Episode 16: Going Coastal: Currently Wine’s pursuit of the perfect Oyster Pairing, with Daniel Rodriguez.

In this episode of OYSTER-ology, host and the Foodwalker, Kevin Cox, engages in an insightful conversation with Daniel Rodriguez, the founder of Currently Wine Co., a wine brand committed to high quality wine intended to perfectly suit oysters while at the same time using proceeds to enrich select environmental causes including oyster restoration. Daniel shares his journey from a B2B tech CMO to a passionate wine entrepreneur. Detailing his transition, Daniel emphasizes his goal to combine his love for wine with purpose-driven initiatives that address environmental sustainability. They discuss the nuances of wine and oyster pairings, particularly focusing on the importance of Sauvignon Blanc as an ideal match for oysters. Daniel elaborates on the significant changes he made to the company, Currently Wine Co., which includes developing an innovative 90% lighter wine bottle packaging to reduce carbon footprint, celebrating coastal lifestyle branding, and intentional wine sourcing and production. The episode encapsulates how consumer choices can drive environmental change without sacrificing quality, punctuating the evolving relationship between wine, oysters, and sustainable practices. His modern approach to lighter yet superior tasting wine experience coupled with a younger, Instagram-ready esthetic, is refreshing and new in what he thinks of as an old-school thinking wine industry. 

00:00 Introduction to Wine and Oysters

00:26 Meet Daniel: From Tech to Wine

01:04 The Birth of a Wine Brand

03:14 A Purpose-Driven Wine Company

05:55 Transitioning to ProudPour

08:32 Challenges and Innovations

11:41 Environmental Impact and Packaging

18:05 The Perfect Pairing: Wine and Oysters

31:16 Future Plans and Conclusion

Links:

Currently Wine Co website (https://currentlywine.com/)

Tin Cup Chalice, by Jimmy Buffett (link to YouTube Music) (https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yoyWAOuQWHw) 

Oyster Master Guild (https://oystermasterguild.com)

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, by Adam Grant, Penguin Books 2017

Please be sure to Like and Follow OYSTER-ology wherever you listen to podcasts, and tell others about it. Every positive mention of it helps more people find the podcast!

Transcript

Transcript: 

Episode 16: Going Coastal: Currently Wine’s pursuit of the perfect oyster pairing, with Daniel Rodriguez.

[00:00:00]

[BUBBLES]

Daniel: It isn't true that every wine goes with oysters, right? And there's reason behind that. But of the, of types of wine that do go well with oysters, it's “Oh, why are we not having oysters while drinking this wine, or Why are we not having some wine while we're enjoying these oysters? Because it would make all of this so much better.”

 [BUBBLES]

Kevin: Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about the wide world of oysters, aquaculture, and everything from spat to shuck. I'm your host and the Foodwalker, Kevin Cox. Most oyster eaters today will agree that one of the important things about enjoying oysters is not the oyster at all, but rather what you drink with it. I agree with Jimmy Buffett that if you “bring me oysters and beer for dinner every day of the year, I'll be fine.” But one cannot dismiss the magical marriage of a cold stemmed glass of crisp white wine and a freshly shucked oyster on a sunny day beside the water. [00:01:00] And there's no one who believes that more than my guest today, Daniel Rodriguez. That's because Daniel, formerly a marketing executive for tech companies, left that world to become the founder and CEO of Currently Wine Company, a small wine outfit that produces wine specifically designed with a coastal vibe intended to be uncannily delicious with oysters. I had the pleasure of pairing several glasses of Currently and sensational Island Creek oysters with Daniel at a recent Oyster Master Guild gathering in New York, and experienced firsthand the fruits of his very specific vinous intent. 

In our conversation since then, Daniel talks about his efforts to launch a brand focused on environmental sustainability and social impact. He describes the importance of sustainable production practices, including dramatically lighter wine packaging and eco-friendly sourcing. In addition to lowering his own carbon footprint of his wine, Daniel also partners with environmental nonprofits for [00:02:00] oyster restoration, sea turtle rehabilitation, and coral reef regeneration. So with every bottle of Currently wine sold, a portion of profit goes directly to others’ efforts to also protect and improve the coastal environment. But Daniel knows that if the wine is not good, his efforts to give back are useless. So his priority is to market a wine that's not only delicious, but that harmonizes with the very thing he's trying to support – oysters.

