Soil, Story, Soul | Josh Trowbridge | Barrels and Roots

In this episode, I sat down with Josh Trowbridge, the general manager of Benovia Winery, for a conversation about wine, storytelling, and what gives something lasting value. 

From discovering wine in college to building a career across sales, harvest, cooperage, and executive leadership, Josh shared a journey that eventually brought him back to the heart of wine country. We talked about Russian River Valley terroir, the importance of expressing place, and why the real power of wine is not just what is in the bottle but the conversations and memories it creates around the table. 

This episode also touches on the tension between modern convenience and timeless craft, and why some things still matter more because they take more care. 

What is one product, place, or experience that feels more meaningful to you because of the story behind it?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know, wine, you know, yeah, wine sure. Say wine's not good for you. You know there's butter. But you know, it tastes good with food and we use butter. Uh wine tastes great with food. And not only that, is it just makes you share a bottle with someone. It's not like you know, you sit down, you're both sharing a bottle, you're sharing an experience together, and you have a conversation and it and it and it lubricates the conversation, you know. It's not about getting drunk, it's not about partying, and it's just it's just communicating with each other and and talking. And uh we seem to have lost that. I mean, if there's anything that I want our why to be, it's I mean something that something that uh what revolves around you know, reminding people about what really matters in life. You know, going out to beautiful places, enjoying a bottle of wine with family, with friends, with new people, having conversations, getting your phone out your your head out of your phone and just looking up and you know uh you know, remember the more you do it. The one marketing thing that I really want to get after, I've I've you know, an idea is about is they they chant nine they chant nine nine sis in San Francisco these days, you know, all these AI guys that work in 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. You know, I want Penobium to be day seven. I want day seven to be a Penobium for all those guys. You come here, you know, and remember why you're working so hard. You're working so hard so that you know what a future, this is what really is gonna matter. You come here and you enjoy this this place, these people, these wines, and you talk about things that matter, you know? That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Welcome everybody back to the Barrels and Roots Podcast. Uh, I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Hi, my name's Josh Trobrich. I'm the general manager for Benobia Winery. Uh, we're a winery in the Russian River Valley. We have three estate vineyards. Uh, one, Martaella, where our wineries are located. Uh, another out in the Freestone area called Tilden Hill, and then the historic Cone Vineyard right off of West Side Road uh in Healdsburg. So we have a really nice um, you know, survey of what the Russian Redway has to offer from all its different diverse uh standpoints. So I've been here since uh January 6th, so just getting my feet wet, but it is a dream job and it is an exciting opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

That's awesome. Well, great day to start out your work. That's my birthday, man. So January 6th is a good day. All right, there we go. Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you this. Well, what was the first wine moment when you realized that this was more than a just a beverage? It was something that you wanted to do, you know, in a bigger way for yourself and for your career.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

That's a good question. Um well, I got interested in wine in college, and it was really it started out as a dinner party with a friend, um, and one of the guests uh was French. Uh, we were all at UC Berkeley together, and and his dad have given them a really what was called a really expensive uh Bordeaux. And uh I to be honest, I don't remember what it was, but it was just fascinating to me that you could have a great dinner and and you have this wine that was special that would elevate the whole evening. And that kind of got me started with it. And then, of course, you know, the idea of picking the right wine for my apartment that if I ever got lucky enough to bring a toehead home with me that uh I would have the right wine for the right moment uh got me a little bit more interested. And uh I I generally failed at that and realized maybe I need to take a class about wine to learn more. Um and then it wasn't until my I would say my junior year, um, I was in a African-American film studies midterm, and I was getting bored with my essay that I was writing on Blue Book, and I turned it over and I drew a picture of a of a winery on top of a hill with a vineyard coming down of it. And I was thinking to myself, you know, that would be a career. I could grow something, make something, sell something, run a business. Maybe this is what I want to do with my life. And uh really from that on out, it was all about, you know, um, you know, going up to wine country and talking to people about wine. I I went up and I talked to Tom Mackey at St. Francis and Dan Duckhorn at Duckhorn and Tom Eddy over in Napa. And these guys became mentors to me who put me in touch with more and more people about the wine business to give me a direction of where I wanted to go in the business.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

