Chasing Imperfect Circles | Adam Edelman | Barrels & Roots

I sat down with Adam Edelman, the mind behind Nisi Wines, and what started as a conversation about winemaking turned into something much deeper. 

Adam's journey into wine began completely by chance when he moved from Connecticut to Napa Valley for a harvest internship over a decade ago, bringing with him a background in neuroscience and philosophy that most winemakers don't have. His brand name, Nisi, comes from a Latin term meaning "unless," representing the constant conditions and adaptations winemakers face when Mother Nature throws curveballs at even the best-laid plans. What struck me most was how Adam describes his work as neurophilosophy, this beautiful intersection where science meets art, where data meets intuition, and where the human element of decision-making becomes the soul of the wine. 

We talked about the Enso circle, that Zen Buddhist brushstroke that appears on his label, representing the pursuit of perfection while accepting that every moment is already perfect. Adam makes wine that speaks to his palate while staying open to learning from Burgundy, from Napa Cabernet, even from grocery store bottles, because there's wisdom in every glass if you're willing to listen.

What's one moment in your life where following your intuition led you somewhere completely unexpected, and would you make that same leap again?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yeah. So Nisi is a Latin term. Basically, you're setting forth conditions and you have these conditions unless. And so I look at wine as well, when we approach a vintage, we kind of have in our head this idea that this I'd say loose contract almost of the type of wine you want to make. Unless Mother Nature comes, you gotta pick a little early, or you know, there could be outside circumstances, maybe even your barrels didn't get delivered on time. I mean, I mean, I think that's something about wine production that really gets lost in the story. Is we always talk about, oh, how perfect the vintage was. Oh, the, you know, the wines, you know, just kind of developed and, you know, there was struggle, but there's so many moving parts. And I wanted to capture that in a way of like, yeah, you know, we're we're constantly having to adapt and adjust and make decisions that ultimately affect the outcome of the wine. And so that's where where Nisi comes from. And what I do like to say is when I make a wine where everything goes perfectly, we're truly in thigh sigh, I will retire. Meaning the grapes just are ready to go, they ferment, everything's perfect, and I don't have to do anything. Yeah, I'll retire.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

People look back at those vintages that are like absolutely perfect. But the reality is that there was chaos all around. Welcome everybody back to the Barrels and Ridge podcast. I am still your host, uh Sean Trace. I hope I will be as tomorrow as well. But since it's my podcast, I'm pretty sure I will be. Yay! Um, I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Awesome. Well, Sean, thanks for having me on. I'm Adam Edelman. Uh I make wine, as I think many of your guests do. And I um, yeah, my brand is called Nisi Wines. And I'm relatively new in the the wine world. My first vintage was 2024. Nice. How did you get started down this this journey of making wine? By chance. I uh originally from Connecticut. I just on a whim decided to move out to Napa Valley for a harvest internship. And that was a little bit over a decade ago. Uh my background is actually neuroscience and philosophy. So with my brand, you'll definitely see some elements of that background. So I don't just do wine, I do think a lot. And um, but yeah, I just decided one day, it was like, let me attempt a harvest. Did not know what I was getting myself into and did not know what journey lied ahead, but here I am.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

That's awesome. That's awesome, man. It's interesting. It's cool to see people with diverse backgrounds coming to the field because I mean, I studied Eastern philosophy and uh in university, I was a history major, but I I specialized in Eastern philosophy. I love Buddhism and uh Taoism and Chan Buddhism, which was like the precursor to Zen. And I um moved to Asia to kind of see that in action. And, you know, that was one of the reasons I'm still here at Vietnam, was because one thing led to another, which led to another, which led to another. But those are kind of the best things in life, you know, those things that kind of take you in that that non nonlinear path, you know, kind of this this winding path. But it's interesting here to talk to you, I could have conversations with you for days. One of my favorite books is this book called The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism. And it's like the Buddha's brain, and it's just goes on and on about all of these wonderful things. But one of the things that I've always found is that there are so many times in in philosophy and literature that people talk about wine, talk about um it being one of these really special things that allows people to find a level of truth. And so it's interesting to hear you finding your truth through this, you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, absolutely. Is one of those things where initially I felt that wine was not me, let's say, practicing what I call neurophilosophy. And then I realized, oh, wait, it is neurophilosophy. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