We also talk about the role of consumer choices in fostering environmental impact and Daniel's future plans for Currently Wines. So replace your corkscrew with a shucking knife and pull out your favorite wine glass to sip, slurp and converse about different styles of the same Sauvignon Blanc; how today's consumers want to buy; shattering the myth of glass wine bottles; the importance of intentionality; giving back to the environment; the meaning behind the name Currently; and the Heaven-sent [00:03:00] affinity of oysters and wine, with my environmentally ambitious vino producer, entrepreneur, and oyster-pairing devotee, Daniel Rodriguez.

BUBBLES]

Kevin: Daniel, thank you so much for being on OYSTER-ology today. I'm thrilled to have you as a guest. I recently had the great pleasure of drinking your wine in New York at the, Oyster Education Summit, where you served a lot of wine and it was really good. And I understand now the connection between your wine and oysters. But before we get into that, I want to learn a little bit about you and why you're here. So tell me about yourself. What's your background? 

Daniel: How did I get here? I think that's a David Burns quote there. This is not my beautiful life. So I did, I recently became the founder of a new wine brand. I had actually taken over previously existing wine company, but my background actually, [00:04:00] has been in B2B tech. So I was the CMO of three different B2B tech companies over the course of the past 11 years.and I had been into wine as a wine lover and someone who also was then taking coursework, doing the whole, through the W S E T. uh, basically that whole kind of SOM thing, I was doing that just as a hobbyist, you know, someone who is really much, I view myself as a wine explorer and also a wine collector. And I had, in many ways, really, like, the gravitational pull of the earth was really, taking me toward wine, and everybody who knew me, and, I, I have to apologize all the time, to my wife after we were in conversations with people, she's “when someone asks you one question about wine, they're just being nice.But then if you keep talking about wine, it's alienating to the conversation,” and I'm like, “I thought they were really into it.” And she's “I think you were [00:05:00] talking a lot.” but it really would go to…

Kevin: I have some very dear friends who we explore a lot of wine with. And the woman, whenever we walk into a wine store and I ask questions, she looks at me and she says, “You get five questions. That's it.” 

Daniel: it really has been like an honest passion in many ways, right? In just pure and true and, both I think from that kind of like right brain, curiosity side where you're trying to learn different things, you know, you ask one question of why in wine and then it facilitates this rabbit hole of information discovery.

but then also there's just such an experiential thing about wine, which, I enjoy very much being able to, open up a bottle of wine with other people and just have great wine and also have great conversation, so the social aspect of wine has been a big part of my own life.

So I think that, when this opportunity basically presented itself where there, [00:06:00] there was a wine company. And then the kicker here on top of this was that there was a do-good component to the wine company, that had to do with environmental cause and oyster restoration work that was attached to the wine company. And I said, This is, this to me is actually, sounds like the perfect kind of combination of things. I want to have. I want to do something that has purpose. I want to do something that connects my passion for wine and also utilizes my skills around brand building. Because really, at the end of the day, that's what I think a Chief Marketing Officer is really trying to do is build a brand.

Kevin: A lot of people enjoy wine and decide to become, a wine explorer, like you said. But you took it to kind of another step and decided, I want to do more than just understand and drink wine. I want to actually create wine and sell wine. Were you ready for a transition in your life to do that?

Daniel: I was, I started going to business school 14 years ago. It's a two year [00:07:00] full time program at MIT. And, and when I was going to business school, I was transitioning my career from the investment world. I'd done like strategy consulting and investment management and I was moonlighting nights and weekends with a wine app. that was, it was a, like, you know, take notes about the wine you're tasting app, but it was morphing itself into, what it hopefully should have become, which it didn't end up becoming, but, there, there's an app, called Vivino, if people are familiar, and they're into wine. And it was, I think it had the potential back then to become what Vivino ended up becoming, and where you're doing kind of discovery, taking a picture of the label and building a community and then facilitating a wine purchase that could potentially happen to, so I was doing that kind of nights and weekends and just really getting like that itch around doing something on the operating side and it being in a passion area like wine.

