One Grape, Three Great Regions: Chris Carpenter on Cabernet, Place & Sustainability

Check out all the great events Laurie has on the calendar on her website at TheWineCoach.com/events including her newly announced Treasures of Tuscany Tour in May 2027.

One grape. Three world-class wine regions. One legendary winemaker.

What happens when the same winemaker crafts Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley, McLaren Vale (Australia), and Walla Walla (Washington)? Chris Carpenter joins Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach®, to explore how terroir, climate, and farming practices shape the personality of each wine.

Known for his work with Lokoya, Cardinale, Mt. Brave, La Jota Vineyard Co., and Hickinbotham, Chris shares why great wine begins in the vineyard, how regenerative farming is changing the future of Cabernet, and what every wine lover should notice when tasting these iconic regions side by side.

Whether you're a Cabernet enthusiast or simply curious about why wines from different places taste so different, this episode offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the art and science of winemaking.

In this episode:

•  Why the same Cabernet Sauvignon tastes dramatically different in Napa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Walla Walla 
•  The role of soil, elevation, and climate in shaping a wine's personality 
•  Why Chris believes great wine is made "80% in the vineyard and 20% in the winery" 
•  How harvest timing affects freshness, balance, and alcohol levels 
•  What regenerative and organic farming really look like—from sheep and goats to ladybugs and snakes 
•  How wine regions are adapting to climate change through smarter vineyard practices 
•  What's next for one of the world's most respected Cabernet winemakers

Wines Tasted

2022 Hickinbotham Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon

2022 Skysill Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

2022 Mt. Brave Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon

Transcript

Copy

Laurie Forster (00:27)
If you love Cabernet Sauvignon, you are in for a real treat today. We're exploring how one of the world's greatest grapes expresses itself differently in three wine regions: Napa Valley, McLaren Vale in Australia, and Walla Walla, Washington. I'm gonna get to my guests in a minute, but just a reminder to go to thewinecoach.com. You can join my email list to get first notice of my events, tours.

And everything else I have going on. And if you're on Instagram, I would love to connect with you there too. Just search the wine coach. I'm putting out great reels every single day. And don't forget on Fridays, we have the Fizz Gap, where Michaela, my daughter, and I feature great sparkling wines from all around the world. All right, this week my guest is Chris Carpenter, one of the world's most respected Cabernet Sauvignon winemakers.

He's the winemaker behind some of Napa's most prestigious wineries, including Lokoya Cardinale, La Jota, Mount Brave, and more. His expertise extends beyond the US to the Hickenbotham Clarendon Vineyard in Australia's McLaren Vale, giving him a unique perspective on crafting Cabernet across some of the world's greatest wine regions.

Chris is known for creating elegant, ageworthy wines that capture the unique character of the vineyard. He believes in maximum attention in the vineyard and minimal intervention in the winery.

Laurie Forster (01:51)
Chris, welcome to the sipping point.

chris (01:53)
Thank you, Laurie. Thanks for having me.

Laurie Forster (01:54)
Awesome. Well, I'm so excited because you make three Cabernets from three totally different places around the world, not just around the country. And we're gonna taste these today and talk about the differences in Cabernet based on where it's made, or what us wine geeks call terroir. And I'm wondering, what is it about this challenge that excites you so much to take this one legendary grape and make it in so many?

different places. We've got Napa Valley, we've got Australia, and then also Walla Walla Washington.

chris (02:28)
You know, when I travel, I tend to go to places that have wine regions. And as a winemaker, you always will set a little time aside to go and visit those places and you're you're doing it as a tourist. the opportunity to actually make wine in one of these regions around the world and explore the geography and all the

factors that make up that terroir that define how those grapes present themselves is something that every winemaker wants to do. And with the with Jackson family whom I work with, having that possibility is a is a real thing, you know, and the excitement of learning everything there is to know about a place and then utilizing your knowledge about

that particular variety that you're familiar with to try to express that place, there's there's no better deal for a winemaker.

