Big Cork Vineyards with Keith Morris

Summary

In this engaging episode, Keith Morris, the Vice President & General Manager at Big Cork Vineyards, shares his journey from California to Maryland, discussing the unique qualities of the wines produced in the region. He highlights the significance of local winemaking, the importance of supporting small producers, and Big Cork's recent recognition in the Somm Journal. The discussion also delves into the intricacies of winemaking, including the Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc offerings, and the overall experience visitors can expect at the vineyard.

Takeaways

• Keith moved from California to Maryland for personal and professional reasons.
• Big Cork Vineyards is celebrating its 10th anniversary with exciting events.
• The Chardonnay produced at Big Cork is recognized for its quality and extraction.
• Cabernet Franc is a standout grape variety in Maryland and Virginia.
• Supporting local wineries enhances the wine experience and community.
• Big Cork offers a beautiful setting for wine tasting year-round.
• Visitors can expect a welcoming atmosphere and knowledgeable staff at Big Cork.

Wines Tasted

Big Cork Vineyards Chardonnay

Big Cork Vineyards Cabernet Franc

Find out more about Big Cork Vineyards and upcoming events on their website https://www.bigcorkvineyards.com/

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:01.389)
All right, Keith from Big Cork Vineyards, welcome to the show.

Keith Morris (00:05.538)
Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

Laurie Forster (00:07.545)
Me too. This is so exciting. We met a few months ago at a ceremony to award some Governor's Cup wine competition winners here in the state of Maryland. And so I thought it was so intriguing that you had come to Big Cork Vineyards from Klein family in Sonoma and certainly hear of a lot of people going from Maryland out to California to do wine. But I don't know if I've heard of a lot of people coming from California back here to the East Coast.

So I'm excited. Let's start by hearing a little bit more about how you came to Big Cork Vineyards. I know we have two great wines that we're gonna taste here, your Chardonnay and your Cab Franc. So we'll get to that and some other things, but how the heck did you make it here to Maryland, Keith?

Keith Morris (00:55.362)
Yeah, I get that a lot. In fact, when I first came to the winery, a lot of the folks that I would meet in the tasting room would say, it's so sad. And I was like, no, I wanted to. I really wanted to get here. Yeah, it was intentional. there's always a variety of motivations about why people do things. And for me, I really had done something for a long time in California that was sort of big format.

Laurie Forster (01:06.745)
Yeah, I did this on purpose.

Keith Morris (01:23.502)
And I loved it. loved being around the energy of it and all of the busyness of Sonoma and Napa and all the tourism. But I'm from South Carolina. I grew up on the East Coast. My wife is from Pennsylvania. My sons, I have a son who's a nurse and a son who's a math teacher. They live in Ohio. I wanted to be on the East Coast and that had been going back for a few years. So I had a couple of recruiters that I knew in the industry that I had said, hey, look, if

Laurie Forster (01:39.491)
Amazing.

Keith Morris (01:52.854)
I have an expression that use here at the winery that people laugh at me about, of my team especially, but I said, hey, to the recruiter, if you could ever find a winery that makes real quality vinifera that's serious about making wines of a place, I would be interested in doing that. I said, if they make huckleberry surprise, that's probably not right for me. And look, I mean, I get it. There's wines for all sorts of different people, but I just didn't have a background in making.

Laurie Forster (02:13.549)
Right.

Keith Morris (02:22.336)
fruit based wines and that sort of thing. I wanted to come to a place that needed somebody to kind of help get them to that next level of the business that I had experienced because Klein had grown when I first came to Klein many years ago. Klein was a 30 to 40,000 case winery. And I think at the peak we were over 400,000 during my time there. So I had seen large growth, but you know, there's nobody making that much volume on the East coast. But I really was curious about

learning about the terroir, learning about what was driving the business here. And I wanted to get back to the East Coast. And I have to say, we've been, they haven't had a single day since we came here that I've been unhappy about the decision. Not only is Western Maryland beautiful, I mean, it really is, but there's a lot of energy here. The winemaking that's going on here is, I was convinced as soon as I had a chance to taste the wines, there's some really

Laurie Forster (02:57.635)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (03:08.685)
Yes.