That was that first foray, right? And I was still in my twenties at that point. I [00:08:00] then went to business school and then was doing B2B tech and learned so many great things, met so many great people. But I did find myself in particular, like during the pandemic when everything became work from home and I wasn't, like with my team on a day to day basis anymore, because everything went remote.

 I found myself increasingly and this also coincided honestly, with turning 40, and I have three kids. three kids, what am I doing with my career that is actually going to have an impact? What am I leaving behind? yes, I'm being successful and I'm making money, but, but what am I really doing? so I think that existential question in a lot of ways, coincided with, that career opportunity then presenting itself. 

So before the pandemic, I had actually met the founder of a company called ProudPoor. And Proud Pour had this environmental give-back component to each of their wine varieties. The Sauvignon Blanc did oyster restoration. There was a Coral [00:09:00] Reef, Rosé. and it went down the line. And, when I met the owner, I was thinking Oh, wow, how cool is it that there is this there's a wine company and they have this environmental cause give back component Because those two things that you know, that's a bullseye thing for me And then a year and a half ago when I received an email from Brian, the founder of ProudPoor saying, Hey, been at this now for about eight years. I'd love to be able to pass the baton to somebody. and you know, I wrote him back in five minutes because it just felt like that was that moment. And I had promised myself, even though I was feeling like a little bit, listless but, antsy about what to do next. I promised myself I am not going to make a rash decision and a quick jump into something else. The next move I make is going to have a lot of intention. And so I'd been waiting in some ways for a year or two. 

And then I remember giving my best [00:10:00] friend a call. It was this conversation where, you know, I'm the breadwinner. I've got, a family and we've got obligations and, um,but there's this opportunity that's presented itself. And he just like, without kind of hesitation, he goes, Well, you just have to do it. And I was like, yeah, well, that's easy for you to say. What do you mean? I just have to do it. I would have to raise a million dollars and quit my job and figure out how to bring a whole product to market and probably change a bunch of things because we have to look at what was successful and what wasn't successful and, uh, and that actually, that's what I did. 

Kevin: Wow. So when you said all that to him, he just said, details. 

Daniel: Pretty much. Pretty much. And in some ways, it really grounded me and reoriented me about yeah, so you're saying it's going to be a lot of work, but so what? Because it will give you purpose. And that purpose, I have found, has changed the way that I feel about myself [00:11:00] and about my own purpose and the career work that I'm doing. So he was right. And being able to take great advice, has been, something that I feel really fortunate that I've been able to do.

Kevin: Does that mean to say that, when you made that decision, you just left everything else and stepped into the abyss and just made it happen?

Daniel: No, it doesn't. There's a great book by Adam Grant He basically disproves this whole, founder narrative that you jump out of a airplane with no parachute. said, actually, and you look back at these very, amazing success stories that, in, in the retelling sound like these overnight successes, right? It's more like a, it's a very calculated, thought through, risk taking opportunity. and I do feel like in many ways that's what ended up happening, right? Um, I wouldn't have been able to successfully take over the business and then relaunch the business without [00:12:00] successfully recapitalizing it. And so that part of it was a huge, I think, hurdle to, to, to making the company,happen and be what it is now. And that was very stressful because I recognized, this is a go or no go, like you either get the money raised, you don't get the money raised. I was really fortunate. Um,what I would have never really, I think, understood at the time, 10 years ago, when I was grinding away at a tech company and trying to figure out my, ask for my elbow about what I'm doing was that I was actually. meeting people that were going to become future investors in my company,which is pretty cool.

Kevin: Are you pretty much a one man show right now? Or do you have a crew that you work with beyond your, Investors, of course.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. so I'm the only employee of the company. I do have somebody, named Kelly who's helping, with social media part-time. But that being said, there's so many talented people that I've partnered with and paid as contractors for help on the marketing side And leaning into experts on the winemaking [00:13:00] side, and packaging So, um, not just me.

Kevin: When you took over Proud Pour, tell me a little bit about the changes that you made.

Daniel: So Proud Pour was a small brand and it was an, it was a niche offering, right? And the name Proud Pour, and how there were individual environmental causes attached to each grape variety, meant that you had to be, like, down for the environmental cause and the grape to want to buy the wine, right?