What does I before we get into it? I made a list of questions that I want to ask you, but what where does the name for your wine come from? What what was the inspiration for that?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, so Nisi is a Latin term. Basically, you're setting forth conditions, and you have these conditions unless. And so I look at wine as well, when we approach a vintage, we kind of have in our head this idea that this I'd say loose contract almost of the type of wine you want to make. Unless Mother Nature comes, you gotta pick a little early, or you know, there could be outside circumstances, maybe even your barrels didn't get delivered on time. I mean, I mean, I think that's something about wine production that really gets lost in the story. Is we always talk about, oh, how perfect the vintage was. Oh, the, you know, the wines, you know, just kind of developed and, you know, there was struggle, but there's so many moving parts. And I wanted to capture that in a way of like, yeah, you know, we're we're constantly having to adapt and adjust and make decisions that ultimately affect the outcome of the wine. And so that's where where Nisi comes from. And what I do like to say is when I make a wine where everything goes perfectly, we're truly in nigh sigh, I will retire. Meaning the grapes just are ready to go, they ferment, everything's perfect, and I don't have to do anything. Yeah, I'll retire.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

That's wild, man. You you you talk about the people look back at those vintages that are like absolutely perfect. But the reality is that there was chaos all around. And yet it was one of the the the um things that fascinates me the most are Strativarius violins. Um, the Strativarius violins now we look as probably the finest instruments ever made. And due to the hand, the the the craftsmanship of Strativarius himself. But also there was another thing, and people don't realize this that in Europe before Strativarius was making the violins, there was a mini ice age. The planet cooled to a degree, and that cooling led to a density in the wood that was different than in warmer seasons. That the trees were not growing as much in those cold seasons, they grew very little. And so the layers of the wood were very tight, very, very tight. And those trees that were harvested at that time that became these violins were actually the mix of perfect conditions of nature of a craftsman that was doing their thing, and just it was just this perfect moment, you know. And it's like it's so beautiful to see because one of the things that I see now is with I'm a photographer and I love taking photos with film and analog. And you know, I'm just lucky 90% of the time. That 10% of that skill is like I get to know how to adjust certain buttons and knobs, and then I press a button and I try to put myself in the right place. And I still have to be bold, I still have to be confident, I still have to go, I'm gonna take this photo, but literally 90%, I'm not creating the light. I am not the one cre who created the way light bounces or shadows move. You know, certainly we can manipulate those, but still, even that, it's like 90% is that things outside of my control. And that's the beauty of it all. You know, you're still doing this dance with the elements that I think is very much a part of winemaking.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, there's a lot of skill, there's a lot of science. You know, I'm very numbers driven in in my winemaking. A lot of it is feeling. You know, you can have all the numbers in the world, but end of the day, you gotta trust your palate, you gotta trust your nose. Uh, and sometimes it's just your intuition. So you, you know, you're you're taking in all these different bits of information, and then you gotta make a decision. And I think that's something that is so human about the winemaking process. And as we, you know, get further and further into you know, AI becoming more and more a part of our daily lives, it's something we think about a lot in the wine industries. How is AI gonna influence wine? I do feel there's a lot it can help with. Operationally speaking, I mean, it's winemaking is very physical and manual, so that's you know, that's definitely way down the line. But in terms of decision making, you it would be so hard to create a model that could make the same decision, for example, that I would make. And as you know, many other winemakers would make, because it's there's it's you know, and I've worked under, you know, a number of phenomenal winemakers. And my goal as their assistant was to try to think like them, was to say, okay, if I'm making that decision like they would, what would they do? And sometimes, you know, or most of the time I would be close because, you know, studied them. I was like, okay, I gotta be on point here. It's not my wine, it's their wine. But other times it was like, yeah, Adam, I like where your thought is, but in this circumstance, you gotta think about that. And I was like, oh, yeah, I was too conservative. You bring up a good point. Now for my winemaking, I'm, you know, completely in the driver's seat. So then it's all, you know, I'm the one truly making that decision. But there's so much that goes into it that I might not even make the same decision, you know, from one week to the next week. It's like what I saw on that specific day, you know, let's say I was out in the field and called a pick, I was like, okay, it was intuition, it was, you know, taste, it was numbers, it was looking at the weather, and then it was just, you know, it felt right.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

