Chris Smith ~ A Wine Growing Legacy

Jody Bogle sits down with Chris Smith, Director of Winegrowing, to discuss Chris' 30+ remarkable years at Bogle Family Wine Collection. Chris shares what makes Clarksburg such a special place to grow winegrapes and why Bogle sources fruit from grower partners across the state: both being instrumental in shaping the company today.  As one of Bogle’s first employees, Chris also shares some fun memories of his early years at the winery. 

To learn more about Bogle Family Wine Collection visit boglewinery.com.

Transcript

00:00 - Chris Smith (Guest)
When I started, there were only three of us in production and we were right in the Bogle backyard and literally there's a 10-year-old kid coming in with a squirt gun and shooting me from behind. I'm like get out of here. And it's Ryan who's now. He's my boss. 

00:22 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Welcome to the Bogle story. I'm Jodi Bogle and I'm so happy to be sipping here with you today. Chris Smith, director of wine growing, talking about his history at the winery and what it's been like to be at Bogle for 32 years. 

00:41 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Well, it's been a great ride. The first time I saw the facility, the Bogle Winery I thought I was lost. I was coming for an interview and this was before the French paradox, it was before the great wine boom of the 90s, and it was just a small, not even a pavement, just a dirt front really small facility and a family that ran it. And when I took the job really small facility and a family that ran it. And when I took the job, we only had three of us and we're 60-fold bigger today, so we had three people running the whole operation and it was very much hands-on and the family was involved. 

01:16 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So you worked with our dad, Chris Bogle, and our mom, Patty Bogle. That was the three of you. That was the team. 

01:25 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, patty hired me and Chris came in one day. Well, the first day I started and said I hear you're working for us now and that was the first time I met him, but very hands-on farming family and it wasn't all grapes then like it is now. There were other crops, there was some corn, there was some safflower and for years and years now it's's been all grapes but there weren't really that many grapes in the area on Merritt Island back in the early 90s. But the history of Merritt Island is pretty fascinating really because it's really young. Some of the people that settled that area were pretty remote from Sacramento at the time because you had to cross a river and no bridges, then no bridges. 

02:03
No draw bridges, lots no draw bridges. 

02:05 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Lots of ferries. 

02:06 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, there were some ferries, I suppose, and the crops were different too. The grape industry has evolved so rapidly that it's been really fascinating to be a part of it. The varieties have changed. 

02:19 - Jody Bogle (Host)
The first era of Chenin Blanc and gray Riesling long gone, and although I think Chenin Blanc's coming back, Well, so let's talk about Chenin Blanc, because that was the first white grape that my grandfather planted in Clarksburg in 1968. He was the first one to plant wine grapes in the area. He started with just those 10 acres of Chenin Blanc and those 10 acres of Petit Syrah. You know the Clarksburg AVA very, very well. Why do you think the grapes thrived so well there? 

02:49 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Clarksburg is special. Although it's in the interior of the Great Valley of California, it's near the only break to the ocean in the entire California coast range and that break is where the Sacramento River goes through Carquinez Straits into the San Francisco Bay. But the winds come the opposite way and so as the interior warms up it pulls in wind from the San Francisco Bay and the other parts of the interior don't get that because they don't have a break in the mountains, and so those breezes, which we call the delta breezes it is, it's like a vacuum, really build in the afternoon and at nighttime really cool things off. And that is what makes Clarksburg special is the diurnal variation. How cool is it at night versus how warm is it during the day? Because 100 degrees in the day is one thing, but if it doesn't cool off at night we can't grow quality grapes. I mean it's sweater weather right now in August at night out in Clarksburg. 

03:46
So that's kind of our in-house cooling and the varieties of varietal fashion and choice of what people planted. When I was in college serving wine at a big restaurant every night, night after night, the most popular wine I'd serve is Chenin Blanc, or one of two Chenin Blancs, and by the mid-90s that wasn't really happening anymore. I do say that Chenin Blanc is coming back, though, because it's a noble variety, it makes a great wine, it's well-renowned in its home origins, and it just kind of fell out of fashion. 