Kevin: So if you don’t care about coral reefs, you're not going to buy the rosé?

Daniel: Probably not because it was prominent on the front of the label. and then the company during the pandemic had wound down by that time. Then Brian had said, Hey, we're interested in transitioning ownership. So once I had taken over the company there was no existing inventory anymore, which really allowed us to then take a reset and say, okay,what should we do differently so that we can both fulfill this mission that this company has, but then also be a really successful company and a [00:14:00] successful brand? The idea of building a brand that was then only supposed to ever be small-ish was not kind of part of the strategy.

Another thing that came up was the environmental give-back component was something that was important to me, But as I looked at the idea of building a brand that had, environmental impact as it's cause and as its mission, the question very quickly became, but what are we doing as a company to operate in that way? We have terms like greenwashing for saying, Hey, you just maybe give a little bit of money to these causes, but are you doing anything to leave the environment a better place as a company that has environmental cause behind you. And When you look into this question you do not have to get very far to find out that basically the carbon footprint of drinking wine is twice as high as it needs to be.

And the answer behind why that [00:15:00] is has to do with the weight of heavy glass bottles that is used to transport the wine from where it is made and bottled to where you are, and almost nobody knows this. The wine industry does know this, but in all of these studies that are trying to tell the wine industry, How can you actually do a better job of caring for the environment? The answer is you need to make your packaging much, much lighter. And if you do this and you source sustainably in the growing practices in the vineyard, which does have an impact also on the carbon footprint of drinking wine, you can lower the carbon footprint of wine by over 50%. Which is significant and so we would have to change the packaging and the way that we sourced our wine and make a ton of intentional choices. In doing that, we would be true to our [00:16:00] mission in a very similar way to a brand like Patagonia, right? Which, is a big popular brand that has, great products that are known for high quality, but then they also have this reason for existing and some people want to understand their sourcing and their intentionality and the environmental give-back component and what they're doing to reduce their own carbon footprint. We very much looked at brands like that and say, that's great. That's exactly what we can and should be.

Kevin: That's a lot harder than just giving money.

Daniel: I appreciate the acknowledgement of that, it certainly is harder, right? There, there is an expected pathway for you to go down. It's very easy to find glass bottles and corks and places that can do the bottling. you know, wine that you might find is fine enough, that is, maybe grown with a lot of chemical intervention in a way that's not great for the environment. And, and you might think, this is [00:17:00] fine because, this is how all the companies do it anyway, and when you then decide to do something different, it's like swimming upstream. It's like how do I find wine that actually fits with this ethos? How do I how do we actually get this wine bottled?

It's been a lot of work. It's also a little bit more expensive. Some people have asked this, hey, is it cheaper to do this? The answer is no, it's not, but at the same time we decided to do these things because, because we think that they're important, and they're the right thing to do.

Kevin: So yeah, your bottle, when I picked it up, it did look just like a very ornate, beautiful bottle. And, my hand went up higher because it was expecting a heavier device and all of a sudden, here's this lightweight bottle which is made of, is it aluminum?

Daniel: It's aluminum. 

Kevin: It's weightless, compared to a glass bottle.

Daniel: It is. It's very similar, Kevin, to what you're talking about, where they hold the bottle of wine in their hand and it's a 750 milliliter bottle bottle of wine, which is a [00:18:00] standard kind of, volume of wine, but because the vessel itself weighs 92 percent less, the effect is that a bottle of Currently is about half the weight of a regular bottle of wine. Because basically the liquid weighs about as much as the actual glass does in a regular bottle wine. So we basically remove all of the packaging weight and all you're left is just with the liquid weight. And so people are shocked. They're like, I can't believe a full bottle of wine could be like this.

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about your design on the outside of the bottle. And does that fit into your environmental priority?

Daniel: Yeah, so we, so we made a decision to rename the company from ProudPour to Currently. Partly because I actually focus group tested the name ProudPour and, [00:19:00] too many people were associating it with Proud Boys, which is absolutely not what we wanted to be communicating with our brand name, and so, we changed the name to Currently, and focus on, a coastal lifestyle brand.