It felt right. I love that. And you you never know the scientific side, it was this way, the philosophical side pulls you this way at times as well. But you know, it leads to one of my questions. Like, when you think back to the beginning of your wine journey, what was the moment that made you realize wine could be more than just a job?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

It could be your life's craft. I love this question because my answer is very simple. Uh, when I realized I was having fun, and that is a privilege to do something and enjoy it. And that's where, you know, when I say, you know, wine to me is neurophilosophy, it is that intersection of science and art where I'm able to utilize, you know, a lot of you know, numbers and data and and you know, chemistry. But then there's the other side of it where it's the, you know, it's the the kind of philosophy, the art, the the intuition, the feeling. And I realized, you know, and I and this happened to me when I was still working, you know, in sellers, you know, as an employee. It was like, oh, I have fun doing these jobs. Like, oh, there's no better feeling than opening up a barrel and getting to top that with wine, but smelling that aromatic, you know, those aromas. You know, you you realize, okay, I'm doing a task. There's a reason behind the task, which is scientifically driven, but there's a feeling that I'm getting while doing the task. And I was like, this is fun. And obviously, you know, you get paid, so you feel good about that. And then I started to just keep making connections as to, you know, via tasting in the wineries I was working at, tasting other, you know, wines throughout the world, kind of understanding the global perspective of wine. And I'm just someone who just gets really into things. And I got like obsessed. And so I was like, this is fun. I'm obsessed. My world is wine. All I think about, that's all I talk about, really. And I have fun doing it. And that's when I was like, yeah, that's the right path for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

It's interesting too because sometimes you just know and it's like that thing that clicks. But I love that you talk about fun. My daughter goes to a public school here in Vietnam, and the education is exceptional, but it's not fun. It's never been fun. I was really blown away by some of the holes in her mathematics. And she was doing well in her exams and such, but it was like there was stress every time we tried to review the homework. She was overwhelmed, and I noticed this pattern that it wasn't fun. So I went online and I went on uh Fiverr actually, which is like a freelancing website, to see if I could find a math tutor. And that's not normally where you find a math tutor on Fiverr, but I met this teacher from Malaysia. We went through all these, and there were so many wonderful people, people from all over the world. Um, bunch from India, Pakistan, but in uh this one teacher we found was so lovely. She's from Malaysia, but she lives in uh in uh Sweden now. But she started working with my daughter to see the joy, to see the light shining on her face when this teacher made something fun. I had a guest onto my one of my podcasts that he talked about joy. And he's like, I I don't buy into the whole stoic thing. Like he's like, I don't think that we should just, you know, deal with suffering and just suck it up. You know, it's this is the way it's gonna be. I'm gonna suffer and work through it. He's like, I think we really should be seeking out joy in our life, seeking out the things that bring us light and make us happy. He's like, Because those things we create a better, we create a better product from and we can show off things that you know we really are passionate about. It just was something that when I saw my daughter there and she turned to me and she's like, I got her two days with this math tutor online, and she's like, Can I study three? And I was like, Wow, my daughter just asked if she could do more math. I never thought I'd be able to get that to happen in my life, but it was from that feeling of joy and it's being around people that can help us find that, you know, or things that help us find that. I want to ask that too, because you've worked a lot of different roles across the wine world. What what lessons from those earlier chapters most shape the kind of winemaker you are today?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah, I think I've been very fortunate to get a wide range of experiences, which gives me a pretty full toolbox. And that allows me as a winemaker to kind of not be, you know, a one-trick pony, but have a lot of knowledge and of different ways to do it. So that, okay, well, when I was working for that winemaker, we did it this way. When I was working with that winemaker, it was that way. What resonates with me most? That kind of influences a lot of my decisions. I guess it was important for me that I got to experience all these different styles because I didn't study viticulture and analogy. I had to basically create a concept in my mind of understanding. You know, so initially, the the first couple harvests, it was just learning the how, you know, let's just say like how to drive a forklift. Um, you know, it's like that's a skill. Racking barrels, that is a skill to it. Uh cleaning in a winery. I mean, you could think you know how to scrub a tank. When you get into a tank and actually scrub it, it's it's different. Then you start understanding why are you doing it? Okay, why do we need these tanks so clean? And so you go from the how to the why. And then you go from, okay, well, what is my goal? What is my ultimate goal as a winemaker? What type of wine am I trying to make? And so then I am able to look at all those different winemaking styles I worked under and be like, well, they were making wine in that style. I appreciate what they do, but that's not the style of wine that I like to make or I want to make. And so, like I say, I can take some of that, but ultimately, if I do everything, you know, for example, you know, let's talk about oak usage. If I mimic a lot of the winemakers I've worked under, that's a heavy percentage of new oak. And that doesn't necessarily work with the type of grapes I work with, which is Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and the type of wine I try to make. So as much as I love new oak, just getting to work with those barrels, um, you know, they're kind of just like some of the most interesting um aromatics comes from when you fill a new barrel. I mean, it's just like getting to do that. You're like, this is incredible. What it impacts and leaves, the imprint it leaves on the wine, that's that's a lot. And so the wine that I make, I'm like, okay, I need to be gentle. So my new oak percentage is lower. That being said, I do like new oak. So I'm not someone for my Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. I'm like, oh, 0% new oak. It's like, no, I I I do appreciate what it does, but ultimately, because I'm not picking at, you know, a high bricks, I can't really justify a heavy percentage of new oak. So all those decisions kind of get compounded, and then you create your own style.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

