over to wherever you listen, leave us a review, and subscribe. Until next time, this is your host, Pavlamillik.