Laurie Forster (03:20)
Nice. if you were gonna introduce these wines, because I know people get so frustrated with a lot of us in the wine business that we get too flowery when we're describing our wines and too fancy or maybe even too technical. But we're gonna taste these, the Hickinbotham, we're gonna go to the Jet in Walla Walla and then finish with the Mount Brave in California.

So if you were gonna describe each of these as a personality, or you know, how would you describe each of these? And then maybe we'll get tasting the Hickinbotham to start.

chris (03:52)
personality. Well, you know, the Hickabathum wine is a little bit more subdued. It has a little bit more of nuance to it and spice and floral notes. so it's a little more not lighter isn't the right word but you gotta you gotta pay attention if you will.

Laurie Forster (04:09)
Mm.

chris (04:09)
Jet start

you start moving to a little bit more dark fruit, some blue fruit, a dustiness, a t a tannin expression, a real sense of the great northwest and the the area that we're in Walla Walla and the Missoula floods and how that soil profile and being close to the Blue Mountains expresses itself. And then

Mount Brave being from Napa Valley, particularly from Mount Veteran in Napa Valley, tends to have a great amount of power and spice and minerality and it's a lot more rugged, if you will, of an expression of Cabernet, versus you know, where the elegance of Hickamotham counterpoints to the the ruggedness of Mount Brave.

Laurie Forster (04:55)
All right, well, I think it's time to taste our first wine. I'm getting thirsty and it's happy hour here on the East Coast. So believe you said the Hickinbotham is the first wine that we should try in our little trilogy here. This is from the McLaren Vale in Australia. And I've actually toured Australia, South Australia, and it's one of my favorite places. I actually cried when I left. It was so beautiful. So

I know everyone thinks of Shiraz, as they call it, as, you know, the key red grape, but there are so many great Cabernet Sauvignons made there. Tell me a little bit about this challenge and why you were so excited to make this wine.

chris (05:32)
Well, I had been making wine in Napa Valley since nineteen ninety-five when we acquired the Hickambottam Vineyard in twenty twelve. And you know, again, the opportunity to make wine in places around the world, winemakers would o would die to do. And to make wines particularly from iconic vineyards like the Hickinbotham Vineyard is an honor that you don't oftentimes get. And

This vineyard has sourced for a lot of great Aussie wines over the decades. Penfolds, Grange, Penfolds, Bin 707, the what's it the 369, which is the Shiraz, Eileen Hardy's Wirra Wirra Angelus Becker's panel. There's so many people that have gotten proof from there. I know Cabernet, right? So I when I went there, the

idea was how what things can I grasp onto and what things do I really need to concentrate on learning that define this area differently than my reference point which is Napa Valley. And for me I know Cabernet, I know how to farm it, I know how to maneuver it during ripening to get the best possible outcomes flavor-wise in the grapes. I know

The diurnal shift effect that we get from the cold air moving in and out of the San Francisco Bay into the Napa Mountains. We have that same effect in McLaren Vale at Clarendon, where this particular vineyard is situated. We're at elevation, which is unusual for McLaren Vale We're actually not too far from the Adelaide Hills, which is another GI of the South Australian region. And the

spot that we are at get these breezes off the Gulf of St. Vincent every day and it does the same kind of cooling effect and and warm-up in the morning and so on that we get in Napa. So those two things I grasped onto. What was the big difference for me was the soil profile. Here in Napa our soils are either sedimentary soils, volcanic soils, a combination thereof and you know all the underlying sub subsoils.

in and basic age sixty million years old. In our neck of the woods in McLaren Vale, the soils are eight hundred and fifty million years old. They're weathered, they've got they're compact, they're dense, they have a tremendous amount of iron in them, and they treat the but vines react differently in those environments. And that's the what I had to concentrate on. And the great thing about the wine industry is you know Laurie is that

We love to share information. So I picked the brains of a lot of winemakers, a lot of vineyard managers. A few years before I got there, this map that's over my shoulder here had been developed, and that's a geology map of the McLaren Vale region. And a couple of the people that helped to develop this map actually still live in McLaren Vale, and I became friends with them. picking their brains and understanding that soil and how it

differs from the soils that I were was accustomed to was the big challenge and one that I love doing because I'm a science geek, I'm a farming geek, and all those kind of things, you know, come into play. And then ultimately how to bring the fruit to fruition,

so that it really expresses that place. It was the end goal and it worked for me.