And, one of the major benefits of this new packaging type is that you have a full canvas. The bottle we print on, it's ink that is actually printed onto the bottle that has a matte finish. So it's this premium kind of experiential thing, and you can do it from the very bottom of the bottle all the way up to the cap. The whole thing. the canvas that we have is three times the size of a standard bottle of wine canvas, where you think of a label that's just going around the, the bottom third of the bottle. and so when we looked at this and we said, okay, the name of the company is Currently, we really want to convey this coastal [00:20:00] lifestyle brand, we care about these nearshore causes, right? That's also part of the name Currently. And I then, partnered with two incredible designers, Ben and Laney at Blue Rock Design. Shout out to them. And I said, the only rule. Is that we have to be different. We have to stand out. And this bottle has to be beautiful. And the result is something that, that not only looks premium, but really exceeded in some ways my wildest expectations and is very clearly communicating this coastal lifestyle brand right away. People see the bottle and they go, Oh my gosh, I want to have this, right next to my oysters in the shellfish tower.

Kevin: Okay, so I understand the environmental component. Why oysters, as opposed to other environmental or coastal causes?

Daniel: This is a great question. When we decided to pick just our near shore environmental causes it was oyster [00:21:00] restoration, sea turtle rehabilitation, and coral reef regeneration. And the oyster piece because our Sauvignon Blanc. was the oyster give-back wine that, that we had, and it was our best selling product that we had. The oyster piece felt like, central in some ways to the wine. We used to hang an oyster shell off the neck of our bottle, and to this day I still, you know, people still come up to me, oh, was that that wine that had the oyster shell hanging off of it? That was a distinctive, feature that, that we had.

 I, myself, don't really know much about oyster restoration. I just, as a consumer love oysters and you know, I'm like, bring on the brine. let's, let's pair these things. You know Sauvignon Blanc is obviously, probably the single best wine pairing with oysters, especially a good briny oyster and a good Sancerre style Sauvignon Blanc that have these kind of minerality, and, acid balance in the wine as a kind of palate cleansing [00:22:00] thing with oysters in particular. These pairings were kind of like made in Heaven together and then brought down to us. It really does feel divine. 

And so I've been going around and basically learning about this, visiting the different nonprofits that we have supported in the past and went down to Maryland, with the Oyster Recovery Partnership and met the team down there and, they're doing some of the biggest oyster restoration work in the entire world. And we had worked with Billion Oyster Project in New York in the past. I'm working here with the Massachusetts Oyster Project as well as the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group. and. 

There is a story here where the oyster recycling efforts that are happening in these restaurants paired with our part to then help raise the awareness of why oyster restoration is so critically important as a keystone species to our local environments. paired with Sauvignon Blanc that they're enjoying with those oysters, paired with the environmental cause give back component where we're giving a portion [00:23:00] of our proceeds to that cause, that is a full circle thing.

Kevin: Have you learned a lot more about oysters and has that expanded your approach to either this wine or future wines and more relationship to aquaculture oysters.

Daniel: I've learned a ton about oysters and oyster restoration work. And actually there are waterways in, in and around Boston and Cape Cod that, that have been closed to local fishing and this idea that you can't go and just grab seafood straight out of the water in these places. But it doesn't – didn't used to always be that way. And there are some people, their grandparents who lived there and grew up there will tell you stories about how, Hey, we could actually just go right down to the beach and we could walk right out and we could grab shellfish and we could just bring them back home and put them in a boil and we could have dinner like that, right? And [00:24:00] because it was safe what is happening with the oyster restoration work that I find so inspiring is that in 5 to 10 years we are going to see some of these areas open back up. And maybe we had to skip a generation here, but now my kids will be able to then walk down to the water and they will be able to pick some shellfish straight out of the mud and bring it back and cook dinner and hopefully we see this idea of getting back to where things used to be, and that it's not just everything is going in the wrong direction that these programs actually build hope and build sustainability back into ecosystems.

Kevin: There's been so much horrendous loss over the generations of oyster habitat, and that's what we tend to focus on is the devastation that's taken place, which of course is true and cannot be understated. But I like to [00:25:00] hear you talk about how, you know, we're actually slowly turning things around and making improvements. And it's a slow burn, but it's, it's happening. It's not all doom and gloom.