And since that time, my whole career has been in wine. That's that's that's wildly amazing. And like it sounds like there's been some um some intro an interesting journey, but I wanted to ask you this like what twists and turns led you to, you know, to this moment, you know, you you you said you got started there, but like how did you get to where you're at, you know, working with the wines that you're working with now?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, but it's kind of like a full circle moment in a way. Um, you know, my first job in a wine business, um God, it's camping within a few miles from here. I got a job in the summer of 1998, working in a cellar at St. Francis. And I was still playing football at Cal at the time, so I would I would drive up at six in the morning, uh work at the old, they had a winery that was right by the airport here, um uh where St. Francis had the majority of the barrels at the time. This was before they built the new winery. The new winery was only a plan at that point. And I got the job because you know, Lloyd Canton was one of the original owners, and I came up and met with Lloyd and Joe, and then they put me in touch with Tom Mackey, and I got the job up there, and then I'd have to be back in Berkeley by 3.30 for football practice. So it was actually the hardest summer I ever spent. Or I was up at six in the morning driving to Santa Rosa, driving back by you know after lunch to get to football practice at 3.30, and you know, then lifting weights and doing, you know, um all the conditioning until like 6:30. Um and then I I I played my last season of football. I worked for Gallo uh as a merchandiser in the East Bay. So started from the bottom on the seller at side, and then started from the bottom at the sales salesman side. Um, and then I graduated and I went and I uh borrowed my parents' motorhome. I parked it in Johnson's Beach Campground in Guernville, and I worked to harvest at William Cillian uh that summer. So that's where I started, you know, and that's and between then and now it's gone through, you know, a whole other set of experiences that took me, you know, first down to Southern California to work for Gallo as a salesperson, calling on the grocery stores. I did well at that. And then uh they let me um work directly for the winery calling a wine warehouse uh in their on-premise division selling the fine wines for Gallo. Um, so I got that really great experience. And my wife and I got married, and we were on our honeymoon in Maui, and my wife kept bothering me. Let's just move to Hawaii, let's move to Hawaii. And I was kind of like, all right, well, I'll let my boss know. And I told him my wife, you know, I said, hey, we moved to Hawaii or Northern California for my next job. And a month later, I'm in his office and he wants me to go to Hawaii and him to be the sales manager for the on-premise sales team at Johnson Brothers in Hawaii. I told my wife, you know, and she went, Are you crazy? But uh that's neither here nor there. Uh we ended up knowing the Hawaii, and we um, you know, you in Hawaii, you're kind of a big fish in a small pond. So it was, I was doing a job when I was in my mid-20s that, you know, most guys doing the same job in California in their 50s, you know, have already worked for 20 years. So trying to figure out how to manage sales across the whole state, you know, we had warehouses on the Big Island and Maui and Kauai and Ottawa, and I called our Lanaki and we serviced Molokai and the whole deal. So it was uh I was able to, you know, get a lot of really great experience currently on the wholesale side. And um I worked my way up to be the vice president of that company and and manage all Satos on the on and off premise. And and I made a jump over to Young's Market Company in Hawaii, where I eventually ran the uh the estates group, uh, so the fine wine division for Young's Market Company before they were bought out by Republic uh for the state of Hawaii. And then, you know, there's the the draw to get back to wine country was there to be close to the family. I'd had two kids at that point, you know. Uh, you know, I'd already been a uh vice president, so the idea of having a fancy title wasn't, you know, wasn't a big deal. Uh so I went back and I took a uh job as a national sales manager in Santa Cruz for a little winery that uh was up in the mountains there. You know, that was like a dream job um to run a small winery like that as a national sales manager. But unfortunately, uh the owner got tired of losing money. And I got there, they were hardly selling anything, and they had a ton of inventory, and and ultimately they wanted me to liquidate it. So I liquidated that inventory um and then got a job with the wine group uh out of Livermore. Uh in Northern California and Hawaii, uh, which, you know, the wine group is fantastic people, uh, still really good friends with a lot of people over there, but wasn't the wine culture by any means that I was looking for. You know, I've always been a fine wine guy, uh, you know, just a wine nerd for all intents and purposes. It'd be in the wine spun up. Um but the opportunity that came up was interesting. I I got a call from a headhunter to be a uh vice president of sales for a coop bridge based out of Venisha, California, folks, in LRL. Um that's interesting. Okay, I get to go call on winemakers and sell them barrels. Uh that sounds exciting. And uh and it was. Um, you know, I had an opportunity to come into a young coopridge, making French and American oak wine barrels and oak alternatives, and uh it was a really good company. And um you know, it was one of those situations where I'd started a business and it wasn't making money, and the the the job was to make money and and build a brand, and you know, we did that. Um I I worked my way up uh to be the CEO of Tenel Rio. And uh at our peak, we you know, we had about 46 people working directly for for Tanel Rio, plus uh 18 people worked with us as that were part of the uh the parent company. Um you know, we were making over 10,000 barrels a year. Um you know, we had 400 plus customers. Um we got up to as high as uh 19 million in sales and and we were turning around some really good profitability. Um you know, the uh COVID was a fascinating time, you know. 2020 was the worst year ever. 2021, 22 were the best years ever, and then 23, 24 were the worst years ever. And uh you know, uh, you know, we they had to make some changes there, and uh they consolidated some of their companies, and and I was left without an opportunity. Um which, you know, in hindsight was one of the hardest things that's ever happened to me. And in foresight, it's gave me the opportunity to finally get to do the job I always wanted to do. And that was to be a general manager of a winery uh in California that made P. Noir in Chardonnay. So I just, you know, the worst luck in the world turned into the the greatest opportunity. And I I couldn't be more thankful to be here. And uh we have a great owners, uh, Joe Anderson and Mary Dwayne. And uh we got a great team here at Venobia. And uh, like everyone, we're going through the the hard part of the business with visitations down and consumption's down, so we're we need to find our way through that. And it's an opportunity to really make people aware of just how amazing this place and and these people and the wines are and how unique they are. And um, that's that's the exciting challenge that I'm embarking on now, and I couldn't be happier to be doing it.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