That's awesome. I think the the ability to create uh one's own style in any aspect of life is such a beautiful thing. Because you start with something and you start with uh a technique that you've been taught, but then you sit there and you go, But but what if we did this? But what if we tried this? And those, but what if we did this lead to some of the most amazing discoveries, the most amazing pivots and directions that you know we can find in any areas of life, whether it be, you know, art or or you know, computer programming, those what if moments are so beautiful. Like I want to ask you this because you describe uh nissy. How do I say it? Am I saying it wrong? It I say niecy.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

You could say in nice, it's so so I say niecy. Technically, I think it's nice because it the term is in nice I. Um, but nisi, nice I nissy, I picked it, you know, because there's you know the the philosophical meaning behind it and what I've been able to, you know, kind of adopt it towards. I also picked it because, you know, it's like say it how you want it. You know, it's just like I think sometimes with wine, you sit at a you know restaurant and you look at this menu, and sometimes people don't order wine because they're afraid to pronounce the name. You know, they say, Oh, I'm gonna look foolish if I if I say this wrong. I think one of the big things we can do right now in the industry is kind of eliminate that sentiment. It's like, hey, there's no right or wrong way. I mean, obviously there's the correct way, but let's you know, hey, you're trying to say it first, and then like, you know, then you learn. Um, and then there's there's still some famous domains that you know, you you take, you know, four top psalms and they'll say it differently.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Right. I still have a hard time saying the word terroir. I can't say I can't do French man, I can speak Viennamese, but I can do terro terroir. Man, how I don't even know how to pull that off. But coming back to uh to the to to you talking about your your wine, you describe it as not yet absolute and always evolved as another philosophy student. I am reminded of the Japanese inso. One of the most beautiful things, I don't know if you know about the inso, the inso is this for people who don't know, it is the brushstroke circle that the monks will attempt paint. And here's the the wild thing or draw. They are always, you know, you try to draw a circle, it's never perfect. But the monks will always continue to draw, draw a more perfect circle, and like that's the refinement that they go through. Then there's the realization that every single circle that was drawn was perfect, you know, and so it's like you're evolving, yet not like absolute, but yet there's this there's this beautiful moment that you're in the present. Now, what does that philosophy mean to you, not yet absolute and always evolving to you personally as a winemaker?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