04:16 - Jody Bogle (Host)
But it's a very versatile grape too. We love our Chenin that we have at the Home Ranch Tasting Room. It's a fan, our at the home ranch tasting room. 

04:25 - Chris Smith (Guest)
It's a. It's a fan favorite at the, at the wine shop for sure. That's really versatile you can make sparkling, you can make dessert wine, you can make a table wine, you can make an off-dry wine so the varietals, the main varietals that are grown now in clarksburg are chardonnay is a huge percentage of our production there. 

04:41 - Jody Bogle (Host)
We also farm Merlot and Pinot Noir and kind of a smattering of other wines of other grape varietals there. 

04:50 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, in the greater Clarksburg area with the Bogle Vineyards interest, which produce about a fifth of all the grapes coming into the winery more or less. 

04:59
Chardonnay is a big one, merlot is still prominent, petit Syrah is also big, but we're under some redevelopments because they have a lifespan. The biggest challenge in the greater Clarksburg area is that it's very deep soils, it's valley floor, it's very fertile and so we have to manage vigor and if we let vines grow without being controlled we'll have too much crop and we won't get the quality we need. So we want to restrain crop and increase our quality. 

06:04 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And when you don't restrain crop you can get a lot of vegetal characters. You just don't get that concentration and the complexity right that we want to see in those wine grapes. 

06:14 - Chris Smith (Guest)
That's true. I compare it to having a plum tree or a peach tree in your yard and it just grows and there's so much fruit and the branches break and the fruit never gets ripe. And it seems like such a failure, which it is. But if you thin that crop, you know, take off five and leave one, you're going to have not as much, but it'll be really ripe and really tasty. That's what we have to do in the vineyard we have to thin it out, drop the crop, get it mature and get the flavors developed. 

06:38 - Jody Bogle (Host)
I should mention that you, as director of wine growing, not only do you work with our growers in Clarksburg, but you work with our grower partners across the state in our California Appalachian program. How does that impact what we do at Bogle? 

06:54 - Chris Smith (Guest)
When I started at Bogle, I was hired as winemaker and we weren't big enough to have somebody who was just buying grapes. So I was buying grapes, processing grapes, running wine production, and as we grew, our winemaking team expanded and I switched to just focusing on grape acquisition and grower relations. Because my theory is really simple that it's not what you do in a normal year, but when there's a problem, how do you respond? And when we have a relationship with a grape grower instead of just a monetary transaction, then we can work together and we help each other out and we back each other up. And if the grape grower is not willing to work as a partner, then it's not a good match and we don't do it. But some of our growers we've been working with for 30 years, yeah a long time, yeah, long time. 

07:40
Yeah, and regarding the California Appalachian, as we grew, we needed to not only source grapes to expand our Zinfandel production, which we didn't grow any Zinfandel. Our Sauvignon Blanc we didn't grow any Sauvignon Blanc. Chardonnay, we grew quite a bit. Cabernet, not so much Merlot, we grew a lot, but we just naturally expanded out in the sourcing arena. 

08:03 - Jody Bogle (Host)
It kind of supplemented what we were doing at that time, kind of where our holes were the varietals we didn't have. We were trying to supplement what we weren't growing. 

08:11 - Chris Smith (Guest)
That's correct. And as we moved out of county then we were able to go to areas where we could find, say, pinot Noir, for example. When we first started buying Pinot Noir, the market wasn't very strong, so there was a lot of available fruit and that's why we started a Pinot program, because we could get Russian River fruit at a bargain price. And then the Pinot market changed and you know, we switched to a Monterey, sonoma County blend, more or less, and now we grow a lot of Pinot Noir in Clarksburg even. 

08:40 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Our grower partners, working with these grower partners and seeking out the best fruit from these regions. So from, you know, russian River, pinot Noir, we've got Chardonnay, and Monterey. Where are some of the other regions where we're sourcing fruit from? I mean kind of all over. 