That's awesome. It's awesome because you've had so many different you know parts of the journey and seen parts of wine. I mean, from working, you know, in sales to a uh a cooperage, like that's really cool. But I wanted to ask you this like in your current role, um, what is something about wine that most people don't understand, you know, that that's really important to you.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, well, most, you know, when we say most people, most people is a big term. Yeah, most people don't know hardly anything about wine. You know, truly market we're marketing to a very, very, very small segment of the population that you know, one appreciates wine and two is willing to pay, you know, fifty to a hundred dollars for a model. So that's um you know, that's interesting. I guess, you know the way I look at it, and I and this is a little bit unique tank, and it might be a um lens towards, you know, my weird fascination with AI, but you know, I envision a world you know, a lot of people talk about a world and no one worse. And I envision a world where you take a drop of of Romane Conte and you put it into a machine and it decomposes the atoms and can make a million cases of something that tastes exactly like 2024 Roman Ate in the future. And the question then becomes you know, does Roman A Conte just go away because no value? Because you can just make something that tastes exactly like Romane Conte? And in my belief and my hope, my passionate hope is that's not the case, you know. Will will Romane Conte be$25,000 in a bot uh bottle in that world? No. Will it be worth something more than most things that it's special? Yes. And the reason is because the people, uh, the people in the place. I mean, not those things really matter, you know. That's it's what I want to focus on at Venobia. It's not about whether or not we get 97 points. I mean, sure we do. I don't, I just don't care about that, you know. Uh I care about bringing people here to taste the wine, to be in the place, to understand the passion and the care and the soil and the natural environment that it comes from. That's what I love about wine, and that's what I want to show people. That's what I think really matters.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I've talked about this many times on the podcast. Like I I love film photography. I, you know, worked in media and content for a long time, but I started out, I remember the first camera my dad gave me. He gave me this camera kit. It was a Pintax K1000, old school camera. And I would have to go out and when I took, you know, some photography classes in college, the the challenge was is I'd get that camera, I'd get a roll of film, I'd go out and shoot it myself, and then I'd go up to the the um go up to the development room and I'd go in there and I would do the whole development process myself. And then I'd get an image out. And it's interesting because now we have all of these apps that can reproduce all of these looks and all these styles. But is there still a thing to be said for the work? I I think there is. I think that there is this this place that people understand things that are hard, things that take time, things that are um special, you know? And and I think that in a future as well, there will be that. And I think it comes with the stories. I think it comes with the place, I kind of think it comes with the the art of doing things the hard way, you know. I I know, and I see it in uh my wife is a musician. My wife is a uh like a a famous musician in Vietnam. And one of the things that's cool is there's all these new tools that people can use. But when you go to the best recording studios, they still have a lot of analog gear. They still have a lot of things that you know, they're sitting there cranking these dials to get these sounds, and these young kids are like, well, you can there's a plug-in for that. And the guy that's sitting there in that studio says, I know there is, but you know what? This is it. This this is the real stuff. This is that sound is coming because that vocal signal is running through this this you know vacuum tube, and then it's popping out the other side. And this right here, this is giving that warmth. Well, we can create that warmth. Yeah, you can, but it's not the authentic one. Like, not just that, but the the work that went into creating this analog device, man, someone sat there and had to figure out how to how to solder that thing together to create that vibe. And I think there's such an art for that. And one of the things that's really cool is that I see with a lot of Gen Z, there is this love for that type of thing. You know, that there's like this obsession with Gen Z for these older cameras. All of my workers uh drool over the all of my film cameras. Like they'll come in and they're like, Mr. Shank, can you just take it out for a second? Because I got everything locked away in a it's in a place that, you know, it's like a dehumidifier because I live in a very humid climate. And then when I pull it out of the dehumidifier, they just sit there and look at it with awe. And I was like, don't just look at it with awe. You want to take it out? Take it for a spin, go take some pictures, you know, go and have some fun with it. And then they come back, they're like, really? I'm like, yeah, why not, man? It's better to take pictures with it than it just sits in a dehumidifier all day. And when they come back, they have something, you know, and it's funny. We were at um a work party and I bought, you remember the old disposable like film camera things? You know, I bought a couple of those and I handed them out to my team. And it was wild because they were taking pictures and then they were doing this. And I was like, you can't see it. You can't see look at this until you develop it. You can look at this until you develop it. And then they're like, they're trying to take the picture again. I was like, you've got to roll the film. And they're like, oh my God. But you know what was wild is that there was disrespect when the photos came back. Um, first of all, there were no apps, and like a couple of people were like, I look horrible. And I was like, No, you look beautiful because it was a snapshot of a moment. Like, that is a that's that's truth right there. That was the actual moment we were in. There's no filter cleaning it up, there's no special AI removing all of the imperfections. Every imperfection is there in its beauty. And you can reproduce that with an app, but how much better is it to like have the real thing? And it's just kind of one of the my soapboxes that I stand on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