I love that you bring up and so because on my label, the the circles are and so you know, it's digitally done, the not be a breaststroke, but you know, we definitely um took on that uh philosophy. And for winemaking and just my approach with the brand, it's about this constant pursuit of evolution in the sense that I don't want to get to a point where I make no changes. That being said, I could there could be a year where I make no changes, but that would be evolution. You know, it's like so if I make no changes and it's just out of like I didn't have time or I didn't think or that that's not evolution. But sometimes, and not to say you reach perfection, but sometimes by making no changes, you are still evolving because there's an evolution in patience, there's an evolution in trust, there's evolution in like, well, I didn't necessarily have to make changes because Mother Nature made the changes for me. But what I do like to think about in terms of my brand and why making is like every year after harvest, I'm like, what went well, what didn't go well, what do I feel like I could do differently? And then I come up with like 30 things I want to do differently, and then I have to dial it back and say, okay, well, I can't do 30 things next year and continue to build this. So, you know, you make one or two changes, you know, sometimes it might be three, and it it's a challenge to myself. It's just to constantly learn to be a student and to never not be a student. So I love tasting other wines. I taste my wine a lot, but I'm a big fan of burgundy. That's why I do Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. So I taste a lot of burgundy. I don't just learn from tasting burgundy, I also learn from tasting Cabernet here in Napa Valley. I learn from, you know, tasting champagne. I mean, I even learned from maybe just like a grocery store wine because you can still learn a lot from every single bottle you taste, even if you don't like it. And so the challenge I give to myself is, hey, let's try to keep learning, let's just be a student, and then don't be afraid to ask. So I have asked a lot of other winemakers, hey, what are you doing? And so I'm a little bit of a nerd that way. And so there's things that I've done, you know, and I will continue to do, um, or you know, make changes on that simply be are due to me asking another winemaker, hey, hey, what are you doing here? And okay, we have the conversation. And okay, I like your wine. I like this specific element. Okay, I'm gonna try that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

I uh today again when I watched my daughter doing her class, she looked at her teacher and said, Um, how did you become better? How did you become better at remembering things? And I was just like, Wow, I I was actually really proud right there in that moment. You know, this goal to be better. And she knew instinctively, like a child does, is to find someone who might have that information and to get there. And it was asking this teacher who was someone who made her feel joy and happiness. It was powerful because we don't always recognize those moments that we can find a mentor and find people who can help us grow. I wanted to ask you about your winemaking. Um, two of my favorite grapes Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are two of like the most expressive grapes in the world. What keeps drawing you back to those varieties, especially being in the Napa Valley where everyone is cab, cab, cab, cab. You're working with Pinot and Chardonnay, which I love both of them and they're so delicious, you know. What takes you to those varietals?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. So my first internship was at Saintsbury and, you know, Carnero's Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. So that that imprinted on me. That, you know, left left a strong impression on on my palate. But then I got into the cab world and, you know, worked for some incredible wineries and under some phenomenal winemakers. And I got a palette for Cabernet and I was like, this is awesome. You know, and I could stomach it. And then I started looking at, okay, well, what gets me excited in terms of winemaking? You know, just, you know, not paying attention to the economics of it, because that's a whole nother thing. Um what gets me exciting? And I and I was like, okay, Cabernet is interesting, but I don't want to say scary, but it's like, okay, I I don't feel as inspired by the proposition of the Napa Valley Cabernet experience. Like, okay, I don't and I don't want to say it becomes formulaic, but I knew I kind of it kind of felt simple of what I knew I would have to do to make Napa Valley Cabernet. And when I started thinking about Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it just felt to me, oh, I have a lot of opportunity here. I can go any different direction. I'm I don't feel constrained. And so I just started tasting wine you know from all different ABAs, you know, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir here in California. And I landed on Santa Rita Hills. So I'm still based in Napa Valley, but I get my fruit from Santa Rita Hills and I actually make it down there. And I just felt like okay it's a cool climate ABA. It's such a unique um place to go grapes and the quality is just insane. And so I was you know like I just got enamored with the Chardonnay down there. Realized also the Pinot Noir is pretty good too. And yeah that's kind of how I see formed was like okay let me do San Ridale shard well maybe do a little bit of Pinot too. Discovered I had a lot of fun making Pinot so I've increased my production on Pinot Noir. And with those two grapes I like working with them because they stress me out at different times. And I emphasize stress because like winemaking you got to have confidence. You gotta have be you know you know level security in your decision making but it there's a lot of things that you you have to process and with Chardonnay I set forth the conditions pretty early. You know I I my barrel program you know basically I decide now for the fall you know and right now I'm tinkering a little bit but you know that is huge. It's like what barrels am I going to use for fermentation? And then it gets to the picking decision. So you're out in the field you're tasting whatever but okay you you make your picking decision I have my you know process I I like to take a lot of solids into the barrels I barrel ferment. So you know you hold cluster press you go into barrel and then you kind of just let fermentation go. And you got to be on top of it. It's not like I'm you know asleep at the wheel but there's a lot of patience the stress comes when I have to taste which will be in a couple months so postmalactic I will be tasting and then deciding okay how I'm gonna shape my wines for the shards. Also it's like scary because I haven't tasted you know since the juice which was back in September. So you go from like okay the chemistry was good but also meal my palate loved where I was at um and then you trusting your your instincts with your your your barrel regimen and then you got to go taste the finished product. So that's it's like all of a sudden you're like okay 10 months of work I hope it's good. Right Pinot Noir on the other hand it's you know very stressful during harvest. It's like you nail that picking decision and then you got to nail your extraction. And I'm very hands-on and I work the wines uh pretty heavily uh just trying to make sure I'm extracting a lot of flavor a lot aromatic without too much power I like soft supple wines and once I finish fermentation which is like get it into barrel get it to safety finish malolactic add some sulfur very little you know the wine's kind of done I do a little mid-racking during the the aging cycle well you know take it off the leaves go back in and do a little pre-blend so like my my peanotes are are done I'm just waiting to bottle in July now a lot can go wrong. I mean it's not like um I'm not dealing with stress there but you gotta trust your environment you got to trust you know the chemistry and the biology that you say the wine is good it's safe you know I'm checking all the boxes I get it to bottle. So it's like it's just totally two different uh world you know the Chardonnay and POR and it keeps me stressed the entire year. That's wild man.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