08:55 - Chris Smith (Guest)
but yeah, we have really focused some grape sourcing for Cabernet and Bordeaux Reds, a little bit of Malbec, a little Merlot Cabernet in the El Dorado County, sierra Nevada foothills kind of higher elevation. Some Alexander Valley Fruit is some of our most powerful fruit. We bring in juggernaut fruit. Sauvignon Blanc is one we grow a little bit now but historically we never did and we've really sourced a lot of fruit in Sonoma County for that and Monterey County or Oseco. And if we're going to do that, then the California blend is undeniably just critically important because when the brand was young they had Clarksburg on the label and nobody knew what state that was in. Nobody knew what Clarksburg on the label and nobody knew what state that was in. Nobody knew what Clarksburg was. So just going to California Appalachian was much more powerful In those early years. 

09:48 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Yeah, in the early years. 

09:49 - Chris Smith (Guest)
The separate parts of the state where we pursue grapes. Over time we've developed kind of favored areas and then there's some areas that we may choose not to even go source in. That we may choose not to even go source in Some of that Central Coast really rocky ground by the Arroyo Seco that Pinot Noir, chardonnay, sauvignon Blanc do so well in. There's not even any dirt there. It looks like a vineyard in the Rhone Valley. It's just cobble, just runic cobble rocks. 

10:19 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Yeah, each of these areas has such different terroir, the soils, the climates, everything. 

10:24 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, it's very true. And the Paso Robles area, for example, there's a ton of limestone and we just don't see that in other parts of the state. So it's really lime. 

10:33
The north coast, I think it might be more prevailing weather, you know than the vineyard site, because it gets so foggy and so cold and that stays in the morning and it makes you know the whole day is just much cooler environment. But yeah, that's, one of our most valuable tools in winemaking is sourcing from different locations so we can broaden the scope of our target grapes that we're trying to source. 

10:59 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And I think what it's important to note is that the blends change a little bit every year. You know, obviously the Bogle Family Vineyards brand is California appellated, so you've got grapes from lots of different regions. But our Juggernaut brand we've got the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, the Russian River Pinot Noir. So we've got the ability to take all the grapes you're bringing in from all these different areas and either blend them together when we make the final blends of our Bogle family vineyards, blend them maybe with one or two other things for another program. So everything is set aside specifically for a different program. We talked a little bit with Eric Offit about our single lot winemaking and how every single field lot from around the state whether it's our Clarksburg acreage or a state acreage or grower partners is brought in separately and vinified separately. How do we evaluate each of those lots and work with the grower to continually improve quality? 

12:03 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, single lot winemaking is the basic beginning of quality wine production, but you need to keep them separate, or at least keep a part of it separate, in order to have a chance to evaluate it. We have to sit down and taste them side by side and grade them and evaluate them, and that's how we can determine what works well for what program, because if you put it all in one tank, you don't have any blending options, and blending is also really critical. 

12:30 - Jody Bogle (Host)
I remember years ago we used to bring all the growers into the winery and taste all the wines all at once, and now we've got too many to do that. You go to various regions and let the growers taste their wines to you know, help them evaluate quality, see them next to their peers, see them next to other grapes from that region. Explain about that a little bit more. 

12:54 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, having a grower meeting with 30 or 40 growers from one region, say Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino counties, provides a couple attributes for the success of the winery. One is that I believe it brings the growers together, brings them home, and they feel like they're part of a team. A lot of them know each other already anyway Part of the Bogle family. 

13:17
A lot of them are already acquainted. It's a welcome and a reward to let them taste the wines. Mostly grape growers in California never get a chance to taste wine made from their grapes because it's blended or the winery doesn't want to make the effort and it pays great dividends because it makes them just feel a part of the process and you know kind of bonds, the relationship which 95% of the work I do today is relationship built, you know, and it's just really critical. So that's what we did. We had too many people to bring to the winery so we started doing road shows. 