Laurie Forster (08:50)
Yeah, and I was shocked to say that of the three wines and our three origins, Washington, California, and Australia, that this was the lowest of alcohol. What do you attest that to? because it is also very you know, very warm climate, just like the other two. Is it the situation of this vineyard itself?

chris (09:10)
No, it's I mean it is and it isn't. So one of there's a couple flavors that are generated by way of this vineyard. a couple more delicate flavors. there's like a rose petal and an orange blossom. There's like a little bit of an olive topanide and the red fruit. To to push that ripening further, you would lose that. And that's a real endemic character that I didn't want to lose.

And and

Laurie Forster (09:35)
Mm.

chris (09:35)
you don't need to you can push it further, and what really would happen, you get more raisin-y characters versus more dark fruit characters. So in fact, that's one of the things that I learned working in this vineyard is you're not picking at twenty-six and a half bricks, you're picking closer to twenty-five bricks to capture those characters and make sure you don't lose them. And that also affected some of my barrel choices and

percentage of barrels and the time on oak. I wanted to use more elegant oak so that it would in accentuate those more delicate flavors and play up with them. And I don't put it on as much oak for the exact same reason that those flavors are a little bit more delicate and you don't want to you don't want to swamp them with oak characters.

Laurie Forster (10:19)
I gotcha. And that was actually leads into a question that I had. You know, given that these are all different but the same grape, that kind of blows people's minds in a way. How what percentage of a final wine do you think is based on the place or the terroir versus what you can do as a winemaker to, you know, assist that?

chris (10:40)
Yeah, that's a really good question, Laurie. And I think it is different for every winemaker and every wine that's being produced. What keeps me focused and allows me to to make wines in each one of these places and not have them come out and taste the same per each place is kind of my winemaking philosophy, which is all about farming.

And farming at the very highest level. Farming to capture that sense of place. You know, I make not only these three wines, I have another four wines in Napa that I make. And each one of those wines is defined by place. And knowing how place affects character and flavor is a key part of my job. And then when the wines come

into the winery, keep the process as simple as possible. Because as soon as you start using the technology that's available or the technique, then it becomes more about wine making. So and you can that's fine because there's plenty of wines that are like that, where a consumer goes into this the supermarket and they want a wine every time they buy it that tastes the same. So you need to be able to manipulate that a little bit, right? And that's fine as long as they're buying wine. I don't I don't

any problem with that. But my wines are about exploring place. So in our case, I would say, you know, with with these three wines, probably twenty percent is what I'm doing in the winery. Eighty percent would be

Laurie Forster (12:09)
Okay.

chris (12:10)
the place, you know, in farming.

Laurie Forster (12:12)
Yeah. And this is really elegant. I I found when and it was many years ago that I got the pleasure of, you know, touring in South Australia. But I absolutely loved the wines and I was blown away about how much quality was there that we don't always see here in the States because we it's just not brought in. and so I I think to overlook Australian Cabernet

You're really missing out in that case. I also noticed that in true Aussie fashion, you're using a screw cap closure on this one, but not on your other two. you know, was the thought specifically because that's what they do? Or, or do you see this as a wine that's, you know, a younger drinking wine?

chris (12:53)
A little bit of both. But I want to reflect on your first comment. There's a tremendous amount of great wine being produced in Australia, not just Cabernet, Grenache in the in the lower part of the McLaren Vale region, Shiraz,

Laurie Forster (13:07)
Mm-hmm.