But I think with wine and share a similar uh soapbox, I think, then yeah. It's funny that that you share that in tongue and it's like wine vinyl records or you know, grinding your own. I've got my digital music, but there's nothing like, you know, it is, you know, you for some people, this isn't my thing. Like I don't want to lie here. I'm not I don't listen, I don't have a vinyl record flexion, but I think about people that they they do, and I think it's similar to like what I really appreciate about authentic wine. You know and that's you know for our wines in the Russian River, like we don't we don't add anything. They you know, there's no there's there's grates, um and there's French oak barrows. There's no alternatives, there's no tannins, there's no nothing, you know. I mean it's just it's taking something that growing the earth and not fucking it up in the winery and putting it in a bottle. And that's that's that's all we want to do. And it's harder to do than it sounds. I mean, it's a lot of work to do that, to to not just not screw it up. Um, I don't want to take it away from the winemaker Adolfo's you know, skill and all that stuff, but I mean ultimately they just want to express the soil and in that sort. Way of us expressing ourselves and what what matters to us. And uh I think in a solved world where you know many of the things that used to be scarce aren't scarce anymore. Which I hope for. I I I like that. There still will be things that have intrinsic value that matter to all of us, you know. I I like to say, you know, I'm so lucky to be in this job uh because in a solved world when I don't have to work, you know, I'm probably gonna go surfing on Monday. But on Tuesday I might come to Benobia and and be general manager because that's just what I want to do. I want to be part of this, you know. If I didn't have to go sell the wine, I'd probably spend more more time now, you know, with the vineyard manager, you know, suckering or fruiting or you know, doing all the you know, all that stuff. You know, certainly I want to have spend a lot of time doing that. But the the business requires you to go out and yeah and sell it these days. Uh so that's you know, that's part of the deal too. Which I enjoy as well. I enjoy seeing people and meeting people and telling a story no matter where that requires me to go.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