Keith Morris (03:20.238)
world-class developmental winemaking that's happening here. And so I'm happy to be a part of

Laurie Forster (03:26.209)
That's awesome. And I actually had the folks from Firefly Farms, their amazing cheeses from Accident Maryland. That's also somewhere out there in Western Maryland. And so there's a lot of great things going on out there. Not only does wine, there's food too. awesome. Well, I love that story. I'm an East coaster myself. I love going to the West coast, especially Oregon. It's one of my favorite places, but

Keith Morris (03:38.337)
Yeah.

Keith Morris (03:45.347)
Tokedown.

Laurie Forster (03:54.809)
I don't know that I could move there, but I love to visit all the time. So I'm sure you'll still get to do that. All right, big cork. You're just getting ready to celebrate your 10th anniversary. And I know that's exciting and you have some exciting events. But today we were going to focus on a couple of the wines that you feature because recently they've been recognized by some wine authorities, if you will.

And the first one we were going to taste and talk about is your sharp big cork Chardonnay. And so one of the things I love and I know, you know, we're not supposed to care about the labels, but you know what people do fun, fun label with a little. Yeah. There's a, who is this guy that's sitting on the cork there?

Keith Morris (04:37.078)
It's okay to care about the labels. Absolutely. They're fun.

Keith Morris (04:44.632)
So the littles, the littles are a big part of big. So because we're big cork and our owners, the Thompson family, Jen and Randy Thompson who own us and then Dave Collins, who's our winemaker, who's one of our owners also, they really did sit and think about how do we select a label and come up with a design that reflects who they are as people and who they are as people is that they don't take themselves too seriously.

Laurie Forster (04:48.451)
Okay.

Keith Morris (05:11.426)
They like to have a good time and to enjoy things. And the littles are all characters. None of them are real, but they're all characters that are doing different things. There's this guy here who's on the Chardonnay bottle, who's reading the newspaper. We've got a workman that's running a jackhammer. My business card when I first came here was a guy sitting in a beach chair, reclining, sunning himself with great abs. And I told our owner, said, hey, look, I just don't think I can have a business card.

Laurie Forster (05:11.885)
Right.

Keith Morris (05:40.878)
that is me laying on the beach. I don't know if it sends the right message for people that I'm serious about growing our business. So I got that one changed over to a different one of the littles now, but they're all just fun tongue in cheek. And if you come visit the winery and see the tasting room, the original artwork, the paintings that were done of the littles are all throughout the tasting room. And they're regular people making wine a part of their everyday enjoyment of life.

Laurie Forster (06:06.041)
Okay, see, there's a great story and makes me love the label even more. And I noticed that you're not doing any foils or coverings for the bottle. Is that in an eco-friendly kind of focus or what's the idea?

Keith Morris (06:07.886)
Thank

Keith Morris (06:21.228)
Yeah, yeah, it really was. And I think that Dave Collins always felt as our lead winemaker from the very beginning here that you can actually, you can't do it because I pulled the cork out, but it gives you a visual view of the stability of the cork. If you had any wine that seeped up, you had any heat damage or anything like that, he just really likes the cleanliness of the no foil look. And so it's always been that way for Big Cork that we've always used just

simple packaging with the lip on the bottle and no capsule, no foil or anything.

Laurie Forster (06:56.237)
Great. All right. So this is the Big Cork Chardonnay 2023 Vintage. Tell me a little bit. I got a sneak peek of the taste. Sorry. But lovely lemon color. And I love this wine. Tell me a little bit more.

Keith Morris (07:15.244)
Well, I was, this was one of the wines whenever Dave Collins or Weymouth or whatever owner sent me out the samples when I was first starting to talk about possibly moving and coming to Bickorque that really grabbed my attention because I am not familiar with Chardonnay of this type here. I just didn't realize that you were getting this level of extraction and quality. So a couple of things that I would say. One is Dave completely developed and it's out the window. So I was looking at it.