chris (13:07)
Italian varieties, Semin, Pinot Noir,

Chardonnay. We don't see a lot of it over here. A lot of it driven by what the Aussies tried to do.

in the nineties and early aughts when they flooded our market with really inexpensive supermarket brands. And our perception of the quality of Australia kind of plummeted a little bit. But in fact, some of the greatest growing regions that I've ever been to are in Australia and some of the most passionate and smartest winemakers that I have interacted with are Aussies. it's a it is

one of the things that I've always wanted it to well how I approach this wine in it in presenting it is reminding people that it's it's Australia's a great place. You just gotta give it a chance and here here are all the things that you could learn from that area. we went screw cap mostly because w I want to sell more of this wine in Australia than I do in the US. You know, and we only import back here

you know, maybe twenty five percent of this wine, most of this wine is meant to sell in Australia, which is f you know, the the ultimate reward is if me coming from the US has an accepted brand in Australia, th that that makes me feel good, you know.

Laurie Forster (14:24)
Yeah, absolutely. And Riesling is another thing that I absolutely love.

chris (14:27)
my goodness, yeah.

Laurie Forster (14:28)
You know, from the Pewsey Vale is one of my favorites, but Henschke has an amazing Riesling as well. So there's there's some great whites too as well. all right, we're gonna move next to the to the jet, but before we get to that wine, I'm wondering, you know, climate change or you know, whatever we want to call it is absolutely happening.

And that's gotta be a different challenge for you based on these three different places. You know, what are you seeing in Australia that you need to do? And then as we get into tasting a little bit more of these other, you know, regions, we can talk about that. But what what are you needing to do as a winemaker in Australia with regard to climate change?

chris (15:10)
Yeah. Well with in Australia, they are a couple decades ahead of us dealing with this. Yeah, particularly in water use and bushfires. They've been dealing with a lot of the the issues around drought and how to conserve water and how to make the best of what you have and grow plants that aren't as dependent on that. they have they've had bushfires that have impacted harvest a

decade before we started dealing with this really back in 2017. and labor. You know, their their labor situation is so much different than ours. And they've had to learn how to automate and automate to keep the quality level of the the wine the grape production and the wines at the highest level. So those things are great

jumping off points for learning and then bringing those back here and how they think about it is something that I've done quite a bit of. You were talking about climate change and you know where where we're gonna go with that. In fact the jet wine as a segue was our venture into Walla Walla was because of climate change, particularly because of fires. And we went up there in 2020 to look at

property in eastern Washington because the California, particularly Napa Valley and Sonoma County, Cabernet was devastated that year. So there was no product that we were going to put together. So we needed to have a hedge. And Walla Walla was a great region to have a hedge. Now in the West, there's oftentimes fires that impact

great swaths of geography. But in this case, it's far enough away where we think we're we're protected from a you know having a the ability to have a product in any one year. In fact right now I'm getting warnings on my phone because there's a fire right on the other side of our mountain over in Sonoma County by the Ledson Winery. And it's already blown up to about 20 acres. It's only been going for a couple hours now.

Laurie Forster (17:10)
Wow.

chris (17:10)
I'm

I'm freaking out because if that smoke starts drifting over here during this time of the grape ripening, then we've got a problem. So those kind of considerations are where we're looking, you know, as a as a company, and jet was one of those considerations. We've bought land recently in Canada, in England, Oregon were

Laurie Forster (17:32)
Mm-hmm.

chris (17:32)
we're

We have some of the greatest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyards in the Willamette Valley. We're looking in Tasmania. You know, that those two bands that circle the globe where it was ideal to grow grapes are moving towards the poles. And we need to be prepared for

Laurie Forster (17:49)
Yeah. Now you you brought up the jet, so it's a perfect time to move to it. right away and I put my my nose in here, dark fruit, is the first thing I'm connecting with here. But tell us where we're going with this Cabernet versus where we just were in the McLaren.

chris (18:04)
Yeah,

so McLaren Vale is very much influenced by the Gulf of St. Vincent and the Mount Lofty Ranges and and this gap where our little village of Clarendon sits at and how that climate is shifted by way of that. Walla Walla is influenced by two major factors. One particularly in our area, which is in the Mill Creek area.