I love that the the recognition of telling a story. I um I I do you know I do video work for all types of companies. Like my my team, we've been doing stuff for huge corporations too. We we've I've got to work. My wife, being a famous singer, has allowed me to work with some amazing people. But there's something that like the best teams really understand. It's the power of story, you know. And you know, there are certain things you, but like I was having this one brief and recently, and they were like, we're gonna start with a drone shot. And I was like, No, you're not. You're gonna start with people. Like, let's start off with people. You remember the the the TV show Dirty Jobs? Man, I loved that because it showed these real people getting their hands dirty, showing them, you know, one of the companies that I think it's not wine, but the um what was it, Black Rifle Copy Company has some of the best marketing in the world because it's like always stories about the people. You know, they start off with the guy, he's like opening a getting a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. And it what's interesting to me is because they focus on that craft. They focus on something that's that's that's memorable. And it leaves me to this question like in a world of scores and critics, which, you know, let's be real, in wine, that's never gonna go away. But how do you stay focused on craft instead of just constantly chasing validation? Because I mean, it's hard to do, hard to stay focused, you know?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Well, how you know, I think it's gonna be it's hard to answer that question now because I've been there long enough to say that. Uh that being said, we're fortunate enough that we're small, we're so small that we don't necessarily if if I were Silver Oak or someone you're you know, someone Jordan or whatever, or big that size are bigger, I think that stuff matters a lot. I've I think we're small enough that like we can overcome the vagarities and necessities of the market, you know, because our market share is so small, you know. If if visitorship is down 50% in Sonoma County, well, as long as we still get a bunch of people from the 50% that still come, we're still gonna be super busy. We'll be as busy as we're allowed to be uh here. So I I think we if we focus on the right people who value what we value, or maybe they don't even know that they value that, to find the people like you were talking about, these Gen Zers that aren't drinking wine, and and find them and show them that wine has this level of authenticity that they crave, maybe they'll trip them into wine drinkers. You know, maybe that's for your focus rather than trying to get 97-point wine that some baby boomer that's you know hanging on is gonna go buy three cases of my 97-point Pinot, you know, because they got a score, and that's the way he or she always bought their wine. I I'm as guilty as anyone, you know. I you know, my last job, I'd take old world wines to winemakers, you know, and I've I was doing a lunch with the winemaker because they don't get to taste old world wines enough. And I'd go to benchmarkwine.com. And you know, I don't have every producer in Burgundy memorized, so I'd go on their filter and you just pick, you know, whatever the you know, fifty to a hundred dollars with a 95 plus point score, and it gives you a list of wines you can pick from and choose. So that I'm guilty of that, you know. Um so I I recognize that you say that's that's part of the business. I just we're just not gonna chase that, you know. We're gonna submit our wines to all these critics, sure. Um you know, but we're we're not going to let our value be dictated by that. If I have anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Do you remember the big Lebowski?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Great movie. The movie came out and it was panned by everyone. Like the movie came out and everyone's like, this is horrible. Yeah. But you know what? It told a story that was hilarious. The movie became a cult classic because it was just it was authentic. In a weird time where movies weren't that, it just made like a story that was hilarious, had great people in it. And it was like something that stuck. And one of the things, too, that that I'm always fascinated by is like um I I was lucky enough that was when I was in high school, my parents took jobs in this little place called the Napa Valley, and I had no idea what that was all about. And so we moved up there, and I'm living in St. Helena, you know, 16 years old living in St. Helena, and surrounded by this new culture that was absolutely fascinating to me. But what was wild as I got to grow up there, went to college in the area, and then lived there for, you know, a good period of time after, um, and got to work in and around these people was that it was the most authentic group of people that you could find. Like these people were just salt of the earth people showing up every day out in these vineyards and literally just, you know, uh, shepherding these vines from the beginning of the season to the end, and then at the same time doing the same thing with the wine as they were making it. And they were really amazingly authentic uh in like their everyday interactions. And there was very few people that came in with pretense to any of the places that I was working, you know? And it was awesome for that because I think that, you know, I my wife is a huge cocktail drinker. She loves cocktails, but every time I open a glass, I sit there and go, you know, um, I think about the who right now. Um the other last year or two, a couple years ago, that there was that that boat that got stuck in the Suez Canal, which I would love to interview the guy that was the guy driving the boat that day. How did you pull that off? Like, how did you sit there and go, hey, hey, hold my beer? You know, like what how'd you pull that off, man?