Our Chardonnay Vineyard here, Dave planted starting in 1992, excuse me, starting in 2012. I went back 20 years, I don't know why. Starting in 2012, 2013, Dave started to develop the property here. And Chardonnay was one of those things that because of our elevation here, we set it about 700, 750 feet. South Mountain is just off to the east of us.

Laurie Forster (07:58.998)
Okay.

Keith Morris (08:14.498)
He was really convinced that this Eastern slope of our property facing South Mountain was perfect for ruling Chardonnay, that you could get the right yields. You could get great extraction from the wine. And then Dave is really minimalist when it comes to intervention here in the cellar. He tries to pick really healthy, really ripe Chardonnay fruit. He lets it hang to get just the right sugars that he wants. And then bringing this wine in, we're doing a mix of stainless steel fermentation and French oak.

We're doing lea stirring. We're doing all of the full blown things that you would do in making a really high end white burgundy or making great wine in Sonoma and Napa. And I think that this wine I sent off to my friend, Meredith May, who runs Psalm Journal and runs Tasting Panel. And she said, Keith, I really haven't had a chance to try a lot of wines from Maryland. Send me a couple of things and just let me know kind of what you're about. And I got a call back from her within maybe two weeks of me sending them. And she said,

Are you kidding me? She said, that is so extracted. She goes, it's beautiful. So this was a publisher's pick for her in November and a 94 point rated wine, which I think is just about as high a score as I've ever seen for a wine from the mid Atlantic for them. So we're super proud of our Chardonnay. We really are.

Laurie Forster (09:21.913)
Thanks

Laurie Forster (09:30.889)
Nice, and what is the oak treatment on this?

Keith Morris (09:35.534)
It's about half and half stainless and French oak. This is 2023, keep in mind. This is young. It usually gets about four months of treatment with French oak, small lot barrels. We don't do staves, don't do sawdust or anything like that. It's all just oak barrels. Then the barrels progress down. We have some one-year barrels, two-year barrels, three-year barrels, and then they're retired into lovely lawn ornamentation or whatever they get used for after the third year.

Laurie Forster (09:39.555)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (09:58.412)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (10:03.161)
So it's a mix of age on the oak. Okay, very good. It's very restrained. mean, I feel like on the oak, I like the way you have kind of mixed the steel with the oak because a lot of times I just, some people love the oaky. For me, that's not, you know, that's not my thing, but this is beautiful.

Keith Morris (10:04.896)
It's a one, two, and three year.

Keith Morris (10:27.066)
Yeah. We make, so we have a tier of wines where, you know, the winery is very fortunate. We have almost a thousand wine club members here at the cork and they're very loyal. And we have a tier of wines that are available only to our wine club members. And we call those the black label tier. Our black label Chardonnay this year, and for perspective, I mean, we make like 75 cases of that. It's very small.

But the black label is a little more power. It's more, it's going to be a vintage older generally, and it's going to be more power. More of the new oak will go into the black label tier. Where this white label tier, the one that is, you can get every day at our tasting bar and you can find out in restaurants and that sort of thing in Maryland. This is more trying to hit that sweet spot of not having more heavy handed, more power. This is designed to be elegant and drinkable right from the day we release it.

Laurie Forster (10:53.036)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (11:21.299)
I agree, think Dave and you hit the mark on this. I'm assuming there's a little bit of malo, is there a little bit of maloactic in the, lactic, sorry, excuse me, malo-lactic here. But I think it all comes together in this really elegant sort of middle of the road with regard to the oaky or not oaky.

Keith Morris (11:36.398)
you

Laurie Forster (11:42.445)
things. So I appreciate that. And wow, congratulations on the Psalm Journal. Dave McIntyre, who was on here the Sipping Point last week, is now an associate editor of the Psalm Journal. So that's exciting for him as well. Awesome. Okay. Anything else about the Chardonnay or sort of that focus is would you say this is your signature white or is there another white that's

Keith Morris (11:53.102)
You're right.

Laurie Forster (12:12.407)
little bit more of a focus for you there at the vineyards.