13:51 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Kind of satellite satellite tastings and they get to taste. They get to taste their wine and the wines you know the field grown next door and you guys, you mentioned that you grade them. Do the? Do the farmers get to learn about their grades? Do they know what, what their, what their lot scored? How does that work? 

14:10 - Chris Smith (Guest)
yeah, we were trying to come up with a way to rank the growers, but we don't want anybody to be on the spot or somebody had a great year or a bad year or whatever, so we would. Finally I settled on just doing a letter grade because it's easy to understand and we made it anonymous, so everybody knew their own grade. But all the other wines that they could taste it was just a number Got it, and if somebody wanted to say that's my wine, then they could take credit. 

14:39 - Jody Bogle (Host)
It was up to them. 

14:40 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Or it is up to them and sometimes a grower. It's not uncommon to have a grower say how come I didn't get an A Right, and so how do you work with them? You should taste that wine, that's an A, and then let's taste your wine next to it. That's why you got a B, and it's often really easy to see. And that sort of communication what are you looking for proves to be really helpful. 

15:05 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And that informs for the farmer what Bogle is looking for, so they can address what they do in the vineyard. 

15:13 - Chris Smith (Guest)
It helps? Yeah, because showing them the final product or not the final product, but a building block of the product, is really helpful and then they feel like they're part of the process. I think it's very well received. But as far as I know, we are the only winery of any scale that's doing that. Many wineries bigger than us do grower appreciation type events and have lunch and somebody stands up and talks about it and so forth. But to sit down and actually taste your wine and every other Cabernet that was made from your region that year, it's a ton of effort and I think we're the only one that does it. 

15:49 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Sustainability, as you know, is one of our core values. It's very important to us and we farm all of our state acreage under the California Rules for Sustainable program, of our state acreage under the California Rules for Sustainable program. Our grower partners also take sustainability very seriously. Explain to us what that looks like in their vineyards. 

16:10 - Chris Smith (Guest)
We invited all growers at Bogle to participate in our sustainability program about 10 years ago, and so we've been doing this for quite a while and we're very committed to it. Most growers, I find, are already closer to a sustainability foundation of farming than some sort of other type that's demeaning the people on the land or whatever. But to have it directed a little bit more and to participate in a program that defines what we want to see, what is sustainability, is much more helpful. We do pay a bonus to all our growers. We pay a stipend for sustainability to participate. 

16:55 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Per ton. We're paying a per ton bonus. 

16:58 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah. 

16:59 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And, from what I understand, last year with Crush almost 40,000 tons. 96% of that was certified sustainable, which is a huge amount of fruit. 

17:11 - Chris Smith (Guest)
It is it's hard to even quantify that. 

17:12
It is, and there's many sustainability programs today in California, but when we got started, california Rules was the most prominent one and as time has gone on, we feel like they're the most valuable one, so we've stayed with that one, but it's important and people want to hear about it. We try to have an increased awareness in the appreciation and management and stewardship of the land and recognize the benefits of the social aspects for our ag workers that they're physically and socially taken care of, that they're paid a living wage and that we can keep doing what we've been doing on the same land and with the same people for time to come. 

17:53 - Jody Bogle (Host)
I mean, that's our hope, that's our goal, right? You know, as a sixth-generation farming family, we want to, you know, continue to be stewards of the land and keep it strong and healthy, and an option for the seventh generation if they want to be a part of it. That's right. So, Chris, 32 years, Now's your chance to any stories you want to share, anything what's been memorable over all these decades. 

18:21 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Some of my best memories working at bogle and with the bogle family have always been kind of practical, connected to the farming community and the property. And the first time that your father, chris bogle, asked me if I want to go trout fishing, I'm like, well, yeah, we've fished a lot. We fished, we salmon fished, we fished a lot, we fished, we salmon fished, we trout fished. He's like I'll pick you up at your house at 3. 

18:47 - Jody Bogle (Host)
3 in the morning. I'm like 3?. 

18:48 - Chris Smith (Guest)
He says 3 in the morning. Well, I lived a quarter mile from your house down the road and I was out there with my gear. He was there at 5 to 3 with his best buddy, gary Pileman, and we drove up an hour up the hill in Placerville got breakfast. 