This this massive geologic event that you'll hear every wall-a-wall vineyard manager and winemaker talk about the Missoula floods, or the whole Yakima Valley, or the whole Columbia Valley basin was it was this massive floodplain that captured this water that swirled around for hundreds of thousands of years. And when these glaciers that blocked it melted, all that water

poured out and what was and all the sediment settled and created this soil profile that's that spans this massive massive area in eastern Washington. And those soils are fairly consistent. They're they're they're silty, they they hold water fairly well, but they're they just have a a consistency that grapevines do really well in. And and it's just enough

That they they have that struggle effect. So there's that. Then where we are in Walla Walla, we we're not in a Mediterranean climate, we're in a continental climate. We sit right up against the Blue Mountain Range, which is a north-south mountain range in the eastern Washington, eastern Oregon border, and right on the other side of that is Idaho. And so all that coal there that's on the Idaho side flows over into our spot. So it

moderates the temperature there because generally Walla Walla can be very warm if you're not getting that cold air flow from the other side of the blues. So those two things affect the ripening. And we're at elevation. You know the the part of Walla Walla that we sit at is at about the same elevation as our mountain vineyards here in Napa, but you'd never know it. So you get that diurnal shift. It's just a different effect from that. And you get a little bit warmer

Laurie Forster (20:13)
Mm-hmm.

chris (20:13)
so that

darker fruit aspect comes out and that dustiness that you might be experiencing. It's almost like a Rutherford,

Laurie Forster (20:20)
Yes.

chris (20:20)
Napa Valley Rutherford dust. That's the that's the soil effect.

Laurie Forster (20:24)
So interesting. I mean, I think, you know, a tasting with these three side by side is so educational because, you know, our brains do want to put everything in a bucket. Like this is what cab is, this is what Chardonnay is. And you just really can't because it's so differently expressed by the place and even by the winemaker, because another winemaker could make this same, you know, this same grapes and this wine would be different as well, correct?

chris (20:50)
Sure.

But what keeps what ties these three together is that philosophy of farming, place, and simplicity. Those wines are are approached the same way, and so what comes through is that sense of place. What's separating those wines is the place. You know, and you know, it's not just me. One of the things that I think we're all attracted to about the wine world is the diversity of it, right? The continuing exploration.

on a on a yearly basis, on a on a geographic basis, of all these places around the world that we make wine and the and the different varieties that are produced there and the different techniques that are utilized to create different expressions. They're all it's all like one great continuing learning

Laurie Forster (21:34)
Yes, I always say if you meet anyone that says they know everything about wine, they absolutely know nothing about wine because

chris (21:40)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (21:40)
that's the thing you realize when you get into wine is that you're never gonna know it all. You have to make peace with that. And then you're just always learning. You're just always learning something, and every year is different and you know, things change. but I know one of the things that you've been changing and really passionate about is organic and sustainable winemaking.

chris (21:59)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (22:00)
And then the, you know, the next step, which is gets into your regenerative farming. And so tell me a little bit about, I know people hear these buzzwords probably from everybody these days, but I know you have a real commitment to that. And you guys are doing real tangible things in the vineyards with goats and owls and all kinds of fun things. So let people know how that plays into, you know, the wines you make wherever they are in the world.