Keith Morris (12:15.63)
So sort of in the normie world of wine, I would say yes, this would be the wine that if somebody came to me and said, hey, I don't have any Maryland wines on my list. You know, I'm not from Maryland originally, so when I'm starting to talk to people around the country about where would you start, I would probably go here because I really do think it plays and competes at a level that's very high against wines that people might be more familiar with.

Other Chardonnay producers, we did a blind tasting here not too many weeks ago with wines that were from all over the world and Chardonnay was one of the ones that we did. And the wine really did it put itself well. So I would think that, you know, for a normal wine list where it was trying to appeal to people broadly that were sitting at the bar, you know, just waiting to get their seat for dinner, I would definitely go here. Our signature white wine here at the property though,

probably is this unique white blend that we make called Russian Kiss. And it's made from two different hybrid varietals that were developed at Virginia Tech that are sort of in the Rieslinger-Wurzströmeiner aromatic, a little more exotic style. It has a little more RS than this does. This is not an RS wine at all. So it has a little more residual sugar. And the Russian Kiss wine for us has really

Laurie Forster (13:17.867)
Mmm.

Keith Morris (13:41.806)
captured people's imagination. It's one of those wines that people come here seeking out asking for. I love it with really spicy like Thai cuisine. So it's

Laurie Forster (13:50.977)
Yes. What are the grapes? Just the geek in me wants to know.

Keith Morris (13:55.202)
They don't have names. They only have numbers. So it's like SK 7036J and they are, I can't remember all of the numbers, but they don't have names. But we're, they are, and they're like a VIN number on a car. They just are a whole bunch of digits you're trying to collect. But I believe that Dave and there is one other winery in our area that

Laurie Forster (13:59.189)
interesting.

Okay.

Laurie Forster (14:07.425)
It's a math wine.

Keith Morris (14:23.65)
that grows them, but that's it. I they're the only places that they've ever been planted. So that's probably the signature because people come here and say, what do you have that's different? I love Viognier. Okay, that's great. We're doing Vermintino now. We're actually bottling on Monday. So we're growing Vermintino as well, which is just stellar off of this property. And it's only, this is the first bottling that we've done of it. We're really excited.

Laurie Forster (14:28.312)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (14:48.853)
excited to try that. a huge Italian Vermentino fan, so that's exciting. Awesome.

Keith Morris (14:53.72)
So we're doing vermentino also, there's Viognier. Of course we do Vidal, and we do it in several different styles here as well. But I would say really that the Russian Kiss is that thing that people come here and have heard of, have seen it, track it down, because there's just not that many people that are making a wine like that. It's in that sort of Rieslinger-Bergstrom-Muner family.

Laurie Forster (15:15.737)
All right. Well, great. That is beautiful. I think you also picked our red selection, the cab frunk, because it is another one that you recently, I guess, sent out and people said, wow, what is this? Yeah. And I know, of course, cab frunk in Virginia and Maryland. And even I went up to the Finger Lakes in May of last year and was super impressed up there. you get it, have you been up?

Keith Morris (15:44.214)
I have, yes.

Laurie Forster (15:45.365)
Yes, lots of cab front going on up there as well.

Keith Morris (15:49.838)
There's no question to me that Cabernet Franc is the grape variety that has put Virginia on the map in the red grape world. And it's deservedly so. I could not make Cabernet Franc like this in Senon. It did not have the layers of flavor that we naturally develop here on well appropriately cropped, not over, you not irrigated. mean,

Laurie Forster (15:59.683)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (16:05.81)
Keith Morris (16:18.548)
all the things that we're doing with Cabernet Franc here, I think has really helped it stand out. I guess there's a little bit of work we still have to do, I think as a state to convince people or to even just share with people why they would want to choose a Maryland wine versus choosing a wine that they could easily get from Sonoma or Napa or from France or Italy or something.

And I really do think that Cabernet Franc has a chance to do that. Because if you put it side by side, now, if you're talking about a higher residual sugar, if you're talking about a mega purple California wine, this may not be for them. But for people who truly are looking for like depth and integrity, quality, aromatics, I don't know what does it better than this. This wine has got such beautiful sweet tobacco leaf, there's sweet dark cherry.