Daniel: It's not, and I think that the key to a lot of this being successful is that you have to believe in the power of consumer choice, where people choose to spend their money and then the intentionality behind what is going on with that business, it matters, right?

Hey, we're going out and we're gonna, we're gonna go to a seafood restaurant, we have choices where we want to go. If someone in the group says, hey, let's make sure we're going somewhere that has an oyster shell recycling program that's doing things around sustainability, that's voting with your dollars, right? Now, of course the place has to deliver on the goods, right? You can't have, you can't have sustainability with an inferior offering. And we [00:26:00] think of the same thing about our own product and our own brand, with Currently.

You can't go out and tell somebody, Hey, you should drink this wine because it matters for the environment, but you'll be sacrificing something on the quality of the experience. Absolutely not, maybe you'll get a few people that are just like, Hey, this will feel good to support your cause kind of thing, but you won't actually build a sustainable breakthrough brand.

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about your perception of the relationship between wine and wine tasting. And oysters, and merroir versus terroir, and that sort of thing.

Daniel: I think that the whole way of thinking about enjoying and experiencing,the world of wine and what wine has to offer has a lot of similarities to enjoying and experiencing what the world of oysters have to offer, [00:27:00] Wine basically tastes the way it does for three reasons. It is a certain grape, so it has inherent characteristics. It is grown in a certain place, and it shows characteristics of the way that it tastes because of that place, the terroir, and the choices that are being made by the farmer and the winemaker impact the way that it ends up tasting and how you end up consuming it. And it's the exact same thing in oysters, right? The species of the oyster itself has an obvious impact on what you're tasting, where that species of oyster is actually being grown shows a flavor profile around it. And then the choices that the farmer is making about how to grow and then present those oysters then has that impact. And in the case of oysters and certain types of wine, there is such obvious [00:28:00] food and drink pairing that goes with it. It then also has this, actual come-together moment, it isn't true that every wine goes with oysters, right? And there's reason behind that. But of the, of types of wine that do go well with oysters, it's Oh, why are we not having oysters while drinking this wine or vice versa? Why are we not having some wine while we're enjoying these oysters? Because it would make all of this so much better.

Kevin: What involvement do you have in the making of the wine and making sure that it offers the characteristics that you want it to offer?

Daniel: Yeah, that's a great question. so as a wine brand, rather than a winery owner, right? I don't own any land or equipment. We source product from wineries that are adhering to our quality standards, meaning we're looking for California certified, sustainable wine, and certified vegan wine and if you don't meet these criteria, we're not going to present you to our [00:29:00] customers because this is what our brand, means and matters.

And then We also are looking for a certain flavor profile. So in the case of Sauvignon Blanc, if I can dork out slightly here, let's talk a little bit about Sauvignon Blanc. and I will, and I will say that I will use descriptors rather than judgment terms. So this is like words that we use in the wine industry to describe wine, rather than, I'm not trying to pass judgment on wine. but I want to talk about why we selected the wine that we did, the characteristics and why that also goes so well with oysters.

So I think that there are three like styles basically of Sauvignon Blanc. There is a New Zealand style and which is incredibly popular, that is known for having, great acidity and then also flavors of fresh cut grass. And I know this word is going to sound weird, there's a term called gooseberries,which people also talk about as kittly litter, like cat piss. We talk about that as a marker on the nose. [00:30:00] And I do think that, that wine goes well, with oysters. I think that all Sauvignon Blanc generally goes well with oysters. I think if you're going to be having oysters and you are having a Sauvignon Blanc or a Chenin Blanc, or a Pinot Gris, I think that you are doing a great job at life, and you're having a moment in that life, and you should enjoy that moment, certainly. The, the second style that I'll talk about with Sauvignon Blanc is, what I would consider a, a traditional warm California style. When Sauvignon Blanc is grown in warmer climates it tends to express itself with certain flavor characteristics, and some of that can be like grapefruit, where it, it hits both on the ripeness, but then on the acid. And then also it can get, if it's in really warm growing region, it can start showing, more like tropical fruits. like you get into the melon, and then it goes all the way into things like pineapple, guava kind of stuff. And [00:31:00] sometimes that can create a flavor profile that is pretty big, and can have a little bit of sugar in it, left over, still. And again, some people might love that, some people might not. Some people might not prefer that. 