SPEAKER_01 29:57

I just did some research on that the other day, by the way. Do you know how many containers, a container ship going through the Suez Suez Canal can hold? No. Tell me, something like 26,000 containers on one ship.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

That's nuts, man. That's nuts, right? Yeah. And then like everything that you could think of went up in price. And like, like, you know, like paper clips were suddenly now this insane price because like the the supply chain was there. And like what I try to tell people is the number of hands that have touched when I have a glass of wine, it's almost this spiritual moment for me because I think of uh every last thing. I live in Southeast Asia right now. I split my time between here and California. Like I'm going back to the Napa Valley, but when I come back to Southeast Asia, I'm allowed two bottles. Two bottles is it. That's all that you can carry across a border, you know, and then per person. So definitely gonna be giving my wife some bottles too in the next flight we have, you know? Yeah. But the thing is, is like there's so much of the stuff that I love, I can't get here. And, you know, there's that rareness of something that makes it so precious. And I I think that like for me, I try to remember that. I try to remember the story of every single one of those people that has been into it. And like, that's why I love interviewing all these people that have a place in this journey. Like, like when you're taught telling your story, man, I want to ask you, I know it's not the time and place, but what was it like playing at Cal? You know, what was it like playing football and then driving up those nights? I mean, I remember when I was in college, you know, driving from down from the Bay Area up to up to to Santa Rosa, it was a thing, you know. And it like I had my old Subaru GL wagon that didn't have AC. I had to roll those windows down. I had like the cassette for like, yeah, I had like two or three cassettes only, and the radio was never consistent. And I was like, my uncle gave me the top gun cassette that I would be blasting regularly. You know, danger zone was my go-to thing when I'm going on those long drives. It it was wild, you know. I wore that cassette out, it warbled like crazy at the end because I played it so damn much. But I mean, those stories are powerful, and we have to find ways to to share those stories because people are craving stories in this day and age, you know?