Laurie Forster (16:49.561)
Mmm.

Laurie Forster (17:12.173)
Mm-hmm.

Keith Morris (17:14.956)
just the aromatics are beautiful. And this is another one that again, when I sent this in for tasting panel that, you know, got terrific press, the wine was really, really well received. And I'm, I'm just blown away by it. I mean, this is wine that I send out all over the country now for people to try, because I think it's one of the things that we really do best. And we have a lot of red grape varietals here. We have, you're talking about doing vermitina, we have Malbec planted here on the property. There's Merlot.

There's Cabernet Franc, we have Syrah, we have Petite Verdeaux, we do 100 % Petite Verdeaux here too, which is absolutely beautiful. And I just think that the growing area here is beautiful. And if you look at what has attracted investment, especially in this, the Loudoun County, we're certainly not part of Loudoun County, Virginia, but we are certainly part of the same topography and style that you see in Loudoun County.

Laurie Forster (17:52.641)
I love, I do love that.

Keith Morris (18:12.758)
And what's attracted a lot of investment from outside into Loudoun County recently, I really do think has been Cabernet Franc. You're seeing major producers from Bordeaux and from the West Coast looking at Virginia. They don't know necessarily that Maryland is pretty much an extension of that. But they're able to do things with Cabernet Franc here that I really, there's not many places in the world that you can create this type of quality in Cabernet Franc.

Laurie Forster (18:31.351)
Right.

Laurie Forster (18:39.618)
Yeah, this is beautiful. And I love that it is such nice medium weight and just smooth and elegant on the palate. It's not, you know, the assault of tannin, but there's tannin there that's gonna make it go with some meaty things, but it all kind of works together.

Keith Morris (19:01.326)
This 2021 was just a terrific vintage. And I thought, okay, well that's the Apex. Because when I first came here, I came in May, was when I arrived, and we were selling the 2021. And Dave Collins at the time to me, kind of walked me through the cellar and, you know, this is Keith, he's the new guy, he's gonna be everybody's boss, so be nice to him, you know, sort of thing. And he had a thief with him, so he had his little, you know, thief to thief out of the barrel. And he goes, hey, I've got one thing I want you to try.

Laurie Forster (19:11.639)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (19:22.893)
new guy.

Keith Morris (19:30.542)
And I said, sure, I want to try them all. But we went over to a barrel. We make a Meritage here also where Cabernet Franc is half of the blend. And so that's the first thing he pulled out for me. was Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petite Verdot in the barrel that he pulled for me. And so he pulls it and he's got it ready and he gives me a taste of it. And I said, wow, I really liked it. He said, okay, well that's 2022 because we haven't bottled that yet. said, but let me.

Let me take you to the next iteration of Cabernet Franc. And he takes me over to a barrel and they all are marked with an X. There's like six or eight of them. And it's 2023 Cabernet Franc black label that's destined for our black label program. So it's going to get a little bit more barrel aging. I'm telling you, Laurie, it was the 2023 Cabernet Francs from this part. It was such a perfect growing season.

It was great warm weather. was dry during harvest. Everything you wanted. I love this 2021. I cannot tell you how excited I am for people who are going to be coming next year at the end of this year. Like fall of 2025, we'll be getting close to releasing our 2023s. They are some of not just the best Cabernet Franc that I've had from here. They're some of the best Cabernet Franc I've had. The wines are

unbelievably extracted and beautiful. These 23s are going to rewrite the record books for Cabernet Franc and our area. They are just stellar. So yeah, me too. Me too. I can't wait. So the 2021 is beautiful. But I love as a guy who runs a winery saying, you ain't seen nothing yet because of 2020.

Laurie Forster (21:02.829)
excited.

Laurie Forster (21:07.587)
Couple of.

Laurie Forster (21:11.609)
Right? If you like the 21, just wait for the 22 and 23.