And I mean it's interesting because you I don't think people uh that are non-winemakers understand how two different grapes can have two different characters but I I I think the one area that I recognize it the most is that um I've been around a lot of dogs and each dog breed is a little bit wild and different and neurotic. I had a pit bull who was the sweetest dog on the planet but she had her triggers. Like if another dog would be snippy with her she would go what the hell and she'd lose her cool. I have a border collie who's literally the most neurotic dog I've ever had. He's got social anxiety he does weird things so he's a sweetheart. I've got a poodle who's this big but got the personality of a great dane but she's also a sweetheart you know but each of them is different. They behave differently they work with you a bit differently they interact with you differently from every winemaker I've spoken with it seems that there's a crossover there where the wines all have these different behaviors and they can be one second a sweetheart and the next second your biggest nightmare. But you know they're always beautiful and powerful at the same time you know but I want to ask you this like what's why what's one varietal that you love to hate?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

That's a tough question. Uh petit fordeau and it's an operational answer is when you're destemming it. It's just not fun. And it is just yeah it's it's tough to dial in on a destemmer sorting it and then uh it's so tannic. Now there's uh there's some very interesting 100% petit verdeaux wines out there. You don't see it often and it's cool to taste but it it is a very tannic varietal and you'll you'll kind of see maybe like two to three percent in in some of these uh wines here in Napa Valley and it really does help the wines and really kind of give it character. But yeah I I my background is more seller driven you know I was having to manage teams and and be very operational. So my answer you know leans more on the operational standpoint as opposed to you know I am not a viticulturist. So I'm sure if you ask someone who's you know farming their answer is going to be different just simply on a farming perspective.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So interesting. When you walk a vineyard site for the first time what are the subtle things that you're looking for that tell you whether the place has something special it's a feeling it's this you know you know it's like I I like to hike trail run.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So it's been a lot of time in nature. And sometimes you're out walking and you just like you know you can kind of sense is there another animal watching me, you know, there's always that like sense you might not see it, but you might feel it. And I think humans we're very intuitive. There's so much going on in our unconscious that you know some you know some of it we've maybe fed um through conditioning but you know there's so much that we're internally assessing that we might not be perceiving. And so when I'm in a vineyard it really is just a feeling okay and it's uh I'm probably factoring the smell the sounds the the sights and then it just creates this energy that I'm like okay this is a special place. On a you know more practical level I look at the soil I look at you know the health of the vines I look at you know is there cover crop you know I look at the aspect of the slopes I like seeing rock and I think that that's in indicative of nice soil. And then it's just you know you the ecosystem. I think that's huge. When you're feeling energy and life in the vineyard you're like okay this is a special place. I think that's very important because you know we talk so much, especially with California um wine production about the use of Roundup and pesticides and I think it gets a kind of bad name because it's the usage is way less than perceive it to be. But you kind of know when you're in a site you're like this feels like Mars. You're like, I don't like this.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