unknown 32:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

No, I I agree. People aren't um they're not talking to each other as much as they used to, and they're not they're certainly not they're certainly not listening to each other, talking past each other, you know. Um talking online, you know, going back and forth. And it's uh frustrated. You know, wine, you know, yeah, wine sure. Say wine's not good for you. You know there's butter. But you know, it tastes good with food and we use butter. Um wine tastes great with food. And not only that, is it just makes you share a bottle with someone. It's not like you know, you sit down, you're both sharing a bottle, you're sharing an experience together, and you have a conversation and it and it and it lubricates the conversation, you know. It's not about getting drunk, it's not about partying, it's just it's just communicating with each other and and talking. And uh we seem to have lost that. I mean, if there's anything that I want our why to be, it's I mean something that something that uh what revolves around you know, reminding people about what really matters in life. You know, going out to beautiful places, enjoying a bottle of wine with family, with friends, with new people, having conversations, getting your phone out your your head out of your phone and just looking up and you know uh you know, remembering what do you do it. The one marketing thing that I really want to get after, I've I've you know, an idea is about is they they chant nine they chant nine nine six in San Francisco these days, you know, all these AI guys that work in 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. You know, I want Penobium to be day seven. I want day seven to be at Penobia for all those guys. You come here, you know, and remember why you're working so hard. You're working so hard so that you know what a future, this is what really is gonna matter. You come here and you enjoy this this place, these people, these wines, and you're talking about things that matter, you know? That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I I'm a I'm a small business owner. I uh hustle day in and day out. And, you know, it is a nine to nine type thing. I was I finished a sales call at 1 a.m. It is now 5 30 a.m. I woke up at 5 a.m. my time to get on this call. But you know, one of the things, dude, it is what it is. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know? And I have my why, you know, of my wife and my daughter, and I have the reasons I do what I do. But my wife and I, it's almost a spiritual thing. Every week we'll go out for a drink. We'll go to this one place that we both love and we'll have a drink and we'll sit and we will look at each other. And we just know that that moment we are in our phones are down. She'll have her cocktail, I'll have my glass of of whatever it is that I'm picking that night. You know, normally I drink red, but of late I've been really enjoying my whites. Um, and we we enjoy that. You know, last night, it's like we were all slam busy, and my wife had stuff to do, I had stuff to do. And so finally we're like, let's all go downstairs, sing some karaoke, and then we're gonna go up the street to this spa that we can get really inexpensive massage, and we all got these really great, you know, 90-minute massage. And then we went home and we were just like, wow. And that's what it's all about. Like, you know, being able to be there with each other. And I think that's my best memories with wine. I had this one time in college. I I can tell you my favorite bottle. Um, and it was it was in college. I was working in the summer at Meadowwood. Um, I was at the Pool Terrace Cafe, and I'm gonna tell you a secret. I suck as a waiter. I am not great. I am not like I'm not really formal, but like people, my my my people that I waited tables always had a hell of a time. I just I got the gift of gab. We're having a fun time. It's it's shooting, you know, shooting the shit. And and like, but finally this guy came out and he was I don't know what he was there doing. He opened a bottle of Screaming Eagle, had a glass of it, and said, Why don't you guys have a rest? And me and my buddies were like, Don't mind if I do. We took that home. Yeah, but you know, right near Meadowwood, if you go out straight out back down this one-winding road, you'll hit this beautiful spot in Lake Hodges. And it's just no one knows about it. Only a few locals know about it. You go out there and there's these beautiful oak trees, and you can just sit there. There's all these Canadian geese. It's a like natural preserve area, overseeing this like stunning lake. And we sat out there after our shift, the sun was setting, and we just enjoyed this bottle that, as college students, there's no way in hell we could have afforded that, you know? And we just sat there, me and my my my buddies, and we just listened to life and nature and we talked. I wish that I could take half of the jackasses in this world, sit them down, take them out to that spot on Lake Hodges, pour them some glasses of whatever wine we've got, and say, put your phones away, put your whatever away, and just have a glass, man, and sit there and find the commonality between all of us. You know, that's what wine is to me. It's a something that can do that. And there's not many things that can these days. Music can, but even that, you know, we're divided constantly, and we shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Yeah, I spent uh I try and spend a lot of time hell with my kids, I said, you know. I think um one of the keys is one, be kind. Uh and number two, be curious. So instead of trying to like tell people what you think, get super curious about what they think. You know, and and be open to it and just listen to it rather than trying to in the back to your head while they're talking, you're coming up with how you're gonna respond to them. You know. You know, that's super important. You know. And the other thing, this isn't the time or the place when I want to say it, you know. Four words I think you gotta leave out of your conversations from now on. Have conversations, but don't say Republican, Democrat, liberal, or conservative. So you're just not allowed to use those four words. And it forces you to talk about the ideas and not about uh what team you're on.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Yeah, you know. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Super helpful.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

I I I want to ask you this. Someone um comes to you and maybe they don't know a lot about wine, and you're pouring them three glasses. What three glasses of wine are you pouring?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