Keith Morris (21:15.118)
And I'm not, the 2022s are good, but there has to be honor amongst thieves in the wine industry. The 2022s are good. I think they're good. They're not gonna just like blow your mind. The 2023s are going.

Laurie Forster (21:20.386)
Right.

Laurie Forster (21:29.057)
And just in case people don't know the thief, it's this glass tool that you can use to put in the barrel that tastes while it's evolving in the barrel.

Keith Morris (21:34.606)
It's a big glass pipe that you can.

Keith Morris (21:41.206)
Yeah, it's a way to get wine out of the barrel without having to pick up a really heavy barrel and tilt it over to get it.

Laurie Forster (21:48.523)
Exactly. And so last week with Dave, we brought to the table some wines for wine inspiration for the new year, giving people ideas, you know, because people get, and myself included, in a wine rut, right? We keep drinking the same things. And so he kind of focused on the local wine, drinking more local wines. And you mentioned that as well. So what would you say to someone as

Keith Morris (22:01.198)
Sure. We all do.

Laurie Forster (22:15.321)
the main reasons to get out there and find a winery wherever you are in this country or world. We have a lot of listeners even from over in Europe, but to get out there and visit a winery that's close to you. I feel like every winery you can find something that you're going to like. You're not going to like everything they have, right? Because we all have different preferences. But what do you see as the main reason that people should get out there and

support more local wineries like Big Corp.

Keith Morris (22:46.446)
I love everything about that question because look, I mean, there are times whenever I'm in the mood for a Marvel movie and I just want to see stuff blow up and I just want to see big action and loud music and I just want to be in that zone. And that to me is really a lot of what large production wine making is. It is extremely consistent. By the way, McDonald's is also a great restaurant because if you go get fries in

Laurie Forster (22:52.953)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (23:08.13)
Hmm.

Keith Morris (23:14.838)
Mumbai and you get fries in Tokyo and you get fries in Austin, Texas, they pretty much taste like McDonald's fries. That is an accomplishment. But that is not what small lot winemaking is about. Small lot winemaking is about delighting the customer, exposing them to something that they wouldn't see anywhere else. Because on a large scale, you simply couldn't do a lot of what we do here. You wouldn't be able to see, we're bottling on Monday here. And just to give you some...

Laurie Forster (23:21.571)
Right.

Keith Morris (23:42.414)
tiny inside baseball type of knowledge about what that means. We're supposed to get six to 12 inches of snow here. I've got, you wouldn't believe, we're building a wall out here to block the snow and our harvest team is all spending a night in a hotel on Sunday night so they're close enough by to be able to be there for hands-on because we simply can't do it with anybody else. So all these little things you see when you go to a winery where you learn not just how it tastes but why it tastes how it tastes.

Laurie Forster (23:49.602)
I know.

Laurie Forster (24:03.789)
Mmm.

Keith Morris (24:11.798)
I think is so much fun. If you sit at our bar here at Bicorque, and it's pretty large, we have a glass wall behind it. You can sit and watch Jay Klein and Dave Collins back there working on the setup for bottling today. You can see them moving around the barrels. They're in there looking at SO2 levels there. And you can come over and say, hey, what is Jay doing up there hanging on that ladder strapped off? he's adjusting SO2. You know, all of those things.

Laurie Forster (24:38.637)
Right.

Keith Morris (24:40.288)
I just think make you a more informed consumer. And at least at BicCork, our staff here is trained to meet you where you are. So if someone comes in and they say, I don't like white wine, period. Okay. All right. We're going to just start here then if that's not where you want to be. Now they might find a way to bring you in and say, now I know you said you didn't like it, but let's talk about vermitino. Like what do you eat at home? I love sushi. just, sushi is one of my favorite things. what do you?

Laurie Forster (24:59.096)
Right.

Laurie Forster (25:08.678)
Mmm, me too.

Keith Morris (25:10.146)
What are you doing? You're like, I'll always just drink beer with it. Okay, well, maybe you haven't had the right thing. Let me try this. That's what I think really works well about a local winery. Beyond the fact that people can go to concerts at local wineries. We have live music every weekend. We've got fresh baked bread every day here. Like we have a lot of things that are just part of the good life, but there's just conversations to be had about wine that I just don't think you can have.