19:03 - Jody Bogle (Host)
It was dark Like we got back in the car it was still dark, denny's or something in Placerville. 

19:07 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, we used to go and we kept on going and we turned off at Silver Fork and it was still dark and we drove 10 miles down the road and we parked and it's dark and so we get out and I don't know now it's 4.30 in the morning and he walked down the trail so we walked, we walked and we walked and we walked across the creek it started to get light and went up the hill and we split up and we started fishing and the fish went bananas, catching trout like crazy on the Silver Fork of the American River, and then it turned off at about 6 am and so we agreed we're going to meet back here at 9.30 am or something. And we came back and they wanted to play poker. What do you mean poker? And so it's fish poker. So he's like pull out your fish and who has the biggest fish? And there's 20 bucks on the table. 

19:58
And Gary pulls out a fish and it's like OK, that's trout. And then your dad pulls out a fish, that's a nice trout. I pull that one. It's like I think I'm in the lead. And then Gary pulls out another fish and he's like it's a little bigger. 

20:10
And it's like I think it was Gary pulled out this big brown trout. It's like how is that even possible? But yeah, he won the pot. And then we got back in the truck, drove down the mountain. It's about, I don't know, 11 o'clock noon, something like that, and I'm all punch struck because I've been up since three. So your dad says I got to get to work, he got on the tractor and I just went to my house and took a nap. But he went to work and he just worked all afternoon like nothing. But yeah, that was pretty interesting and fun. 

20:42 - Jody Bogle (Host)
In a family business. I mean you see a lot. I mean the first offices were in our home and the winery was right out our back door, so you were part of the original crew. You know when people would come knock on the door and want to do wine tasting out of the picnic benches. And when you look back and you look at where we started, what do you think when you look at where we are today? 

21:05 - Chris Smith (Guest)
You know so much changes but so much remains the same. You know some of the infrastructure physically still remains but it's not operating as like a micro winery. There's a lot of history there. I raised my kids with inside of the winery, so my children grew up near there. They have their own kids now. So my children grew up near there. They have their own kids now. It was just a great place to spend the time with the family because we're so remote out on the island but we're actually so close to the urban area of Sacramento. But it's a real special area. 

21:40
I'd never seen it until I came out for that interview back in the day and I thought I'd been all over California. But the roads just don't go across the Delta. They go around it and so you got to want to be there and I still driving. Just yesterday I was driving down the river to Walnut Grove and just driving the river road in the afternoon with the sun on the river, it's like it's still the same old scenery in a way and it's really set apart and kind of isolated. That it's just a one of a kind you know. So it hasn't changed that much. The people change, come and go, but the landscape stays pretty similar. 

22:20 - Jody Bogle (Host)
One last question, chris. It's Saturday night. What are you drinking, what are you eating and what are you listening to? 

22:25 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Oh, wow, shanghai. What are you drinking, what are you eating and what are you listening to? Oh, wow, shanghai. What am I listening to? Well, I was going through some vinyl a couple weeks ago and I was looking at some old stuff that I've had since I was a kid, nice, and I came up with, I think, one of the most sultry, soulful voices in modern jazz, sade. 

22:48 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And so I was playing that Nice. 

22:51 - Chris Smith (Guest)
And we were cooking. And so what did we have? I had some wild pig backstrap that I had got and I was doing a slow cook on it and we were drinking some Russian River Juggernaut Pinot Noir. That was working pretty well. I would do that again. I think I would do. 

23:09 - Jody Bogle (Host)
I want to come over for that. That sounds amazing. 

23:12 - Chris Smith (Guest)
Yeah, sade's greatest hits, that was good. 

23:14 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Yeah, it sounds like a great Saturday night. Well, thank you, chris, so much. We really appreciate your years here at Vogel. Thank you. 

23:22 - Chris Smith (Guest)
So fun. 

23:30 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to the Bogle Story. We are happy to have you be a part of it.