You mean applied or just wear just whatever? Anything. And this is the knowledgeable person or someone's just learning about wine?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

That's a good question. Let's say someone that's just coming into the world of wine.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Ooh, it's a you know, I only get three, huh? I only get three horror. Um look, I think um I find New Zealand Savium Blanc really good to learn from. You learn something about Sabi Amb. You learn about the typic of New Zealand Sabiam Blanc. I mean, a crazy, easy wine to nail up wine tasting once you've had it a few times. So it's I think it's an instructive wine to taste. Um, you know, then I would the contrast to that would be a you know, a California style uh Chardonnay, like a buttery chardonnay, just so we can see the contrast between the crispness, crispness and the um purity of fruit of the Sauvignon Blanc versus something that's influenced by more of a bouquet and more of the barrel, more of the malapid fermentation. Uh and number three would be uh, you know, I would say a Russian river valley, or whatever. It doesn't have to be Russian. I mean I'm like getting Irish. A Pinot Noir. Pick your Pino Noir, I don't care where. Um the reason being is is most people are you know introduced to bigger, bigger red wines that they have to chew back in a pion noir that's the wine to compromise. So it can you know pair up to a Fulet Mignon and pair down to a salmon or whatnot. So it's it's it's the wonderful wine to introduce people to, so that when they're ordering wine at a restaurant for a group of people, um, it's aesthetic debt uh to match, you know, at least to a certain degree, everyone's meals that they choose.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

I love that. All right, and and then one last question. If it's just you, no audience, no expectations, one glass for yourself tonight, what are you choosing?

SPEAKER_01 41:51

I'm just drinking wine. I'm not drinking um I'm not having it with food.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

You can have it with food. Let's see, that's the hard part. You got the good.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

You gotta tell me what I'm eating. I see I'm not the same questions. You're hitting me. What am I what do I have?

SPEAKER_00 42:08

What do you have? What what time of year is it? Early in the year. Um let's say, oh man, do I want to go wild or do I keep it restrained? Let's say that you're having some light pasta.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Uh light pasta, so like a white, you know, lighter, lighter style, uh, not a red sauce.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Maybe a red sauce. Actually, let's do a red sauce pasta.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah, I would go with most likely Italian, and I would do probably a mountain and a red from Sicily. That's awesome. Yeah. That's tonight. Might change tomorrow. I I always want to change, I always want to change the next one. I don't I don't buy, I almost never buy a case of anything. You know, for myself, I never buy a case of anything. I want to, I'd rather buy 12 separate bottles than any repeats. You know, I always want I'm always learning. That's what Dan Dr. Horton told me the first day I met on. He said, I was just in the winery this morning, I tasted a hundred wines with Lee and Alice. You know, that's how you learn. You taste. Taste, taste, taste. And I'll never forget that. You know, wherever whenever I tell people getting into wine, well, how do I learn about wine? I'll just go to Trader Joe's. You can buy wines from all over the world for$4.99. And they're not transcendent, but if you get a Primitivo from Trader Joe's for$4.99, it it gives you an idea what Primitivo is all about, you know. I mean, um, so taste, taste, taste, try different things. Try different things with different foods and and learn it out that way.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

I love that, man. That's awesome. Where can people go to learn more about you and what you're doing, as well as Benovia?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Huh? I don't know where they go to learn about me. Um I'm not about I'm not about promoting me necessarily. Uh I'm I want to promote Monobia and you can go on our website and learn, you know, about Benobia and the different, you know, our owners and our winemaker and things like that. You know, uh, you know, my intention is to help shepherd this business and and take it into the future. It's not necessarily to be a uh, you know, the superstar or anything like that. Um, but uh www.benobiawinery.com is the website. And uh we're, you know, we're just outside Santa Rosa on the Santa Rosa Plain and on our Martaella vineyard. And uh we're open every day. Um, you know, it's one of those deals we're open by appointment, uh, but appointments are on demand. So uh you can you can call, you can walk right in and say, I want an appointment, and we'll sit you right down.