Laurie Forster (25:18.905)
I love that.

Keith Morris (25:36.11)
standing in the grocery store aisle grabbing yet another bottle of something that you've had 25 times before. I just think there's, for the same reason that it's not a Marvel movie, that it's an art house film, but I really got inspired to think about something in a different way. That to me is what small production local winemaking is all about.

Laurie Forster (25:54.425)
That's great. Thank you. And I think that will inspire hopefully a lot of people to come out to Big Cork. And if they do, what should they expect? I know you're getting ready to celebrate this amazing 10 year anniversary. You've got a lot of events on the calendar. Where should people go to find out about all this? And what do they expect when they walk in the door?

Keith Morris (26:18.434)
Well, Big Cork, when I walked in the door for the first time, I thought it couldn't possibly be real because we're out here right the very last fold of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We sit at this sort of little bowl here about 700 feet above sea level. And it's a 360 degree view. In the summer, it is one of the most beautiful places out here. Very close to Harper's Ferry, very close to Antietam.

Laurie Forster (26:43.073)
I know, I need to get out there.

Keith Morris (26:47.598)
It's just really stunning little beautiful territory. But the owners did something here which is really, I've not seen anywhere else in Maryland at least. We have two enormous patios right outside my window and they are completely enclosed in glass roofed and heated all winter. So you can come here when it's 35 degrees outside and snowing and you can sit and watch the flakes fall and you have a 360 degree vineyard view, the mountains, the area.

Laurie Forster (26:59.789)
Mmm.

Laurie Forster (27:05.464)
wow.

Keith Morris (27:16.408)
So the one thing that I tell everybody is that it's just the investment that's been made here to make it a year round place that you can come and enjoy is remarkable. The www.bigcorkvineyards.com will get you everything that you need to know about us. Our schedule, live music every weekend. You can schedule tastings. We always have special tastings happening. For example, January the 11th, we're having our ice wine extravaganza because we do make

Laurie Forster (27:16.825)
That's genius.

Laurie Forster (27:44.473)
Mmm!

Keith Morris (27:46.068)
ice wine here in-house. We kind of cheapen the system a little bit because we don't get enough freezing days out in the vineyard, our dessert wines. Yeah, exactly. Ice boxed wines. But we have an ice sculptor coming and they're creating a luge. So we will pour your wine in the top through the 10th anniversary luge of the ice sculpture. And you can come and get your glass and taste it. We have foods designed to match with that. I mean, it's really

Laurie Forster (27:52.705)
Icebox, icebox.

Laurie Forster (27:57.422)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (28:05.641)
amazing.

Keith Morris (28:13.88)
Summer concerts out here are big, maybe 1,500 to 2,000 people out on the lawn for big concerts overlooking the mountains and stuff all summer. The website's got all that information, but it is really a very active place. We're open every day, but Tuesday and Wednesday. And so we're always around weekends and that sort of thing. We're quite busy, but you can come on a quieter day and you can sit with Abby or Vince or someone from our team here and they will take you through the lines.

Laurie Forster (28:24.665)
That's great.

Laurie Forster (28:29.59)
Okay.

Keith Morris (28:41.92)
Individually, you can come and say, just want to get a glass of wine and go sit out on the patio and look at the mountains. You can do that too.

Laurie Forster (28:49.485)
Wow. Well, you mentioned a little anecdote here. I love that you're so down to earth and no nonsense. And I love that's what I try to bring to the world of wine as well when I do events and the podcast. And you mentioned Meritage, which is a Bordeaux blend. But you have to pay to officially use that term on your bottle. I don't know if you are part of the Meritage Association.

Keith Morris (29:17.678)
We're part of the Meridians Association, yes.

Laurie Forster (29:19.221)
Okay, perfect. So a friend of mine was going to California and dining at the French Laundry for a milestone birthday. So she asked, and it's very hard to get that reservation if people don't know, and their wine list is amazing, but also quite pricey. And so she asked me to kind of look it over and pick out something for her, which I did. And I picked out a Meritage that I knew the producer.