chris (22:27)
Yeah. We have been pursuing organic viticulture now in Napa Valley for let's say it's eight years at this point. here's the deal. The family that I work for is a multi-generational family and they want to be around for another several hundred years in farming. My job is to make sure that the land that they

depend on to produce the wines that they're producing is meeting that promise as well. And by pumping these these great pieces of of property with chemistry, you're you're taking a risk there that you're you're gonna wear out the the

the land and that you're not going to be able to farm it the way it should be taken care of over time. You think about the difference between a an athlete on steroids and one that that is 100% committed to natural health. And the the steroid person will do really well for a little bit, but as soon as they go off those steroids, there's you know they they crash. Whereas the a healthier person

will maintain their health for a long time and their and their approach to their lifestyle. It's the exact same thing with these with with land and how we approach it and what we're doing to maintain the biological integrity of our soils, of our environments, of our water sources, all those things come into play. And ultimately it doesn't just help the land and the land owners

People that I work for, but it helps the community because all that stuff goes downstream. You know, we we I live in a in a river valley. So when when the rains happen, those rains move some of that process into the into the river, which goes into the bay, and it it's it's a feedback loop that's that's not right. I wanna

Laurie Forster (24:16)
Mm-hmm.

chris (24:17)
I want to do right by the company that I work for, the community that I live in, and and the

And the people that I care for who are drinking the wine. And ultimately, it's made the wines better. You know, the the the risk with any of these things is that you're not gonna produce the same kind of quality or you're not gonna produce the same kind of quantity. Well, quantity-wise, when the when the vines are getting used to being organic, and now we're just about this close to getting our regenerative accreditation.

They go through a little bit of a transition phase, much like somebody who is on steroids who has to learn how to be strong by just working hard, right? Well, that's the same thing that happens in the vineyard. We lost a couple years worth of volume. But then once they get to that point, once they've acclimated to a different kind of input strategy, they come screaming back. And our volumes haven't

Laurie Forster (25:11)
Mm.

chris (25:11)
haven't changed from what it was pre. The

Great thing is our quality has ratcheted up. The intensity of fruit,

the complexity, has really elevated. And that's a great secondary attribute. You know, I'm trying to save the planet and then my wines are better all in the same shot. So, you know, everybody wins.

Laurie Forster (25:31)
Right.

So tell us about a few of those things I've read about as far as I think there were goats and I think there were ladybugs. How do that how does that play into this?

chris (25:41)
We use everything. So

we bring in goats and sheep during the winter months to keep the vineyard floor mowed down. We don't till, and because so we need to have something that that will keep control of the vegetation, and it's a win-win. By not tilling, the fungal networks that are under the soil stay intact. And those fungal networks are how plants communicate with one another. When you till the soil,

Turn it over, you're breaking up those fungal networks. So you want to you want to preserve those. So you leave the the valley or the the vineyard floor untouched. Well, then you bring the goats in. They don't they're not pumping carbon dioxide into the at or carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. they don't leave a footprint like tractors do when you're pushing mowers behind them. and they actually leave something behind that actually helps the soil. They're

They're dumb. You know, so it it's win-win. As soon as you get bud break, you gotta get them out of there though, because they'll those buds are like chocolate to them. They'll go crazy.

but then we use other IPM methods. IPM is the acronym for integrated pest management, which is basically using other organisms to control bad organisms. Ladybugs are one of them. Ladybugs control a lot of the smaller insect species. We use predatory mites.

Which controls the mites that mites are these tiny, tiny little arachnids that can feed on the back of the plant the leaf plate. you use predatory mites, they will they will control the population. They won't get rid of them fully, like chemistry will, but they'll control them that they won't affect the growth pattern of the plant. also snakes. if if I if I had somebody who

Laurie Forster (27:23)
Yikes.

chris (27:24)
was raising snakes, I would buy all their snakes and put them in the vineyard. Not the creepy ones, but the gopher snakes, because those control the rodent populations. And we have a you know, gophers are a big problem in California agriculture. you know, so those are the things that we think about all the time. How do we how do we utilize the natural world to help the agricultural world? How do we go and lockstep so that we're all on the same page and doing the right thing?

Laurie Forster (27:52)
That's great. our third in the lineup here is our Mount Brave Mount Vitor cab. So we're headed to California, which I'm assuming that's where you're at right now.

chris (28:01)
I am.