You want it to feel alive. It's beautiful though. Every winemaker has a memory of a bottle that changed the way they thought about wine. Do you remember one bottle of wine that you tasted that you were like oh man this this is something special.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah I've been fortunate to have just I guess been at the right tables. I would say the the list of trophy bottles is long and incredible and all those bottles carried you know such a special carry such a special memory for me because of you know it's it's the setting it's who you're with obviously they tasted good the story behind the bottle you know it's all a part of it. So it's hard to pick one but uh I I was was lucky to have had the 1969 Chapolet and that's a you know benchmark wine for Napa Valley you know cabernet and so I I just feel you know lucky to have been able to have it among some great people and it was just a special moment to just realize okay well this wine aged it was alive it was so good and realizing that even back then when they had less knowledge than we do now and the equipment wasn't the same and the technology wasn't the same they made an incredible wine that aged very well.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah it's amazing it's amazing that they were able to do the things they were I got to work with um a master leather craftsman and I made a a um a purse for my wife and he trained with the people who trained like the the the the people at MS he trained under MS people and like he was so amazing. And he measured everything of course it was perfectly measured but at the same time there was just this he would see them and he'd just be feeling the leather and he'd just be bending it and just it was this language of speaking to this thing. I watched this one guitarist this Luthier make a guitar and just to watch him tapping the wood and just he was measuring but he was also just tapping after he cut you know and shave off two pieces of wood and then he'd tap and he's just listening. And I just wanted to like God I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he's doing that going what are you listening for but it's something that he has refined over you know years and years and years. And so it's so beautiful to me that people have that ability to do that even with all the science there's still that that thing that we we are old to that thing that I that human thing you know that's so uniquely human. I want to ask you this if you were to pour three glasses right now, what three wines would you choose?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Champagne probably I love Krug champagne. This is my go-to I'm a textural um I have a textural palette so I just love the weight of that wine. So it'd be yeah it would be champagne it would be a white burgundy I have you know a list of 10 different producers and wines with you know let's call Grand Cru White Burgundy and it just that's the inspiration for me. And yeah probably Grand Cru red burgundy that's why I make sure I'm in Pinoir because I just love burgundy so much and yeah I just love champagne.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

So those three wines it's awesome really awesome man. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah so I have my website nisiwines.com that's probably the the best source of information I have Instagram and that's really it try to keep it minimal and I am available to to answer any questions. I do like to make that clear to anyone who's interested in my wine and in my story and all all my you know customers I I I give them my phone number. I say hey uh you could ask me anything you can ask about my wine but you can also ask me about you know a recommendation for another wine. I just I I love talking wine and and sharing that with people. So I make it clear that I'm here I can answer anything you you might ask me and uh with my brand it's just me. So Nisi Wine is a one person show. And so I I like to keep it that way. And I want to make sure that you know I think we're in a very experiential driven society right now. And so I want to make sure that people feel that experience is that it's very human. It's very personal. I think that's the way I operate and that's a way I think the brand will speak to more people is that realize this is not a big company. It's one person. This is Adam's wine you know I hope you like my wine but everyone has different palettes so I make wine to appeal to my palate. And if you do like that wine then great let's chat