And it was a small producer. And I said, when you order it, make sure you say Meritage, which rhymes with heritage, not Maritage, which it's one of those most mispronounced words. You know, not that it matters because I'm all okay. You know, if you want to say Meritage and you want to say Maritage, Hey, let's all do our own thing. But I think it was Michael Cosentino I interviewed years ago and he was part of the formation of that. And so he schooled me.

Keith Morris (29:51.351)
not Maritae.

Keith Morris (29:58.83)
Yeah, I just understand.

Laurie Forster (30:15.129)
on the pronunciation. But anyway, so she's at the French slaughter, she orders the Meritage, and the sommelier said, excuse me, it's Meritage.

Keith Morris (30:26.755)
I just can't even believe that. Wow.

Laurie Forster (30:30.053)
And I was so upset that I was not sitting at that dining room table. First of all, because you don't need to, you don't, I love you said your staff meets people where they are. You don't need to correct people. You could certainly say, the marriage. Yes, absolutely. And, that's enough to just let people know because we grow up with these words and terms. And I think that's one of my next episodes is going to be about.

rethinking the way we market and sell and educate around wine and just, you know, just being more inclusive and not so uptight about how we say it and what we do.

Keith Morris (31:08.94)
Well, listen, Laura, you bring that up. used to probably sell more Vionnier than anyone else in the United States because Klein Vionnier is a big Vionnier.

Laurie Forster (31:18.156)
It's delicious. Yeah.

Keith Morris (31:20.942)
The only reason that Viognier isn't, not the only, but one of the only reasons that Viognier is not the number one selling white wine in the world because everyone loves the aromatics and it's beautiful, but it's scary. Viognier is right there on the label, Viognier, you know, like it's hard. And so we all get, you know, like we all feel smart because we know that, but the reality is I will see people looking at our wine list sometimes and looking at it they want to say it. And I will simply say,

Are you thinking about the V &A? And they're like...

Laurie Forster (31:51.665)
Thank you. That's so wonderful. Yes, I love it. my gosh. Well, Keith, I could just chat and drink wine with you all day, but I really appreciate the time you gave us. Of course, go to bigcorkvineyards.com. I know you said you have a very active Facebook and Instagram, so you can find them on all the socials. And I've been so intrigued by these two. I got to get out to the winery.

Keith Morris (31:53.459)
Yeah.

Keith Morris (32:02.349)
YouTube.

Laurie Forster (32:19.385)
as well and experience some of this ice loosing, I think. I don't know, that sounds great.

Keith Morris (32:24.782)
Got the January the 11th, I'll be there pouring it. telling you, I literally right before you and I got together, I had just finished writing out the check to the ice guy that's carving and he's got our whole 10th anniversary thing. And we're actually pulling wines out of our library also. So you can actually taste 2012, our very first vintage ever, 2012 and 2013 vintage.

Laurie Forster (32:39.904)
Love it.

Keith Morris (32:54.782)
Ice Vidal, we will be pouring in a flight along with our 2021 and 2022 wines. One of those wines, our Siberian Ice, actually was one of the Governor's Cup winners. So we still have some too. So those ice wines that Dave makes are really, really interesting. They're extracted, they're beautiful. We've got some food pairings. In fact, Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding is being flown in from New York and we're doing a Banana Pudding and Ice Wine pairing. We do all kinds of crazy stuff.

Laurie Forster (33:06.009)
Laurie Forster (33:23.993)
That sounds delicious. my gosh. All right. Well, now that I'm starving, Keith Morris from Big Cork Vineyards, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your journey from Sonoma to Western Maryland. I'm so excited. I know everyone listening is going to be checking you out as well. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us on The Sipping Point. Cheers. Bye.

Keith Morris (33:25.23)
you just

Keith Morris (33:45.56)
Cheers. Thank you so much for having me here. Bye now.

Laurie Forster (33:52.435)
Awesome.