Laurie Forster (28:02)
But so we're rounding this out now and ending there in California. Of course, Mount Veter is so infamous for its Cabernets. So tell me about this one and how it fits into the lineup.

chris (28:14)
So this is the Mount Veter Cabernet from Mount Brave. This is actually different than the other two. The other two wines are 100% cab. This has a little bit of Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdeau, and Cab Franc in it. it's still dominated by Cabernet, so we can still label it as Cabernet. And it is meant to express all of the greatness of Mount Viter appellation, which is blue fruits and violets and

wet shale after a rainstorm

Laurie Forster (28:41)
Yes, floral.

chris (28:42)
minerality and structural components without being too onerous on the structural components. You know, mountain wines tend to have a good amount of tannin, and that tannin can make it a little more challenging for a restaurateur to serve younger mountain wines. This wine, with the addition of those other varieties, also I use softer clonal selections.

Tends to have a little bit softer expression. So you can get all of the wonderful flavor components of a mountain wine without the tremendous amount of tannins. And it's meant to be, you know, a wine that you can go to the local bottle shop and pick up and drink that night, or if you're at a restaurant, the the sommelier is gonna feel comfortable serving this next to their food. Rather than one of my wines, which is LaCrew.

Which is made for on the collector side, and I don't pull punches on those tannins. So those are big boys that have to sit for a few years.

Laurie Forster (29:38)
Yeah. I mean, it certainly the tannin is there. So if you're gonna have a steak, you're gonna have something with that fat element, it's gonna smooth that right out. But you aren't thinking, I gotta wait ten years, is what you're saying. This is okay. It's f it's a twenty-two, the one I have. so it's still it's got, I guess, a some year or a few years on it here. is there anything that you learned making the wines in either Australia or Walla Walla?

that you brought back to California and are are doing now also where you're at. I'm sure you inspired or passed along some of your some of your California techniques to your friends in those regions. But is there anything that you kind of said, geez, I why haven't we been doing this?

chris (30:19)
Yeah, there certainly is. in Australia more of the sensibility around oak usage.

I've I've dialed my oak usage back and picking to be frank. I don't pick nearly as ripe as I once did here in Napa because I've realized I don't need to, and I actually get more complex wines by picking a little bit earlier. Now in Napa it's a little bit different because I have to also be cognizant of the tannins and tannins you need the grapes on the vine a little bit longer.

modify those tannins. But that that oak sensibility, lighter touch on the oak, more elegant oak and and picking is absolutely something I've brought back from Australia. In Walla Walla, it's about I I think one of the things that we've learned in Walla Walla is is we not necessarily brought it back to California, but it's a very different climate environment from a cold management standpoint.

They get winters, they get they get freezes versus frosts, which can kill vines. So how do you how do you adapt to that? How do you protect those vines in those really cold environments? We've used a little bit of that understanding here during frost season, but really that that was that's a whole unique aspect of dealing with viticulture up there that I don't have to necessarily deal with down here.

Laurie Forster (31:40)
Yeah, that that that's great. And I mean, I think that is just like we were saying with wine, you're always learning and as things change you can bring in those new, you know, practices or, you know, other places. Do you think you'll ever do screw caps on any of these other cabs? Or do you think just the American mindset isn't there yet?

chris (31:59)
Yeah, that's a good question. I was actually in Australia last week and I got into this discussion with some of my Aussie colleagues. There's a couple of things. One, when you when you go into the screw cap, obviously you don't have to worry about your wines being corked. but but they don't age the same either, because there's no oxygen input as there is when you have a cork and there's that little bit of oxygen that sneaks past the cork and the

and the glass with wines that are meant to be drunk earlier, and you're already seeing this, Savion Blanc, there's a lot of Chardonnays that are now on in screw cap here in the US. I think that's appropriate with wines that are going to age, I don't know if we'll ever get there. you know and it's not only the that that part of it, the the technical side of it, but there's the theater.