The third style, I will consider and call like the classic old world French style, which is popularized in the region of Sancerre, in France. And Sancerre has a really delicious minerality and a crispness to its structure and its acid. And then has some stone fruit, but isn't necessarily overwhelming on some of the other kind of fruit characteristics,and is very oftentimes dry, zero grams of sugar.

Our wine is a Sancerre style of wine. It is from California, but from a cool growing region of California, which allows it to express itself like a Sancerre style. So when I was showing the [00:32:00] wine just a couple of days ago to some people who are real experts in wine, the guy takes a sip, and the first thing he says to me, is, THIS needs oysters. We then start talking about it and he said, Oh, the acidity, the minerality here, the crispness of this just pairs so well with oysters.

And so there is something that, you know, the way that the acid in higher acid white wines, which Sauvignon Blanc is, the way that acid and the minerality allow you to create, cut the briny liqueur that's in the oyster and allow it to. Because sometimes what happens is if you just eat a bunch of oysters in a row without anything else, it can feel a little much. You end up feeling this sense of, wow, there's this kind of metallic thing going on. And I mean, at this event we were just eating multiple oysters without anything as much of even water in [00:33:00] between, you know? And I'm like, wow, I'm really glad I really love oysters, ‘cause this is a Full Monty of like oyster flavor going on. And all I was thinking in my head… 

Kevin: We ate a lot of oysters.

Daniel: We ate a lot of oysters, but all I was thinking in my head was, I could really use like a palate cleanser. Like, I need something as like a, a refresh and reset. And that is basically what Sauvignon Blanc, especially in the Sancerre style, does with oysters. Which allows you to have an oyster, you take a sip of the wine, and then once you're having the next oyster, that refreshing brininess that comes through and the cleanness of some of the meat and some of those sweet notes, come through without having this kind of overwhelm of some of the other characteristics of oysters that, that might just end up lingering and if you build too much of that, it can take away from the rest of it.

Kevin: I think it's easy to get a little bit of almost palate exhaustion and you [00:34:00] need to refresh like you described.

Daniel: That's right. That's right. It's a great way of putting it. 

Kevin: So right now the only wine style that you're making is this Sancerre style Sauvignon Blanc,

Daniel: That's correct. Yeah, we are going to spend 2025 just, spreading the word, getting it out there, getting it all to the, all the right places, for people to be able to enjoy our wine when they are having, that dozen oysters. That's our plan for 2025. I think that there's some really exciting, obvious, new products that, that we'll have in 2026, with a rosé, with a sparkling wine, and probably a red blend that is light pinot noir probably dominant, and that could be served and enjoyed lightly chilled.

We also are going to be focused on getting our wine back into some of these coastal markets where we had been successful in the past. And we think is a great part of our, our narrative and give-back component,in Massachusetts,

 in places in Long Island and, the Hamptons in Cape [00:35:00] Cod and Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. And I also want to have Currently served alongside, oysters and shellfish presentations that are beautiful and made for Instagram, because people care about how something looks and how it presents and then how that reflects their own artistic effort. And so I'm actually excited to be able to put our product, which obviously has a lot of Instagram-ability and intention behind the bottle design, right next to and enjoyed with other very clearly beautifully intentional food moments.

 Kevin: Daniel, thank you so much for this time. This has been so interesting and, you know, I've said to many people that OYSTER-ology is about the world of oysters, not just about oysters themselves, and your wine fits very succinctly within that world. I can't wait to see what you do with other wines too. I'm picturing a dry Provencal style [00:36:00] rosé So I'll be keeping my eyes open for it. So thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. And we'll, we'll see you in the wine bar.

Daniel: Thank you so much, Kevin.

Kevin: That's it for this episode of OYSTER-ology. Thanks again to my guest Daniel Rodriguez of Currently Wines. You can find the Currently Wine’s website in our show notes to this episode. And while you're there, please follow the podcast and please leave a comment telling me what you think of the show. Just click the link called Send Us a Text. I read every one, I've got a really thick skin and I'll always reply. So don't be shy.Thanks for listening, and join us next time as we pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic. 

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