You lose a little bit of the theatre when a guy comes at

Laurie Forster (32:51)
Mm-hmm.

chris (32:51)
you in Australia and goes like this versus, you know, and then doing the whole and the there's there's something to

Laurie Forster (32:57)
Right.

chris (32:58)
be part of part of the theatre of dinner, you know, and and

Laurie Forster (33:00)
Mm-hmm.

chris (33:01)
the the ritual aspect. That's important.

Laurie Forster (33:04)
Yeah.

And my friend Jim Burneau, who owns Willamette Valley Vineyards, he where he comes down on the whole thing is that and I don't know the exact study it's from, but that carbon footprint of a natural cork is less than a screw cap. So

chris (33:18)
Right.

Laurie Forster (33:19)
and you he start help start, you know, you can recycle your corks at Whole Foods or Re-Cork, you can send them off and they make floors and shoes and all kinds of

chris (33:28)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (33:29)
cool things out of the corks.

So just a fun question here. If you and these are all so elegant but so different and I love being able to taste these side by side. So thank you for that. And I highly

chris (33:41)
You're welcome.

Laurie Forster (33:41)
recommend if you're listening to check that out as well. It would be a fun dinner party just to have these three over the course of a meal.

And just taste them side by side because I think you really do learn when you taste things sequentially, it's hard to go back and be like, yeah, this is a little more tannic or this is a little bolder. But I appreciate being able to do that here with you. But if you're home just on a random Wednesday night, what might I find you drinking? And it can't be your own wine, it has to be something else.

chris (34:11)
Well, depending on what day what I'm doing that night, I might be drinking a Guinness stout 'cause that's my favorite that's my favorite

Laurie Forster (34:17)
Yeah.

chris (34:18)
beer ever. I and I tend to drink wine wise during the week, white wines.

And right now I'm

Laurie Forster (34:24)
Okay.

chris (34:24)
exploring a lot of Shannon Blanc and Grenache Blancs because I think those varieties have some staying power in the market. They're interesting, they can be made several different ways, and they have a a character that is unique to them and that in some cases can age really well too. So those are those are what I'd be going for.

Laurie Forster (34:44)
Yeah, I agree.

Love that. All right. And if you, I know you've done all this winemaking all over the world. Is there what's the one thing you're looking forward to that excites you that's your next challenge? Is it your regenerative farming certification, or is there even something beyond that?

chris (35:02)
that's

good question. Well, speaking on Shannon, we just put together our first Shannon Blanc at Hickambotham. And I

made the blends. One of the reasons I was in Australia last week was to make the blends from the twenty sixth vintage. Obviously Australia we the twenty sixth vintage is behind us. And the wines are fantastic and I'm so excited about and I can't wait to get in the market and turn people on to so that's my next exciting thing is is that. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (35:30)
That is exciting. Well, keep

me posted because I definitely will pick one up when it gets here in the States.

chris (35:34)
I absolutely will.

Laurie Forster (35:35)
Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the sipping point. I really enjoyed each and every one of these Cabs. And I thought it was a really fun discussion about how the place changes the taste of the wine. And I appreciate everything you shared with us. And I just wanted to say thank you and cheers.

chris (35:51)
Cheers. Thank you, Laurie Thanks for having me on.

Laurie Forster (35:54)
What a great interview. I hope you enjoyed my talk with Chris. And I hope you will choose three Cabernets from three different places and taste them side by side because you will learn so much. All right, just a reminder: go to the winecoach.com, click on events. I have a great virtual wine tasting coming up on September 23rd, the wines of Washington State. You can sign up, dial up.

From wherever you are in the world, I'll give you a list of the wines that we'll be tasting. Invite your friends for just a fun night of wine. Also, that night, if you're interested in my May 2027 Treasures of Tuscany wine tour, there's an information session as well. It's free on Zoom. Just go to the winecoach.com, click events, and you can get all the information. As always, I'm so grateful for you tuning in.

until next week, cheers.